Harvard to Haiti to Healing: Rebuilding a Life Aligned with Calling with Sarah Carlson

Harvard to Haiti to Healing: Rebuilding a Life Aligned with Calling with Sarah Carlson

About Sarah Carlson

In this episode, Sarah D. Carlson, JD shares her journey from Harvard Law and corporate success to living in a tent in Haiti—and eventually rebuilding her life after burnout, trauma, and loss. She reflects on how pain, depression, and disconnection are often treated as personal failures, when they may actually be invitations toward deeper alignment and healing. Drawing from faith, lived experience, and years of teaching and coaching, Sarah offers hope for anyone who feels stuck or lost. This conversation is for those who sense there must be more—and are learning to listen.

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Introduction

Good, beautiful day, beautiful, beautiful souls! This is Charla Anderson, host of the Charla Anderson Show~Collector & Connector of Fascinating People (& EVERYONE is Fascinating!), especially you.

So today, Harvard Law School graduate and former Wall Street lawyer Sarah Carlson walked away from it all and moved to Haiti, where she helped build water systems in schools and lived in a tent. So her journey has included surviving an Abusive Marriage, Financial Devastation, and Deep Trauma Healing. We’re going to have such a rich conversation today. I cannot wait to introduce you to my new friend, Sarah Carlson. 

…BUT FIRST…

Let’s get that 22-second mini vacation in here. We’re going to have a breathing exercise. Breathe in some calm for seven seconds. Hold for four and then breathe out. 11 seconds gratitude here we go join me for some calm hold relax release thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you let’s try that multiple times a day it’s a good exercise for us all.

So I’m so excited to have Sarah. 

You know, we met through Brenda. A lot of my guests come from the Prosper membership, Prosper Brenda Byers and the Prosper Leaders membership.

A lot of different things from Brenda Byers. And we’ve been really just discussing the great value that she is as a coach and a mentor. So I’m so excited to have met you through there, Sarah. And being an attorney, a Harvard Law School attorney, I’m like, whoo! So good. And then you completely walked away from that. So I’m really so stoked to find out your story. So tell us who you are in this world. You know, you came up in one way and you pivoted in a major way. So tell us about all that.

Well, thanks so much for having me, Charla. This is just such a gift. It was an honor to meet you through our group and I’m really glad to be here. Yeah, so… Well, at first it’s so funny because of all the things I’m proudest of, it’s not like Harvard or anything like that. It’s really the work I’ve done to like be centered as a human and be a mom and come back to that with gratitude. Like that will sustain me in my life, like not having done other things or those achievements. And I thought for a long time I needed to prove my value through my work, which led me to Harvard and other places. And so I just want to like state that out front, like, I mean, yeah, the degrees they’re selling don’t mean that much coming as someone who purchased one. 

So yeah, I went to Harvard Law School. I transferred there and went to Wall Street to get the best job because I thought that from the best job, you could do anything. The problem is nobody tells you how or what you can do after that when there’s no time, space, or energy to be anything but a lawyer. And actually, I ended up leaving the law because I met a man, shocker, who just shared my values. Like it was like, we saw each other through the madness, and he was like, What are you doing here? I’m like, what are you doing here? And, actually about six months after starting dating, he asked me in a taxi cab. He’s like, I love you completely. And I want to move to Haiti. That was literally how it happened. And ironically, most people would need to be convinced about that, but it felt like more like me than anything I had done for like a decade. So we left two months later. We were married. 

We found a place to volunteer. We bought a really nice tent and started building schools and water filters after the earthquake in Laogan, Haiti. It’s so great. Someday I really want to write the book like from Harvard to Haiti to healing as the tagline. And like I think from Harvard to Haiti is like super fascinating and it was a wild ride. But like the real journey is truly like coming back and figuring out who I’m going to be after that. Um, and I learned a couple of things from that. It’s like one, like, how do you really help anyone? Um, because I think I was well-intentioned and I’m glad I did it. Uh, but it’s very, very difficult to help in, well, there’s a great book called toxic charity and, uh, it’s very difficult to help anyone in earnest if it doesn’t make any like business sense or like you’re not working with them, not for them. 

Actually, this little diagram. So this is a good example, they say Ikigai is your reason for being. And the Japanese say you find your reason for being at the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs and what you can make money doing. And this is definitely like the most complete articulation I’ve ever seen. Like if you’re, if you have two of those and not the other two, it’s a real problem. And so what I learned as a lawyer is I was good at it and I made good money, which is half the battle. And then I moved to Haiti and I loved just working with people on the daily. And, you know, I thought the world needed it, but I made $0 and I’m not designed to be a carpenter. So I really just like left from one side of this beautiful design to the other, rather than sort of finding the whole shebang bang. So-

Well, you know, and it’s what caught me in some of your messaging. I saw that you went, you took a values test, right? You finally went through and took a values test, and none of them matched your credentials. None of them matched what you were attempting to do on Wall Street and in this high powered world. And you’re such a delightful, beautiful dynamo of a lady that chose a path that most of us could never even consider this going through this. You want to talk about that? What caused you to think that I mean, what was in your growing up that drove you to achieve, achieve, achieve outside of any core beliefs you had?

Yeah. I mean, it’s a great question. Truly a great question. I think I didn’t feel like I had any value at home. My mom was married about five times and we had several difficult stepfathers and, my dad and step-mom, like my step-mom really wanted to focus on her kids. So I felt like a burden. And also I think felt like using my voice was like a danger, uh, And it was, it was not, it was not a good idea. And so the one place I felt like I was safe, and I could prove it, like, look, there’s a metric. I get straight A’s. It’s not even that hard for me. Like that was like one thing I could hold on to. I’m really good at school. And so that was a metric that I held on to. And so I really thought I could sort of like out-achieve like the heart, the hurt. 

And I think a lot of people do that honestly, or their parents are pushing them to do it and tell them that’s their value. So like I got into law school and I was like, gosh, I wanted to help people when I went to law school. And I knew I was smart and good at words and I didn’t want to be a doctor. I mean, that was really where I was at. Actually, I wanted to be an actress. I got into some musical theater programs, but it felt so scary and uncertain. And I really wanted something I could like know I could excel and achieve in. And so I did. And ultimately in law school, I did a bunch of gender and like power and like poverty work and did an internship working with women victims of domestic violence, which I thought was gonna be my work path. And I hated every minute of it. 

I hated every minute of it because the problems were so big. What we could offer was so small. It was rarely successful because the system was designed so poorly for folks. And I mean, it was like this emotional burden that I just could not carry. Like you couldn’t achieve, you could not accomplish for them. Like it was like being a therapist with like legal tools that were like, we’re probably not going to work. And so once I realized I couldn’t do that, I was like, okay, I don’t know what to do with myself. So I’ll just do what everybody else is doing. And so, and I talk a lot about this in my book and the system is designed, like once you get into those spaces, like a top graduate school is like, it’s like an escalator to the employers that are the most visible, the most high-paying, the most difficult to get into. And so I was like, well, I’ll do that. And I can do anything from there. Um, so I started working with a judge first. I got a judicial clerkship, which is even more difficult to get than a Wall Street job. 

Cause there’s so few judges. Then I got that job on Wall Street almost by accident, but I did. And, because I could do it. I thought I should do it. And so I did. Ironically, like you said, I took that values in action. I’m not sure they call it that anymore. VIA, strengths, character strengths. And it told me that my top five values are love, spirituality, gratitude, curiosity, and forgiveness. And so, yeah, I mean, I have a little slide that’s like, that does not equal Wall Street, like period. And so I was just, you don’t know what to do with that, which is why I do what I do now. I help people align their life and their work with their values and what they actually want in their life on purpose and like oriented with all that in mind, especially lady lawyers and lady lawyers of faith. But yeah, I really think I was just trying to prove something that we’re never really, it’s already innate and you have to really start to believe that, which takes time and energy and healing to realize like, 

The challenges I had as a child or the messages that I internalized about being a burden or a problem or an extra weight to a family, they weren’t real. Those were other people’s. That’s other people’s stuff. And so picking up what’s mine and who I am and taking action on that was sort of the goal. But I think that’s what brought me there. And I liked… Again, I liked that I could excel there. And I did. I mean, they told me they’re like, you’re an attractive woman. You can, you can do the work and you can talk to people. They’re like, you’ll make partner because there’s just so few of those out there. We’ll start at 3 million a year. Once you buy in. And I was just like, no offense, but you don’t seem any happier than I am. Like, I mean, it was like, it’s a very, I don’t know any happy big firm lawyers. Like I don’t know any. 

So yeah. When I met that man and he shared my values, he became my husband. It was just like an escape. It was like an escape hatch. And it’s funny because my stepmother, she did say, she’s like, this sounds more like you than anything you’ve done in a decade. And it was. I’m more designed to be a carpenter in Haiti than I am to be a lawyer on Wall Street. Although, again, that’s not everything in the big picture. But yeah.

So I will just say, you know, most people will listen to this on podcast. So she’s got a poster behind her with the icky guy diagram.

And you can, you know,

So just so people are clear that you’re sometimes you’re referring to that diagram, which is amazing. And it’s beautiful. So. You now, I think that you had to come out and find, you know, that was an extreme. You went from one extreme to the next. You’re in Haiti building houses and schools or whatever. And you’re in, you know, from Wall Street to Haiti, Harvard to Haiti to healing is brilliant. That makes sense. But, in a practical manner, there’s a lot that goes through that. You lost, you said you lost everything. You had financial devastation and you got, was it the divorce from that husband? It was. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So when we returned, First of all, you’re right, it was extreme. Just to be in an environment where everyone is suffering so much. They do it with such dignity and were so generous to us. I mean, there’s so much to tell there. But I even watched a young man die, a 20-year-old who had come to volunteer from California. I mean, it was very extreme. And so when I came back to the United States with my husband, we were broke, we were traumatized. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. We lived with our in-laws in Johnson City, Tennessee. I was over 30 years old. It’s so funny. 

People come to me and they feel really lost and they’re like 25. I was like, you know more about yourself at 25 than I knew about myself at 32. Like, you know, trust me. So I did then what I teach people to do now, which is I tried to make space for like, what would I do if I could do anything? Like I recognized I had potential. Like if I could do that, what would happen if I actually use the gifts like God has given me, even if I don’t know exactly what those are. Like, I just thought, all right. And I read the book, Finding Your North Star by Martha Beck and attempted to like name. And I thought if I could do anything, I’d be like Oprah. Like I’d bring really powerful ideas to people in new ways. I’d influence people. I have a face in the world, which is like terrifying to me because I wasn’t supposed to have a voice growing up. And that seemed unrealistic because not only were we broke and et cetera, I don’t know anything about that. And I had the worst haircut of my life. 

We’re depressed. Like, you know, it wasn’t the thing, but clarifying like your vision for your future and like naming it and letting it live somewhere is really important. And then I just started naming, okay, what do I want and need out of my next step? And all I could name is like five things. I needed 50,000 a year to survive. I did not want to be a lawyer. I wanted to help people in a positive way. Lawyering, even if you’re helping people, your entire existence is usually based in negativity and conflict. And I just could not do that. And I wanted to be in Atlanta. And so that was all I knew. It was that simple. And I got a job working with law students as a career advisor in Atlanta Emory University and at the law school. That was, I mean, a thousand percent better than being a lawyer. I got to work with people. I got to use my dominant hand. I got to use what I had learned. I got to encourage them. I realized that system was really broken. Like they’re there to go and be successful in the world, hopefully in line with their own values. And like nobody equips them to do that. Like we sell them a degree and then they’re like on go leverage it. Good luck. Especially if you don’t want to be a lawyer or you’re not sure like that’s really aligned with who you are. 

So I got very annoying to administration and said, we have to train them. You have to build this into the academic experience. And so I built a course and annoyed the administration until they let me teach it about essentially what is now self-advocacy. So what we do for lawyers, how do you do that for yourself with integrity in the world? And ironically, they are very bad at it because no one teaches you. It teaches more about advocating for others and silencing yourself than it does claiming your own integrity and walking in the world with that. So I created that coursework. They let me teach it. Then they hired me to make it mandatory for everybody. And then I went off on my own. And during all of this, I wanted a career coach and be that for lots of people, not just law students. Actually, I really avoided lawyers and law students because they’re not really my people, like in the sense of, they are because a lot of people go there in misalignment and those are my people. 

But it took me, I just wanted to get away. So during all that time, my husband was building a business who, and he never had any success in it. Like he made $0 over five years and I paid for everything. And he had been in the military and a machine gunner in Iraq prior to going to law school and never gotten any help. We saw that person die. And then he had this unsuccessful business and all he wanted to do was provide. And so it just got more and more crazy and abusive as he like spiraled. Entrepreneurs, you look it up. We know we’re entrepreneurs. It can be very easy to spiral, but it got very, very abusive. Yeah. yeah, I, so as all that’s going on, I didn’t, I hadn’t left yet. I was still at Emory, like paying the bills for us. And, um, yeah, when I was 35, about that time, my dad had just died and my mom had cancer. We had bad credit and like very little money. And yeah, I realized I needed to leave. 

So I left, I bought an old minivan that I called Van Morrison and to make myself feel better and decided I needed to figure out who I was again and how to live into that and not make that mistake again. And so I went on for the next seven years on a healing journey, as they call them, attempting to live into my values more and, and, Finally looking at the wounds that caused me to marry a man like that in the first place and address sort of like the things that brought me to Harvard and all the other things in the first place.

Well, also that’s a, that has to be a journey. I mean, that is a lot. You just, you just, you know, you just said a lot, right? So yeah. And your, your, the name of your book is you speak the name of your book. Cause I don’t think we’ve said that yet.

Well, my current book is the five principles of effective self-advocacy. So this is essentially what I’ve been teaching for over a decade, your guide to claiming your power and purpose. And in essence, it looks at self-awareness, which we started at. What are you good at? What do you like? What are your values? Like you have to start there, which is what I was missing.

Is it the higher intellectual? I mean, is the lawyer-brained people that are going to read that book?

No, it’s for anybody. It’s very, very basic and short. And short for readers, 140 pages. I really want to make it accessible.

Lawyer-brained people, right? Yeah. And I will just be clear on where you are right now. Your goal right now, because I think possibly through Brenda’s help, your goal right now is to… Your niche, the people you are driven to help right now are faith-driven believers, lawyers, right?

The people that have… that it’s hard to have an alignment. We all know the lawyer jokes, right? Most of them are true. So having the alignment to speak your faith, I’m so grateful for the time we’re living in now that so many people are able to combine their business and their faith because it was so divisive for so long, right? So you’re focusing on lawyer liberation and helping faith-driven lawyers overcome the burnout and step into their God-given callings with clarity and confidence and integrity. So that’s a mouthful too, right? But you, as much as you seem to avoid that, right?

I pushed against it for a long time. I had a mentor tell me I should be the lawyer liberator like 10 years ago. And I was like, I just started crying. I was like, I just don’t want to. And, and honestly, during sort of that seven year healing period, one, all of it is the same work. Like I have just focused on this niche, like it’s all the same skills. It is all the same work, but I’ve decided to like go back to where I started and like speak to those people that I think there’s no one I could understand better than like them and no one I could help more. Cause there’s so many messages. 

Like as a woman received so many messages about humility and submission and service and blah, blah, blah, let alone as a lawyer. And then you add on Christianity. Like, I mean, it’s, that’s a lot of layers of serious expectation. And then you add in the all encompassing like environment that you’re in, like they really need it. So

it’s adversarial. I mean, it’s, you know, and you know, it does have a, you know, God says love, you know, and your, your core value is love. Mine is to, you know, love each other. And I’m always looking for the win-win in situations. And so that’s not typically, um, No, it’s very difficult.

There are ways to practice, I think, and there are practices. Not everybody is in corporate litigation or, you know, et cetera, but yeah. And helping people sort through that. Sometimes they’re not ready to make a giant leap. They want to make an adjacent jump and that’s perfectly fine. The goal again, like is to claim your biggest vision, like the direction you want to be heading and then take a small step in that direction because, you know, your career is not like, that big picture vision, it’s every step you take on the way. And it’s a lot more joyful when you know you’re moving in a direction that you chose. Um, and yeah, I mean, I couldn’t pick anybody where it’s more difficult to be aligned with your values if you have faith. 

And I also wanted to say that during all of my healing journey, I, um, I wouldn’t say I left the faith, but I wandered. I practiced Unitarian Universalism, Buddhism, Bhakti Yoga, all sorts of other faith traditions. And I did every healing modality known to man. You name it, I have done it. And I did it with a straight-A student attitude. Like I’m healing, I’m doing this, I’m doing it right. I’m journaling, I’m affirming. And that actually took me to trauma treatment at 40. So where I just needed to like get help and stopped trying to do it all by myself as a straight-A student, which I’m probably prouder of that than going to Harvard, honestly, because it’s harder. And that was where I had to realize I’m sitting there under a tree or in treatment just telling the truth and looking at things I’ve been trying to avoid my whole life, because I wanted to spiritually bypass. I never blame my parents. I understand. I sort of always understood they’re just people, and they were dealing with their own stuff. 

Like I’ve always understood that, but I also still had to recognize the serious impact it had on my life and how that impacted and how it made me who I was. So while there, while I was, I was there three months, I just kept asking, like, do I have any value if I’m not contributing anywhere? I even told my therapist, I’m like, I can help these folks. I had to live in like a sober living house because they require that. So I’m in a house with like 15 people, like in extraordinary pain and I’m an empath. So it was, I mean, it was heavy. And I’m like, and very few of them had a job. Like I was still holding down the job. I was still paying for everything. Like I wasn’t working at the time. I just mean, I took leave. 

And I was like, I can help these folks. And my therapist is like, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You’re in trauma treatment. And so I really had to learn to digest and believe I have value anyway, as I believe everyone else does. Like it’s very easy to give that to other people and harder to like trust it for yourself. And I think that really shifted everything for me and that I don’t have to, if I don’t have to prove anything through this, I don’t have to prove anything. Like I have value. It’s innate. Then what would it look like if I just like offered the truth of what I know and who I am to the people that need it, which I think has brought me back to that also brought me back to Christ and so much of the religious trauma you and I were discussing earlier, like took me away from like Jesus and like so many of the ways that messages perverted and made damaging, like none of that negates who like Jesus is as a teacher and a father and our Lord, you know? 

And so even recentering that has like changed the game for me. And so many of the other traditions I was following, there’s so much wisdom and beauty but so much of that is about seeking. Like it’s always seeking. You are seeking, you are seeking, you are seeking. But like in Jesus, like I’m found, I’m already found.

You’re perfect exactly who and where you are. I don’t care if you’re in the gutter or if you’re in Haiti or if you’re in, you know, a castle. It doesn’t matter. God loves you no matter what. If God is love, he can’t be not love. And so most of our lives, most of religion has kept us out of that. Just love, just love, love, love. And if you can take a breath, you’ve been provided for. So if you can just stand in receiving the love that you are perfect, exactly who and where you are right now, nothing you can do to be loved more or less by God. And so I think some of that is, I mean, that’s my message all the time, right? Unconditional love, unconditional forgiveness, not unconditional boundaries, right? And

I teach a lot about that, or I talk a lot about that and how difficult that is to integrate into your life. But humility is not self-erasure. It’s an accurate assessment of your own gifts. And I actually believe we have a moral imperative to like claim the full value of those and use those in the world. And that doesn’t mean it has to be some big, giant mission. It can be your garden. It’s irrelevant. But I think humility, especially in the Christian tradition, has been hijacked. Misaligned. Yeah, totally. Very misaligned. Yeah. I mean, and even in the Bible, it says… it’s a sober judgment of oneself, not thinking more or less. And if you put that in the scope of like the two greatest commandments, love your neighbor as your love, God, that’s the only authority figure and love your neighbor as yourself. 

Jesus presumes a healthy self regard. If we treated other people, like we treat ourselves, like we’d be like, you’re, you’re fat and you can’t do it. And like you failed before. So, you know, sort of placing yourself, realigning humility with what scripture actually says and like realizing the world’s made better when we can one integrate everything you just said. And it’s, I don’t know why it’s so hard for us to, I think partly because my parents failed to do that. They failed to love me. Like if you don’t have a living example of that, I think that makes it harder to trust that there that exists. And so that took me, I was about 42 when I really was able to, take a deep breath and realize I didn’t need to prove anything. 

And that it’s okay just to be who I am and tell the truth about that while claiming, I mean, I know, I know some great stuff. I think it’s really valuable for the world and whether I have all the dreams come true or not, I’m going to walk in that direction with God by my side. And, and, and it’s so much more joyful that way.

Yeah. When we can just be, just relax, just be, just, lay it at his feet and just be you know be that be love be the light i let people when i leave my house it’s like let me be the light let people i’m always attracting new friends from the grocery store whatever you know i’m always getting new people to because i choose to just you know i want the light to shine.

I feel loved and if, and the harder people are to love the more they need it, that’s another piece of it. So I

just want to point out like how aligned and beautiful, like what you do is to like, obviously that’s not everyone is it. It’s not easy for everyone to like be a light and like love people that are difficult to love and to like love people at the grocery store. I’m one of those I’m with you. That’s easy for me. It’s a delight. And so you literally like brought that to people’s homes and they’re, cell phones like through the podcast and all the work that you do it’s just such a beautiful example of everything i’m trying to talk about um so i just i think it’s wonderful

Well thanks so much i wanted to um this is this is a little bit different direction right now because something i don’t know if something you said i think something i read And I thought it was brilliant that I thought somewhere I saw that you said the systems are not broken. They’re doing exactly what they’re designed to do. Now, I’ve been saying for years that there is an agenda. There’s a system out there that has agendas for us to not know who we are, to not live our best lives, you know, the systems. And I’m, I thought that was, I’ve always said the systems are broken. Everything is broken, but no, they’re doing exactly what they’re designed to do, which is break us.

Exactly. Well, or just take you and use you as a cog and for however long you can do that. That’s yeah. That’s the first tagline of this book. And it’s so true because I spent 10 years in working in law school and a school of theology and a school of engineering at Emory and Duke universities. And so I’ve had 10 years watching from the backend, how we teach people, what we teach them, how we equip them to enter the real world and leverage, like I said, what they’re earning. And I mean, if it’s, yeah. And, and I see I don’t know who like runs the system or like how that gets created. I see how a lot of aligned, very powerful moneyed interests, like they need people to go work at Amazon and think it’s elite. And then we need people to fill those roles and we need to like create a little escalator to all those giant corporations who need, that’s the worst part is like some of these are our brightest people who are like, have like, at least in school, like I think we all have extraordinary talents that can be used in the world. 

But one, we like puffing them up, thinking they’re doing the greatest, while they’re just gonna be used in a place that makes no sense. And that’s really the center of self-advocacy is claiming who you are and making use of that in the world. contrary to maybe the ways you’ve been told you need to do that with the degree that you earned and sometimes and with like you know don’t you don’t need to abandon anything that’s also a big point when you make a transition I don’t like to think about a second career it’s your same career you’re just shifting it and you’re all the experience even if it isn’t like direct I guarantee you skills that you learned as a flight attendant you’re still using today Like, and experiences still inform the way you operate in the world. 

Like you cannot abandon that. You can leave the crappy parts and like not do that 40 hours a week anymore. And so it gives people permission to realize like you don’t have to abandon, like especially lawyers, it becomes your whole identity. There’s a post I made today as lawyer was never meant to be, it’s a part of your identity if that’s what you want, but just a part. And I think that’s sort of the cruelty of the system is it, labels you and sticks you in a role and tells you that’s who you are and what you are. And which makes it very difficult to envision any other way of, of being in the world.

It’s hard to be real. I mean, you could walk into an, an, an, an environment of a group of anybody and, uh, oh, they’re the law. He’s a lawyer. He’s, you know, that it’s like, it’s a doctor. I call it the white coat syndrome, but that’s another story.

Hundred percent. And that is, I had a whole rant last year. I was like, why are we listening to these? You know, that it was a marketing that it was an advertisement agency that had the white coats as the authority figure.

Yes well and it’s and that same idea plays out in like most of like the professions quote-unquote that are like considered elite etc etc and it’s and it really is it’s more pr than anything anyone could be a lawyer like it’s just learning a language and then learning the rule like it’s anybody could do it yes they make it particularly difficult in the ways that they teach it and all that but like um it gives you no authority in the world um and Yeah, it’s so damaging. And if I like to imagine a world, what if everyone in the world were equipped to claim who they are, what they love and what they’re good at and like have a purpose in the world and like move in that direction.

That’s

what I believe. I’m

outrageously optimistic. That’s my word for me. I’m outrageously optimistic. I live in bold faith, no fear. I believe that our world is getting better and that some of those systems are crumbling. I just

pray that it is so. And getting out. Yeah.

It’s like, wait a minute. Is this all there is? You know, that’s where

I kind of come in

with the mindset coach. You know, is this all there is? Yeah. You know, this isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Nobody in here looks happy or acts happy. So how can we make it better? How can we shift and be real, be authentic with who we are? And, you know, I had a really quirky guy on my show a couple years ago, and he was so crazy. And I said, well… And he would just say and do, you know, and didn’t mind, didn’t care what people thought and wear costumes or whatever. And he was like, authenticity is the new sexy. And he’s like, I’m texting my wife that right now, you know. And so, you know, being real, I think, is the current and future thing. currency, right?

Truly, truly. Nobody wants to hear your polished BS. Like it’s not persuasive. I have a whole chapter in the articulation. So it’s self-awareness, self-direction, like choosing a direction for yourself based on what you’ve learned. Then learning to articulate that with integrity, like a lawyer. I don’t mean like being a lawyer, but like a lawyer learns how to frame things in ways that can be received and learning how to do that honestly. And I, nothing is more persuasive than the truth, like nothing. And, you know, my favorite verse these days is my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in your weakness. 

My power is made perfect in your weakness, which like gives me permission to like tell my whole story. Not that I stopped being a lawyer and everything was good. Like that’s not the story and it’s not that persuasive. The story is, it’s a journey and it’s an amazing one. I’m so glad I’ve done it. And anyone else can do it too. Through their brokenness, through their imperfection, through their lack of clarity, like all of that, you can take small steps in the right direction.

And I don’t see that you’re trying to have your current focus, the liberation of lawyers that are faith-based Christian attorneys that are lawyers in the world, that you’re not encouraging them to leave necessarily. You’re encouraging to be authentic with their faith and their…

Yeah. Well, it really depends on what they need. So… Of the clients I’ve had, like a lot of them leave or they do something adjacent, but they, I mean, you have to start by claiming who you are and whose you are and why that matters. Again, choosing, I help them choose options, like a safe version, a wild option and something in the middle. We explore those and then sometimes they, and then we pursue and I can teach them how to do that. Like, you know, a champion. And so, but no, absolutely. You don’t have to leave the law in order to be liberated. Like I’m trying to liberate people from what the system tells you, you have to be in your current role and how you’re not allowed to be yourself. You’re not allowed to have needs. 

You’re not allowed to be a mom who like has needs that she needs to meet at home. And you are, and people do that. And sometimes it’s just training them in their current role to create boundaries, ask for what they deserve, et cetera. But a lot of times they do make a transition. It just doesn’t have to be out of the law. And a lot of times it is also, like people go to higher ed, they go to consult, they start their own business, they do all sorts of cool stuff. But it’s all just starting with the permission to realize, one, no, this doesn’t have to be it. Two, it’s probably not what you were designed for if you have that sort of feeling inside. And three, it’s okay to notice that and to, again, name it and make moves. 

And finally, it’s feasible. Like, what they don’t realize is, like, again, if you could do that, you have extraordinary talent capacity. What is the word? Gumption initiative. And all this experience that is transferable, like, There’s a lot of things your talents are directly aligned with that you can name, claim, start talking to people, create the narrative, get a new resume, and be hireable for. there’s this, I think the system, that damaging thing is like that you’re stuck. Like, this is what you did. You chose, you’ve been stamped, you’ve been approved, you worked hard. Why would you abandon that? And,

and, you know, there’s voices in your families that how could you, you spent all that money on that degree. You got all that money, $3 million, you’re throwing it away. You know, that, so, You know, you hear those voices from people who typically aren’t doing much, right? Yeah. And your favorite quote, clarity comes with movement. That means taking the next step, right? Clarity comes with movement. You continue a step. You don’t have to know everything. the

last step you

only know the next step

right well and if you’re waiting for it to become crystal clear like while you’re sitting in the closet like that’s rarely how god works like it doesn’t work like we have to walk in faith and who is it um one of the civil rights leaders used to say like when we pray we move our feet um and i just think that’s true um i’m just gonna say something there but totally it comes with movement and so yeah taking that first step um And maybe it’s just a boundary of like, and for a lot of people, they’re almost in crisis or they are in crisis. Like I had someone just reach out to me. She’s like, I’ve been here 15 years. I’ve devoted my whole life to this firm and they’re trying to push me out. And so a lot of folks, I work with them just in what, how do we start a transition? 

And sometimes that’s, they take a week off or two weeks off. Sometimes that means they take leave. Like they can’t even breathe, think straight. They’re working 60 hours a week. Like how do they create space to like, create a new career or life or a new look at a new role or a new life. And so, um, and sometimes it’s just, we spend a portion of our work on, okay, how do I in my current role as I’m looking to transition? So what happens is, is like high achievers, ladies, especially we’re hired for a specific role for a specific pay. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Then they’re like, oh, can you do this? And you’re like, sure. 

And your role expands and they’re not paying you extra. And then you’re really good at something and you want to offer value and then your role expands and nobody acknowledges you for that. And then it grows and it grows and it grows and you’re still being paid the same and treated the same and then expected to do all of it. And that, I mean, that is just a recipe for burnout. And everybody looks at you like you’re the problem when all you’ve done is add value for without asking for anything. And so a lot of times part of the work is just like, okay, how do we, get back to where I’m putting my hands in like a little box. Like, how do we, I like to think about it like Sarah D. Carlson, LLC, like you hired me for a specific job. I’m going to do that. And no more, I mean, no more and get some boundaries around what you’ve been hired to do to create space, to do the work that is required for a transition. Cause it does take some work.

Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. Okay. So, um, you Sarah D. Carlson. Is it SarahDCarlson.com your website?

It is SarahDCarlson.com yes. And

almost all of your social medias, certainly

they’re on

Your website, but almost all of them are SarahDCarlson.

Yes.

S-A-R-A-H-D, Carlson, C-A-R-L-S-O-N

Wow, and I have a quiz there. It’s a… Are you claiming your full power quiz, which gets at the five principles. It tells you like what percentage of a badass you are. And then your strongest point on those five principles and your weakest point. So if self-belief is your weakest angle, it’ll tell you that self-direction or self-embodiment and gives you a next step if you want that. I’m going to have a version just for lady lawyers as well pretty soon. And I’d also like to say- So

That one is a generic one?

Yeah, it’s claim your power. claim your power quiz and so I still have people kind of coming in there but I really do want to I want to I feel really called like there’s no other word for it

how are they finding you I mean you know you’ve got clients how are people finding you and finding out about you with the

well I wish I knew how to do that more but um through online I’ve been I really started posting and posting videos uh through old clients and old students so one of the things I’m doing is I’ve as a coach and professor at those schools, I’ve worked with a few thousand people like directly and like personally, or if they were in my class. So they, that’s often the outreach. It’s such a sad thing that they need me later. But I understand why. And so through a lot of that, but yeah, people find me online and I hope to do more of that. And I have my, the lawyer liberation letter, which is my LinkedIn newsletter, which is just, you can read and be encouraged and be given the steps and, uh, just reading a newsletter each week.

And trying to become self advocates. That’s what you’re wanting us to do overall is being, you know, learn, learn who you are and, and

be

that and, um, and advocate and perhaps offer words that help us through, um, explaining that to our people because we can’t, we’re not isolated, you know, trying to articulate

it. Yeah. Well, the articulation is critical as you learn as a lawyer. In essence, I think successful people truly meaning successful, like in the truest sense, they know who they are. They know where they’re going. They know how to communicate that. They believe in their own value and they take action on their vision and their values. Like, and those are the five principles. And truth be told, I really do think not only does higher education not teach those things, they might actually sabotage those things in the system. And so, I mean, that is why I wrote the book. That is why I, and harassing administrations wherever I work to build this into their academic experience because no one can do it for you. 

And let me be clear, being an effective self-advocate does not mean you do it alone at all. It means you identify your people and you ask for help and you get the resources you need. Self-advocacy is not a lonely endeavor. But you have to figure out who you are, where you’re going, and learn how to ask for help as well. But those are sort of the five component parts is you know how to do those things. And that’s what the quiz gets at and the book gets at and gives you tools.

Repeat the name of your book and show it again, if you would. The Five Principles

of Effective Self-Advocacy. It’s your guide to claiming your power and purpose, which is really the nugget. And so by claiming your power, like who you are and whose you are and what you’re good at and what you love and like naming and claiming your values, that’s your power. And through that, you can work to align your life with that purpose, like the power that you’ve been given, you can enact in the world. And that’s the fifth element, which is self-embodiment, like actually taking action on your vision and living in line with your values, which sounds really woo-woo and like out there and difficult, but it’s really just like, how do you spend your time and does it align with what you really want in your life? Given the context of your situation.

Yeah, most of us don’t, I don’t say most of us, I would say, It seems that I know for me, knowing what I want, which, of course, Brenda teaches us is want is lack. So knowing what I desire. Amen. Amen. Which is of the Father, right? And then he gives us the desires of our heart. If we know what we desire. Now, I’m such a server. taking care of everybody. You know, that was my job. That was my mission. That was, you know, I’m a server and rarely. know what I want, right? I don’t have, I want to make sure that your needs are taken care of. And this is still going on in my world. So, you know, I just think, you know, recognizing that too is part of it. So you can

start

honing in.

And

you said, I said, one of the things, your biggest call to action is stop assuming you’re broken and start listening to what your pain or depression or burnout is trying to tell you. And don’t be afraid to name it and don’t try to carry it alone. Asking for help can be the first step towards healing and alignment. The next right step is very powerful and it is enough. So I thought that was a powerful statement. And here we are at the end of our time. So where do you want to leave this today? How do you want our listeners to find you and to… to, you know, really grasp the depth of what you’re offering?

That’s a good question. Um, definitely visit my website or, or find me on LinkedIn or Facebook, but, um, I guess I’d like to add like sort of the, the final happy ending quote unquote, uh, I am grounded now. I do have a husband who is wonderful. And we have a son who I didn’t have until I was 42. And we have 10 acres in North Carolina where he runs a doggy daycare and is learning to be a pilot and nothing in life is perfect. If you can only imagine 15 dogs all the time, but it’s mine, it’s messy and it’s mine. And I feel rooted and grounded and joyful and grateful. And it’s taken me a long time to get here. 

There’s been a lot of very messy, ugly steps on that journey. But what I’m most grateful for is that I’ve made a life that feels like mine, that allows me to serve all the roles I feel like I want to be serving. Like mom is like another dimension to me. I mean, it’s just the best. And so that really puts the rest of my professional life in context. And so that’s, there’s a bigger picture And you can, you can get to your bigger picture just one step at a time.

Thank you. That’s beautiful. And I love that you offering the rest of the story where you are now, all of that trauma, all of that decisions and all the chaos and messiness has evolved into one good, happy, messy life now with, uh, your new family and doggy daycare. I’m like, Oh my gosh. When I started and I just love it. And, and I just living out in the, in the country here, you are an attorney that, you know, wall street attorney living on 10 acres in the country or whatever. It’s awesome.

Thank you. Well, and I did not jump from there to here. I’ll tell you that. And that’s okay. Like I, well, everything is processed. No, I couldn’t have done it. I wouldn’t have been ready. And, um, And

you’re still young. You’re still very

young. I have plenty of life. And no, it’s not the ending. It’s just part of that. I’ve been waiting to write that book. I think it’s called The Long Way Home from Harvard to Haiti to Healing. I didn’t have an ending. Like I was still just a lady seeking. And so again, I feel grounded and found. I

can’t wait for that book, so let’s get it done. Thank you, thank

you, thank you, thank

you. I appreciate you so much

today,

Sarah, to come on and be here with me. And, you know, you are a light, a delight. I’m sure you were a standout in that crowd of dark

suits. I was. I mean, meaning I did not fit in in a good way. Yeah.

But you also, that also, two different things. One, who do you think you are? And one is… she’s doing it you know wow you know so i’m sure there was a lot of dichotomy in your in your in your perceptions out back then and and i’m so i mean you just you just radiate thank you beauty and and common sense and uh i’m really grateful to get to know you

thank you ditto and i just love what you’re doing i’m really grateful to be a part and i hope everybody maybe somebody gained some encouragement some insight and i’m again Keep doing what you’re doing.

Thank you

so

very, very much. And as we are always in, I want you to always, always remember to choose joy. 

Well, I’m going to take just a brief moment and talk to you about Zenzino and the Balance Oil. I’m telling you, there is an epidemic of out of balance with our omegas. And if you just took one simple shot a day of Balance Oil Plus, Your omegas will become imbalanced. 99% of North Americans are out of balance, and inflammation is rampant. This disease is rampant. If you could just take one little shot from this 20-year-old Norwegian company, Zinzino Balance Oil Plus. 

And go to CharlaAnderson.com/Zinzino. And I just want to encourage you to reach out to me. The website is a little bit not intuitive. It’s an international company. So I want to help you with that. I want you to get onto this oil and take one little shot a day. It’s so simple, so easy. And people who… We’re 53, 55 to one when three to one is balanced are better. And, you know, in four months, you could take a simple blood test to find out where you are. That’s the deal. It’s so easy. Take a little simple blood test. They ship it off. You get the results. And in four months, if you take it every day, you’re going to get another test every fourth month for 120 days and retest. Are you in balance or not? And, you know, 99% of North Americans out of balance. And what if you tested 55 to 1 and in less than, and in four months you test in the single digits to 1, like so many people are doing. Reach out to me. I love my Zenzino. Cheers.

Important Links

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About  Sarah Carlson

from the life she was told would bring fulfillment and moved to Haiti, where she lived in a tent and helped build schools and water filtration systems. Her journey has included surviving an abusive marriage, financial devastation, deep trauma healing, and ultimately a full return to Christ.

After returning to the U.S., Sarah taught and coached in law schools, theology programs, and engineering departments, where she recognized that the struggles she faced weren’t personal failures, but gaps built into the systems themselves. She spent the next decade developing curriculum to address those gaps, now distilled into her book. Today, Sarah focuses on lawyer liberation—helping faith-driven lawyers overcome burnout and step into their God-given callings with clarity, confidence, and integrity.

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Let’s jump on a discovery call and get to know each other. Find all things Charla at CharlaAnderson.com/links.

On The Charla Anderson Show, We discuss Mindset, How much Your WORDS matter, Princess to Queen energy, mantras, HOPE, Faith, Miracles, Overcoming, and much, much more, including learning from amazing guests.

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