Fear, doubt, and worry can feel like permanent settings—until you learn to build a case for yourself. We sit down with Heather Hansen, former top trial attorney and author of The Elegant Warrior, to explore how courtroom tools translate into everyday wins at work, at home, and in moments when identity is shifting. After two decades defending doctors and nurses in high-stakes medical cases, Heather didn’t jump to a new life; she crept—one deliberate step at a time—into media, authorship, keynotes, and leadership coaching. That slow pivot taught her a durable truth: confidence isn’t a vibe, it’s evidence.
Heather breaks down a practical framework you can use today. First, define your “jury”—the decision-makers who listen and choose, whether that’s a hiring manager, a board, a client, or a partner. Learn what they value, fear, and measure. Then craft stories that speak to their world and back them with proof: results, testimonials, artifacts, and metrics.
We also dig into the inner jury—the voice that decides what to believe about you. When your inner jury trusts your preparation, your tone, posture, and presence become credibly charismatic. That’s how you ask for the raise, land the job, secure investment, or rally a team.
If you’re ready to turn uncertainty into momentum and advocate for yourself without losing your center, press play. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a nudge, and leave a review to tell us the one piece of evidence you’ll bring to your next big ask.
To connect or hire Heather, follow her on Instagram at @anelegantwarrior or follow her podcast at: The Elegant Warrior: How to Win Life’s Trials Without Losing Yourself.
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey bringers, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Released At Reveal Purpose. And today is Heather Hansen. She’s the author of this most beautiful book. I don’t know, well, you probably can’t see it, but it’s called The Elegant Warrior: How to Win Life’s Trials Without Losing Yourself. And so, as well as you can tell, she was a former attorney and she’s written this beautiful book. And she’s here to talk to us about that journey that she took that she put on paper. So without further ado, Heather, thank you so much for joining us on Released Hours Well Purpose.
Sylvia, it’s so my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
It’s it’s wonderful to have such an accomplished person across from me. And I can’t wait to dig in to your book because unbeknownst to a lot of people, my father wanted me to be an attorney. And I said, no, I that’s not my life. I don’t want to be that. And my father’s idea of success was either you were a doctor or an attorney, and that was the only way to a successful life. And so I kind of grew up with that. And so when I saw you, I thought, well, I have so many questions for her, and I can’t wait to dig in. So tell us that beautiful story of transformation that you have to offer.
Truly, truly is. So I went right from college to law school and I knew I wanted to be a trial attorney. I had no interest in doing tax or property or god forbid divorces. I knew I wanted to try cases. And I started working at my firm. The name of the firm was O’Brien and Ryan, a very Irish firm. I started working there when I was in law school. And I was lucky enough to be my mentor, was John O’Brien, and I got to watch him try cases all through law school. And that meant, Sylvia, that right when I pretty soon after I passed the bar, I started trying cases very quickly because I had that experience. And so I tried my first case over 20 years ago, and we defended doctors and hospitals and nurses in medical malpractice cases. And I loved it. I loved, you know, people think that the doctors and nurses are so tough, and they are, but when they are sued, they are heartbroken. And most of the time they did everything within the standard of care. And it’s just a matter of circumstance or unfortunate bad luck that bad things happen. And so to be able to help them through those situations was a gift for me. And I loved it and I did it for over two decades. And I was very good at it. But there came a point in time where I knew that it was not lighting me up anymore. And then I had to advocate for myself instead of my clients. And I advocated my way into a new role, which is now I’m a consultant. I work with normal people, quote unquote, teaching them how to advocate for themselves, whether it’s to get a raise or a promotion, or sometimes it’s a founder who’s looking for investment money. Sometimes it’s a leader who wants the board to come on board. So I do that and I still prepare witnesses for deposition in trial because between my psychology degree and the time that I spent doing that, I have a knack for helping people to be both credible and charismatic, which is really important.
That’s awesome. My goodness. And that’s what the book is about. Yes, you’re right about the doctors. They do get heartbroken because it is a standard of care and they do their best. And do you imagine having that? I always wondered what my father went through. He was a surgeon and he did lose patients on the table. There’s no question, you’re human, you’re flawed, you’re gonna make mistakes. But sometimes even people dying on the table is not necessarily your mistake, it just they weren’t great candidates for surgery and they were already end of life, you know. So there’s lots of things that can happen. And so this second act that you’re now in, how did you make that transition? Because to go from a trial attorney, I would assume, was a very big leap of faith.
Yeah, it’s very interesting because I did not I underestimated how much of my identity was tied up in being an attorney. Because I was I was a good attorney. I tried a lot of cases. I was um named to the top 5% of trial attorneys in the nation. And so it was something that was, I’m not married. I had never, I’ve never had children. It was my entire identity. And that was probably the hardest part of that switch. The good thing though, Sylvia, is I did it very gradually. You know, they say leap in the net will appear. And I always say I was more like creeping. I did little things, right? So I started doing television. I was a legal analyst for uh MSNBC, NBCs, CNN, Fox News, all the channels. And um, and that sort of was like my first step out of just being a lawyer. And then I wrote the book, The Elegant Warrior, which led to keynote speaking opportunities and coaching opportunities. And so it was a very gradual transition. It wasn’t just by the snap of my fingers, which there’s pros and cons to both, um, but it made for an easier transition, I think. There are still times that I my natural inclination is to introduce myself as a trial attorney. It’s hard to shake off that mantle. But I the work I’m doing now, especially preparing witnesses to testify, but also preparing, you know, I work with a lot of mainly women in my um in my leadership coaching, where they’re getting up to speak to a group. And so it’s very similar and it’s very rewarding.
I love that you did it gradually and based on your own rhythm. And I think most people get pressured or they feel pressured to take that leap of faith and just kind of launch and then learn. And not all of us are built that way, and and that’s okay. You don’t have to be built that way. If it works for you a certain way and you pick certain things along the way, I think that’s what makes that transition even more enjoyable. Because sometimes when we take that leap of faith and we’re not ready for that leap of faith, whether we’re not ready emotionally or mentally or physically, the truth is we’re never really truly ready.
That’s right.
And our inner critic can stop us in our tracks. So that being said, not everybody can do that and do that well, and and not have the financial means also to take that leap of faith because, as women, you said you didn’t have children, you didn’t have husbands, but some of the women you work with do. And when they’re nurturing and they’re guiding their children, their very young children, they also want to set up an example of how they show up in the home, outside of the home. You want to empower your kids. You want them to, you want to show them, hey, if you have a dream, go for it. Don’t get caught up in your fear. I know that was part of the legacy I wanted to leave behind to my kids when I wrote my first book in 2020, when I finally listened to God’s prompting and said, okay, it’s time to write your book. Please trust me this time and just do it. And and I’m glad I did because there was a healing part to writing that book. And it healed my relationship with my father that was very fractured at the time. And what I didn’t know, but God knew, was that my father was going to pass away four years later. And I had those four years of absolute bliss with my father because I was I healed those wounds with him. And he was the first, you know, as as little girls, our fathers are our heroes, and we always want their attention. And when I didn’t get it because I didn’t become an attorney, I became the disappointment to my father, right? And it didn’t matter how much achievement I had under my belt and how smart I was, if I didn’t have what he considered the definition of success, because he was an immigrant in this country, then I was constantly chasing that. And I know that a lot of the women you work with probably have some of these things in the back of their head. Do you tell us like the how you guide them out of that doubt?
Yeah, it’s great. So doubt is a big thing, right? And in the courtroom, my whole job was to overcome doubt, right? In my cases weren’t beyond a reasonable doubt, it was preponderance of the evidence, which is a lesser standard, but it’s about overcoming doubt. And we overcome doubt in the courtroom with evidence. And outside of the courtroom, we can also overcome doubt with evidence. And so when I’m working with women like you, we’ll talk about what’s the evidence that you have, that you are capable, that you are strong, that you have achieved something. And we collect evidence, we look around in your life and your history and your past and your present, look at your children, look at the way that you keep your house, look at the way for the stay-at-home moms, all of those things for the women that I work with that are leaders, look at what you’ve done on all of those things. And so that’s collecting evidence. And then we also create evidence, which is a little bit more risky, a little bit more daring, but it has a lot more weight. And that is to write that book, right? You by by writing that book, you created evidence that you could be an author. And there’s so many things, you know. I really like to play with evidence. That one book, Sylvia, writing a book. You created evidence that you can stick, sit down to something and stick to it when it’s really hard. You created evidence that you are an author. You created evidence that when you make yourself promises, you keep them. You created evidence that you can do hard things. I mean, one action can create so much evidence for us if we let it. But so often women are just going through their day doing all these things without letting it land. That these things are evidence of their strength, their talents, their resilience, their brilliance, their light. And so a lot of my work, you know, from for me, the thing that’s fun is as a coach, I see evidence where my clients don’t. And so I’ll stop them and say, Do you see that that thing that you did is evidence of this and this and this and this and this? And they’re like shocked at it. But once you recognize it, it’s hard to unsee it. And it gives you that confidence and that credibility in yourself that brings you on to the next thing.
I love how you position that. And I bet you position like that in the book. This is the evidence that you are capable. This is the evidence. And you’re right, it’s about the spelling. A lot of what you’re talking about is key to cognitive behavioral therapy. And the reason why I know this, and I know you did the psychology, I just got trained by a cognitive behavioral therapist because I became a life coach for Gateway North here in Austin, Texas. And I’m one of many under a team, uh, the heal team, right? So we’re helping our community members heal from their limiting beliefs, from their bad habits and what have you. So when we land under Saul, he was teaching us like, you’ve got to show me the evidence of why you believe that. Like, what’s the evidence? And the whole the same holds true for the other way around. Like you’re doing it from the affirmative standpoint, from the from the negative standpoint, is like, well, show me evidence that you’re being bullied by X, Y, and Z, and show me evidence that this is true in your life. And then you sit there and you reflect, and you’re like, where is the evidence? And you realize that it’s coming from your childhood. Yeah. Some trauma from long ago that was true then, but it’s not true now. And it’s dispelling that in your mind so that your mindset can now hold the truth. We can uproot that limiting belief that’s limiting your amazing capacity as a human being, and shifting it is just a simple shift over to the right side. We go from fear to left fairly quickly. And once you become aware, and this is the part that I always my husband never really truly understood awareness until he became aware in therapy. He thought that if he just told me and I listened to him, that was becoming aware. I said, Nope. There has to be certain connections that your mind makes from the point of trauma to the present day that only your mind can do for you. And that’s the awareness piece. And it has to go through that journey because that’s how you process information and that’s how you have your aha moments, and they mean something to you now. It’s not somebody telling you, it’s you telling you, it’s you realizing that I had major trauma when I was a seven-year-old kid with my dad, and that’s why there was a fracture in our relationship, and that’s why God kept prompting me, write your book, write your book, write your book. And I kept telling him no, because I was afraid. Because what did I have in my arsenal to share with the world? Who was I to write a book? And I kept telling the the maker of the universe that he didn’t know what he was talking about. It blows my mind, like to see how I’ve come so far. And I think you and I both have this thing that we’re we share our our truths, even with our clients, and say, okay, I want you to to look at your journey, just take a look at it and tell me what you see. Okay, look at everything you’ve done so far. And it’s you acting. You’re you’re you’re doing the action piece. You’re not just having faith in yourself, you’re actually acting on that faith and trusting the Lord’s prompting, and to step into your light fully. Now, do you see this as your divine purpose now? This this being an author and coaching, or is this just a second act?
Well, no, it’s interesting because it’s all the same to me. So as a trial attorney, I was speaking yes, but really the jury didn’t want to hear from a lawyer. They want to hear from the doctor who touched the patient, they want to hear from the nurse who took care of the patient. And so a huge part of my job, and the reason I won so many cases, is because I taught doctors, nurses, lay people, how to advocate for themselves and what they did. And that’s what I do now. So it’s very much, it is definitely my calling, it is definitely what I was put on this earth to do, but it’s doing that just in different venues. So sometimes it’s still preparing people to testify at trial or in deposition, sometimes it’s preparing a leader to talk to the board, sometimes it’s preparing an individual to talk to their boss and get a raise, but it’s all the same thing, which is teaching people to see things from the other person’s perspective and then speak to that perspective in a way that’s both credible and charismatic.
So let’s put this into practice, shall we? Because I think we’re talking about it and it’s really high level, but some people really need the example. So walk me through, let’s say I’m your client and I’m having doubt, much like I’ve shared with you now. Guide me through this process.
Okay, so let’s get really micro because that’s the best way that this works. You come to me and you say, I want this job. Um, I am happy at my work, but I want this bigger job at this other organization, and I’m going in for some interviews, and I want you to help me get this job. I want you to help me to advocate for myself to get this job. The first thing that I might ask you, well, there’s a couple ways to go about this, but let’s start with this. I always start by saying, okay, who’s your jury? And I put that in quotes for anyone who’s listening. For me in the courtroom, the jury was 12 people who listen and choose. They listen to usually two different sides with two different stories and two different ways of using the evidence, but it’s all the same evidence, and then they choose which side is true. That gives you your win. They’re not there to judge, they’re there to choose. So, in this person who I’m coaching, their jury is the person they’re interviewing with. And sometimes that jury changes. You know, in my cases, the jury was 12 people in a jury box, 12 different people with different perspectives. For someone interviewing for a job, you might be going through you interview with one person, then you might interview with a committee. And so we want to know the jury, Sylvia. Who are they? What are they afraid of? What do they love? What are they, what’s their pain? Because then you can speak to that perspective. Even things like do they like um coffee? You know, so you can you can if you like coffee as well, it’s something that you have in common. And so you can say, Oh my goodness, um, I had the best coffee this morning, I found the best new coffee house, and you build a connection with them. But it also allows you when you know your jury to tell stories and use metaphors that resonate with them. So you really want to know your jury as much as you can about, in our example, the person who’s interviewing you for that job. And then once you know them, you want to think about what stories are you going to tell them about your experience, about your talents, about what you bring to the job that are going to be interesting and resonate for them, that are going to make them feel like you can be a help to their organization. And then what evidence do you have to support those stories? And we go through and do that work. And then we talk a lot about the energy of your body. And that’s where we have to talk about the inner jury, the part of you that listens to all those voices in your head that we’ve sort of been talking about and chooses what to believe. Because you can’t have great tone of voice, great body language, great facial expressions if you’re feeling scared, doubtful, insecure, lack of confidence. And so we need to get all of that together so that you have a very strong and confident tone of voice. Your body language reflects that, your face reflects that, your entire energy reflects it. And so that’s the work that we do together.
That’s oh my God, that is so awesome. Because you have really very directly, very succinctly showed with us how we can move forward in whatever goal we have set out to do. And it makes total sense because you do need to practice these things. Sometimes, our as women, we have a lot of things in a lot of tabs open in our head. We know that. And we’re constantly distracted by our environment. So we really need to have the single focus that the men so enjoy biologically. I wish we were like men in this aspect when we were going after goals. But that’s what I always tell my ADD clients. This is where you can use your hyper focus, the strength of hyper focus of ADD to focus in on that. In your case, the jury. Like who is on the receiving end of what you’re trying to convey. In my case, like being a coach and putting my work out there, I used to sell products for Pfizer all the time, all day long, no big deal. Yeah, I it was easy for me because I knew how to position it. And I much like what you’re training is what we were trained on. It’s like, who is the audience? What do they care about? Yeah, you know, watch who you’re talking to. It’s not going to be the same message with every single doctor. They are very different animals, and they really are. Yeah. And you have to be quick and quick-witted and just be quick on your feet. And and I always remember that from these experiences. But you know, when you’ve been out of the loop for so long, you forget these things. It’s kind of like the manager, the manager that was once the sales rep, the top performer, and he knows what it’s like to be on the sales field and all the challenges that they incur. But the minute he steps up into the manager role, he totally like blanks out on what’s going on in the sales division. And you have these lofty goals because, well, that’s what your vice president, see your vice president wants, or your president of the company, and you forget the little guy, the guy, the face of the company, right? And so I always was on these advisory committees with Pfizer. I said, you can’t forget about the first face of the company because we’re the ones in the trenches, we’re the ones selling, and we’re the face of Pfizer. So you need to include us so that we can share with you what challenges we’re facing with, so that the marketing team is in total alignment to the sales department, and we can move very thoroughly together. And it sounds like that’s kind of what you’re doing with your clients is that let me help you.
It’s very similar. It is, you know, sales, advocating, even teaching. These are all similar skills, right? It’s it’s a lot of it is cognitive empathy or seeing things through the other person’s perspective and then speaking to that perspective. And then I get really specific. The other piece of it though, that I think is worth talking about is a lot of women, especially, but uh let me let me bring it back to the courtroom analogy because it’s worth it’s worth discussing. A lot of times when lawyers come to me, they’ll say, um, oh, we have a terrible jury. Meaning, like the jury doesn’t look the way we think they Need to look to give us a win, right? And I really when they say that I know we have a problem. Because if you don’t believe in your jury and their ability to see your perspective and give you a win, and I put that in quotes, if I have a definition of win we can talk about, then they feel that. They feel your doubt, they feel your resentment, they feel maybe even your dislike or your like um disdain. And they’re much less likely to give you a win. And so a lot of times with my the women I coach, they come to me and they’re like, I need more confidence in myself. And yes, we all do, and I can help with that easily, easily. But also you need more confidence in the person you are speaking to. You need to believe, and this is actually one of the proven aspects of charisma for a leader. The leader has to believe. I I had a person on my podcast, his name’s Dr. John Antonakis. He’s a medical, he’s a scientific researcher about charisma. And we talked about how a leader needs to believe that their team can reach the goal he has set.
Yeah.
To be able to convey that belief in a way that’s credible so that the team feels like, oh my gosh, my leader has given us a goal and believes we can get it. I mean, if you think about all of the greatest leaders in our history, they set high goals, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, all these people, and then told their people, I believe that you can reach that goal. FDR during the war. I mean, I believe that you can do this. And so for the people listening, you’ve got to believe in yourself and you’ve got to believe in whether your jury is your husband who you want to help out more around the house, or your jury is the person who you want to hire you. You have to believe that they’re capable of being amenable to what you’re what you’re trying to get them to do.
Absolutely. And with belief comes trust as well.
Yes.
The trust piece is where I think most people can believe, but then they don’t trust. And you can feel when your leader does not trust you. He’s just saying the right words and they’re being inauthentic. And I think when people really believe and trust that their team can pull through these goals, that’s when it’s golden because there’s nothing you can do. And it’s the same with Christ and any faith-based thing, we can believe in him all one. That trust him, trust what he’s telling you, and move through and and actually stay obedient to what he’s asking you to do, which in my case was write the book. It’s time, trust me. I know what’s coming. You don’t. You don’t see that, I do. And and I’ll I know for me, having been raised by a perfectionist achiever, letting go, the concept of letting go is terrifying because as women, we want security. We want to know that the step we’re about to take is going to lead us into a safe space. And when we don’t see the path before us, that’s where it becomes really tricky. But that’s where intuition can kick in and can help us because we are feelings-based. You know, our guys are logic-based, they’re great at that. We’re very feelings-based. And we know that when we get a gut instinct to move forward, usually it’s right. It’s when we doubt that gut instinct that we get into trouble. I know I’ve done that on the pickleball court, even. When people are like, you I know which shot I need to make. And when I start second guessing myself, that’s when I make a mistake.
Yep. Yep.
Yep.
Any sport, same thing, you know. Um, what is next for you?
Such a great question. I mean, uh more of the same. I am, I am, there’s another book percolating in my head, and I am working on that slowly but surely. I’m doing a lot of the communications consulting, um, whether that’s the witness preps for in the trial world or for women. I do a lot of keynote speaking as well. So more of the same. And I am just hoping to continue to help people to ask for what they want and get it in a way that’s effective and um credible.
So if I wanted to hire you because I want to be coached by you, how do I find you, Heather?
Belief Builders is my website and it has all of my things. It has my books, it has links to the podcast, it has links to some of my videos. Um, that is the best place. On Instagram, I post quite a bit on Instagram, and there I am an Elegant Warrior, since the book’s name is an elegant elegant warrior. So those are probably the best bets.
That’s awesome. Thank you so much for joining us on the least out reveal purpose. You shared so much, so quickly. You definitely were a trial attorney. I could tell. You got to the point fast. It was like, wow. You know, most of the women I have on the show, we we tend to get a little wordy sometimes, you know, but you can tell right away when I’m dealing with a lawyer or a doctor, they get to it very, very quickly. But that’s the name of the game. That’s how you were trained to be. When I was in sales, I got to the point rather quickly because my client was doctors and they walk away from you if you’re not quite and swift. Uh, and my job was in the ICUs, which was even worse. It’s very, very stressful job. I I worked in hospital sales for Pfizer, pharmaceuticals, and I was their top saleswoman in the country same year I got divorced. So I know that that’s the evidence. I have my attaboy file, and I sometimes look at it because I have to remind myself how far I’ve come. And so I know, Heather, that you do a wonderful job with your clients, and everybody that gets coached by you, I’m sure, is immeasurably blessed. And so I’m just blessed that you agreed to come on release.reve purpose and share your amazing wisdom. I can’t wait to dig into your book and write a review for it. So just let me know later where I can do that for you because I’d love to support you. Thank you. And for the listeners of Release Outreveal Purpose, remember Matthew 5.14 to always be the light. You know, when you shine in your light and you step into it fully and with faith and confidence, you will have stepped into what you were meant to do and you will thrive. There’s no question in my mind. So have a blessed and beautiful week. Thank you so much for joining us on this amazing episode with the amazing Heather Hansen and her beautiful book, The Elligan Warrior. Stay safe, love y’all. Bye now.
So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes. We’ll win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.