Paralegals: Want to Lower Your Stress Instantly?

Have you been a little bit more stressed out than normal lately?

Me too.

All right, this episode is going to be for you. I interviewed Vincent Ascolese and I’ve got a surprise for you.

Now, it’s about mindfulness, but I wanted to jump in before the interview and give you a little heads-up. He surprised me and you’re going to want to stay to the end to hear the surprise, but I don’t want you to fast forward to it because it won’t be as cool of a surprise because he kind of leads into it.

Anyway, I’m not going to tell you about it. I just want you to stay through all the way to the end.

Also, I wanted to kind of talk to you a little bit about the part of the mindfulness that we talked about after we stopped recording: what’s important when you do the things that he’s talking about here, when you do these things during the low stake times, like when life is normal, when life is just going along at a regular speed.
Then, when you hit the high-stake times, like when you’re getting ready for trial, when you’re doing a, you know, big M&A transaction, when you’ve got those high stakes going on, you’re going to perform better.
So, it’s worthwhile to do it now, even if you’re not in one of those high-stress periods.

The other thing that I think you’re really going to love about this is you can search, if you wanted, right now, you can jump on Google and go down the rabbit hole of “find me mindfulness advice, tips on mindfulness, how to be mindful,” right?

You’re going to come across a bunch of great articles, a bunch of generic tips from what I would call “mindfulness gurus.”

The problem with all of those is they talk to people in normal work environments. Vincent isn’t in a normal work environment. Vincent is a paralegal, just like you. So he understands that this isn’t a normal work environment.

He deals with the same daily stressors that every paralegal like you does. So, he understands sometimes there are going to be days where the only time that you have available to practice mindfulness is when you’re walking down a flight of stairs to bring something to a partner’s office or when you’re walking to the restroom to take a quick bathroom break so he understands the stressors that a paralegal has.

I hope that you enjoy this interview. Enjoy, and please stay to the end because you’ve got to hear the background of what the surprise is before you listen to the surprise!

The Podcast Interview of Vincent Ascolese

Ann:

All right. Welcome back.

We have another podcast episode and this time we’re doing mindfulness again. And I have a guest this week. We have Vincent Ascolese. He is a paralegal, for 27 years, and he’s a paralegal with McElroy Deutsch in Morristown, New Jersey. And I’ve actually known Vincent for, I guess, about six years.
I actually met Vincent, it was 2019, 2020 back in the COVID days and it was actually an interesting thing. I was doing this kind of experiment with this Course Creator Bootcamp and Vincent was one of several paralegals who I was trying to help put together a course and he was putting together this webinar on mindfulness.
He was one of the few paralegals who actually put together a webinar, it was a 60-minute webinar. Nobody else had time to put anything together except Vincent and then Vincent reached out to me just a week or so ago and his webinar has actually been put to use. It’s been put to use interestingly in his firm, I guess, and it has actually helped him recover from grief, from the loss of his wife, which I’m so sorry to hear Vincent.

Vincent:

Thank you.

Ann:

Tell me a little bit about how this one little webinar on mindfulness has you and maybe some other people in your firm, what you’ve been using this webinar on mindfulness for?

Vincent:

Well, so far it hasn’t been put on the newsletter in my firm, but I had my HR director from a national law firm look at it and look at it in her spare time and it was very helpful for her.
She found it very interesting. And, you know, she implemented some of the practices in her work, workday. So it was very helpful for her. Um, and you know, that when, when you’re working with HR, that’s not something, a soft skill that you could sort of easily tell them about. So it was good to have a webinar that I was able to present and say, here, this is what I’ve done and this is, can help you and can help the firm.
Other, you know, other staff at the firm.

Ann:

What caught my attention, of course, being a trainer and a coach, was, it said that when you started practicing mindfulness, it actually increased your work product.

Vincent:

Oh, yeah.

Ann:

It helped with your work product. How did it help you have better work product by practicing mindfulness?

Vincent:

One of the aha moments I had so the attorney that we talked about earlier about the guy, the guy that told me about compartmentalizing, he would go over my performance review before, um, the HR people went over my performance review.

So we had an opportunity to say like, well, this is how you improve and this is how you get better as a paralegal. But I had an aha moment at that time, which was to say, this guy was generous enough to do this, but there’s other issues on my performance review that were not being addressed in a similar way.

So I had to figure out, how do I stop making mistakes. How do I make less mistakes? How do I focus more when I’m at work? And sometimes it was something so simple as just moving my chair. Like moving my chair and computer to a different part of the cubicle so that I wasn’t saying hi to everybody that worked walked by the whole day.

You know, as you can imagine, that takes away from your concentration and decreases your work, your ability to work. So it was like little simple things like that, just little minor adjustments.
Like, for example, another one that I love, still love to this day is the email pop-ups. When you get an email, you have a little brief synopsis of the email.

It’ll tell you, you know, this is urgent or this is a “high importance” or whatever. I don’t actually look at those. I shut that feature off so that I could focus on the work that I was doing. Now I check my email periodically throughout the day.

So you, you know, so that I can focus on the email when I’m focusing on the email and focus on the project when I’m focusing on the project.

So it’s little, little adjustments like that in the tension. And also just to be mindful of when, when you’re doing something to do that thing, don’t, don’t get distracted or try less to get distracted. You know, of course, somebody comes into your office or cubicle with a hot potato. You have to, you have to deal with that and address that at that time.

But, that’s when you shift your focus. And that’s when you have to shift your focus to be like a hot potato. Let’s work on the hot potato and let’s forget about the emails that were popping up and forget about this other looming deadline. Now we have something else to work on.

Ann:

You know, I saw in the webinar too, that you have, there was this formal practice of mindfulness and this informal practice of mindfulness.
What’s the difference between informal and formal?

Vincent:

So the difference is, as I know it, the difference is like – Meditation is: guided meditation or meditation in general are like a more formal practice of mindfulness. But there’s also when you’re walking around in this world, there’s actually something called a walking meditation or Kinhin in meditation.
And when you’re walking in Kinhin, you’re supposed to be walking. Your feet are supposed to be touching the ground and you’re supposed to be breathing and focusing on your feet, touching the ground, and just, just simply walking. But it is, one of the most difficult things to do because I have like a monkey mind.
So you have to do what you’re involved with the quote-unquote informal practice.

So that’s with a formal practice. So when you’re doing informal practice, that can be something as simple as washing the dishes. When you’re washing the dishes, wash the dishes. You know, you focus on the warmth of the water, the suds in the, in the pan and scrubbing the pan and actually scrubbing the pan.
You don’t focus on your food shopping list, you know.

Ann:

Wait, when I’m washing the dishes, I’m thinking about all the things that I’ve got to do the dishes.

Vincent:

Of course. It’s, and that’s not, that’s not being mindful. So you, when you’re, when you’re doing the dishes, you should be doing the dishes. When you’re doing the laundry, you should be folding the laundry or washing the laundry.
You know, that’s mindfulness. It’s, it’s, it’s not easy. I’ll tell you that right now. It’s not easy, but it’s, it’s a worthwhile endeavor because we are so attached to what they call the monkey mind, that being like adhering to the, the six senses, you know, sights, sights, sound, touch, feel, all that stuff, um, that it detracts from our mindfulness.

When we focus on one thing at a time, one task at a time, You know, compartmentalizing is in a sense, uh, we, we, uh, are more focused.
We get the job done better.
We are more efficient.
We have a better work product.
We do things better.

Ann:

I’ve had different studies that I’ve shown – a multi-tasking study that says when you multitask, you reduce your productivity by 40%. So I guess that would be along those lines, right?

Vincent:

Yes, yes.

Ann:

If you’re doing something and you’re thinking about other things, you’re being less productive kind of along those lines? Is that what you’re saying?

Vincent:

Yes, yes.

Ann:

So, in the webinar you referred to something along the lines, I think you used an acronym called STOP, and I can’t remember what it was. It was when you were talking about one of, maybe it was the breath thing that you were doing? Yes. So is it But it was an acronym called stop. Can you remind me what that is?

Vincent:

Yeah, the acronym for stop stands for stop.

Stop.
Take a breath.
Observe the experience.
Proceed with something productive.
So stop, take a breath, observe the experience, and proceed with something productive, supportive.

So stop, of course, you stop what you’re doing, just halt.

Um, take a breath. It’s not more complex than feeling the air come through your nostrils and how that feels in your, in your lungs and in your stomach and see how you’re feeling.

Observe the experience. What’s going on? Like, you know, you could observe the temperature in the room. You could see how stressed you are at this moment.

Do you need to take a break?
Do you need to stop for a longer period of time?

And then to proceed with something supportive. Maybe grab a cup of tea, a cup of coffee.
Maybe talk with a colleague and say, hey, hey, this, uh, this project I’m working is a little perplexing. I can’t see the forest for the trees. Can you provide a little perspective? And sometimes that’s helpful.

You know, sometimes it’s just simple as just getting a cup of coffee, um, or, or a glass of water, you know, with the, with the, with the water, the waters are built in a break, you know, eventually you have to go to the bathroom and take a, take a break from whatever pressing assignment that you have, you know, and that’s helpful for me too.

Ann:

Would I be doing this maybe if I’m, uh, like in the middle of a project, or like if an attorney just comes in and maybe yelled at me for something, or, um, if it’s in the, like when I need, am I like doing it for a formal, formal practice, or do it in the middle of the day?

Vincent:

You could do it any, yeah, you could do it at any point that you, any point that you feel you need to.

I would say if, if an attorney just yelled at you. It’s a critical time to do it because what happens then is you have like this ripple effect. This happened to me the other day I made one mistake and then like I caught myself making other mistakes throughout the day. Nobody yelled at me but I made a mistake and it was like, then that mistake led to another mistake and led to another mistake. But I just stopped and was like hey Vincent what’s going on?

So I took a breath.
Observe the experience.
I knew that I was not in my best frame of mind too, and I wasn’t being extremely mindful and maybe I was editing on the computer rather than on paper. And so I took a break and came back to it and God willing, I didn’t make any more mistakes.

Ann:

So the S is stop, the T is take a break, O is observe, what’s the P?

Vincent:

P is proceed with something supportive, but T is also taking a breath, take a breath.
Yeah, the breath is very, very important in mindfulness, very important. And I asked why that is, like, why can’t we just take our pulse and focus on our pulse? And the answer was very simple – because the breath is always available. It’s easy to take a breath, you know, there are times when, you know, I’ve been called into my attorney’s office for a terse conversation and been like, there’s nothing I can do like the door is shut.
I’m about to get yelled at. What can I do? Take a breath. Take a breath. Focus on the breath.

Ann:

And nobody could tell you’re doing that. It might look kind of weird if you reached up and…

Vincent:

Yeah. So, okay. I’d like mm-hmm.

Ann:

Right. So, you also gave some App recommendations, and I loved those, a lot of them were free too.

Can you give us some of those recommendations?

Vincent:

Yeah, I use an app called Insight Timer for guided meditations. There’s thousands of guided meditations. Some are not the best, but there are a lot that are really great. Um, there’s a mindfulness leader called Andy Hobson, H O B S O N, that I really love.

And I’ve been using his guided meditations, even the same ones, for like over ten years now. It’s just so nice and peaceful and serenity-wise when he combines, the guided meditation with music. And he allows space for the breath to occur many times throughout the meditations.

Some of the other apps that I’ve used, it’s unfortunately, these apps now charge for even the introductory ones, but Headspace was one that was very good, especially starting out and getting into meditation and mindfulness and then Calm and 10 percent Happier. There’s probably, yeah, there’s probably been a lot more since the podcast, but I still love Insight Timer and you don’t have to pay for Insight Timer.
To get most of the features of it, but when you do pay for it, there’s a robust amount of information on it. It’s just become, you know, a little pricey for me.

Ann:

I liked the three-minute one that you did in the webinar. And I actually considered whether or not we could do that here, and I, I didn’t for a couple of reasons.
Because I know that a lot of people who listen to the audio version of the podcast are doing it while they’re driving So I was worried that they would listen to it while they were driving and I don’t want people meditating while they’re driving and then second, if they’re watching it on YouTube, I know that YouTube would probably have a fit about the music version they probably would have said “Yeah, that’s a copyright issue.”

Vincent:

Oh no, that was me playing guitar.

Ann:

That’s you playing guitar?

Vincent:

Yeah, it’s the chord I was playing over and over again is called the A sus 4.

Ann:

Maybe what I’ll do is in the editing after we finish this… that’s what I’ll do…for people. At the end of this, instead of putting in the normal close-out for the podcast, I will put in Vincent’s three-minute meditation.
I didn’t realize that Vincent. That is wonderful!

Vincent:

So, you know, that was, it’s, it made me uncomfortable last time you suggested it was strongly, strong armory to do it, but I’ll gladly do it. Sure.

Ann:

Okay. All right. So that’s what you guys will hear in the, um, post-production part. So. Um, when Troy gets this in post-production, I’ll give him the, uh, audio version and that will be Vincent leading you through a three-minute meditation with him playing that.
That’s great. All right, so is there anything, um, we want to add for the audience in closing, Vincent?

Vincent:

Uh, just, just know that You know, one of the things that, uh, the attorney that I worked for that did the performance appraisal, give, give me that information. One of the things she told me was to compartmentalize what I was going through.

And in that, you know, I came to work one day, I had a sinus infection, my wife was, you know, sick with breast cancer, one of the Roller coaster rides that we were on, you know, she was having an MRI or cat scan. We were waiting for some tests or whatever, and I just didn’t want to work on the millionth summary judgment motion.
And I said to my supervising associate, I said, can I just please work on something else? Can I just do Bates stamping for the day? And the attorney said, well, Vincent, are you here to work? And that’s when he started to teach me about compartmentalizing. You have to have a compartment for personal life, a compartment for work, a compartment for grief in my current case, and a compartment for the Paralegal Bootcamp.
You have to have your continuing legal education.

You can’t mix it all in at once. And that’s where the mindfulness comes in too, is to have that mindfulness to be. In each compartment when the compartment presents itself, you know, it’s one thing to to take a phone call from my wife when she’s on hospice at work, but it’s another thing to be at work taking a call from my wife who’s on hospice at work.
You know, sometimes you have to blur the lines, I get it, but other times you have to do your work.

Ann:

Yeah, that’s a really good point. You know, one thing though I’d like to end with, because so before we hit record, you were telling me about a story that I think that people need to hear because I don’t, well, you heard me, I’m thinking, I’m washing dishes while I’m thinking about all the things I’ve got to do as soon as I finish washing dishes, like literally as soon as I dry my hands, I got to go to the desk.
And you, you were talking about how you can do things that, that are as simple as When you’re at work, when you go use the restroom, when you like go walk three stories instead of jumping on the elevator really quick, maybe walk three stories with that check request. Or when you go use the restroom, why don’t you talk about that for a minute?
And like all these little tiny moments of mindfulness that you could sneak in throughout the day, even when you’re super busy.

Vincent:

So, yeah. In my first firm I was at, you know, deadlines were, I wasn’t used to time management. And so like, I, there were deadlines all the time. There was always emotion.
There were always discovery deadlines. There was always some type of deadline. So I was constantly running around the office and at some points, I wasn’t being mindful. And I would literally go to open the door and then bump into the door because I was running so fast. Now, if I have a deadline or something like that, I take the time to stop and let the writing that I’ve just done breathe a little bit.
Print it out or, you know, sometimes I’ll be honest, I do still review things on the computer and that’s probably not the best thing to do, but I get up, get a glass of water, drink the water, feel the coldness of the water go down my throat and, you know, or it’s just as simple as like a good check-in for me.

I like this a lot. I’m glad, glad you mentioned it again. Is it just take a walk down there? We have an elevator and sometimes I’m guilty of taking the elevator up or down or whatever, but sometimes it’s really helpful just to have this, this space where only me and the stairs exist and just walking down the stairs with just me and a check request in my hand going, you know what, I survived this day and it’s, I’m not, it’s not just that I survived it, but I’m, I’m doing good.

And my employer sees it that way and I have these good things that come about this, this little walk down the stairs and I feel confident when I’m done and I hand in the check request and I walk up the stairs and I have felt the blood pumping in my legs and I get a little bit of, um, an adrenaline rush or whatever is going on at that time and I get back to my desk and then I finished.
Finished the assignment and I’m clear-headed and ready to find mistakes in the writing that I’ve just done, stuff like that.

Ann:

So, all right, Vincent. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. And like I said, you guys, what we’re going to do is, um, as we finish this out, we’re going to end with Vincent’s three-minute guided meditation.