A Law Firm Owner’s Guide to Unlocking Potential with a New Mindset

Summary

Podcast Summary: Maximum Lawyer – "A Law Firm Owner’s Guide to Unlocking Potential with a New Mindset"

Host: Tyson Mutrux
Guest: John (former trial attorney, law firm owner, and coach)
Date: August 19, 2025
Episode Focus: How shifting mindset and breaking limiting beliefs can unlock law firm owners’ potential, improve well-being, and transform law practices.

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Episode Overview

Host Tyson Mutrux sits down with John, a former high-level criminal defense attorney turned coach, to discuss the profound impact of mindset on law firm success. The conversation moves from John’s experience with limiting beliefs and perfectionism to specific coaching approaches that help attorneys reframe their thinking and unlock their true capabilities. Using candid stories from his law career, coaching practice, and personal growth journey, John illustrates how reframing self-talk, redefining success, and focusing energy on what matters most can lead law firm owners to greater satisfaction, profitability, and impact.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Overcoming Limiting Beliefs and the Power of Mindset

• Why Me vs. Why Not Me?

  • John shares the central limiting belief of “Why me? Why would I be successful?”—a thought pattern that persisted despite past achievements.
  • “The ceiling is truly limitless for human beings as a whole. If we change the narrative...why not me?” [03:06, John]

• Origin of Limiting Beliefs

  • Rooted partly in childhood (“my therapist would say it comes from when I was a kid”) and perfectionism—a perpetual drive for what things ‘ought’ to be.
  • The shift: Realizing the drive for perfection holds back happiness and risk-taking. [02:20-02:54]

2. The Defining Event: Ironman Triathlon Training

• A Transformative Mindset Shift

  • John recounts how winter training for his first full Ironman led him to reframe struggle from “I have to” to “I get to.”
  • “How fortunate are you that you get to do this thing? I could look at it as a chore, or I could look at it in a different way...I get to do this.” [05:05-06:43, John]
  • This mental pivot bled into all areas—law practice, relationships, leadership.

• The Role of Choice and Ownership

  • Recognizing hardship as a conscious choice unlocks potential and joy.

3. From Law Practice to Coaching: Seeking Greater Impact

• Why John Left Law Practice

  • Not from stress or burnout, but the desire for greater impact and geographic independence.
  • “I think we were all put here to dent the universe. The dent that I was making was important, but it wasn’t big enough for me.” [10:08, John]

• Coaching as Empowerment

  • John’s coaching philosophy: “A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, helps you see what you can’t see, so you can become everything you can be.” [11:32-12:14, John]

4. Parenting and Coaching: Lessons in Leadership

• Role Modeling and Self-Reflection

  • John candidly discusses being hard on his daughter—how both “bad” and “good” modeling contributed to her resilience.
  • “Being a role model for my daughter is one of the most important things I’ve ever done. I modeled bad things…and better things, and I think it’s one of the most important jobs I’ve ever had.” [14:41-16:17, John]

• Coach vs. Parent Mindset

  • Coaching empowers the individual to define their own success, whereas parenting often projects the parent’s expectations.
  • “If we could be more coach-like, our children would be better off.” [16:20-17:07, John]

5. The Coaching Framework: Diagnosing Behind the Surface

• The Real Issues Are Below the Surface

  • Most clients arrive with surface-level issues (“problems with my team”)—but the real challenge is often internal.
  • Extended, deep work (minimum year commitment), using tools like the “Energy Leadership Index” to diagnose attitude and response to stress. [17:32-19:15]

• The Seven Levels of Energy

  • From Level 1 (victimhood) to Level 7 (visionary, no stress). Under stress, lawyers default to lower levels, impairing decisions and satisfaction.
  • “The way I describe it is just think of transition lenses...when you’re under immense stress, your lenses are very dark...Level seven, your glasses are crystal clear.” [19:17-20:24, John]

6. Becoming Your Own Leader: Self-Talk & Risk

• The Hardest Person to Lead is Yourself

  • Negative self-talk traps lawyers in perfectionism and risk aversion, costing happiness and even money.
  • “If you’re hard on yourself...you’re not going to take the leap, you’re not going to take that step. And you will cost yourself money. I know it. I know it in my soul.” [27:38, John]

• The Mindset Gym: Daily Practice Required

  • “You have to go to the gym every day… go to the mindset gym, there’s a station where you work on your self-talk.” [26:04-27:02, John]
  • Change comes from consistent effort, not a one-off revelation.

• Risk Aversion & Limited Thinking

  • John gives the example of a former client stuck on incremental goals—not thinking big enough—until challenged, then growing into much higher aspirations. [31:52-33:41]

7. Making Room for What Matters: Time, Value, and Focus

• Valuing Your Time Like Zuckerberg

  • “If your time is worth $400,000 a minute, what would you do with it? Would you be mowing the lawn? …That’s the key to making the hole smaller.” [37:17-39:08, John]
  • Focus on highest-value tasks; delegate or outsource the rest.

• Shedding the “I Don’t Know” Defense

  • “I don’t know is the laziest answer you can give in 2025. It is nothing but lazy because you have the world’s knowledge at your fingertips.” [39:37-41:17, John]
  • Reflection and honest questioning reveal what really matters to you.

8. The Reality of Law Firm Ownership

• You Can’t Just ‘Practice Law’ and Own the Firm

  • Many attorneys wish to avoid business management—John’s partner realized eventually that owning a law firm means embracing the CEO role; it “requires it, and if I’m going to do it well, I must step into that space.” [41:28-42:26]

• Delegation and Letting Go

  • You can hire a practice manager, but unless you mentally let go, you remain the bottleneck. [42:35-44:15]

9. Emotional Intelligence and Directness

• Origin of Direct Coaching Style

  • John attributes his direct style to his New Jersey upbringing, but now integrates emotional openness: “I know I’m better when I recognize what’s going on internally with me.” [45:09-46:03]

• Emotions in Law and Life

  • Breaking from the old ‘no emotion’ lawyer archetype, John recounts how connecting emotionally with clients had real impact in his defense work. [46:03-47:35]

10. Practical Tips: Shedding Stress in the Moment

• How to Reset Before High-Stress Situations

  • Always start sessions with: “Tell me about a win.”
  • “You can’t talk about a win if you’re in fight, flight or freeze…The first thing to do is just create space to take a breath, think about a win.” [48:44-50:02, John]

• Trial Law as Life Training

  • Trial experience teaches you to handle unpredictable setbacks—vital for leading a law firm as well. [52:40-53:24]

11. Book Highlight: “Break the Law” & Internal Locus of Control

• Letting Go of What You Can’t Control
  • Most stress comes not from external events, but our thoughts about them.
  • “Control what you can—and it’s more than you think...If we can control the things within our control, it’s life changing.” [53:49-55:29, John]
  • Reference to Viktor Frankl’s emphasis on choosing your response as the source of freedom and fulfillment.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Limiting Beliefs:
  “Why would I be successful in this thing? ...The answer is to turn that question on its head and make it, ‘Why not me?’” —John [01:47-03:06]
• On Mindset Shift:
  “I get to do this. How many people on the planet get to do what I’m doing?” —John [05:05-05:50]
• On Coaching:
  “A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who helps you see what you don’t want to or can’t see so that you have the possibility of becoming everything that you can become.” —John [11:32-12:14]
• On Being Your Own Bottleneck:
  “If you hire a practice manager and you’re still in it, you are the bottleneck, and you’re the ball stopper. How do you operate in the space where you’re not?” —John [43:39-44:15]
• On Self-Talk:
  “The hardest person to lead is the one you see in the mirror.” —John [24:20]
• On Owning Your Choices:
  “If you’re not happy, what’s the point? …You get to choose.” —John [27:16-27:37]
• On Playing Small:
  “You won’t take the risk because you’ll think, ‘I’ll just fail. Who am I to think that I would succeed?’ …It leads you to play small.” —John [28:12]
• On Valuing Time:
  “What would you do with your time if you understood it was valued at $400,000 a minute?” —John [37:17-39:08]
• On Control:
  “None of them cause you stress. Not one of them. The thing that causes you stress is your thoughts about that thing.” —John [53:49-55:29]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Overcoming Limiting Beliefs: [01:41–03:38]
• Ironman Training Mindset Shift: [04:02–06:43]
• Impact on Law Practice & Family: [07:33–08:52]
• Transition to Coaching: [11:32–12:55]
• Role Modeling & Parenting: [14:41–16:17]
• Coaching Method & The 7 Levels of Energy: [17:32–20:24]
• Self-Talk & Risk Aversion: [24:12–29:17]
• Thinking Bigger & Not Playing Small: [31:52–33:41]
• Valuing Time and Focus: [37:17–39:08]
• Delegation & Letting Go: [42:35–44:15]
• Emotional Intelligence in Law: [45:09–47:35]
• Resetting from Stress (“Tell Me About a Win”): [48:44–50:02]
• Internal Locus of Control Book Chapter: [53:49–55:29]

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Takeaways for Law Firm Owners

• Challenge limiting beliefs and perfectionism—reframe your inner dialogue from “Why me?” to “Why not me?”
• Choose mindset intentionally: See responsibilities as privileges and opportunities.
• Focus on what only you can do; delegate or outsource all else.
• Recognize that mindset, not circumstances, is the biggest bottleneck to firm growth and personal satisfaction.
• Practicing self-leadership and self-compassion unlocks new potential for risk-taking, growth, and impact.
• Coaching—whether formal or as a self-practice—can accelerate this reframing and self-awareness.
• The more you control your focus and reactions, the happier and more effective you become.

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This episode is packed with practical reframes, deep mindset shifts, and actionable insight for law firm owners ready to unlock the “next level”—not just in revenue, but in meaning and fulfillment.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Oh, boy. How long are we going to talk today?

[A]

As long as we need to.

[B]

I think the biggest, biggest limiting belief that I have had is, and still have, if I'm being honest, is why me, right? Why would I be successful in this thing, whatever that thing is, right? Whether it's a relationship or the law firm or what I'm doing now as a coach, why would I be successful? And it's funny because I've been successful in everything that I've done and yet that thing, that part is still there in my brain.

[A]

Where does that come from?

[B]

You know, I think my therapist would say it comes from when I was a kid. For me, I think it has to do with the perfectionist side of me. I want things to be perfect. And there's really no such thing, right? It's. That's not a thing in life. And yet I continue to strive towards it. And so I think it comes from that perfectionism and having the picture in my head of what it Ought to be. And then just thinking, oh, I'll. I'll never be able to do that.

[A]

Now you said, you said that the question in your mind was, why? I think, why would I be successful? Why, why should I be successful at this thing? Whatever, whatever the thing is. What's, what's the answer to that?

[B]

I think the answer is to turn that question on its head and, and make it. Why not me? Why not me? You know, I think all human beings have this tremendous untapped potential. The ceiling is truly limitless for human beings as a whole. And so if we, if we change the narrative, we change the, you know, I'm going to show my age, flip the 33 over to the B side and make it. Why not me? Why. Why wouldn't I be successful in this thing?

[A]

Is that an eight track reference?

[B]

It was a vinyl reference.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Back there.

[A]

Okay, okay. Because I, I didn't get the reference. I was like, Maybe it's an 8.

[B]

30, 33 and a third. Flip it over the little discs.

[A]

Gotcha. Okay. Well, at what point did, did you realize mindset was important? Was there, was there some sort of triggering event that said, okay, I've got to, I gotta figure this out?

[B]

Yeah, 100%. It was when I was training for my first Ironman distance triathlon. It was in Coeur d', Alene, Idaho. I'm home, based in Boise, and this was up north in the state.

[A]

How long ago was this?

[B]

This was in 2009.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

2008, I did a 70.3, so a half distance. And as soon as I finished, like, I need to do the full. And so it's a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run back to back to back. And it was in the training for that that I recognized how important mindset is for anything that we do.

[A]

I mean, did you hit some sort of wall? Did something open up in you where you were like, oh, I can do so much more than I thought I could. I'm trying to figure out, like, was there some moment during all that you're like, oh, wow, I can actually keep going and I'm past the pain, or I'm in the pain, but I can deal with the pain. So take me to that moment.

[B]

Yeah. So again, I live in Boise and the Ironman Coeur d' Alene used to be on June 21st. Right. The longest day of the year, the most daylight hours. And in order to prepare for that, I had to train through the winter and the winters. In Boise aren't terrible, but it's snowy, it's dark, it's cold, and it's just one day. I was. I was getting up and I was thinking, I have to go and do this dumb run. And I stopped myself and I thought, well, wait a second. How fortunate are you that you get to do the thing? And so it was just that. It was. I'll never forget it. It was like a February morning. It was cold and it was snowing. Right on the edge of rain and snow. It was just miserable out. And I had, you know, the. The training plan called for me to run, I don't know, 15 miles. And I just. It occurred to me that I could look at it as a chore or I could look at it in a different way. And I looked at it in that different way. I get to do this. There. How many people on the planet get to do what I'm doing? Not. There aren't many who choose to do the thing. And so I just began to think of it differently. And that's the other thing that I thought about was this is. This is a choice. Nobody's making you do this thing. Why would you be miserable doing it if you're choosing to do it? That makes no sense logically.

[A]

Was that new to you, framing it that way?

[B]

It was, yeah. It was completely new to me.

[A]

Is it something that just pops in your head, or is there something that you picked it up from?

[B]

Yeah, it just popped into my head. And then I got into the research. Right. The psychology of it. And, you know, the. The thought you. You mentioned, you know, physically, do you get past the point? And, you know, the scientists will tell us that our muscles. Our brain fatigues before our muscles actually fatigue. We can. We can keep going if we choose to. But that was. I kind of backfilled that from the experience of, no, I get to do this.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's sort of channeling that Goggins energy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Quite a bit. Yeah. So. So I wonder how your life changed from that point moving forward, if it did. Can you almost point to that as like a dividing line between the before and the after?

[B]

I can, yeah. I can. We opened our law firm two years, less than two years after that. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Our law Firm opened in 2006, so it was during that. But my job as kind of the de facto managing partner, I looked at things quite differently after that happened. We wound up buying the building that the law firm was housed in. My law practice changed the way I viewed Myself as a lawyer changed the way that I. My relationship with my wife changed, my relationship with my daughter changed. A lot changed. Part of it was because of, oh, I can do hard things, even though I've been doing hard things my whole life. But part of it was, oh, I get to choose. I get to choose how I look at the thing.

[A]

Yeah. During that time, I wonder if your, your wife, your, your daughter started, like, they actually started to notice and say things to you.

[B]

My daughter, not so much because she was a teenager then.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, typical teenager. Yeah. She's awesome. We have a great relationship, Ally and I. Michelle. I think if you were to ask Michelle if she was here, she would say that she noticed a difference.

[A]

Yeah. So in the time you were, you were a trial attorney.

[B]

Yeah, I did criminal defense. White collar in federal court. Guns, drugs, money, all the way up to death penalty work in Idaho.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

I was on the. Certified as a death penalty practitioner.

[A]

Yeah. How long did you do that for?

[B]

Oh, gosh, I did criminal defense from 2006 until I stepped away from the active practice in 20. And for the death penalty work, I probably started doing the education part right around the time that I was first doing Ironman triathlon and then became certified in around 2012.

[A]

Yeah. Early on in my career, I did criminal defense. And just the thing about it, it's such a grinding job because the way I was putting it with talking to him earlier is that you could be, you know, have your entire week planned out and then Tuesday, 4 o', clock, you get a phone call. Next thing you know, you're at a bond hearing tomorrow morning that you were planning on doing some office work, but you're, you're, you're gone. You're, you're now in a bond hearing tomorrow morning. And then you're dealing with, you know, jail calls and you're, you're working at night and working on the weekends. And so I wonder, I mean, is that part of the reason why you got out and wanted to shift?

[B]

No. I loved being a lawyer.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I loved being a trial attorney. I loved representing my people in court. I loved it. That's not why I left. I left for two reasons. I wanted to have a greater impact in the world. You know, I mentioned that I think human beings have an unlimited ceiling. I, you know, to borrow from Steve Jobs, I think we were all put here to dent the universe. The dent that I was making was important, but it wasn't big enough for me. The second reason is I want to be geographically independent. The world's a great big place and I want to soak it all in. And you know, from being a, you know, practicing criminal defense part of your career, you can't do that.

[A]

Nope.

[B]

You have to be there. You have to be able to go to the jail. You get to be there. You get to go to the jail. You get to meet people who you'd otherwise not meet. You get to really meet someone who was no different from me other than maybe three decisions that they made in there.

[A]

Right. It's, it's, it's that one to three decisions.

[B]

Yeah. And so that's, I left because I wanted to have a greater impact and be geographically independent. I didn't leave because I was burnt out or stressed out. I loved it.

[A]

Yeah. So I mean, you transitioned to a, I mean, completely different life, I would think. And so what, Tell, tell people about what you started in 2020.

[B]

Yeah, so in 2020 I started a coaching practice. What does that mean? You know, I'll borrow from Tom Landry. A coach is someone who tells you what you don't want to hear, who helps you see what you don't want to or can't see so that you have the possibility of becoming everything that you can become. And it was that. Right. I, I've coached sports in, in my life, specifically with my daughter. That's a funny place to be. But it was, you know, it's taking that mindset of unlimited potential, helping people, empowering them to get out of their own way that really kind of drew me into this chapter of my life.

[A]

May they come about your daughter being a funny place to be. What do you mean by that?

[B]

I think any, any parent who coaches their child will tell you if they're being honest, they're harder on them than they are on the other people. And that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but it feels natural and it was a wonderful opportunity. I mean, I coached her in basketball, I coached her in softball. Wonderful opportunity. Really helped us, I think, have the strong bond that we have today, that time together. But it's a challenging place to be both for the, the parent and I think it's quite challenging for the child as well.

[A]

Yeah. So there's a guy that, he's a, a teacher at my kids school and he is, he's made his money in the past and he kind of hung it all up so he could basically work at the school. So he's basically following his kids as they go from school to school, like, you know, elementary, middle school, high school, and it's an interesting thought because it's something I've kind of played around with. He's like, man. Because he and I, we chat quite a bit. He's like, you know, you should sell the firm and then go, and you can just hang out with your kids. And I'm thinking, like, that is a really. It's an interesting idea. I don't know how reasonable of an idea is, but if you were to look back, I mean, if you had an opportunity to sell your firm back then and then just kind of hang out and do something similar, would you. Would you do that or would you have chosen the same path?

[B]

Do you think I would have chosen the same path? You know, there's the question out there, right? What would you go back and change in your life if you could? And my answer is always, nothing. I would not go back and change anything. Because all of that, the good, the bad, the terrible, has put me where I'm sitting right here in this seat today. I don't think that you can. I wouldn't change anything because I don't think that, number one, you can't. And number two, I think has the potential to change so much more in ways that are unintended. So I would. I would keep it all.

[A]

Yeah. So kind of go back to that question. How important do you think it is that you were. That you were working and that you were a role model for your daughter?

[B]

It's one of the most important things that I've ever done. Right. Being. Being a role model for my daughter is one of the most important things I've ever done. I'll give you an example. Allie works in juvenile justice. She works at a facility. She works for the state of Idaho, and she works at a facility where youth offenders are committed to because they violated the law. And she works there. And the work that she does stops them, hopefully, from needing people like I was or my friends. Right. And so it's. It's doing that. And I'll. I'll be perfectly honest. I was not the best role model for quite a long time. I worked too much. I was impatient, that perfectionist. I was really hard on her in ways that, looking back, I wish I wasn't. But then part of me thinks, well, that's why she's as resilient as she is today. Right. Again, that's part of her coming up and part of her mix to make her who she is today. And she's a fantastic human being. I tell people, anyone who will listen, I wish that when I was 31. I was her because she's just. She's so smart, she's so caring. She's got it dialed in. So being a role model to her, I modeled bad things, and I think now I model better things, and I think it's one of the most important jobs I've ever had.

[A]

How closely related do you think coaching is to parenting?

[B]

I think it's the same thing. At the end of the day, I think it's the same thing. You know, as a. As a parent, we all want our children to succeed, whatever that means. The. The difference between parenting and coaching is in parenting, we have an idea of what we want our children to be, and we may impose that on them. I think we should be more coach, like, which is, hey, you get to decide what success is for you. Right. What does success look like? What's the game that you want to play? And then I will do everything in my power to help you get there. As parents, we're a little bit different, and I think if we could be more coach, like, our children would be better off.

[A]

Sure. So walk me through what it's like to work with you, because I'm very curious, because everyone's kind of different when it comes to. To coach. I can't tell you how many coaches I've talked to at this point. I'm curious as to how it works. How are you? I don't know if diagnosis the right way of putting it, but how do you diagnose the issues that the. That the firm owner is confronting? Do they just present that to you at the front? How does that work? How does it. How does it work to work with you?

[B]

Yeah. So there are multiple conversations before we agree that we're going to work together. Choosing a coach is kind of like choosing a lawyer. It's one of the most important relationships you'll have. And so there are multiple conversations. I will tell you that the thing that they think it is is never the thing that it actually is. Right. I'll give you an example. Working with a lawyer right now. She's fantastic. She came to me because she was having issues with her team. And of course, the issues are not with the team. They're with her. So she came to me for this thing, and we've been working together. It's almost a year now. Right. The. The commitment is a year. If you're not in for a year, then I'm not for you. Because the work that we do, to quote another client, is some of the hardest work that you'll ever do in your life. And so through that process, right, I use a diagnostic tool on the front end. It's called the Energy Leadership Index. And what it does is it kind of quantifies how your attitudes, perceptions and beliefs affect how you operate in the world. Whether they cause you stress, whether they cause you to be a big thinker. So that's the first thing that we do to create a common language that we use all the time. I used it on a call before I came here today. You know what level? I think it's level five, which is a win, win level. Then my client was verbally processing and they were like, no, it's not. It's level three, which is coping. And I, I call it the Saving Private Ryan on the beach. Right. I'm going to get to the goal. I don't care about the bullets flying. None of that's going to bother me. I'm going to get to where I need to get.

[A]

A scale of one to five, one to seven, one to seven.

[B]

Okay, yeah, it's one to seven. There are seven levels of energy, seven being the highest, the, the visionary, that place of no stress. One is victimhood, where we don't move forward. I'm a victim, so I'm stuck. I just don't move. The way I describe it to my clients because energy feels maybe a bit woo woo to folks, especially lawyers. The way I describe it is just think of transition lenses. When you're out in the sun, they get really dark. Science tells us that when we're blindfolded, we put a human being blindfolded in the middle of a field, they will walk around in a circle. They just, that's what happens. So when you're under immense stress, your lenses are very dark, you don't move, you can't see anything but the choice in front of you, which is oftentimes not the best choice. All the way up to level seven, where your glasses are crystal clear. Think of a space mirror. We've seen people in the booties and the hoods and all that stuff because there can't be any imperfections. That's level seven. That's how to step back and view the world in a different way.

[A]

What percentage of the population would you say is at level one?

[B]

It's not a pure level one, but I think there's two different ways to look at it in our normal every day. I think the population as a whole has quite a bit of that energy in them. I think lawyers are not necessarily in that space. They're more At a two, which is frustrated because things are not going their way or the world isn't ordered the way they want it to be ordered or that the level three, that's Saving Private Ryan. But when we're under stress, those levels one and two, that catabolic space is fight, flight or freeze. It's natural, it's necessary. It's kept us alive over the course of human existence. The problem is that our biology hasn't evolved. And when we're under stress, our biology believes that a tiger is going to catch us and kill us. And we don't make good decisions in that space.

[A]

You know, it's interesting, and I don't know what level this is, but I see a lot of people, whether it's a client or other attorneys, where they. It's not that they can't get out of their own way, is that they get in their own way by trying to control the situation too much. Like clients. Great example. Where like, they want to make every decision on a case, but then the decision that they make is actually detrimental to their case. But they don't. Sometimes it's hard to get that through to them. I'd like to say that we're good at it, but sometimes you can't just get through to everybody. Right. So what level would that be? Where does that fit in?

[B]

That fits in for the lawyer? It fits in. It's what I call a dysfunctional level 4. Which level 4 is the level of service. Most lawyers are predominantly level 4. That's the longest bar on their 1 through 7 chart in their normal everyday life. And I think it fits in. In that space because they want their client to have a voice, but it doesn't serve the lawyer, it doesn't serve the case. And so for the lawyer, I think it's level four. For the client, I think it's level three. And level three is that it's a gateway between that catabolic space, that stress space, and. And the more thinking space, the more visionary space. And when we're in there and things don't go our way, it's very easy to tip and get frustrated. Very easy to tip over. And so I think for the client, it's level three. I think for the lawyer, it's a lot of level four, but it's again, a dysfunctional level four because it doesn't include the lawyer themselves.

[A]

How do you get them from a 4 to a 7? Probably a lot to bite off.

[B]

Like everything else, one step at a time. Right. The first thing is to understand that Service. And, you know, my whole adult life before I went to law school, I was in healthcare. My whole adult life has been in service of others. That's my number one core value is service. It has been. It always will be. The thing that we have to remember is service includes ourselves. It has to include you. Right. I just saw an article this morning on substack about how, you know, love or care starts with ourselves. We have to. We have to appreciate ourselves before we can appreciate anybody else. Really. It's, you know, I flew here and anybody who's been on an airplane knows that the announcement is put your mask on before you put somebody else's on. There's a reason that they do that because you can't help somebody else until you are set. And so it's recognizing that that level four includes yourself. It must.

[A]

So there's a quote that I wanted to pull up. That's why I was going scrolling through, because there's a quote from you. It says the hardest person to lead is the one you see in the mirror.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is that what you're talking about?

[B]

100%. 100%. And it's. We're harder on ourselves than we are with anybody else. I had a client a couple weeks ago tell me about their self talk. And I. I just said, who's your best friend? Jeremy. Okay. Would you talk to Jeremy that way? Of course not. He's my friend. I'm like, yeah, that's true.

[A]

I like that one quite a bit. And during one of the hot seats, it was a couple years ago, I think on this one, we had the person record the message. It was as if they're talking to their friend, but it was about themselves.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they actually, we had them record it and it was interesting how difficult it was for them to do it because they wanted to beat themselves up. But then they realized that, okay, I'm talking to my friend. I can't beat them up like this. But it's an eye opening. It's a really eye opening experience.

[B]

First of all, that's the beautiful thing about hot seats. Right. It's okay, I'm in the spot, I'm under stress. It's a hot seat. You are under stress. And being able to change just that little bit is the beginning of a personal evolution that if you do the work will unlock limitless potential. It is the key. Your self talk is the key.

[A]

How do you get people out of that? Because you can give the guidance that you. That you can. But I mean, how do you truly unlock that In a way where they, they leave Urals conversations and they go and they actually practice what you're preaching.

[B]

Showing up, showing up all the time. And look, I, I will tell you, I have a journaling practice. I journal every morning. I was, I am not a lifelong journaler and I don't always practice what I preach. I, you know, I'm the cobbler's kid who has no shoes. You know, I talk with people about their self talk all the time. And I will catch myself being really hard on myself, harder than I would be on anybody else. And so the key is to show up and do the work. That's the only way that it changes. Because look, I'm going to be 62 years old in a month. For 57 of those years, I've been the hardest person on myself. Right? I've been hardest on myself. And it's, you have to go to the gym every day. That's how you do it. You go to the mindset gym, there's a station where you work on your self talk. You gotta go and you gotta do.

[A]

That thing of those 57 years. So how, you know you were, you were hard on yourself.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What would you say that cost you?

[B]

Number one in my hair.

[A]

See, I'm glad you have a sense of humor about it too.

[B]

Yeah, man. Here's what it cost me. It cost me happiness at the end of the day. That's what it cost. And if you're not happy, what's the point? If you're not happy, what's the point? You get to choose. And if you're the hardest on yourself, you know it cost me happiness. I know it cost me money. I know that it did.

[A]

Oh, tell me more about that.

[B]

Yeah. Because if you're hard on yourself, you're not. And you're a lawyer, you're trained as an attorney, you practice law, you are risk averse by nature, you're a risk averse person. Or you're taught to be risk averse and you're hard on yourself. You're not going to take the leap, you're not going to take that step. And you will cost yourself money. I know it. I know it in my soul.

[A]

So you think that that leads you then to, I guess, be, I guess, overly risk averse.

[B]

It leads you to play small. Yeah, it leads you to play small. You know, it kind of goes back to why would I, you know, why me? Why would I be successful to change that? When you change how hard you are on yourself and you're a little bit More gracious. Right. You deserve grace. You deserve to be talked to like you're talking to your best friend. That's just the reality of the thing. You won't take the risk because you'll think, oh, I'll just fail. Who am I to think that I would succeed? I. What will people think of me when I fail? It's the whole thing. As opposed to, look, you might fail, but you might not. What is, what does failure look like? What's the worst case scenario? What. You know, all this stuff that I talk with people all the time about now and talk to myself with. With some self coaching and with coaching. I have a coach. It's. I need. I need that for me. I think everybody does better with that.

[A]

I'm curious, what did your parents do for living whenever you're growing up?

[B]

Yeah, my dad was an entrepreneur. He owned liquor store and then a bar and restaurant here in New York City. He died when I was 14 years old.

[A]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

Of his second heart attack. He was 42. And he had his second heart attack at 42.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Didn't take care of himself.

[A]

He passed at 42.

[B]

42.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

I was 14.

[A]

That's wild.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

My son's 14. I'm for. That's.

[B]

Yeah, that's so. Yeah. My mom was a nurse and so I think I, you know, if upon reflection, it was, well, I've got my adventurous spirit, my entrepreneurship from my dad.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I've got the service from my mom, for sure.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I was wondering because I wonder if any of the. Your upbringing had anything to do with any sort of limits you were placing on yourself.

[B]

Oh, sure.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. I'll give you an example. I went to. I went to San Diego. I went to Southern California in 1986, August of 1986, from New Jersey for a week. I went home and I said, I'm leaving. I'm going to San Diego. I'm moving to San Diego. And if you don't understand that, then you've not been to New Jersey and you've not been to San Diego. I recommend you go to San Diego. New Jersey's great too. But as I was Halloween of 1986, October 31st of 1986, I was pulling out of the driveway, having said goodbye to my mom, and she said, you'll be back in six months. She didn't mean it in a derogatory way, I don't think. And to the day that she died, she refused to admit that she said It. But I remember it. And so that was part of it. You know, my dad was a. He was a hard man. Hard to please, hard to communicate with, hard to have a relationship with. And he was hard on me as well. And. And so I think that was part of what created the soundtrack in my head.

[A]

That's kind of what I was getting to because I. I kind of wonder, because my dad, he's a mechanic. He's close to retiring. My. My mom, she had a daycare growing up, but there were some. Definitely some governors put on my. On my thinking. I remember thinking, I've talked about this before, but I remember thinking, like, 60,000 bucks was like a million dollars. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm rich. I mean, so much money. I remember thinking, like, 35,000. I'm like, you make 35 grand. That's incredible. But it's weird how your world, like, your whole perspective changes whenever you. You stop thinking so small.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I, you know, I have a client. He was a client. Learned, grew, said, you know, I'm going to. I want to go. The training wheels are off now. I'm going to go and use the things that. That I've learned with you and go and do this thing. Fantastic. Go do that. Right. Coaching has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And then he came back to me. He's like, you know, I want to work together again. So I had him walk through what his vision was for the next three to five years. And as he was talking, I stopped him. I said, no, I'm not going to work with you. He said, why not? I said, because you're still playing small. And he was in the. He was going from low seven figures to mid seven figures. I said, what is going to be required of you to get there? He's like, well, just, you know, efficiency and harder work. And I'm like, you know, I got to tell you, that doesn't excite me. And so we're not going to work together. He's like, well, what would it take? I said, well, you got to think bigger. So we continued our conversation. He got to a point where he was very, very uncomfortable. And he set a big goal of, you know, eight figures and a little bit. And I've been working with him now for two more years. But about, you know, 12 months into this iteration, he actually wrote a post on LinkedIn talking about how I made him feel bad. I angered him because I said he was playing small. And I said, why did that anger you? Well, because I'm not a person who plays small. I've never played small my whole life and now I am, and I don't understand why and I don't like it. I want you to help me understand that and to play bigger.

[A]

Was that the equivalent of your mom saying you'll be back in six months?

[B]

Yeah, I think it was. Right. You'll be. You'll be back in six months, which is, you know, how dedicated are you to the thing? There's so much wrapped up into those few words. How dedicated are you to creating this life, John? How much do you believe that you will do it? And how much will you come back to safety? There's so much wrapped up in just that statement. And boy, oh boy, I didn't move home after six months.

[A]

Do you know who Mr. Wonderful is? He was on, I think it was Diary of a CEO recently and he talked about Steve Jobs and how Steve Jobs knew he was just a total asshole, but was. He knew what to focus on and what not to focus on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So how much of success has to do with that as opposed to just having the cap, the limiting beliefs, you know, so what percentage of it is each?

[B]

I guess, Yeah, I. Look, your self talk is critical and Steve Jobs is right, Period, full stop. The end. I had a client call and as the client was talking to me, this image of a square peg in a round hole, right. They have evolved into being the CEO of their law firm. It's, you know, there's 40 people in it. It's, you know, seven figures high seven figures. And they're at a. They're at an inflection point where they. What work means for them. What work is for them is different than what work was when they were a solo. It's just different. And so she was talking about this and the image of a square peg in a round hole came into my head and I shared that with her. It's like, yeah, I just need to make the hole bigger. And I said, no, you don't think about what will happen when you make the hole bigger. And she thought for a good 90 seconds. And we know that 90 seconds of silence is a long, long time. I'm super comfortable with it. And she's like, well, if the hole is bigger, I won't have to make the decisions that I really need to make. I'll just keep on saying yes to everything. And that's not what I want. No, actually you need to make the hole smaller. So what Jobs is saying, right, he was proudest of all the things that they said no to at Apple. That's one of his proudest accomplishments because there's so much opportunity. We call it shiny object syndrome. Right. There's so much potential. Oh, I'm going to try this. I'm going to try that. Narrow your focus. You have to make the hole smaller to be able to get to where it is that you want to get to.

[A]

Yeah, I just. I did a topic on the show this morning, the. The live show about. It was a study, actually, from 2017, but it was an article, I think it was in Ink magazine recently, about buying your time. And people that they actually and it. And they actually talked about whether it doesn't matter if you're on the. The top of the income scale or the bottom of the income scale buy you. Because they address that in the article. Because people say, well, we'll make the excuse, well, I don't have any money to. To buy back my time. And that's not. That's not true. But they talk about. And the happiest people, the one, the number one indicator is the ones that buy their time by paying someone to do the lawn, things that they don't enjoy doing. So if you enjoy doing the lawn, do the lawn. But, you know, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, whatever, you name it, things you don't enjoy doing. They are the happiest people. And I want to get your thoughts.

[B]

On that 100% that that is true. They are the happiest people because they're able to focus their energy on what they're passionate about, what they want to be doing. I read an article about Mark Zuckerberg, and the article was about how his private jet had flown from California to Hawaii and back, like five times in the period of three days or two days. It was bananas. So it was an article about, you know, carbon footprint, and that's important. But what I took from the article was one sentence and one sentence only. And I use it with my clients all the time. That was. His time is valued at $400,000aminute. My question for my clients and anybody who will listen to this is what would you do? Not what would you buy? What would you do with your time if you understood it was valued at $400,000aminute? Because everybody listening to this podcast, you and I both, Remy, behind the monitors, if our time is worth $400,000aminute, and I believe it is, time is the only thing you can't make more of and you don't know when it's going to run out, you just have no idea. And if your time is worth $400,000aminute, what would you do with it? What would you do with it? Would you be mowing the lawn? Would you be going to the grocer? Would you be getting Instacart? Would you wash your dress shirts? Or would you send them to the dry cleaner? Right, the dry. Dry cleaners have been around forever. As professionals, when we're in suits, the dry cleaner gets our suit. Not because we can't do it ourselves, we just choose not to. And so what would you do with that time? That's the key to making the hole smaller.

[A]

So I think it's interesting how you broke that down, because I, I saw something the other day about Amazon. They make a million dollars every 30 seconds or something like that. It's. Which is kind of interesting. But how do you. The. When people say, well, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing, how do you respond? Because I've, I've heard that. I've heard that quite a bit. Where. Well, you know, like, what's one. Like, what's the number one thing you should be focusing right on right now? I'm like, I just don't know. I don't know how to figure it out. So I wonder how you, how would you guide that conversation?

[B]

First of all, and I have a coach friend who says, this is not the way to do it, but this is who I am. I don't know is the laziest answer you can give in 2025. It is nothing but lazy because you pull out your smartphone, you have the world's knowledge at your fingertips. Leverage AI. Ask AI if you can't start Leverage Tech. The question that I will ask, did you go to law school to do what you're doing? Did you probably go into debt? Did you undergo the stress of being in law school to do what it is that you're doing for law firm owners? Why did you start your firm? Did you start your firm to keep the books? I'm betting you didn't. I'm betting you don't have a, you know, you don't have an accounting degree. And if you do, great. But is that the highest and best use of your time? So it's stepping back and thinking, what did I go to law school for? Or why did I create this business? Why did I create this thing? That stresses me out. Right? Look, you could be a W2 employee anywhere.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Super easy. You just leave it. Right? I could never be a W2 employee again. A terrible Terrible employee. So it's. It's stepping back and thinking about that, right. Whether it's a $400,000 minute, whether it's, what did I go to law school for, whether it's, what did I create this business for? What did I envision my life being like when I started down the path? And is this thing that I'm doing part of that, or is it not now?

[A]

What about the people that say. Because this is related to that.

[B]

What.

[A]

What about the people that say that they just want to practice law, they want to own the law firm? They just want to practice law? Yeah. What are you. What are your thoughts on that?

[B]

I'm laughing because my dear, dear friend and former law partner, Guy Hallam, six months into Corman, Callum and Sneed, which is the law firm that we started back in 2006, six months into that, his refrain walking down the hallway was, I, I just want to practice law. Today, he is a partner in another law firm, and he has embraced the ownership part of it, the CEO part of it, the C suite part of it. And I asked him, not too long ago, I asked him, what. What happened? And he said, you know, I realized that owning a law firm requires me to do different things than just practicing law. It requires it, and if I'm going to do it well, I must step into that space.

[A]

Do you think it's possible to just hire a practice manager to run the firm if you. If you just want to practice law and own the firm?

[B]

Yes, I think it's possible. I also think you have to be really honest with yourself and ask, can I give up those things? You can. I'm here to tell you you can. Am I in a position to do that? What does that mean for me? What does that mean psychologically for me? Right. How do I do this thing? It's not as easy as creating the seat and then filling it. You know, its ultimate success has to do with how you think about it and how you operate in the space.

[A]

Do you watch basketball? Do you like basketball?

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Situations like that, it kind of makes me think of like, you know, someone you call a ball stopper, where ball's moving around, everyone's passing it well, and then he goes to the one guy who's the ball stopper, the black hole, and the. It's either going to get. They're going to drive to the hoop and they're going to miss, they're going to shoot, they're going to shoot, they're going to throw it out of bounds, but they're the ball stopper. And so you just. You just kind of to figure out, okay, are you a ball stopper? And okay, then you need to. You need to pass it off to the point guard and let the point guard run. Run the team.

[B]

Yeah, 100%. You are. Ultimately, you're the bottleneck. When you're the CEO of your law firm, if you are in it, and if you hire a practice manager and you're still in it, you are the bottleneck, and you're the ball stopper. How do you operate in the space where you're not? How do you change how you think so that you're not? So you empower the people around you, because when you do that, you get exponentially better.

[A]

Why do you think so many partnerships fail?

[B]

Because people go into it not understanding exactly what it means. It means you're marrying the person. You might not sleep with them, or you might. But at the end of the day, there's so much more to the relationship than we're practicing law together. There's so much more to it, and people just don't go into it understanding that. And look, there are super successful partnerships, I think, you know, turn that question on its head. Why do successful partnerships succeed? Because that's where we look. That's. That's where we look and learn.

[A]

I like your reframing. You do. You do a really good job of reframing it. I think it's fantastic. So you have a very direct coaching style, and I'm assuming your leadership style is the same way. Where do you think that comes from?

[B]

I grew up in New Jersey. It's pretty simple.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. My dad was very direct. My mom was very direct. I think that's where it comes from. It can be really uncomfortable to be in my shoes, but I can't be anybody else. There's no point to it, really, for me. And so I just think it's, you know, I grew up just outside of New York City. It's kind of, you know, a Czechoslovakian dad and a German by heritage. Mom and I just think that's how we were. We didn't. We didn't talk about emotions. We didn't do that work. I do that now. But I think that's where the directness comes from.

[A]

How important is the emotional side of.

[B]

It for me, I know that I'm better. When I recognize what's going on internally with me, I know I'm better.

[A]

How long did it take you to pick the pick up on that?

[B]

Let's see. I'm 62 now, so subtract 3. You know, it's been an evolutionary process. There were glimpse and pieces of it, but I think I'm. I think part of the issue was the discomfort with how it would be perceived. Right. Look, you know, I'm a trial lawyer. I'm a criminal defense lawyer. We. We don't get emotional. That's not a thing. And that doesn't make any sense. We're human beings. And so I think, you know, I'll give you an example. Gosh, it must be 10 years ago now, sitting next to a client in the Elmore County Courthouse in Mountain Home, Idaho. Nice old courthouse. Fantastic. My client had pled guilty and was going to be sentenced to five years, and he was sentenced to five years. And as I was, you know, cleaning up the. The. The council's table and, you know, giving him some last words of encouragement before they took him away, he's like, you know, I want to. I want to thank you. For what? Like, nobody's ever fought for me the way you fought for me in my life. And part of that fighting for him was being emotional, being real with him, being real with the prosecutor, being real, ultimately with the judge. And it was just part of that process where he could see that I was a human being. I'm not. You know, I practiced law. I now coach. I was a respiratory therapist. But at the end of the day, I'm a human being, and human beings are emotional beings.

[A]

So a few weeks ago, I was recording a live show, and I always like to get feedback from Becca about, like, okay, how do you think it went? Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. And I was actually. It was in a show I was very excited about. It was, like, some fun stuff I was talking about. And one of the notes she gave me was, I would like to think that you actually were happy or cared about what you were talking about. And it was very interesting that she said that, because I said, I didn't realize what I was kind of wearing on my shoulders was coming through on the camera. In my head, I was presenting a certain way. But what she hadn't seen and no one had seen was for the previous hour, I was having camera issues. I was having computer issues. The keyboard I had to switch. I mean, it was one thing after another after another, and I just barely was able to push the play button, the record button, go to go live, just, like, seconds before we went live.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so the question is, how do you. How do you shed all of that whenever you're going when you're in the middle of it. You know what I mean? And so that way you're not, you're not passing that on to other people.

[B]

That it's creating space. Every single coaching session that I have, number one, is one on one. I don't do group coaching because I don't know if you know this, maybe your audience doesn't experience it, but lawyers have a bit of ego.

[A]

It's a little bit.

[B]

I know, it's crazy, right? And this is the world over because I coach lawyers all over the world. There's a bit of ego. So it's a one on one setting. Sometimes it's a sandbox where we get to come and play. Sometimes it's a dojo where we come and do the work. And sometimes it's a boxing ring where they come. But each and every session begins with a very simple question. Tell me about a win. Because no matter what's going on in your life, you've just rushed in, you were in traffic, you just got out of court. Whatever it is you. Once you reset and change the frame from I am under stress, which is that catabolic state. It's the fight, flight or freeze. You can't talk about a win if you're in. Fight, flight or freeze doesn't work. Your brain doesn't work that way. So the first thing to do is just create space to take a breath, think about a win. Think about a win. Hey, I got to push live. So let's go.

[A]

Yeah, right?

[B]

So let's go. Let's have fun.

[A]

We got it. We got it to work. It's. Yeah, yeah, I like that. It's. It's funny because I've worked with Dr. Jason Cell for years and he. Every time we meet, it's always starts with what, What's. What are you working on right now that you're. That you're proud of? You know, like, it's like I always know I've got to make sure I have that queued up. You know, you're ready to go. So I'm always thinking about it beforehand.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So it's. Yeah, it's funny you say that because I'm all about, you know, relentless solution, focus, and our stuff. But I, I remember in that moment it was all boom, boom, boom. And. But that's, it's, it's a, It's a good reminder for sure.

[B]

Yeah. And, you know, I'll go back. I was, it was a. Before I did criminal defense, I did employee. Employee representation. Right. Employment Discrimination on the employee side. And I was in federal court in trial. Co counsel, my client, opposing counsel, the judge, the jury. Jury's being excused for a break. And I stood up to pour water into my cup and the lid came off and water went all over the table. All over the table. I had a choice in the moment to get stressed out or not. And I chose not to. I looked at the jury, I'm like, I mean, it just made me more human. I'm like, who hasn't done that?

[A]

Well, it's funny because I remember distinctly remember a closing argument on a criminal case I had, and I was in the middle of it and I was grabbing exhibits and knocked the water over. Yeah.

[B]

All.

[A]

So I've been in that exact same situation.

[B]

And I think that's, you know, I think that's a benefit of trial practice, is you've got to get good at that stuff.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, there was. I was in a 44 day white collar criminal trial in Boise in federal court. And, you know, I have. I'm kind of a tech guy, so I had my iPad and I had all the exhibits up and everything, and it didn't work. And the judge is like, well, Mr. Cormick, do you need a break? I said, absolutely not, judge. Absolutely not. I don't want to. I don't want the jury to have to leave. We're going to roll. We're just going to keep on going. I can make it work. We'll get to a break and then I'll figure it out. It's not a problem. You create the opportunity to do that for yourself.

[A]

Yeah, I always use the analogy on that. Things like that dump trucks and Ferraris. So people talk about reptile when it comes to like personal injury stuff. Like, you name whatever the trial system is. Right. The difference is, is that the experienced attorneys can go in there like a Ferrari and navigate that system very quickly. And if something, if, if a cat runs in the road, they can navigate the cat. But the difference is, is that the ones that go in there and they just. It's all theory to them. They're reading it and they go try the case for the first time using that theory. Cat runs on the road, they run off the road and they spill their load all over the place.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because they can't navigate the curvy road. I give you the map. But so that you're right, the, the ability, what trial work allows you to do, it doesn't matter, like, could be on the show, it could be whatever, just kind of Navigating things. I think it's, it's, it's. I think I feel like everyone should have to go through at least once.

[B]

Yeah, I agree with you. And being the CEO of your law firm affords you the same opportunity. There's so much that can come up in your day that are. Are you a Ferrari or are you the dump truck? Right. I mean, how, how are you? And if you're working towards becoming more of a Ferrari, good on you because you're going to be much happier.

[A]

Yeah. All right. So we're going to end with. So you, you brought me a copy of your book. Thank you. I love it. And it was because I wanted to ask you about it because it's such a great name. It's called Break the Law. It's so awesome. And I was. I told you I was surprised I'd never heard of it. It's such a good name. The back. A business fable debunking the five lies attorneys believe are true. Which is great. But I asked you what your favorite chapter was and you said interlocus of control. So talk about that.

[B]

We fret. There's a lot of mental bandwidth that is taken up with stuff we have no control over. Control what you can and it's more than you think. You know, Viktor Frankl says the key and I'm going to butcher it. But hang with me. The key is how you respond. There are external stimuli stressors in the world. Whether it's the constant fear of where the next client call is going to come from. The phone always rings, but the fear is there. How am I going to prepare for this trial to. I have to have this conversation with an employee. There's. There are all these external stressors. None of them cause you stress. Not one of them. The thing that causes you stress is your thoughts about that thing. I have to have a hard conversation. It's not a hard conversation. You're eloquent, you're skilled, you're intelligent. It's a conversation. What makes it hard is what you think about it. And so it's that if we can control the things that are within our control, it's life changing. If we can let go of the things that aren't, we don't have to be happy about them, but we can recognize. I'm not going to put my mental bandwidth there because there's really nothing I can do about that thing. We can just be much happier. We can be much more productive. Our law firms will be much better operated and run. And at the end of the day, we can have the life that we want to have.

[A]

I love it. Thanks, John. Appreciate it.

[B]

I appreciate you, Tyson.

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