“Before I knew it, I basically just broke under the weight of all of it and quit.”
This is what I said to someone last week when she asked me how I got from practicing law to what I do now.
4 years ago, I went from running a successful law firm to unemployed with no idea what I was going to do next.
Up to that point, I had spent 12 years doing what I thought I was supposed to do. Being a lawyer.
At first, it was pretty smooth. I had a lot of balance. I was advising clients, running a film festival with some friends, teaching yoga and still photographing a lot.
And, then things started to change. First, I stopped teaching yoga. Because, of course, I had work to do.
Then, I stopped taking pictures. Why? Because there was more work to do.
Eventually, I was saying yes to work more often than I was saying yes to the things that really lit me up.
Fast forward a few years. We are running a firm. In addition to the work itself, there is the HR, and the invoicing, and the banking, and the other admin stuff. Plus, there is just the rest of life that we are trying to fit into the remaining hours.
We are at the office late one night. My colleague and I are both complaining about being at the office late. Again. And he proceeds to tell me a story about a guy he knows who barely even sees his kids he’s at work so much.
I say, “Man, that’s nuts. That’s not a way to live.”
And he replies, “This is just what it is. And it will be this way until we retire.”
I didn’t say much at the time, but I distinctly recall thinking, “That absolutely cannot be true - and, if it is, what the hell am I doing here?”
Now, you already know where this leads - I leave law shortly thereafter.
But what happened between that conversation and my leaving was that I really took to heart that my suffering in running the business of our firm was that I simply could not say no. I couldn’t say no to more work, I couldn’t say no to what was asked of me by colleagues and employees, and I couldn’t say no to pleasing everyone around me, all the time, out of fear that if I didn’t, it would all just fall apart.
Nothing and nobody else was responsible for any of that. It was just me.
So, I started to say no more often to certain things, and yes more often to other things.
Eventually, that led me to a huge no to practicing law anymore, and a huge yes to doing the scariest thing ever and being unemployed with basically no direction for about a year.
What’s interesting about that is that, in that process, people started to ask me all sorts of questions - but questions that I wasn’t used to. About life. About making their own businesses work. About figuring out how to recognize how they are contributing to their own business challenges.
From there, I realized, “Hey - maybe there’s a gig in this.”
And so, today, I work with successful but trapped owners, founders, and entrepreneurs - helping them get out of their own way, overcome their fears and self-doubt and rediscover the freedom in their businesses.
And, I’m doing that in a few ways:
1:1 Coaching - this is the signature program. Working with clients directly over a period of 6 - 12 months, we go deep on what your goals are for your business and your life, what you are doing (or not doing) to help you accomplish those goals, and how to make meaningful and lasting change to how you approach your challenges so that you can get better at noticing when you are off course, come up with your own solutions, and do it all with excellence in the long term.
Pursuers of More - this is our cohort based community where professionals, entrepreneurs, founders and more get together to explore where they are, where they want to go, and how to get there to get more out of what they are doing - more satisfaction, more enjoyment and more meaning. The next cohort launches in January, 2027.
The Free Founder Masterclass - Launching November 10. This is an hour session explaining exactly how to get your time back to focus more on what you are best at and what fills you up, without losing your business (or your mind). We are still ironing out website and sign up for this, so for now, message me for more info on this one, early access and sign up bonuses.
Jordan Nahmias is the founder of Unstuck Consulting, a coaching and consulting practice helping high-performing entrepreneurs and operators go from the business running on them to the business running with them - so they can go back to doing what they are actually good at, getting their time back and getting their business to run without them, without burning out, bailing out or losing what they actually built the business for - their freedom.
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