Kat Johnston leaves her high intensity in-house attorney job purposefully plan-less

The Lawyer's Escape Pod

Kat Johnston spent over a decade between BigLaw litigation and being in-house at a Silicon Valley company. The intensity of working in those environments and the stress took their toll. So, Kat started to prioritize taking better care of herself. Ultimately, as her focus and priorities shifted, Kat decided to leave practice and has taken the past 2 years off to give herself time to reset, explore, and find the next right step for her career journey.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Working hard along the path isn’t the same as working hard at figuring out a path
• Kat enjoyed the clarity of mission working in-house and the ability to be more herself, have room to innovate and be creative
• In-house practice at a Silicon Valley company is still an intense place to work
• Kat was really burned out physically and emotionally
• She realized that she had to take self-care more seriously and set real boundaries at work
• You can start being the person you want to be before you leave your job
• The more she took care of herself, the more it made her question “what are we all doing?”
• As she shifted, she was more out of sync with her colleagues
• For Kat, she came to decide that she didn’t need to have the answers before leaving her job
• She left with no plan for a year - other than that she’d planned out the money piece with her financial advisor
• She sold her home, sold most of her things, and traveled for a year
• The first year was not about figuring it out - it was about allowing herself to reset and live differently
• She then spent another year traveling the US in an airstream, but more focused on thinking about next steps
• She’s now in the early stages of building her own wellness & nature retreat

Lawyer’s Escape Plan Quiz: http://bit.ly/lawyersescaperoutequiz

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/megansmileyesq/

Kat’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildkatwandering/