Carolyn Rosenblatt, RN, attorney, consultant and founder of AgingParents.com
by Melissa Grau
In today’s society, success is often measured by how well you do in your career. The sad reality is that work-related achievements almost always outweigh your health. Given that lawyers have the highest substance abuse, depression, and suicide rates of all other professions, it is important that you find a comfortable work-life balance to help lower these statistics.
In this episode of Esquire Coaching Radio, Carolyn Rosenblatt, RN, attorney, and consultant, joined us to talk about ways that attorneys can balance their lives by focusing on their personal health.
When asked how she made the commitment to a healthier lifestyle, Carolyn responded by saying she has always been interested in health. As a nurse and consultant on aging issues for families and employees working with elders, she felt she couldn’t give advice about health while ignoring her own health.
How were clients supposed to take her guidance seriously if she couldn’t even follow her own advice?
Although Carolyn describes herself as “never having been an athlete,” she always made an effort to be active. Currently, at the age of 66 she is training for a triathlon. She elaborated more by saying, “It just felt incredible to do things I have never done before and to feel more fit, stronger and have better endurance than [I had] when I was 30. And I’m still doing it!”
According to Carolyn, the biggest obstacle attorneys encounter while trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle is stress. It’s not easy to strike a balance between work and your personal life, but it is a necessary in order to live a healthier life. Attorneys claim they don’t have time to work out. Carolyn’s philosophy is that if you’re serious about being healthy, you will be able to find the time. Whatever your lifestyle is, there is a way to somehow fit exercise within it. Maybe it’s going for a brisk walk during your lunch break or using an at-home fitness bike while watching the news; whatever it is, there is a way to incorporate exercise into your life.
As the baby boomers grow closer to retirement, it is a priority now more than ever to start living a healthy life. Most often lawyers define themselves by their career. Once you retire, you lose that sense of who you are. Living a healthy lifestyle can become a new outlet, a new adventure to embark on during retirement. Retirement is a chance to really focus on your health, turning over a new leaf to become a healthier you. Carolyn goes on to add that experimenting with new things keeps you young, helping to create a new life and identity for yourself after retirement.
Lawyers working today, however, don’t yet have the luxury of enjoying the unlimited amount of free time that retirement brings. Carolyn suggests that in order to get that time to yourself, you need to demand it. Instead of putting in long hours and picking up all the extra work shoveled onto your desk, you need to take the initiative and find a way to get back to focusing on yourself.
In closing, Carolyn left us with the following advice:
“Remember that we as lawyers are more than our brains and legal acumen. We are people. We have hearts and minds and bodies. We have to take care of all of those in order to live a happy life.”
For more from Carolyn, visit her website at www.carolynrosenblatt.com or read her Forbes blog at www.forbes.com/sites/carolynrosenblatt. She is also available by phone at (415) 459-0413 or email at clrosenblatt@gmail.com.
Share with us your stories of how you balance your life. We’d also love to hear your plans for when you retire. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Visit our website at www.esquirecoaching.com to sign up for our newsletter, Elevate!
To listen to the full interview, click here.
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