All right. Just going to try pumping another podcast out while I can. Just again, waiting for the timer to start. What have I done? I don't have any notes for this, so we'll see how we go, but it should be all right. Because it's just a personal one. Come on. Hi and welcome to another episode of the Stacey M Show. Today is a personal one. I get asked practically the same question all the time. Why do you do what you do? How come you do so much? How come you do all the things? How come you got into doing what you're doing? So I thought I would kind of summarise, I suppose, how I got started. to where I am today um and uh yeah if there's any questions that arise from that please let me know it's probably every chance I'll leave something out because to me it's just all right just just something that happens so if there are any gaps in there reach out um and I'm having to clarify anything but I'm not going to go too far way back, but effectively I'll kind of start from when I started studying law and then go on from there. Actually, I'll probably go a little bit further back than that to work out how I actually got to studying. So effectively I only did year eleven. I did not do year twelve. Even if I did do year twelve, I probably wouldn't have passed. My grades were absolutely appalling. I don't think I passed anything in school at all. And I'm not overreacting. I could probably count maybe on one hand what I passed. You know, there would be my report card somewhere, which, you know, I can pop online to show it. But I was not academic enough. at all I was more creative I suppose so the photography side you know computers back in my day were already started to come out so we didn't quite have the functions of what we have now but I used to process my own film I had a dark room like I absolutely loved it so that was probably more what I excelled at that I probably passed out at school and maybe art but not much else And so if you're local to the Hunter Valley, when I left year eleven, so that was at the end of nineteen ninety nine, which is probably showing my age. So in the year two thousand, I went to a college called Passmore's College and their slogan was, we will put you where you want to be in just one year. They took that off because clearly they don't put you where you want to be. But what that meant for me is that I graduated with a marketing degree and actually got a job at their pretty big Newcastle accounting firm. And from that, I discovered that there was this thing called Open Foundation at Newcastle. I did Open Foundation. That was like my... back step or backdoor entry into university, I suppose. Prior to that, I had no interest whatsoever. I had a really good job at Big W. I was just happy doing that. And then the opportunity arrived for the accounting firm. So, you know, I'd be travelling a couple of hours per day and I pretty well always had worked in Newcastle, so they travelled to me. The trouble still to me is nothing. But yeah, and I, because I was working in accounting, I'm like, righto, well, I'll go do an accounting. They're going to put me on as a trainee. And I did my first semester, I did a legal subject. I did whatever math subject I had to do. And I can't quite remember what the other one was. I'm not quite sure whether it was two math subjects or not. Yeah, I can't quite remember. But I know for sure it was definitely a legal subject and a math subject. I failed the math subject and then I'm like, Stacy, you don't like math. You're not good at math. Why are you trying to become an accountant? But what happened was I did really, really well and enjoyed the legal component of that. So because I'd failed that one, the math subject going into second semester, I had to pick up an additional subject and I continued the second part of the legal thing that I was doing. And again, really, really enjoyed it. Got really good marks. And I'm like, oh, okay, well, instead of maybe being an accountant, maybe I'll become a lawyer. And so the reason I become a lawyer, and I can't actually remember who told me this at this stage, like I can't remember now, but effectively it was, you have to be kidding me, you were too dumb to be a lawyer. And that's how I became a lawyer. I did a big F you, watch me. So at the end of Open Foundation, I could apply to go to university. I missed out on Newcastle. I got a second round offer at Southern Cross in Leesmoor. So then I moved out to Ballina with some people who are I was already living up there, that I knew. Got into a tourism degree was not for me, but that was my step to get into the next degree. So law had to be a double degree. So I'm like, all right, well, I'll do business law. did the second semester in business and failed. It was like micro and macro economics and like introduction to accounting or something. I'm like, nah, this is shit. So those, I think I did three subjects as I was working and I failed. So, but yeah, What happened is that there was another degree called Bachelor of Legal and Justice Studies. So I jumped into that and that's kind of where it all started. Did not fail anything in my legal studies whatsoever. So clearly I was not meant to be an accountant. But the Bachelor of Legal and Justice Studies would enable me to become a licensed conveyancer. And I didn't really have that in mind. I wanted to do more than just conveyancing. So I kept on going. did the Bachelor of Laws, and then I became a lawyer. So I literally became a lawyer for the wrong reason. It was obviously my calling because fifteen years later, maybe it's sixteen years this year, I'm not sure, but I'm obviously doing okay. So if anyone tells that you are too dumb to do something, feel free to prove them wrong because I did. I just can't remember the person who told me. It was obviously not someone like close in my life or if they were they're not in my life anymore but I became a lawyer because I got told I was too dumb anyway um I'd always worked in my legal career um you know and then I decided I I got admitted as a lawyer in and then I had my first order in november didn't really go back to work after that it was kind of like a little bit here and there Then I had my second daughter in at twenty thirteen. And after that, I'm like, OK, I'm kind of like, no, I'm ready to go back to work now. So that was a bit of a challenge because I'd been out for a couple of years. Thankfully, I did finally get a job. Again, it was lots of travel. So to enable me To do that, we got some au pairs. They're like a nanny. I think we have about four of them. We sent one back. We're probably successful with three of them. That was just to counteract the daycare phase because it was cheaper for the au pairs than what it was for daycare. We took the girls out for a little bit, a couple of days per week. They still went but not full time, had their repairs. And then it was getting to a stage where I was still travelling and Lily was about to start kindergarten. I'm like, look, I can't keep doing this. I need the flexibility of, you know, the school hour, like the nine to three type thing. And it was very fortunate that the funds were there for me to be able to go do that. So I resigned from my job in what year did I start? Oh, gosh. Must have resigned at the start of twenty sixteen. I think that's right. And it was January first after the Christmas break. And there was no deadline put on my resignation. So up comes March and I'm still working. And I was coming up to Easter and I'm like, okay, look, I'm out at Easter. That's like a three month, you know, resignation type thing. So the day before Good Friday, so on Thursday, whatever that is, I remember packing up my office, sitting in my car and then just going, holy crap, when am I going to get paid next? Like I might not get paid for like ever or for a very long time. And then I kind of got over my little moment, drove home from Newcastle, had the Easter long weekend, started on the Tuesday because it was Good Monday or Easter Monday on the Monday. So the Tuesday I kind of like officially opened my doors. And really, I was very lucky that I pretty well got clients nearly from day one. I didn't tell anybody that I was going out on my own. My name is pretty uncommon. There is another one of us locally that is not me whatsoever. I don't put an E in Stacey, but there is another Stacey Munzenberger locally, and it is not me. But yeah, so people just Googled where I was, and by then I had a Facebook page. And I was called law to your door back then. I was a mobile lawyer. I just started at home in my lounge room. And it was like, okay, if I get one matter per week, I'm okay with that. I had no overheads. I got a FlexiRent laptop because I was trying to go really, really cheap. I worked in my lounge room. So just, yeah, trying to keep overheads really, really cheap. And I'm like, okay, well, one matter, maybe two matters per week will kind of, you know, be nice. After about four or five months, it got to the point where I was getting busy and I was always at home, whether I was at home trying to be a mom or like at home when I was working. So I was fortunate enough to be able to get a cheap office space downtown in Singleton, you know, kind of jump forward. I'll backward forward, forward a little bit. You know, I had to put on my first team member because I was getting to the point where I was going to start losing clients because I was too busy. So having to overcome the fear of putting somebody else on. So I did that. She was shit. She went, found somebody else. So definitely gone through my fair share of team members. But yeah, and then I started to grow from there. So in twenty eighteen, I was out for two years and I had purchased another practice in the Maitland area. And that's how I got the presence in Maitland. So we'd, I think at our largest, we probably had a team of like six or seven and, you know, some of those team members weren't right as well. So we kind of went down, went up. So we fluctuated. We're kind of hanging around that five team member mark now locally. And then in Middle of COVID in twenty ten, I think it was around September, I started my second legal practice with a girlfriend that had met at Southern Cross, Joey, and that's called All Star Conveyancing. So the first one was law to your door, then it changed to Aqualegal Conveyancing. The second legal practice is All Star Conveyancing and that's based up in Queensland. And that kind of like literally happened on a Monday. There's some of that I can't share because it relates to where Joey worked prior, but she jumped on with me for a little bit and then we started all-star conveyancing once I got the go-ahead from both the law societies. So we are, what are we, five years coming up in September for that. And I think we're kind of, nine ten people out there from memory um and Then last year, I decided to open up a mortgage-broking business, which wasn't on the cards, but I had the opportunity there, and I did that. And we've just gone, twelve months, a couple of days ago. We've already been a finalist in the Small Business Awards. We were a finalist in some local awards, and I actually attended that last night, and we got highly commended in the finance section. No, that's wrong. Highly commended in the New Start Business section. Sorry. which was pretty exciting because it was like a hundred and sixty entrants or something like that um it's so yeah and then in between all of that if you follow me I have done other studies so I'm very big on you know lifelong learning and in COVID to me it just wasn't enough to be that lawyer anymore I felt like it just it wasn't going to make the cut I had to know a little bit more and by that I mean I'd have clients who have suicided and you know whilst all of them were sad there's one in particular because he was a client of mine before I was a lawyer and that really really hit hard especially because I only spoke to him the day before and questioning why we have like this really long settlement like we don't need six months and you know feeling guilty for that for feeling like I should have picked up on something in that conversation which I I know I shouldn't have um he was exactly what he was doing this was not the first matter I had for him so I had really struggled with that and then I actually had three clients within like four weeks uh suicide um and You know, that was really hard. And then kind of going through that and then dealing with clients in whatever area of law. So whether it's family law, even wills and estates can trigger things in a probate file. So when someone passes away, even in a commencing file, if someone's separated or selling like a property because someone has passed away. You're dealing with all sorts of people who are at all different stages. And for me, a lot of clients were opening up to us saying that I had issues with mental health and that they weren't coping. And, you know, the last thing I wanted to do was for them to go and do something that can't be undone. It's not uncommon for me to ask a client to keep emailing over the weekend because I've been... concerned for that client because it's not easy to get into into services and you have the online ones as well but um yeah so I I will ask a client to just email me over the weekend so I know that they're still there which it can be really stressful and it's probably over and above for a lawyer but I wouldn't be able to sleep knowing that you know that the client's still there and that they're doing a little bit better and you know they've utilized a service like beyond blue or lifeline or something like that Last year, or it might have been the year before, I had the opportunity to do suicide prevention training, which I really enjoyed. It was with ASIST, I think, through Lifeline. That was funded by one of the coal mines up here. It was a very, very heavy two days, but I'm very happy that I had the opportunity to do that. And then this year, a couple of my team members wanted to do the same as well. So they have been trained in ASSIST as well. So clearly I'm not the only one kind of getting a little bit, you know, thinking that just being a lawyer isn't enough anymore. A couple of years ago, I studied under Marisa Peer and became a clinical, well, I became a certified hypnotherapist. And then this year I became a clinical hypnotherapist. And then the reasoning behind that was apart from probably having a little quarter of a life crisis, it, you know, relationships were broke down because of addiction. Or it would be a lot of the time like it was addiction or there was communication or there was something there. DV as well. But it was like, okay, so one of the first questions we ask is can this relationship be saved? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Whenever I mention that, please note that DV is a caveat. To that, I'd never recommend that you go back to a DV relationship. But knowing the reasons behind why some people go back to a DV relationship as well helps us better understand why you know, the process that that can go through. So I suppose for me I learned a lot about addictions. I did learn a lot about why people who are in domestic violence relationships either stay or go back into a domestic violence relationship, and I don't have enough time to go into all of those. But effectively for me it was like, okay, so I'm not trying to obviously be like a lawyer and a therapist at the same time, but it was to help me understand, okay, so how are we here? And because so many clients were opening up to us about the mental health aspect, I did some collaborative training, collaborative family law training as well. And I did have started like a divorce coaching program this year, again, just to try and equip myself with how I can deal with certain matters, I suppose, and just different options and people's different perspectives and you know when clients are opening up to you saying that they have mental health issues you know again like for me and that's an obviously my team because they've done the training as well it's a really big concern that we don't want them going to do something that can't be undone and depending on what side we are on we will always work at the pace of the slowest person. So if there is somebody, if there is a party who does have mental health issues, we are not going to be pushing that person through like a divorce because they're going to make decisions that they're probably not wanting to make. They're not thinking clearly. We don't want to push them so far where, you know, they go do something. so even having a process and um go through certain matters we have we always have that in mind so we're okay you know we have clients who are sometimes in and out of hospital because they're not well and we'll just simply say look our client is not well we are not pushing them they're currently in hospital they'll contact us in two three four weeks when they're around um and some people are okay with it some lawyers and you know exes are not and it's like well you know there's nothing I can do you you know I'm not forcing my client to do things so I think there definitely needs to be more recognition especially from other lawyers when they are dealing with clients with with mental health it's like okay well we're not pushing our client we're not making them do something that they don't want to do or they're not physically up to at this stage But definitely doing all the other collaborative training. Mindfulness instructor, I did that as well. There's probably other things, just things popping in my head. But it was just really to complement what we do as lawyers and then different things things that I can try and incorporate in my practice to make sure that people are really comfortable, that they're coming to us and they're being so honest with us. And the fact that clients can be so honest with us and saying that they're not doing well mentally, like that's a really hard thing to admit sometimes. So for the fact that our clients have trusted us for them to tell us that means we're obviously doing something right because we're acknowledging that, you know, the mental health of that client isn't really, you know, is not well at this stage and there's different, you know, varying degrees of that as well. But, you know, it's just knowing how to handle a matter. I mean, I have some, most of them family law clients at the moment, you know, they're not well and we're just going, you at the pace it needs to be at and it is what it is you know not all clients are like that but um yeah and then you know this other side's being a bit painful I'll put my cranky pants on and pull them into line but um yeah and as I said to me it's it's all the things because for me it all complements one another and sometimes I've struggled to um like, explain why I do what I do. And my elevator pitch is really shit. I really don't have one. But for me, all the studies that I've done have just really complemented each other, and especially in the area of law. And I know that I'm just equipping myself with everything that I possibly can so we can look after, you know, not only our clients but our team members as well. So, you know, we'll... um equipping them with being able to handle you know sometimes difficult clients or clients who are not quite mentally well my team are all on the same page about that which is amazing so um That's kind of why I do all the things and I do a lot. I mean, I thought I'd do this podcast today while the girls aren't here. I have a splitting headache, but I'm like, no, I'm still going to do this podcast. And, you know, there definitely have been times where I've fallen on my ass. I probably shouldn't be doing it with a headache, but I'll make sure I go take some Panadol or no, I'll get some Nurofen after I finish the podcast and take it easy for the rest of the day. But, you know, I... I've definitely not listened to my body in the past and absolutely fallen on my ass and been so ridiculously sick. And when I was on my own before I had team members, that was really hard because I'll be missing out on business because I'd be so sick. So, you know, and I'm not perfect. I've definitely had to... ease up a little bit and know when I'm pushing that boundary of, you know, if you keep going, Stacey, you're going to get dropped on your ass. I do a lot of travel. I mean, I've got heaps of travel coming up. So, you know, you're adding that into it, adding kids, adding school, adding like extracurricular activities, three businesses, you know, there's all the things. But I absolutely love what I do, but I need to be better at doing just probably delegating but at the same time just making sure that I'm not pushing myself too far because guarantee I'm that person who will put way way too much on a to-do list for the day which is unrealistic because then I don't get through it then I get cranky and you know blah blah blah blah blah So there are definitely things I have implemented over the years to try and just help with that and try and be more organized and using different software and calendars. And I've taken emails off my phone because I was finding I'd be waking up at two or three o'clock at night and checking client emails, you know, that's not healthy. So I don't have emails on my phone anymore. I've kind of only given myself an hour of social media per day, although I overwrote my password today for the first time in months. It was only because I was going to do a live about the awards last night. So I'm just slowly, gradually trying to implement things myself. As I said, I'm not perfect, but, yeah, yeah. I couldn't see me doing anything else, I suppose. You know, maybe one day I'll be able to relax on a beach and, you know, not have too many commitments. But, yeah, for me it's just, you know, did I have all these things on my to-do list? Well, probably not. But, yeah. You know, to me as well, I am probably the worst employee. So for me to be an employee somewhere wasn't going to work anyway. I went out on my own to have that more time, you know, the whole work-life balance, which probably most people think they're going to get in business, which, you know, you can work on it in between itself. But it was just that I knew I wanted to practise law differently to the people that I had worked for. And then finding team members, you know, who are very similar to me wanting to practice in the same way as well. I mean, Aqua's hit nine years this year or nine years in March. So clearly I'm doing something right. Can't believe it's been nine years. My girls know me to be no different than having my business and, even kind of like involving them. So, you know, I would love to normalise talking about death. For me, there's obviously so many things that I have seen that have gone wrong because people haven't done their estate planning or or updated their estate planning or whatever and my kids know what a will is what a power of attorney is why estate planning is really really important and they usually hit people up you make sure that you have your will have you done that will yet um so it's good for them to to see that as well and obviously you know I'll you know I've been saying for a while I'll try and have a couple of days off from the school holidays you know that doesn't necessarily happen as well but boundaries is another thing that I think we all need to have. And I think that's just going to be a work in progress for me. And I just try and make sure that if I am working, I was like, hey, give me until five o'clock. I turn the computer off. I put my phone away and I'll make sure that I'm present with the girls or we'll go out to do whatever I said that we're going to do. But yeah, so I hope that answers the questions of why I do what I do. I can't think of anything that I may have forgotten uh but effectively that's yeah that's kind of for me it just all complements one another I suppose and um yeah like I absolutely love what I do I probably look really really tired at the moment because I have a massive headache but um you know, it's just nice to be able to help people effectively. That's like, if I could help someone, like whether that's through, um, you know, alone or through legal or whatever it might be through the hypnotherapy, that is what I enjoy. I enjoy the, the helping component and, you know, my one-on-one time is reasonably limited. And that's why I've tried to go one on many for, for different things, including family law. But, you know, helping people and then seeing the results at the end is just something that I really, really enjoy. And I need to thank everybody that has supported me. I've had, you know, I started the podcast last year and I've had other lawyers that I know reach out to me saying, you know, it's obviously I've started the podcast this year because this is what I'm doing now. Oh my gosh, see what happens when you're Yeah, probably doing things that you shouldn't be doing. But, you know, I did start a podcast last year and having text messages, hey, like listen to your podcast, like it's really, really good and, you know, congratulations. And to be able to get that even from your own colleagues is something really, really nice. And the fact that, you know, the podcast is going so well as well just means that I'm obviously putting content out there that you guys want, which is really good. you also have to give me feedback as to what you want because the podcast is for your benefit not mine but yeah so I don't think there's probably too much else I could can add to that uh if there's any questions whatsoever I have questions about you know the back entrance in into university or anything like that like I'm not an expert at it but I can definitely share you know, any more details that you need about that. But, you know, it doesn't matter what age you are, whether you're good at school or not, if there's something that you really want to achieve, find a way to do it. And, you know, it might be really difficult to get there, but if you want something enough, then you'll find a way to make it happen. But, yeah, so thanks for tuning in to another episode. Yeah, please reach out if there's something that you want us to cover or you have any questions at all. There will be links in the show notes below, I'm sure. But, yeah, thank you for listening or watching and enjoy the rest of your day and I'll talk to you next time. Bye.
