I still remember the moment I looked over at my now ex-husband after a particularly contentious, nasty fight and the thought popped into my head – “What am I doing? I don’t like who I am around him. I don’t like the person I’ve become. This isn’t who I really am.”

I started my life as a “nice girl” who didn’t really rattle the cages, rock the boats, or rabble the rouses. I was always told I was “smart” and I decided early on (back in 4th grade) that I wanted to put those “smarts” to use and become a lawyer.

So I did just that.

I wasn’t really sure what kind of lawyer I would become. I ended up with a major in Russian and a minor in Greek and Roman Civilization (or, as I liked to call it, “almost Latin”) and thought maybe I would do some sort of high-powered, influential international business lawyering.

As life often does, my path took me somewhere different and unexpected.

I ended up doing mostly American litigation. Lots of probate cases (where people fight over estate distributions) and representing the little guy versus Wall Street in arbitration actions. Investors and employees who all got chewed up and spit out by our financial institutions.

Not exactly where a “nice girl” fits in easily.

I used to envy the nasty, battle-hardened lawyers I saw in court. The ones who looked and acted like they ate nails for breakfast and hydrated with straight up scotch all day long, their innards coated in Teflon. Nothing seemed to phase them, and even the ickiest of emotional conflicts seemed to slide right off them personally like the proverbial water off a duck’s back.  

On the other hand, I felt like I internalized so much of what my clients were feeling. I often took on their battles as if they were my own. When they took a hit, I took a hit. When they won, I was elated.

And as a “nice girl,” I began questioning just how nice I “should” be. I began to question whether a “nice girl” could even do everything that was necessary to the get the job done. I once had a client react negatively to the fact that I didn’t get up and point at our opponent and scream at him and waggle my finger in his face like the other lawyer did to my client. I have never done that, and never will.

I had another client get upset that I didn’t object after every uncomfortable question opposing counsel fired at him. The client forgot that I did object to several of them – in part because they were objectionable, and in part to give my client a brief interruption to catch his breath and prepare to respond. That didn’t go unnoticed by the arbitrators, however; I was admonished to stop objecting so much, so I went back to doing what I was supposed to do – objecting only to the questions that were objectionable.

Because that’s what “nice girls” do. Follow the rules.

After those two events I just described, and being married to someone (also a lawyer) who incessantly questioned my legal judgment, I really started to think that I needed to be nastier.

So I tried that on for size.

I tried to be meaner. I tried to break the rules, or at least push the boundaries now and then.

After thinking about my career path in preparation for an interview by a fellow coach recently, I recalled the shoes I frequently wore. The ones I wore to court. I used to call them my “mean girl shoes.”

They were fabulous. The comfy, practical square-toed shoes of the late nineties I pulled into my wardrobe rotation after graduation were quickly replaced with the pointy-toed skinny heeled shoes of the early naughts.

And I loved them.

I trotted around Boston’s Financial District in them, wearing them to the battles in court.

They made me feel like I could conquer the world.

But boy did they hurt my feet.

I didn’t care. The hurt made me meaner. It made it easier to show up and point and scowl and put on a good show.

Those shoes were my own mental matadors.

Or more accurately, the picadors.

Now, I’m not a fan or proponent of bullfighting by any means. In fact, I’m quite the opposite. But I’ll share with you exactly what the picadors do in a bullfight so as to put the shoes into perspective (and in case you’re not a big Hemingway fan and have never even heard the word before).

You may have heard of the matadors – the men who fight the bulls. They are the ones responsible for slaying the majestic animal. But it’s the picadors who pick away at the poor beasts. Literally. They poke and pick the bull with lances both to enrage the bull and get it to charge, and to weaken the bull’s neck muscles in preparation for its, ahem, final charge.

My “mean girl shoes” did both of those things for me. They put me in a foul mood and made me want to charge. And they also weakened me, they wore me down, which made me more likely to take the bait and start swinging.

Pushing the envelope. Putting on a show.

But I couldn’t keep that up forever, no matter what I had on my feet.

Eventually, soon after the fight I started this story with, I realized that I didn’t have to slay bulls to win battles. I didn’t need to make my feet hurt so I could put on a show. I learned how to get back to my roots and be “nice” again.   

I learned how to handle conflicts in a way that was much more compassionate for myself. And turned out to be much more effective for my clients.

I now teach the same principles I adopted myself to my clients, whether they work with me as a lawyer or a coach. I teach them how to stop slaying bulls. How to pick and choose the battles. That not engaging at the bullfight doesn’t mean you lose the war. It means everyone wins by living another day.

It also means that flip flops and ballet flats are totally fine, too.