Vanessa brought the law, and life won.

EPISODE 2

Long hours, an almost regimented pathway for progression, endless client meetings in billable time. The law doesn't immediately come to mind when thinking of freelance professions or the concept of freedom within a certain career. But my guest today not only chose the freelance life within the legal profession, she made a beeline for a work-life balance that has resulted in her thriving in both the law and in life, in quite possibly one of the most beautiful places on earth.

This is Freedom Unscripted with Vanessa Barnett.

Can you live in a more dull place?

No, I really can't. It's pretty special, isn't it?

It is immense.

Come on in.

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BOOKMARKING THROUGHOUT THE DAY

We take coffee very, very seriously in our house. We source our beans from a local place called Moody's, run by these lovely people called Ian and George. And they were roasting beans in their back garden and it's grown and grown and they're super coffee nerds and hand grinding is the best way to go.

Do you find that a ritual like this adds a level of routine that's really vital as a freelancer.

You have to create some bookmarks in your day where you move from "this is me being my home person" to "this is me being my work person" and having a ritual around the coffee before you work is really important because actually as a freelancer if you didn't have that discipline, you just work all the time to keep the wolves from the door. Because that's freelancing, right?

EXTREME FREELANCING

I was quite pessimistic last night about the weather. Considering it was raining and. This has turned out to be incredible.

This is basically why we live here. You just can't fail to smile and be happy and just take it all in.

That's the Midi. If you look in the far distance, there's a mountain that is a little bit under the cloud, with some flat clouds on top. That's Mont Blanc.

And I'm very bad, I don't know the names of any of the other things, because I get them wrong all the time.

That's alright. Most of this will be in slow-mo anyway.

The gig in this valley is you go into the mountains and you have personal responsibility. It's a bit like extreme freelancing. It's all on you.

We're very very very blessed to live here. You having a moment in your day to take a hike in the end is better For the output as well as for your clients. I would say right. Yes. I have the freedom now to wake up in the morning

And if it looks like this outside, I might start work at lunchtime. And that's absolutely fine.

But by the end of the day, I will still have met all of the things I need to do, but I might finish at nine or 10. Whereas in my old world, I would have been in the office at seven or 7.30 and leaving at about eight, and I will have been on all the time.

But if the lawyers are happy, they produce good work.

A MEANINGFUL LIFE

How does a city girl, born and bred Londoner, Partner in a City law firm, find herself in Chamonix, France?

When I was in a law firm, I was always quite an individual, and I wanted to work my own way, and I had good ideas and all those sorts of things. And I just needed freedom to do what I wanted to do, professionally and personally. So I did my time in the city law firm and I soaked up all the good skills and all the good client relationships and all of those things. But then there was a bit of me that wanted to go traveling, see the world and come back and live my life just meaningfully differently with more free will.

So a real conscious decision, professionally and personally?

Yes.

FIND YOUR TRIBE, INVEST IN YOURSELF

As a freelancer, how do you approach learning and development?

I'm quite disciplined about it. I make sure that I stay curious And I do a lot of reading. But apart from that, you have to find your group of people who are also little mini nerds like you and stay in touch, and then you have to do more formal things.

You know you have to invest in your brain, sign up to courses,  and all of those sorts of things. You should never ever stop learning as a freelancer.

You've got to remember this is about you - that people buy from you as a freelancer and they're buying your skill, they're buying your way of doing things, all of those things. It's people buying what's inside your head, ultimately, right? So you've got to invest in it, you've got to protect it, you've got to nurture it.

Your clients are predominantly in the UK, yet you are here in France. How does client relationships work? How do you maintain good client relationships as one, a lawyer, but also as a freelancer?

You've got to realise that there's work that you do that's your day job, which is producing the work. Then there's work that you do to maintain your relationships and your pipeline and what might come in the future. And you have to nurture them like two different plants.

So you do the work, you perform well at the work, but you have to nurture your relationships. And I think the really critical bit there is physically being in a room with someone or a coffee shop or a restaurant or whatever, or going for a walk, right?

That nurtures a client relationship because that's personal chemistry and trust and understanding. And if you're not in the same city as your client base, then you have to get in a car, get on a train, get on a plane. Whatever you've got to do, you've got to have these dedicated blocks where you go and you don't do any of the day job work, but you spend a few days or a week doing the other kind of nurturing work. So at the end of the day, to be successful as a freelancer, you have to have successful human to human relationships with your client.

And you can't ever forget that because they're buying and engaging you. They're not engaging your craft as much as they're engaging you, the performer of that craft.

Yes, because many people have the same craft, the same skills. And all of that stuff. It's a very, very human thing.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Listening to Vanessa, it's hard not to picture her in a lucrative side hustle as a life coach or mentor. She is incredibly gifted at what she does and is now a leading voice in her field. But it's one thing to be a wealth of knowledge, it's another thing entirely to articulate that knowledge with such ease and offer it so freely. As a partner in a law firm, you might think your path is set in stone, and any deviation from that path is career suicide. But unsurprisingly, Vanessa knew different.

And as she bet on herself and the freedom she wanted out of life, she is demonstrably happier for it. And as she bet on herself and the freedom she wanted out of life, she is demonstrably happier for it.

- fin

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