Burnt Out Lawyer Quits 6-Figure Income and Surprises Herself with a New Digital Career

Are you sick of the rat race and looking for an alternative career for lawyers?

If you’re a burnt out lawyer looking for a career change, but you’re scared of leaving your 6-figure income, then today’s interview will show you what’s possible and how to start the transition.

As Australia’s leading educators in digital training, we’ve helped people from all sorts of careers (from blue-collar to big corporate) to transition from a demanding PAYG role into a laptop lifestyle.

Today, we wanted to share an interview we did with Sharon, an ex-lawyer and one of our elite students who (at the time of the interview) has been with us for 7 months, but has already made a massive transformative journey into a brand new lifestyle.

Sharon worked as a litigation lawyer for over 25 years. And even though she didn’t particularly enjoy it, she felt like it was something she “should” be doing.

One day it just got too much. And so she quit, not knowing what she was going to do next.

In this interview, you’ll hear her story including the new digital career that has replaced her 6-figure income, what she’s actually doing to earn active and passive income, and much more.

Watch the video or read the transcript below to see how Sharon created her transformation.

Knowing that there had to be alternative careers for lawyers, Sharon decided to learn digital skills to create a new lifestyle for herself

Liz Raad: Hello, again and welcome. Today I am joined by Sharon, and I’m really looking forward to this because she is an amazing person who has gone through a real transformation over just the last seven months. I really want to hear her insights into how she’s achieved this transformation from the corporate grind, to a whole different life in the digital world. So a big welcome, Sharon. Thanks so much for being with us.

Sharon: Hi, Liz. Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to join here today and hopefully share some inspiration with others.

Liz: Yes. And that’s why we asked you to be here because I think it’s so inspiring. There’s a lot of people in your situation, isn’t there? Can you share with us what world you’ve come from and what the problems were there? What pushed you to make that shift?

Sharon: My history is as a litigation lawyer, and I have a 25-year career history in doing litigation. And for the last 10 to 15 years, I was really specialising in personal injuries litigation. I was really good at it, but I wasn’t happy doing it. I gained an accreditation, and my employees were always really happy with what I did, but I wasn’t. And I couldn’t work out why…

Liz: I can feel that. I know how you feel.

Sharon: So, I had been looking at different options for getting out, dabbling in eCommerce etc. And in the end, one day it just got too much. And so I stopped, not knowing what I was going to do next.

Then the most miraculous thing happened. Day-by-day I started to feel amazing. I thought I was a happy person before, and I think my friends and family would have described me as a generally happy person. But now, just seven months on, I don’t recognize myself in terms of my daily emotional outlook. I don’t get up anymore and dread what the day is going to bring.

Liz: Wow. And that’s really important.

Sharon: Yes. I don’t dread Monday mornings anymore. Sunday evenings used to have that feeling of, “Oh no. It’s Monday tomorrow.”

Since then, there’s been a lot of changes, and I think even my family has noticed some massive changes. There were a lot of emotional responses I had to situations previously that I wasn’t fully aware of, but it’s passing.

It’s still difficult some days but having come to Digital Profits (and then Champions) has given me a focus forward, which has been really outstanding, and I think a real blessing.

Liz: That’s awesome. And we have seen you grow and create over the last seven months. I think this is such a common story now. And you said to me earlier that when you studied law you went into something you feel like you should be doing. And I think this is the same for a lot of other people out there.

Sharon: Right.

Liz: And Matt said when he was speaking to you, there was a thought even on the first day that you actually started practicing law, what was that thought in your head?

Sharon: “Oh, what have I done? These are not my people.”

Liz: But you stuck with it for 25 years.

Sharon: Yes, 25 years.

Liz: Very impressive. But good on you that now you’ve said to yourself, “Okay, this is enough.”

Sharon: It has been such a difference.

Liz: And perhaps your body has said this is enough as well.

Sharon: I guess I’ve always begrudged being a lawyer, but I did my best. Working on my digital skills is such a different experience. I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed every part of it. And it’s given me the opportunity to do all the things that I actually love doing on a day-to-day basis.

Looking for alternative careers for lawyers, Sharon uses her new Digital Skills to connect with local businesses

Liz: So what are those things? Tell me about now – what is it that you love? You’ve gone through and studied this digital world. And now you know how to build websites, how to get other people to build websites for you. You know the strategies of how to put these things together and how to help local businesses. So what was it about all of this that is now bringing you alive and bringing you joy?

Sharon: It’s really simple actually. I remember distinctly when I stopped being a lawyer. I thought, “Well, I don’t want a job involving people. I don’t like people.” But then a couple of little things happened and I thought, “Well, I do actually really like people!”

So that’s what I’m enjoying now. I’m getting to know different small business owners. I’m figuring out what makes them tick and what they want to do with their businesses. And I’m able to help them along that path to their reach their online goals. That’s just the most amazing feeling!

Sharon combines the skills she learned as a lawyer with her new digital skills to help her make money online

Sharon: I’ve been able to bring in some of the skills that I’d learned as a lawyer. Things like organisation questioning, listening to answers and really knowing what the next question should be based on those answers.

Also, when it comes to research, I actually quite like researching lots of different niches and areas. Being in litigation, I’ve had quite a bit of experience across a lot of different industries. So it’s not just about learning different trades etc., it’s just been really great to bring all those skills together.

Liz: Fantastic. And this is a very creative space because you can go in any direction now.

Sharon: Oh yes! And I’m enjoying that creative space. As a lawyer you need to be so objective. The rule of law is to be objective and reasonable. And not to say that I’m unreasonable now, but I don’t have to be objective. I can just open up the creative juices a little bit more, which has been great.

Sharon learned how to outsource so she could focus on what she loves to do

Liz: Fantastic. All right, so let’s get into the actual journey. You started with eBusiness Institute seven months ago and you’ve gone through our digital training. And you are well on your way now to replacing your income. You’ve got your digital skills sorted.

You do a really beautiful website and you really apply all those marketing concepts, which is why I think you’re so successful.

But the other thing I’ve really noticed with you (and I think one of the secret keys for your leverage), is your ability to outsource and get other people to do tasks for you. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Sharon: Yes. When I started this journey I decided, “Well, I’m going to create a life that I really want this time.” I fell into something before and just stumbled through it. But this time I’m going to be really conscious about what I’m creating. Initially I started to build a site based on the skills I learned in the Web Dev course. What I built was fine, but it didn’t really float my boat. I thought, “I don’t think that’s where I want to focus my time.”

For me to build a bigger business, I needed people to be doing that for me. This way, I can focus on the things I do love, which is meeting business owners, finding out what their problems are and solving them. I also enjoy buying a website, figuring out how I could make it better and then getting someone to do it.

So the problem solving is where I want to be, not the actual doing. And for that to happen, I have to delegate. I have to get contractors. I wanted to build a team that could do all of that work for me. I can just supervise and make sure that they’re doing it the way that we’ve been taught to do it.

Asking better questions helped Sharon delegate all the work she didn’t enjoy doing

Doing this has helped me manage the time constraints I initially had when dealing with my career transition. But it also enables me to move forward and build a business that I actually want. So I was always looking forward as to where I was going.

For all the tasks that I was doing myself, I would ask myself why I was doing it? Is it something that I wanted to do, and something that I loved? Or is this something that I’m doing once so that I know what it is and then I can outsource it?

That’s how I’ve approached it. Always coming back to that first question, why am I doing this? Can somebody else be doing it?

Liz: That’s such a great question, and something that a lot of people are now realizing. When you go through this journey, you suddenly realize, “I’m not going to take C-R-A-P anymore. I’m going to make sure that I do the things I love and delegate the stuff I don’t.” And I think that’s certainly helping you accelerate this journey.

How Sharon balances income-producing activities with long-term asset creation

Liz: So, you’re not only building websites for local businesses, but you’re also buying websites now and renovating them. Especially now that you have that team there to be able to work on those sites. Do you feel more confident buying websites for passive income, knowing that you have those people there on your team?

Sharon: I think renovating it, certainly. I bought a couple of websites. One’s a small one, one’s a much larger one. And the larger one, it probably intimidated me a bit, just the amount of work. Because I was also balancing the digital agency work, the now income-producing activities with the longer-term asset building strategy. I was short on time to do it all myself.

And so, having a team there that knows what they’re doing in terms of building the site. But also adding affiliate links, content writers now, and some SEO just to get a different perspective and swap ideas with them about where we should take it. That’s been really brilliant.

Liz: Yes, that’s great leverage. Having a team is a really good leverage point in this business model. So then you also know, if anything does happen, you’ve got those people there and they can help you out straight away.

Sharon: I have to admit, on occasion I’ve ducked back into a website to just change one little thing and then completely stuffed a page. So I have to send out the task to say, “I touched it. I shouldn’t have. It’s been a while. Can you please go and fix this? We’ve done a backup, haven’t we?”

Liz: That sounds like someone else I know – Matt has been known to crash a site or two! So yes, that’s awesome.

Now that Sharon has found an alternative career for Lawyers – what’s next?

In terms of now going forward, what does the future hold for you, Sharon? Where are you heading?

Sharon: I’ve been working towards building a bigger team. My husband is in the police force and I keep saying to him, “When will you come and work in the business with me?” And he’s like, “Not yet, hon. Not yet.” But one day he will come, which will be great because he’s a problem solver and he’s very personable.

The aim is to build the agency to a level that is generating us the income we need to go and travel (when we were allowed out of the country again), and to do some house renovations, buy a new car etc. Basically, all that stuff that previously only seemed possible if I’d kept that job that I had. But now I can see there are other ways to do it to help improve the exponential curve for my results.

And then ultimately, the goal is to build that asset portfolio that starts delivering more passive income so that in time, we can wean our hours down in the digital agency or sell it off.

Liz: Yes, well digital agencies are going to become incredibly good assets.

She will build her passive income and eventually sell her agency

So you’ve got a whole range of assets, a whole lot of things that you can do. And I think one of the things you said to me earlier was you have now gone from a feeling of being trapped to a feeling of freedom? I can see that already!

Sharon: Absolutely! I thought freedom was all about dollars, but it turns out it’s not. I’m blessed to have the support of some insurance policies that are helping the transition for me, and that’s been really good. But I have to say, we didn’t know whether those insurance policies would come into play when we started this.

But we decided before we knew the answer to that question, that this was a path I was going to take because the change in me was so dramatic. A lot of things have become really clear as to why I’d been dissatisfied in a job that I was good at for so long.

Liz: And I really admire your determination and your bravery and courage, and your joy. So a massive congratulations, Sharon. Well done.

Sharon: Thank you so much.

Liz: And we’re really looking forward to helping you on continue on that journey. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to create for your future. So thanks so much again for being with us.

Sharon: From the bottom of my heart, a big thank you to you and Matt. You’ve been such a big part of where I’m at and the change. And just even coming to the webinars for Champions every Wednesday and hearing your bubbly voices and the excitement. It’s like my little Wednesday happy pill so thank you for that!

Liz: Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

Can you relate?

If you’re in a high-demanding job, or in a career that doesn’t serve you anymore, then you’ll probably relate to Sharon’s story…. If so, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

And, if you want to learn the skills that Sharon used to transform her career to a digital lifestyle, then register for our free masterclass here.