“No human is limited.” – Eliud Kipchoge
Meet Nanette Kufeldt – a partner with CBM Lawyers in Edmonton where she has been running her insurance defense practice for the last 17 years. But it was a long and winding road that led her to a career in law and CBM.
Along the way, Nanette’s path has included a variety of jobs, including driving a tow truck, walking the runway in Milan, modelling in places like Taipei, New York, Tokyo, Montreal, bartending, working at a fitness store, fitting tuxedos in a men’s retail store and pumping gas to name just a few. With plenty of life experience under her belt, eventually all those roads led her to law school. And that’s just the beginning of this story.
Jack of All Trades
Some might wonder what tow truck driving and professional modelling have in common, but Nanette can tell you: it’s her. As a result of her Jack-of-All-Trades father and her opportunity to model all over the world, Nanette herself became a creature of many talents. From being able to change a tire or help to repair an engine or a transmission, to international modelling, Nanette has no shortage of unique experiences.
She’s also the first to insist that these trades aren’t all that far apart from each other; regardless of the industry, she maintains that no matter what her job title, Nanette didn’t see them as radically different. “I was always interacting in unique environments and spending time meeting new people.”
With so many talents and skills up her sleeve, Nanette’s desire to pursue any and all opportunities became a defining characteristic, so long as it meant she’d be gaining life experience: “Everything I did meant having new experiences, doing interesting things, and overall just having incredible encounters.”
Keeping It Interesting
Before beginning her career in law, Nanette was cruising between a few other routes – ones that were taking her towards degrees in physical education and business, respectively. But, as with so many other things in her life, Nanette saw a unique opportunity and decided to take it. Before completing her undergraduate degrees, she was encouraged to apply to law school and was accepted. Early in her legal career, Nanette was drawn to the law firm of CBM, where the promise of taking on her own cases and working and interacting with people was high: “I had heard that junior lawyers ran their own files and dealt directly with clients, and that’s exactly what I wanted to do.”
Since then, Nanette has developed an appreciation for her work in insurance defence litigation, particularly because no day (or case) is the same – her favorite part of the job: “I enjoy figuring out how to tackle every file – developing a strategy is so interesting to me.”
No Stranger to Strange
From then until now, Nanette’s journey has always been a unique one, both in and out of her career. Although insurance defence litigation may not seem like a career filled with oddness and irregularity, Nanette will strongly disagree; when asked about her most memorable case, she says: “I don’t know if I can answer that, because my files are hands-down the strangest in my firm.”
However, it’s this strangeness from case to case that keeps Nanette going and engaged. “I find cases of any kind so fun, because the facts and files are always different; when the fact patterns are interesting and a little strange, I love them.”
Impress Yourself
As part of Nanette’s lifelong journey to keep things interesting, it may surprise no one that along with her previous careers in modelling and tow truck driving are just a few of the distinctive characteristics that make up her resume. On top of everything else, Nanette is also a motorcycle rider and a marathon runner, having recently completed the 6 World Marathon Majors which include Boston, New York, Chicago, London, Berlin and Tokyo, with plans to run more marathons soon: “For me, marathons were something that I looked at and realized that as a human, I can do anything I set my mind to.”
But Nanette’s driving force for why she takes on these impressive goals isn’t to impress others; rather, it’s to impress herself – inspiring others is just a bonus, as she says: “When people say that they’re motivated by what I’ve done or it’s pushed them to do something in their lives, I am happy. It’s what we should all strive for – to impress ourselves and inspire others.” The quote “Impress yourself” came from a coach and it inspired her in all aspects of her life.