GIRL, LET’S TALK ABOUT CHANGE… FROM THE DESK OF Dana Brooks

I participate in a few mastermind groups, and I travel frequently for conferences on marketing and managing law firms. Those meetings are targeted to owners and operators, still predominantly men. But as I look across the room at these meetings, I notice more women and people of color. I see bilingual lawyers, lawyers whose faith is at the core of their practice, and innovative lawyers whose ideas are changing the practice of personal injury law. I leave those conferences electrified and excited to implement what I’ve learned.

So, that’s what I saw. Now, let me tell you what I heard.

I heard from a male lawyer TikTok phenom who explained how he grew his social medial following and converted it into an eight-figure law firm in five years, only spending his time. He said engagement with followers is the key, but he is a practicing lawyer, husband, and father to young children. When he reached over a million followers and simply could not keep up with them, he had a panic attack. It scared him to death. That’s when he knew he had to find the right work/life balance.

Juggling personal, professional, family, and volunteer responsibilities is nothing new to women. We’ve been doing that our entire lives. Much of the time, the men who benefited from it didn’t even realize it was happening.

Things just seemed to happen, and usually their wives, mothers, or sisters who took care of everything. That is changing, though, as the workplace gets younger. Millennials and Generation Z cohorts tend to have a more egalitarian concept of parenting and domestic responsibilities. They treasure and guard their personal time and space. They’ve always known that to get what they want, they have to work together and compromise with their partners. Significantly to me, though, is the priority they assign to time with their families.

The TikTok lawyer explained that he eventually learned that not every follower will stay with him or respond to his posts nor would he be able to respond to all of theirs. And that was okay. He would not lose his business, family, or home if he wasn’t immediately accessible to people he didn’t even know. But because of how important his followers were to his livelihood, he was afraid to lose even one. He put on his lawyer hat and started scheduling his TikTok time as if it were a hearing or deposition.

In conclusion, the TikTok lawyer's experience highlights the importance of setting boundaries and managing expectations when it comes to social media. It's easy to get caught up in trying to please every follower and respond to every comment, but it's simply not sustainable. By prioritizing his time and scheduling his TikTok usage, he was able to maintain a healthy balance between his online presence and his personal life. It's a lesson that can be applied to anyone looking to build a presence on social media, whether it's for personal or professional reasons.