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Which Encanto Character Are You? Law Firm Edition

If you have small children or have just not been living under a rock for the last month, you probably know the lyrics to “We Don’t Talk about Bruno” by heart. Both of my girls are under 10, so although we don’t talk about Bruno we definitely have been singing about him, constantly, on a loop, for weeks now. And we have had vigorous philosophical debates about which character we like best and which is the worst. As someone who came of age in the era of internet identity tests, I couldn’t help but wonder which Encanto character I am. As a law firm partner, the next imaginings on the topic turned to my colleagues and lawyer friends.

When you think about it, the struggle of the family Madrigal in the midst of crisis and change isn’t too far off from the situations of many law firms trying to navigate technology, wellness, diversity, succession planning, and pandemic issues and move into the future. If you aren’t so sure, read on and find out which Encanto character you and your law firm colleagues might be.

Mirabel

Do you work in a firm and just stare blankly at people when they tell you that “you just have to find your niche”? You might be Mirabel. Although you haven’t quite figured out your superpower just yet, you are curious, collegial, and brave. If you have the support of compassionate firm mentors and enough freedom to explore, you might become a great leader because of your ability to see things that others ignore.

Abuela

Let’s be clear, the senior partners run the show. But, just like Abuela, they can become so fixated on stability that they block innovation and new leadership. At their worst, they may lead from fear and create toxic situations for others even when their intentions are good. Like Abuela, senior partners deserve respect for their ability to build stability in the midst of change over time but if that respect overawes all other voices the firm can’t evolve and it may alienate and stifle talented attorneys.

Luisa

In the firm setting, Luisa can come in many forms. They can be the big rainmaker who brings in the lion’s share of the firm business but feels burdened by the job. They might be the person who is effective at managing firm housekeeping and either volunteers or is voluntold for all the committees. It can even be that support staff member who goes out of their way to take care of others but gets taken advantage of when all the filing deadlines fall on the same day. These people struggle to ask for help and make a point of making things look easy. They are wonderful and critical elements of the team, but good firm leaders know to be proactive to check in on their status regularly to ensure that they don’t feel like a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus.

Isabela

The Isabela of the law firm is the person who shows exceptional talent and value in one area but struggles to expand their role. They may be an excellent writer or have a specific knowledge of technical issues that nobody else understands. Because these attorneys have found and excelled in their niche, they may usually appear like things are as sweet as rows and rows of roses. Growth, however, doesn’t just mean continued productivity and solid billable hours. It can also mean learning, trying new things, and surprising oneself with new skills. Safe firm cultures and open communication are essential to help these skilled attorneys avoid becoming pigeonholed so they have someone besides a recruiter to ask “what else can I do?”

Camilo

Camilo is the foil of Isabela. This is the attorney who literally believes he or she can do any matter that comes up. These lawyers are often plucky, scrappy, and unsinkable and law firms can often use that energy to their advantage. On the other hand, figuring out the true selling points and marketing an attorney with a practice like this can be as confusing as trying to find the real Camilo in any scene in Encanto.

Julieta

The COVID-19 pandemic may have put a temporary freeze on the person who brings cookies (or arepas) into the office to feed everyone, but the odds are that your firm nevertheless has a Julieta. For attorneys, this is the person whose office everyone runs to for advice or just to be heard. This could be a support staff member or administrator who goes the extra mile to not just do the work but also bring calm and kindness to everything they do. These people are mild, steady, and gracious. They may not always advocate for themselves but, because they are essential to the sanity of the entire organization, firm leaders should acknowledge and reward their efforts.

Pepa

All law firms like to say that they are collegial. I’ve heard most firms say how kind and decent everyone is. But I have never heard a firm claim that there are no drama queens around. It happens in every organization. The Pepa of your firm can bring the sunshine at a firm happy hour or party and may be quick to share a joke or story. They may also be the first to get lost in a storm of emotion when the network goes down at 4 PM and a brief is due. If this is you, surround yourself with steady, stable people and keep reading this blog so you can learn some strategies for managing stress.

Antonio

Unless you firm allows pets in the workplace, you may think there’s no place for Antonio in this quiz, but my obsession will not be deterred by anything so paltry as literal truth. In the firm setting, it doesn’t take too much imagination to see that Antonio’s skill of talking with animals can be analogized to the uncanny skill that some lawyers have in dealing with clients. Surely, clients are people just like us lawyers, but in most cases their brains were not warped by 3 years of law school so this can sometimes make communication with clients a struggle. The Antonio of your firm is the person who can speak the language of clients across industries and build deep and lasting relationships with them.

Dolores

The Dolores of the firm is the person who just seems to know what is going on even when the partners all believe incorrectly it’s a secret. They may or may not tell everyone about what they know. If you are friends with Dolores, try to listen more than you talk and you may learn some interesting things.

Bruno

Yes, at last, we are going to talk about Bruno. I truly hope that you don’t have any lawyers driven mad by their visions of the future living with rats in the walls of your firm. So, what is the Bruno of your law firm? Well, Bruno is whatever issue your firm doesn’t want to talk about. Maybe it’s compensation. Maybe it’s succession planning. Or diversity. Or low morale. All firms have a Bruno but it’s the ones that eventually learn to talk about it that will be able to stabilize their casita to continue serving the community in the future.

So, which Encanto character are you? It’s a fun question to ask, and many of us may exhibit elements of more than one character. But, for law firm leaders, the lessons in Encanto about crisis and organizational change may be more than just family fun. Just like casita, law firms are also full of stars who want to shine, but their leaders must recognize and account for the fact that constellations shift to keep the magic going.

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, for a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.

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Knight School: What New Lawyers Can Learn from The Green Knight

Image of film clapboard with knight superimposed over it and words "Movie Review: The Green Knight"

Author’s Note: Spoiler alert. There is some detail in this post about what happens in the movie and how it ends. The symbolism in The Green Knight is heavy and I personally benefited from some excellent analysis about the movie that I read online. In addition, though the movie is new, the story is not. If you aren’t familiar with the poem and prefer to be surprised, watch the movie first and then come back later to read.

When I left the theater after watching The Green Knight, I wasn’t sure what to think. I was mostly confused, a little surprised that the theater wasn’t totally empty. In fact, I wondered out loud to my husband why the critic reviews had been so good. It wasn’t really that the movie was bad, but it was slow.

Though the movie was about knights, there was hardly anything knightly about it. There was only one sword fight, and I knew going in how that would end. Even while watching the movie, I wasn’t rapt with suspense, though curiosity glued my eyes to the screen as I tried to unpack the symbolism in each scene.

Searching for Meaning in the Green Knight

The curiosity, it turns out, didn’t stop when I waked out of the theater. Most of the time with movies, you have an experience, perhaps a catharsis. You know the message. You feel the emotion. You may reflect or talk for a few minutes about what the movie meant, but then you quickly move on. But I couldn’t with The Green Knight.

I kept thinking about it for days after I watched it. What did the movie mean? What was the point? Having studied mindfulness enough to know some Buddhist philosophy and being familiar with Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, I knew the basic gist of the story: we humans aren’t in control of many things in life but it is the acceptance of our lack of control that gives us the capacity for greatness.

Image with quote that says "We humans aren't in control of many things in life. It is the acceptance of our lack of control that gives us the capacity for greatness."

That part was clear with the Green Knight’s threat to take off Gawain’s head and Gawain’s obsessive clinging to the magical green girdle he thought would protect him. It was only when Gawain finally set the girdle aside, and leaned forward to accept his beheading, that the Green Knight pronounced him a “good knight.” The movie doesn’t tell us what happens next, but, if you are familiar with the poem, you may know that Gawain does not get beheaded after all.

A Movie This Lawyer Couldn’t Stop Thinking About

So why was this movie stuck in my brain? Because it didn’t just give us the needed reminder that we aren’t in control of things in life, it also showed how the stories we create and try to live up to as we go about our lives are part of the illusion of control that we must escape.

From the outset of Gawain’s journey to face the Green Knight, he fails to live up to the standards for knights from the epic poems. Gawain appears to agree to fight the Green Knight at first, not out of courage or conviction, but instead because Arthur primed him in the minutes before the Green Knight’s appearance to believe he ought to start becoming somebody important.

When he leaves the castle walls on his quest, Gawain is quickly bested by 3 nihilistic teens and robbed of his horse, armor, and the green girdle his mother made to protect him. He’s left hogtied in a forest, presumably to die but narrowly and awkwardly escapes death.

A Knight’s Tale about Struggle and Failure

Gawain then wanders lost through the woods and stumbles upon the ghost of St. Winifred, a woman beheaded for her chastity, who must shame him into helping her secure her disembodied head. And he utterly fails in the house of a lord he encounters before facing the Green Knight.

He is totally outsmarted, outclassed, and beguiled by the lady of the house and accepts in rather humiliating circumstances the gift of his magically restored protective green girdle from her. She brands him “no true knight” for this encounter because Gawain cannot let go of the lust for protection and control.

As Gawain runs from the house, telling himself he’s heading to face the Green Knight and not merely running away from his shame, Gawain fails again. He meets the lord of the house in the woods and reneges on his promise to give everything he received at the house back to the lord before he departs. Though he offers a farewell kiss, Gawain leaves without mentioning the green girdle the lady had given him.

Image with quote that says "The stories we create and try to live up to as we go about our lives are part of the illusion of control that we must escape."

Why Lawyers May Love the Green Knight

So why do I love this? I love this because Gawain is us. Though played masterfully by Dev Patel, the character Gawain doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. He goes out into the world, like us, with no instructional manual. He’s forced to try to make something out of himself, perhaps due to pressure from his family or the idea that he’s got big shoes to fill.

At first, he falls flat on his face. He gets taken advantage of by bad people and suffers dearly. But from that he learns something really important: what it’s like to suffer. And he uses that knowledge for good when, after a little prompting from her, he helps Winfred even though she has nothing to give him.

But then, just like us silly humans, Gawain fails again. He goes back to a house that looks enough like his home in Camelot and he forgets what he just learned. He falls prey again to the idea that he can find a lasting security and he clings again to his green girdle and hides it from the lord.

Just Like Lawyers, Gawain Learns Through Mistakes

But even this big dope of a guy—even Gawain who keeps messing up—learns. By the end of his relatively uninspiring journey, he learns the truth he needs to understand to do anything great at all: that security and safety (at least the lasting kind) are myths.

Before he faces the Green Knight, Gawain is shaking with fear and has a vision of himself running away and returning to Camelot. In this vision, Gawain’s unearned legend for bravery precedes him and leads him to rise in favor and ultimately become king. The vision though foretells the personal costs he must suffer and the harm he must do to others to take that path.

More significantly, the death of his loved ones and the depicted fall of his empire tell us that none of this so-called greatness will last anyway. It is this vision, stark as it is, that knocks sense into Gawain and forces him to set the green girdle aside and lean in as the Green Knight prepares to take his head.

Image with quote that says "Living a good life means accepting the realities of life, including your own humanity and being willing to face the things that scare you."

The Green Knight Is a Hero’s Story for Ordinary Humans

In other words, Gawain is not a perfect knight or a terrible knight. He’s a deeply human knight. When he tried to look like a perfect knight, he failed to live his values and suffered for it.

When he, instead, faced life as it was, unmitigated by any appeals to magical thinking, he became the true knight and even his past failings couldn’t tarnish that. I love this movie because it depicts the silliness we humans fall prey to, but also how we learn and progress. It shows how easily we fall into old stories and mental images of what we think we ought to be.

It also shows how those stories can keep us from helping each other and being ourselves and how they can even make us feel justified to cause others pain. Indeed, unlike many films depicting Arthurian legends, this one examines some of the old stories and legends even as it retells one.

It contrasts the tale of St. Winifred, a woman brutalized and robbed totally of her agency, with the often violent heroism for which men of the time were praised. Likewise, Gawain’s final vision examines the merits of the knightly legends as well as the value of titles and power, which not only fade but may also lead to the perpetration of violence against others, including loved ones.

The Lessons the Movie Offers to Lawyers

So, why on earth do I offer this review in a blog about mindfulness for lawyers? Well, for one thing, the Arthurian legends are some of the best-known examples of the hero’s journey in the West and those tales still have a lot to offer us in terms of illustrating the paths of mindfulness and compassion.

More significantly, though, I’ve been a new lawyer. I know what it’s like to go out into the world, thinking you have a part to play and battles to fight to make your name. I have experienced the pain of not fitting the stories in my mind about the lawyer I thought I was supposed to be, but that was soon followed by the benefits of learning to be myself.

When I stopped emulating the myth of the lawyer persona in my mind, I started practicing law my way and I served my clients better, found much more happiness, and, even in the midst of stress and fear, had some fun.

Image with quote that says "reminder: life has no instructional manual."

The Movie’s Insights for Young Lawyers

I think the creators of The Green Knight made a tactical decision to make Gawain much younger and less established than the well-sung hero of the ancient poem. They made him young because I think the filmmakers were talking to the young. They were telling the young that, like Gawain observed, our leaders are aging, our stories from the past need to be examined, but we have no choice but to go and try and fail.

If we do this with open hearts, a willingness to face our own shame and accept what we cannot control, we may just become good knights and do some good in the world. It’s a hard world to be living in and a difficult time to be practicing law, but The Green Knight tells us that you don’t have to be perfect or fit the mold to be a “good knight.”

Instead, you only have to accept the realities of life, including your own humanity, and be willing to face the things that scare you. This is a lesson any young knight, human, or lawyer could certainly use. Thus, just like life, The Green Knight may confound, confuse, and mystify you, but if you can sit back and let the lessons it is offering come to you, you may come to see how good it really is.

Joy Is Remembering Heaven Is a Place on Earth

I got to my mother’s house late to pick up my daughters. I was exhausted and had just finished a too long evening meeting. I had an early meeting the next day and felt overburdened by life. As always, it took too long and too much frustration for my daughters, one 8 and one 4, to get on their shoes, gather up their belongings, and trundle out to the car. After I buckled them in and sat in the drivers’ seat, I started to pull out of the driveway in a rush to get home and into pajamas as quickly as possible.

Before I got to the end of the drive, the four-year-old chirps “Mommy, can we listen to ‘Heaven Is a Place on Earth’?” Sometimes, I admit, I brush her off and tell her “Not now, baby; it’s only a short ride.” But that night, I needed her to ask me this question. I needed the reminder that life is what we make it and what we see in it. So instead, I stopped, looked back to smile at her, and said “Good idea, Ellie. Yes we can!”

I don’t remember exactly how this song came to be a special one for us. Most likely the genesis is some 80’s playlist on Amazon Music, but I can see why the girls loved it even though it came out when I was Elinor’s age. It’s catchy, easy to sing, and has this uncanny sound – like a new beginning and happy ending all in one. I started playing it and as I sang “when the night falls down, I wait for you and you come around” I was already in a better mood than when I had pulled into the driveway.

As I started to drive towards home, the song blared on reminding me that I’m still “just beginning to understand the miracle of living.” The girls were singing and smiling in the backseat and I found myself smiling too. At a light, my little one yelled “mommy!” at me to get me to hold her hand and bounce it as we sang “I reach for you and you bring me home.” And suddenly I wasn’t just an overburdened, overwhelmed lawyer mom anymore. Instead, for a moment, I was a little girl sitting in the back of my mom’s minivan singing that song with my sister as it played on the radio.

There are lots of warnings for us parents to be “present” for our children. When you live as a lawyer, that can be hard to do. Our cases can fill up our calendars as well as our minds. They can leave little room for things like fun and memories and random adventures that lead to joy and connection. So that’s why we need other people to call us back to real life every now and then, even if sometimes we have to make ourselves listen. When we give them the chance, they remind us that there is no need to constantly worry and plan because the past and future are in each moment if we only choose to see it.

This memory was only a small moment, and many would argue an insignificant one. After all, I am telling you a story about a time when I played an old (and some might say silly) song in the car with my kids. But you know what? I don’t necessarily just remember the big, momentous occasions with my parents. I remember the small ones. I remember riding around to soccer practice and piano lessons in my mom’s minivan. I remember listening to the news on public radio in my dad’s Ford. I remember making up silly games with my sister in the backseat. For this reason, I know a truth that is easy to overlook: joy doesn’t require hours to emerge and it doesn’t require life-changing events. Instead, joy can be made in moments, and it is those moments that actually change our lives.

The key to living a joyful life is to be open to these moments so we can appreciate as many of them as possible. Of course, we won’t catch every one. Of course, there will be times when we will be too tired, or too distracted or too busy. But this only makes the moments we appreciate, fully take in, and share with others more precious. This memory with my daughters was one of those times. In a few moments, it transformed an exhausting and frustrating day into a good memory. It turned a silly song into a meeting place for my four-year-old self and the four-year-old now riding in the backseat of my car. That night when I went to pick up my girls, I was lost at sea, but I heard that four-year-old’s voice and it carried me. It reminded me that joy, fleeting as it may be, is powerful. It can forge a connection in moments that lasts well after the emotion that sparked it has passed. Indeed, when we let ourselves remember it, heaven is a place on earth.

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