Page 39 - Talane Miedaner - Coach Yourself to a New Career_ 7 Steps to Reinventing Your Professional Life (2010)

STEP 1: PERFECT THE PRESENT 27

And boy, did I have an unbalanced life—constant travel, stress, not
sleeping. I was totally in the wrong field for someone who needed
balance. My corporate existence was always up and down. I was mov-
ing to places where I didn’t particularly want to live for a job that
I didn’t particularly enjoy. It was total unbalance. Balance seemed
so foreign—so boring to me. I want to be going, going, going all the
time, so why would I need balance? Now I see that I can’t be myself
without it and that it was impossible for me to achieve balance while
working at the law firm. How can you be balanced if you wake up in
the middle of the night worrying about some personnel issue?
Doing the values work confirmed that one of my values is to
contribute. It became glaringly obvious that my values were not in
alignment with the law firm’s. I remember a time toward the end
of my career at the law firm: I was disenchanted with the budget
meetings, how many new clients, the money—the business was all
focused on money. I have a strong sense of right and wrong and a
need for justice, which is one reason why I became a prosecutor in
the first place. I got thoroughly disgusted when our firm decided to
represent a client who was charged with dog abuse, which I was
disgusted by.
I expressed my disagreement with that decision to the partners.
I suggested they survey the employees and ask them how many
were dog lovers before they committed. The fact that I had worked
there and was a director for seven years made no difference. No one
wanted to even discuss the matter. It was all about the bottom line.
The managing partner totally ignored it. It goes against my core val-
ues. I thought everyone there was better than that. Employees were
so upset that we’d associate the company name with this client’s
name. This isn’t me. This is not what I wanted to associate myself
with. We are a civil law firm. Why are we doing this for the money?
Valuewise, I was very upset. Things were prerecession and slowing
down, so they saw the PR and money as a good thing. That was the
final straw for me. It became very clear to me that my values were
not going to be honored or respected working for this law firm. I
resigned soon after that.