I can’t be who I can’t see.

I hear this from Black lawyers all the time, and it makes complete sense. When you look up the ladder and there’s no one who looks like you, no one you can relate to, it’s hard to picture yourself there.

But the belief that you need someone like you to go ahead of you is the exact thing that’s costing you.

It makes you think you don’t want it. Doubt that you could get it. And even if you could get it, question whether you’d succeed at it.

Thoughts like these are shaping the decisions you are making at work every single day: the opportunity you don’t put your name forward for, the promotion you shy away from, the firm you leave before you’ve given it a real chance.

This isn’t a question of ability. It’s a lack of belief: the sense that something only becomes possible for you once someone else has done it first.

You’re not alone in thinking this. It’s an entirely understandable response to being the only one.

In this episode of the Legal Imposters podcast, I give you a different response. A different way of approaching being the only one in the room that will demolish this role models barrier once and for all: Being the first.

This isn’t about being first past the post. It’s being the one who goes first.

In this episode, I teach you exactly how to do it in 3 steps

The result? You stop needing the role model who looks like you.

Because the role model IS you.

Listen now.

P.S. If you’re doubting whether this will work or wondering “but am I really capable of that?”, this is exactly the work we do inside Be The First. Enrolment opens on 27 October. If you’re a Black lawyer feeling frustrated by the lack of role models, Be The First is for you. Join the waitlist now so you’re first to hear when doors open. Click here to join.