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The Best Strategies for Thriving Amid Change in Your Law Practice with Jim Hacking
01:06:13
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It's beginning to become a tradition. If it's January, Maximum Lawyer is heading to Scottsdale to Mastermind. January is the perfect time of year to step back, assess where your firm is and create a strategic plan for growth. This Mastermind is designed to give you a jumpstart to make sure 2025 is your most successful year yet. Our day and a half events combine business training and hot seats. On day one, you'll learn how to use AI and automations to drive growth with the latest tech innovations for law firms, followed by Mastermind Hot Seats on day two, where you'll receive tailored advice.
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And strategies on what to do next.
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You'll walk away from this event with an action plan created from personalized solutions that you can implement immediately. To learn more about this event and grab your ticket, head to maxlawevents.com.
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This is maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix.
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A
In this episode, it's our very first guest that is going to be here for the new format and it's the one and only Jim Hacking. So this is going to be a little different for both of us. It's interesting because Jim and I, we have recorded almost 700 episodes together, and for the first time with both of us on the show, the intro is obviously different. You probably already heard the new music. It's different. How I introduced the show is different. And it's the end of an era. And it's. I kind of want to take a moment to reflect on that before we get into the episode. So it's kind of crazy, but for nearly a decade, it's. It's just so hard to believe. But Jim and I have had countless conversations both on and off the show. We've shared insights and we've interviewed incredible guests and most importantly, built an amazing community of Maximum Lawyers. We've learned a lot along the way and truthfully, grown as both lawyers and friends and business owners. But as with all great things, they do sometimes come to an end and there comes a time for change. And so today marks Jim's first episode as a guest of the Maximum Lawyer podcast and not as a co host. Before you worry, though, don't Jim and I, we are great friends. We remain great friends. We will always be great friends. And while I'm going to be, I'll definitely miss our amazing talks that we'll have together. He'll never be too far away from the amazing community. He's going to be an active member in the Guild still, he'll still be around. He and I will still hang out, but his role is just going to change a little bit. He's going to be focusing a lot on his firm, and so he's not going to be in his official capacity anymore. So, Jim, though, before this is more directed towards you, before we dive into today's episode, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for your partnership, your wisdom, and for being on this wild ride with me. The show would not be what it is without you, and I know the entire Maxim lawyer family feels the same way that I do, but I hope that you'll enjoy this show. It is. It's really. I ask Jim questions I've never asked him before. I also. We get into some, you know, reasons why he's, you know, leaving. We get into some plans that he has for the future. But it's. It's a really good episode. I enjoyed it, and hopefully you will, too, enjoy the show. All right, so we're going to start with some light stuff to kind of get us through that. I want to hear a story about something that you've never told me, something about you that I don't know.
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That's hard to say, because I think I've told you just about everything. I think I would say that in high school, I felt very inadequate. I really felt awkward. I was one of the youngest ones in my class. I didn't feel I had a lot of friends, and I enjoyed my time at school, but I always felt off. I always felt different. I really took to heart at St. Louis U. High that they said to be a man for others, and I did take that to heart, I think. But as far as relating to other boys, in high school, I had a few friends that were sort of good friends, but I felt sort of different as I watch my daughter Noor go through high school now, and I see how effortlessly she glides through the experience. It's very different than the experience I had. You'll see when your kids get older, just that they're so fundamentally different from you that I've just been reflecting on how high school was tough for me. It was, you know, in my eighth grade year, I'd had a bunch of seizures, and so I just was feeling like I was getting back to equilibrium, and I didn't feel connected for a big chunk of my life. It wasn't till later that I felt like I could really connect with people like I do now.
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That is a little surprising, knowing what I know about you, because I. I was just. And for some reason, I was thinking about this earlier today. Is when you had us over to your house earlier this year and you had all your friends and family over. Right. And like you saying that, it doesn't jive with what I've witnessed. So when do you think that's changed, when it changed and why it changed?
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B
My therapist is a Buddhist. Was a Buddhist. She is a Buddhist. She was my therapist. She said that I have high ratna, that I am very good at gathering people to myself. That's where my energy comes from. And that's true. I think my energy was bottled up, though, because of what had happened to me when I was a kid with the priest and because I had eaten so incessantly for the years that followed that it wasn't until I started going to Overeaters Anonymous and I started telling my story and I started getting out of my shell and my comfort level that I really learned how to talk and connect to people at the same time. So when you go to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, there's sort of like an opening preamble, and then you do, you know, you say the third step prayer and a couple other prayers and you sort of have announce. And then after that, usually somebody will be the speaker and they'll speak for like 10 or 15 minutes, sort of like us. And then. And then when you go into. Everyone gets to comment or talk about how what the speaker shared on sort of impacts them. And I think I really unpacked a lot of stuff. I was in overdue Anonymous for 10 years, 15, 13 years. And I have friends who knew me back then when I first started going. And they said basically, for the first two years, all I did was bitch. All I did was complain, man.
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I can relate a little bit to that. I know a little bit about that. Everyone's. I'll get to how you've changed over time, too.
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Yeah. So it was really just letting out a lot of stuff that was frustrating me and made me sad and hurt. And so I think that by the time, I don't know, by the time we got started or sort of in between there, I just sort of got much more in touch with myself and with what was important to me and. And sort of being my authentic self.
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A
So the Overeaters Anonymous, like, when did that start? Like, how old were you?
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That was. Well, here's what happened. So when I graduated from 19, when I graduated from college in 1992, I weighed 320 pounds and I said I was going to go save the world. I joined the Jesuits and I moved out to Denver. It was what they call in the program a geographic cure. And I thought, oh, if I just moved to Denver, everything will be fine, and I'll sort everything out and I don't have to worry about myself. I'm just going to save the world. So it was really an avoidance thing. And so I was there for six months, eating like a fiend. And I said to my novice master, it's time for me to go. I don't belong here. And so my dad picked me up at the airport. He said, where do you want to go? I said, let's go to McDonald's. So I continued eating right there. And then that was in 92, December. And then I moved out on my own in April of 94 in anticipation of starting law school in September of or August of 94. And those first two weeks, I just ate nonstop. And then I started going to my first meeting in May of 1994.
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So it was a while ago.
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Yeah.
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And I guess what was. I guess where I'm missing, like, what was that triggering event where, like, enough is enough. I can't do this anymore.
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I was thinking about that. Well, truth be told, I had repressed what had happened to me with the priest. And it was one time when I was getting ready for work, I was taking a shower, and it all just sort of came back and hit me, what had happened. And so sort of going to meetings and understanding what had happened is what opened up the door for me to start healing.
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So there is a. I think this is a good time to talk about this quote that. It's a Tolstoy quote that makes me think about you. And it's. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. And I. It makes me think about you because when we first met, you were. And I never knew a lot of the things that I know about you now, obviously, but you weren't. You're not the same person. Right. You were a different person back then. And I've seen this change in you, obviously to the better. Like you are a much more positive person than you were back then. That's why I was making the joke about the bitching comment, because you did bitch a lot back then, but you've never been afraid to change. And where do you think that comes from?
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Well, that quote has haunted me for a long time, ever since I've heard it.
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Oh, that's interesting.
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Yeah. Yeah. No, I knew the quote when you said Tolstoy, I knew which quote you were talking about. I didn't know what verbatim But I knew the general sentiment and I think a lot of people do get caught up in trying to save others instead of focusing on themselves. And there's a, there's a great character in Charles Dickens novel Bleak House, which is a 1300 page novel about how terrible lawyers are and how it's all about an estate fight. And at the end of the day, the only people that get paid are the lawyers. The lawyers, over 13 years, eat up all the, all the proceeds of the estate. But there's a character in there, an old lady who has all these kids. She has like seven kids, but she spends all of her time talking about saving the children in Africa and collecting coins. But her kids are like footed and have no clothes and they're dirty and they don't have any food. So I think about that and I think about the Tolstoy quote because in a lot of ways it's harder to work on yourself. It's harder to look inside. It's harder to focus on, you know, improving ourselves. And I think the other part of that that sits on top of that for me is that man for others, SLU high stuff that the Catholic Church taught me and the Jesuits taught me, which has a lot of benefit. But sometimes I felt obligated to do it. I felt like I had to earn my place on earth by helping other people.
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I think, I mean, that's a noble cause. Obviously. Was there ever a time where the change was for bad, you thought you were changing for good, but actually ended up being a bad thing for you? Because I think you and I both are in agreement that change is good. You want to constantly evolve, but because it seems like you've progressed in the right direction. Has there ever been that time where you're like, maybe that was the wrong turn?
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Well, of course. I think this is something we've talked about before in 2012. Remember when I opened up the firm in 2008, my thought was that I would be a lawyer for immigrants, that I would do all different kinds of things for immigrants. Well, I also was having to pay the bills and keep things moving. So I was still taking contingency fee cases on things that weren't related to immigrants. And I thought, oh, I can try this civil rights class action case. Oh, I can try this criminal defense case. Neither of which I should have been doing. And both of which severely threatened the safety of our firm and my ability to pay Adela and me and everybody else. So I think, you know, yeah, I've certainly, you know, I, you know, how I am. I get excited about things. As I said about my father at his eulogy, he took violent likings to things and I take violent likings to things and sometimes I go off on weird tangents.
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What do you think that is? Why do you think you, you. I don't know if I've ever heard you call it violent tangents, but violent likings. Violent likings. The things like. What do you think that is?
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Violent tangents too? Well, I'm a 10. Quick start. I think maybe that I have a bit of the grass is greener over there or if I just find the right combination of things, if I just click this box or do this, take this course or, you know, get rid of this activity, then everything's going to turn around, everything's going to change. I'm generally a very optimistic person, but I do get drawn sometimes to. Oh, I get a little bored, I think. And I think, oh, that would be fun.
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Yeah. I do have those where like, if I pay for this thing or if I do this thing, it's going to fix everything. And I think that there's only of one time. But one thing I can think of where, like I did, I paid for something like a service for the firm that it actually did change a lot. That's whenever we hired Yosiers. I wish I was getting paid for this ad for them.
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I know you're happy with them.
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Yes. But I was like. I was like. At a certain point, I was like, there's no way it's going to be as good as I think it is. But you know what? This is going to be great. And it fixed all of our medical records department. But is there anything where you actually did think it was going to fix everything in a certain area of the firm?
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And it actually did probably when I went to a Ben Glass event and Gerry Oginski was there. He's a medical malpractice lawyer from Long island and he was presenting on the power of YouTube and I thought YouTube might be something that turns out good for me.
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That's a great example. You picked it up and you stuck with it. It's one of those rare things that Jim Jimmy Hacking picked up and he stuck with. That's, that's, that's interesting. What other things have you picked up like that that you've stuck with that you'll always like? The. Is therapy one of them or are you done with therapy or is there therapy?
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My therapist and I went back to look to see when I started and I just finished up therapy about A month ago. And she looked and I had started with her in November of 2014, so almost 10 years. So I am a 10 quick start and a three follow through. One of the amazing things about the fact that you mentioned we've been doing this show for eight years is, I mean, that was because I didn't want to let you down. Right. I mean, it's good for me to have something to hold me accountable. It's good. I've also had long streaks, long streets where I exercise every day or where I made a YouTube video every day. So those are the kinds of things that help me keep my focus.
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Yeah, you've taken where, like, it could be a weakness. I think that you like streaking could be bad. I think too, where, like, for sure where you. Where you look at it. I only did it for this long. You've kind of reversed it. Like, I'm going to do it with this streak as long as I can, which it leads a lot of positive results, which I think is pretty cool that you've done with. Done that.
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So our friend Marco Brown says if something's worth doing, it's worth doing every day. And I like that approach. And obviously you don't want to get compulsive about it like I do. Sometimes you want to have balance. But streaks can be really helpful. You know, I've talked before at Max Locon about Jerry Seinfeld's method of coming up with jokes. And he just had a wall calendar that he printed out and put up on his wall each month. And his job was just to tell a joke and mark an ax, and he just wasn't supposed to break the streak.
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Anything like that that you're doing now with other than like, videos or what else. But anything that you are, even if it's not on an actual cal that you are mentally putting a mark on.
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A calendar, I would say, no, I've been a little bit distracted lately.
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Yeah. Why is that?
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I don't know. I don't know. I've been ending some things, and I've found myself with more open space. And I was thinking to myself just this week, you know, Jimbo, you probably need a little more structure. Like, you know, we say it all the time about the great thing about owning your own firm is nobody tells you what to do. But the curse of owning your own firm is nobody tells you what to do. So you really have to be focused. And. And I think, Tyson, that it's okay for there to be peaks and valleys of focus. I think if you're focused 247 for years and years. That can be a problem. I also think, you know, I turned 54 this year and I think there's part of me that's just sort of taking it a little bit easier on myself and just I know that at the firm we've hit a plateau. I know that it's going to take different kinds of thinking and different kinds of activity for me and the other people on leadership to break through it. And sometimes I think I'm just resting to get ready for the next thing.
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Sure. Well, I'm going to skip ahead then to the firm. Then I'm going to talk about that a little bit. What do you think at this time next year? So August or October, I mean October of 2025, what do you think you'll be doing at this time next year?
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Well, I would imagine I'll still be. I think I'm going to focus a lot of the free time that I've been developing on YouTube. I think I'm going to go even more heavy on YouTube. I think there's a real opportunity for me to. You know, we had that guest on the TikTok Fellow last week, that lawyer.
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It's fantastic.
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It was fantastic. And I knew he was fantastic because our friend Ryan McKean told me. And so I think there's an opportunity there for us to get into a position where we're referring out a lot of immigration stuff and I'm just creating pure content. I mean, I think we'll always have a place for the firm, but I think there's a lot of cases that we don't handle and that I could see me starting to do more partnerships. I'm a luckily with Maximum Lawyer and everything else, I view myself as pretty collaborative. But due to our network and people that we know, you know, we know I know immigration lawyers all around the country now and there's no reason why I couldn't partner up with them on stuff. And owning a law firm, especially when you get to the size of we are like about 50 people, there's a lot that comes with that. A lot of people, management, a lot of issues, raises and salaries and all that stuff. So I'm still all in on the law firm but for my own day to day stuff that doesn't get me all that excited.
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A
I was going to pull up Julio's last name, but now I can't remember how to pronounce his last name. It's the purple I remember.
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Oh, he very good. Yeah, I remember his oi was the key.
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He told me how to say it right before. And then I.
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You did it.
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I did it. And now I can't remember how to say it. So nicely. Nicely done. All right. The. But back to. Back to the firm, though I am curious about the whole idea, like referring out. So are you thinking you'll niche down even more and just refer out the stuff that you don't do, or are you thinking refer out more of everything?
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Well, you know, our good friend Josh warship did a presentation that my son Youssef brings up about once a month, and he is. Dad, you have 50,000 people on your email list. You have a 45% open rate. You should be actively trying to get car accident cases to refer to all of your friends.
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And I agree.
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I know, I know. I just haven't done it. There's just so many other things to do. So that. That's some. I mean, with the megaphone we have, we're at almost 140,000 people on TikTok, which of course is nowhere near as big as Julio. But, you know, you can make a huge impact with 5,000 followers. Right. So we could be doing a much better job. So if I get a little more focused and I have a little more time, I think these are the kinds of things that we can do with the firm to really boost things.
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A
I think. I think this is smart because the mistake that sometimes people would make in that same situation. I've got the big microphone. Let's take on car crash cases as opposed to, like, let's. Let's market for them and refer them out. Is that at all? Do you have that desire at all?
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B
It's so funny. The. There's really only two other practice areas or case types that I would ever think about creating. And it's something that we've talked about, and it's really just based on Imani's expertise, my wife's expertise. I would never want to get back to doing discovery. I would never want to get back to depots. I wouldn't want to be supervising lawyers that do those things, because when you supervise lawyers that do those things and then those lawyers leave, you end up doing those things. And I don't want to do those things. The only two areas that I think are very niche, that I think are really ripe for disruption are elder law or, you know, Medicare, Medicaid planning, and what would you call it? Disability advocacy. Advocating for school, for kids in schools, either for gifted services, which I think is very, very underrepresented, and for kids with Challenges. So I think there's a audience out there for both of those things that the lawyers who are practicing in those areas have not even scratched.
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A
What do you mean?
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So I think that there are a lot of families that could benefit from having an advocate with these school districts. We've had to fight twice, one, to get different benefits for different access to the help that they needed for one of our very two of our gifted students, one of whom, and I'm talking about our own children, one of whom had learning disabilities as well. So the school districts put up all these obstacles, and I think that if there's a way that you can figure out how to charge people appropriately, and I think these school districts really overreach and really just say, oh, they're doing okay, they're doing okay. I think on the gifted side especially, that there's just not nearly as much advocacy as there could be. Imani has broken through that twice. We won in Webster. We came this close to suing the district, and it was only because we had copious notes of every dumb thing that the gifted resource person had said that they folded and gave our son services. And then when we got to Parkway, we sort of had to do it again. Although it was a lot easier in.
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Parkway because you had a. You had a model you could go off of.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. That's interesting. I think. I think the struggle would be in that situation. One sounds like a new practice area almost because no one really talks about. Right. And then also getting paid. But if you're talking about gifted programs, you probably are talking about wealthier families for the most part. And so I could see how you could. You could. You could charge it an hourly or flat rate or whatever. So. Yeah, that's. That's an interesting one.
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Yeah. And then elder law, we've been through. We, my aunt now and Imani's mom before, have gone through this whole thing of the idea that you're going to have to pay for the treatment that people need towards the end of their life. And there's all that stuff you can do with trust, irrevocable trust, or Medicaid planning that some people are doing. But I think the marketing of it is really off. I spoke to the Elder Law association of Missouri a couple years ago at ameristar, and the looks of shock when I mentioned very, very basic marketing things was eye opening to me. And it made me think, oh, this is. This is a market that we could really take off on.
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Remember when we were down, we. Gary asked us to. No, it wasn't Gary. The two of us, we spoke down at the Social Security Disability. Yeah, that conference.
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Yeah.
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I can't remember what the name of the conference was. We had the same look. Yeah, we went like, there's like the 10 basic. Something about marketing or something like that. It is interesting. I guess I kind of got the impression that that's been changing with the legal field in general. Do you think that's still.
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B
As younger people come through, they understand usually that you need, you need to be, well, marketing. Marketing. Well, you know, our friend Steve Bartle jumped out of the box and went way ahead of a bunch of other family lawyers who didn't understand electron or you know, digital marketing. And so, yeah, I think it's changing.
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A
Yeah. Have you considered bringing in like a full in house marketing team to do. To do your marketing stuff?
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B
Well, we have four people that do nothing but marketing for us. You mean like outsourcing it?
- [24:43]
A
No, no, no. I'm like actually a full like marketing department. So like. So you have how many people? Four. So four. Okay, so you do have a full team. Then the. Now you. Your newsletter drafted by someone else. Now you're not doing it anymore.
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B
Correct.
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A
Okay, so you are essentially just recording the videos and doing the shows. What do the rest of them do?
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B
Well, we have one person who just deals with TikTok. So when I, when I go live on YouTube now I also go live on TikTok. She feeds me all the comments. She's just part time. She just feeds me the comments and she also responds to all the comments. She adds people to the database when they come in through TikTok. Then we have another person who just says all the other platforms. Lynette, that's her job. She deals with all the other platforms. Maho sort of oversees everything, does the newsletter, does the branding and that stuff. And then this fourth position, we're sort of going to change, I think a little bit. We're feeling it's just going to be focused on local marketing in St. Louis. I still think we're doing a really poor job of marketing ourselves in St. Louis. It's really so funny because you and I as maximum lawyers have fans and friends all around the country, much more so than we do in St. Louis. So with the immigration firm, it's almost the same thing. Only 15% of our business came from Missouri last year.
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A
So it's interesting.
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B
That's crazy.
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A
Although Gary, Gary gives me. Gary Burger, our buddy, he gives me crap, but he's like every, every time he meets someone that already knows Me, he always calls me, do you know everybody? So I do have that. I, I do think that the plaintiff's bar is a lot tighter than the immigration bar in St. Louis. So I do have that, that benefit over you. I am, I am interested about this, this tightening up on St. Louis. Are you afraid that that might weaken your national presence if you do that?
- [26:24]
B
Well, I don't want it to be an either or. And I think in my mind I have thought of either or. You know, because immigration's federal and because I, you know, we talked to law firm owners about where do you want to get your business? I didn't want to be out glad handing. I didn't want to be out taking people to lunch. I wanted to do it all from our office. So that just lent itself towards digital. But I probably swung too far over. And we have a very energetic, bubbly person in our office who is really good with customers and clients and she's been asking to do more. So I think we're gonna segue her into at least part time doing that and see how it goes. And then what I think you do is then you make that the model for other cities.
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A
Do you think it hurts to you that you're not an immigrant yourself?
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B
Probably a little bit. But we have so many immigrants in our office and so many people representing different countries. But I think, I don't think so.
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A
Yeah, I would, I like what you do and I think I would stay on that approach where you, you make it a lot about your clients and like their stories. Like I think some of your, I'm assuming some of your most successful posts have been like, about your clients.
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B
Success stories. Success stories and dirty tricks. Those are the two things that people like the most. They love to hear about how we were able to overcome and help somebody and they love to hear what are the dirty tricks or secrets or things that people don't know about the immigration.
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A
Service is you leaving Maxwell. So you're going to have some time, extra time on your hands that you already kind of mentioned, which could be a good thing, could be a bad thing. As long as you guide it the right way, I'm sure it'll be a good thing. But what does that mean for your firm, like you leaving Max Law?
- [27:54]
B
Well, for my firm, I think that it's going to give me more time to have sort of singular focus. I. This is another interesting thing that comes back from high school. So I was a B student, but I had a job. I did some sports and I always liked to have like seven things that I was doing. Because then that was always a built in excuse for not excelling at one thing, right? So that's something that's been with me for a long time. So I've been asking myself, what if I'm focused? What if I'm laser focused? Like. And I've been. I've been shedding different parts of things that I've been doing. And it really came home to me, you know, when. And this gets. I talked to you about this in the context of me leaving maximum Lawyer, that when I had the boys, I volunteered to be the den leader for Cub Scouts. I volunteered to be the coach for baseball. So I was helping sort of all these other parents raise their kids right. And I got accolades and thank yous and I enjoyed it and it was fun and I was spending time with my boys, right? But I was never sort of all focused on them, either in sports or in anything. Well, when Noor came along, Noor started high school after my youngest son went to college. So I thought to myself, hmm, I can just pour everything into her. I can go to every game. I can practice with her, I can take her for lessons and just throw a lot more at it and see how it goes. And just like, I'm going to give whatever time I have to her. And so, you know, I think I've told you this before, but when I worked, when Adele and I first opened, we rented space from an attorney named Kevin King. His daughter had a soccer scholarship to Auburn. She played Division 1 soccer for four years. Kevin went to every game for four years. Just about. I think he missed a couple. But I thought, boy, that would be cool to have a firm that's up and running and resilient enough for him to be able to drive all around the southeast United States to see his daughter play soccer. And I decided then to try to start building something so that when in 2027, when NOR graduates from high school, that if she plays college softball, which hopefully she will, then I'll be able to do the same thing. And so whether I trade this maximum Lawyer time for firm time, I think I will to a degree simply by being more accessible. I don't know that I'm not going to go back into like handling cases or stuff. I'm still going to be doing my higher level thinking. But I think that we've hit this plateau. We won the Inc. 5000 fastest growing firms two years in a row, like in 20 and 21. And then since then, our growth has halved each time where this year we're probably going to break exactly even to what we made last year. So what I'm going to do is try to figure out how to go from 5 to 10.
- [30:49]
A
That's interesting. The revenue is the number you're talking about, right?
- [30:55]
B
That's revenue.
- [30:56]
A
Okay, so what about profit? I mean, how's your profit done during that time?
- [31:01]
B
Good.
- [31:02]
A
Okay, good. Has your profit gone up or is it stagnated too this year?
- [31:07]
B
Probably go down from last year.
- [31:09]
A
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- [32:27]
B
No. And that's the first time since 2012.
- [32:29]
A
When you were really at your. When you were scaling the fastest. So as you were growing the fastest, your revenues were climbing the fastest. How were your profits at that time?
- [32:39]
B
They were good, but we were sinking a lot back into the firm. So, you know, you know, one thing I've learned from you, when we talk to law firm owners and they're talking about their inability to grow, you immediately jump to how much cash you taking out, how much cash you taking out, how much cash you taken out. And that's been a warning to me to leave more money in there to make sure that you can grow, because you do need that cash to grow. You needed to build that infrastructure. And we had our leadership off site yesterday and Adele and I were sort of defending the infrastructure changes that we've made in the last year, and we think that's poised to help us then break through this plateau that we're at.
- [33:21]
A
Nice. Yeah, it really is easy to suck the money right out of it because, like, oh, look at all this money I have. I can go buy a new couch, I can do. But, you know, like, it's. Whatever it might be, but it's. It's. It's one of the easiest ways of killing the business, or at least you won't kill the business, but you might kill the growth. And that's. That's what sucks the most about it. Let's shift gears a little bit, because I do want to talk to you a little bit about the podcast. Do you know the first question that you asked me on the show?
- [33:48]
B
I have no idea what the first question was.
- [33:49]
A
I asked you, how did you know so early that you wanted to start your own firm?
- [33:54]
B
That's a great question.
- [33:55]
A
So let me ask you, how did you know so early that you wanted to start your own firm?
- [34:02]
B
That's a great question. Because I definitely had what Michael Gerber calls the entrepreneurial seizure. So after I settled my lawsuit with the archdiocese and I was able to pay off my loans, and I knew that imani, working at St. Louis U. As a law professor, would pay our mortgage, and we got our health insurance through slu, that's when I started thinking going on my own. At this point, I had become a partner at that small maritime firm that I worked at for about nine years. And I went to court. I had referred a case to our friend Amy Gunn, and for some weird reason, there was a mistrial right when I walked in. And so I waited with her and the client that I'd referred. And the client gave Amy a huge hug. And I was like, I'm not getting much hugs dancing around on barges. So I always knew that I could do it because I'd seen my dad do it. In 1990, my dad had left his architectural engineering firm where he was the director of marketing, and he opened up his own architectural engineering firm with another fellow. So I always knew the benefits of owning your own firm, of being your own boss, of, you know, setting your own agenda and sort of, you know, working towards your own success as opposed to somebody else's success. So I always had that in the back of my mind. But then I definitely had that entrepreneurial seizure. I gotta get out of here. I gotta do this. This has to happen now. Like, I've been turning down immigration help Related questions at the mosque for at that point, almost 10 years, and it was just time.
- [35:39]
A
How do you think you might have done it different if you were. If you were to start it today, what would you have changed about how you started?
- [35:46]
B
Great, Great question. Number one, I would have done just immigration from the get go. Number two, I would have started YouTube earlier. I always started the. I always was working on my email list, so I'd make sure to do that. I would not have taken as much money out of the firm at the beginning. I would have. I think those are the things I would have done.
- [36:06]
A
We. I think we started talking about Max law probably in 2015. I know that we had. We had the famous butter burger meeting at Culver's. Culver's.
- [36:17]
B
When you were still eating meat.
- [36:18]
A
I was still eating meat back then.
- [36:20]
B
That's hard to believe.
- [36:21]
A
I was drinking back then. A lot of things back then that I did that I don't really do much anymore. What do you think you were searching for whenever we started Max Law?
- [36:32]
B
Well, at the time, I very, very, very much loved a podcast called I Love Marketing with Joe Polish and Dean Jackson. And I listened to. So they had a back catalog, much like a lot of people find us and go through our back catalog. There were about 200 episodes at that point, or 150. And I went and listened to all of them. And I just thought that that's another thing about me is I've always felt not entitled, but that the world needed to hear from me. I don't know what that is. Clearly I have that because I spent all this time on YouTube ranting and raving. I spent eight years with you, creating this podcast and talking, sharing my thoughts. I thought that owning a law firm was a lonely proposition. A lonely proposition that no matter how you try to explain to other people, even to the spouses of law firm owners or the number one employee of law firms, it's just different. And that I was looking for some place to talk about that, to workshop that, to experiment with that, to interview people that are doing cool stuff. And I thought that you and I were having good conversations at the time, so why not share this piece of what we were doing? And Gary Vaynerchuk had always talked about, you know, documenting the journey. And really that's what we did.
- [38:03]
A
I think that that's what is the coolest part of this, is that, like, we could. We could hand this off to our kids. You can listen. Kids can listen to it. And this is actually a good segue into something I want to ask you about earlier when you were talking about your kids. I got. I got a hint of maybe the way you've been. You've been able to parent, nor that you have a little bit of regret about maybe how you parented the boys. So knowing that they might hear this at some point, what would you say to them about that?
- [38:35]
B
Oh, no regrets. No regrets. I mean, it's a different life. Having three boys and a girl in the house versus having a girl in the house. It's just different. No, no, no. We had great times. I coached all three kids. I helped with all their teams. I was there all through all their scouts. I spent a ton of time with them. I was never working too hard or working too much that I was outside of their sphere of life. Like, I was always part of it. So, no, no, no regrets. Just really. I think part of it was just to see an experiment, like, what would happen if I did that, and plus, not to offend the boys if they're listening. Nor had the most athletic ability, thanks to her mother. So it just, like, it just never lined up for them to do the kinds of things that she does.
- [39:19]
A
Yeah, I like to. I like to hear that. Good. That's. That's awesome. So from, like, the first podcast, I went back and listened to it because I wanted to.
- [39:27]
B
Were you laughing?
- [39:28]
A
I was kind of laughing, but it was. I was interested by something we, like from the very beginning. That question that you asked me. It took several minutes for us to get into any questions. Like, we were talking. We were just vibing. It was really cool. And, like, it was almost like we were dictating a. An e book. It was really interesting because. But not like. Not like it didn't sound like we're reading anything, but just, like, we were just talking, and it was really cool. Why do you think that is? Because we have very different backgrounds. You know, like, we're. What. How old are you?
- [39:58]
B
I'm 54.
- [39:59]
A
And I'm. And I'm 41. So we're over a decade apart in age, different backgrounds. So why. Why do you think that is?
- [40:08]
B
Well, I would harken back to when I met you, which is when you were sitting right there in the front. Do you. Can you picture the room?
- [40:15]
A
Yeah, I know exactly.
- [40:16]
B
Exactly where you sat in the front row on the aisle there. I think that. I think we had. Both had good bosses and bad bosses, and I think we both thought that a lot of lawyers did a lot of dumb things. And I think we both see because you really remind me of my dad.
- [40:43]
A
You've never said that. That's interesting.
- [40:44]
B
Yeah. You really remind me of my dad in that sort of a. Not. He had a harder childhood, I think, than you did. I know he did, because he was beaten and stuff all the time.
- [40:55]
A
Yeah, that didn't happen.
- [40:56]
B
No, I know, but I think I saw in you the hustle that my dad displayed and that I wanted to emulate. I think that I. You were always focused. You always had that damn notebook. You're always writing shit down. You wanted more than what you had, and you were excited about the possibility of testing your boundaries and, you know, exploring how far you could go.
- [41:23]
A
Yeah, that is interesting. The back, whenever you were doing the teaching, was that one of those things where you were trying to do a bunch of different things and not. Not. None of them really great?
- [41:32]
B
That's when I was broke.
- [41:33]
A
Yeah.
- [41:34]
B
That was 2012. Yeah. I mean, I only taught that class once. Tyson Barb Gilchrist took the semester off. It was. It might have been summer or it might have been fall, but she took the semester off. And I. That's the only. I went and spoke at that class a lot like you did later, but I only taught it once. So really, that's just very serendipitous.
- [41:51]
A
I think the approach that you took, where you brought in people that were. They were essentially specialists in a certain area to talk about certain things. I think my favorite class, other than the Debbie Champion class, which was great, was great. She's fantastic. Probably my favorite, though, was the one where you had someone, I think it was from Simon's firm, come in to talk about, like, answering the phone and stuff. I don't remember that one. Yeah, that was maybe the smartest thing you did. Was that something. Was that something you came up with, or was that something that they were always doing?
- [42:19]
B
No, Barbara would have a speaker like every other thing. I was just busy and sort of lazy. And again, like, with this podcast, I wanted to hear from smart people. You know, My favorite two episodes were Mike Gunn and Dennis Kennedy. Dennis Kennedy told that whole story about how he was working at Thompson Coburn, and he would charge, charge by the hour for an estate plan, and he would write it out by hand or dictate it, then his secretary would type it, then he would edit it, then she would edit it, then he would edit, then she would edit it, and then they would bill the client for all that time, and then he developed a system on his word processor to automate all that. And he's like, well, I Just, you know, technologicalized myself out of a job.
- [43:01]
A
That was a really good one. I think we both need to check in with Dennis. I haven't checked in with him in a while, but you had mentioned the thing about being broke at the time. Right. So how would you say that? I don't know if that's. That's not quite failure, but that's something where you were struggling. How would you say that that led to you starting the podcast?
- [43:19]
B
So that's great. So now by the podcast, that was 2015. So I turned things around, mostly because Imani came to help. But I'm recognizing another trend because when you asked me if I had any regrets about the boys, the one thing that I didn't do so great at and what actually got me into therapy in the first place was that when our second son was born, which was 20 months after when our first son was born, I came to my wife and said I was going to run for state rep. And so what I do have, Tyson, is in times of stress, I want to look for an escape. So, you know, I was stressed out about not making money, so I went and taught a class. I was stressed out about having two kids and not knowing what to do and not getting any sleep, to wanting to run for office. A lot of times there's something noble in front of it or at least facing it, but at the end, I'm trying to avoid current circumstances.
- [44:09]
A
Interesting. That's very interesting. On the topic of regrets. Yes. And I don't like talking about regrets that much, but I do. I do have two questions about them. I didn't plan on asking the one about the boys. This one. Do you have any regrets about Max Law?
- [44:26]
B
Yes. You know that I don't really like conflict.
- [44:31]
A
Yeah.
- [44:32]
B
And there were two guys that helped host a show with us, and at a time, it got sort of messy, and I wish we had done a better job of nailing that down and making peace with that. So that's one thing. I also feel like in some ways, I held you back because I. You would want to do stuff. That's why I'm excited to see what you do with me retiring is to see what you do with it. Because I say no a lot. Right. And I.
- [45:05]
A
You are. You. You are. No. You're a no guy. That's for sure.
- [45:08]
B
No guy.
- [45:10]
A
Yeah. No, not always. It's. Yeah. Depends on what I want to do.
- [45:12]
B
I'm a yes guy.
- [45:13]
A
Yeah.
- [45:14]
B
You pushed me lots of different times. Certainly with Max Law, minimum time, I felt really self Conscious about asking people to pay for that or like to charge for that. And I think that goes to sort of some self worth kind of stuff. But no real regrets. I've enjoyed it. I've benefited from it entirely. I missed the conference. The conference was great. No, I don't think any real regrets.
- [45:37]
A
What do you think you're going to miss the most?
- [45:38]
B
And you can't say me talking to you on Saturdays.
- [45:41]
A
For sure. Yeah. Other. Other than that because I, that's the, that's one of the ones where like I'll, I'll, I'll definitely miss the Saturday chats with you because we, for the, for everyone that's not in the Guild. You and I chat every Saturday and people get to listen in on it, which is. And you. It's funny because usually it's almost like no one's like, I don't know anyone's in the room almost. But we do monitor the chat. But other than that it's like we're just talking about whatever.
- [46:03]
B
Yeah. I think if I'm to put on a romantic spin to it, definitely when somebody has a breakthrough in a Mastermind, there's no replacing that either with Hot Seat with us or with, in an actual meeting room. I've seen people make huge leaps in a 35 minute chair. Right. We've gone to cool places, we've had cool meals and cool locales with sunsets and you know, we've just had a ton of fun. I'm glad Paul Yokobitis pushed us to do the Mastermind. I think that's been a great aspect of the guild. I'll miss those. Probably just talking to you as regularly as I do.
- [46:45]
A
Yeah, we should have that. We'll have to find a replacement for that some other way. What do you think? Whenever you retire, whenever that may be, let's say 20 years. So you'll probably be well retired by then. But how do you think you'll view this era of your life?
- [47:04]
B
Well, you know, I'm not a good secret keeper.
- [47:06]
A
You're not like, you're pretty open book.
- [47:08]
B
Yeah, I'm not a good secret keeper. I've only told two people that I was leaving Maxwell besides you. One is Kelsey and the other is Brian Manning. And Brian Manning said, jim, you should be really proud of yourself. You helped a lot of people. And I think to me, I mean for me and you, I think we've helped a lot of people.
- [47:26]
A
I do too.
- [47:27]
B
We've benefited from it tremendously. But I think at the end of the day we've helped a lot of people get from struggling solo to having a firm that's running. I don't know that we've done a great job from, like, stage. I think we've done a great job from stage one to stage three. After that, I don't know, just because, you know, you and I are still moving into stage five. So I don't know that we've done as well a job, but I think they're just the friends that we've made and the times that we've had together and the breakthroughs that we've seen, it's just like nothing else.
- [47:59]
A
It's really cool. Yeah, it. It's. It's created this community that I think it. It existed in small pockets places, but it really kind of, like, created like this. This place for everyone to come to. That that's, you know, kind of on their own, you know, which is. Which is pretty cool. How do you think with that, though? I want to stay on this topic for a second. How do you think that if you kind of take a step back? Because I think about this quite a bit. Like, what, Mark, do you think that Max Law has had on the legal industry as a whole?
- [48:30]
B
I think we tapped into something that needed tapping into. I think that the ABA and the lawyer organizations do a great job of telling us all the things that they can't do that lawyers can't do. I think what we've done is shown people what's possible to empower them to build the firm that they want. You know, I spend most of my time in hot seats asking people, where is it that you say you want to be? Maybe? Why aren't you there? And how can we help you to get there? Right. And so I think what we did is we greatly expanded the idea of what's possible. And you know, that every year for at least the last five or six years, people have come to us and said, I listened to every episode before I had the nerve to go out on my own. I mean, that's a huge thing. That's almost like me helping bring a spouse here from overseas. Like, we're changing the trajectory of people's lives and their firms and the people that work for them. We're helping people be happier. Right. And I just don't know that there's that many people out in the world freeing people like that.
- [49:45]
A
Sure. Yeah. That's a really good point. What I. You said the. The favorite thing about masterminds and stuff mine is that you, you know, we ask them, like, what they want. And they say one thing, because they say. They say that that is the thing that. That they think is what everyone expects them to say. But then you keep pushing and you get past that and you really get to really what they want.
- [50:09]
B
Why? Why? Why?
- [50:10]
A
And that's the part that I think is really cool. We're like, we've. We've. It took. It takes some time to, like, kind of break down those barriers sometimes, but that's the cool moment where you're like, now we've affected you. Now we've changed your life. And I think that's what's pretty cool. And what's cool about podcasts is that you could listen to it and they can make those decisions in their head because they don't need. They're not talking to an audience, so they can actually. They can self reflect. They can listen to things you've said, what I've said, and what the guests have said, and then they, okay, I know I've been going this one way, but then I've got permission to pivot and do this thing over here, which I think that that part's pretty cool.
- [50:47]
B
I think the people that do the best, either on the hot seat or talking to us on the podcast or at a mastermind, are the ones who are the most vulnerable. Right. And I think that. I remember we had a mastermind before the first conference that we did at the casino, and. And three people talked about alcoholism, and there were tears, and it was just very, very powerful. All before we head into this great conference. Right. And so I think that lawyers are taught to put up a lot of shells. And to the extent that we've helped people break through those shells, both from the outside in and the inside out, and to be able to sort of be themselves has been great. I also think we can't underestimate the blind spots that we have. And it's in listening to the stories of others that, at least for me, I would find myself saying, I can't believe that guy's doing that. And then I think for about five minutes, go, wait. That's something I do, right? And I think, you know, you get a ton out of sharing your own story, but you really get a ton. And I think the reason why people, like, listen to the podcast is because they see themselves in each person 100%.
- [51:55]
A
Yeah. Nothing ticks me off much more than, like, hearing me basically criticizing in my head someone and then like, oh, that's me. Like that, that. And you're realizing it's you. You know, Worse. It is absolutely the worst because sometimes.
- [52:07]
B
You would just look at me because you knew that what the person about me, it's.
- [52:11]
A
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. But that. That part's frustrating. What do you. I want to shift back to, like, you running the firm. What do you think? And you can't say, you know, helping clients or helping people. You. It has to be about actually running the firm. Okay, so what would you say is your favorite part about running a law firm?
- [52:31]
B
Well, you know, there have been a lot of things that I've shed in the law firm. You know, I mean, we have over 50 people now, and there's nothing that any of those 50 people do that I didn't do at some point. Right. There's more people doing it, but there's not anything. Any tasks that I haven't done. And I think that the job of growing as a leader and growing your firm is letting go of more and more things. You know, we've talked about this before. First you let go of the things that you hate to do and you're not good at. Then you do the things that you hate. You give up the things you hate to do that you are good at. Then you give up the things that you like to do that you're good at. Then you give up the things that you're really, really good at. And so I always think the last two things that a law firm owner should give up are keeping track of the numbers and marketing. Right. So that's something I've been thinking about. Like, what is it that I really like to do? And I don't know why I really like signing up cases. I had a lead come in the other day. I grabbed it off slack. We have a little channel where the intake lawyers. And every now and then, I'll just do it just to sort of stay fresh. And it also motivates the team when I, you know, talk to leads and stuff. And there was a guy, he called, and he said he'd been interviewing a couple lawyers, and I'd done a training on, like, closing.
- [53:51]
A
Yeah.
- [53:51]
B
Because, you know, I've been talking to Gary.
- [53:52]
A
Show off your skills a little bit.
- [53:53]
B
I'm talking to Gary Falkowitz and everything. Yeah, I should send them the recording. Well, I said to myself, I am not letting this guy not sign. And so he had been. He had hired another lawyer in Virginia to file a lawsuit like we do. And that lawyer wasted six months and never filed it.
- [54:07]
A
Oh, no.
- [54:08]
B
Six months. And these lawsuits are all about delay. Right. So I said. I said Brother, I said, I knew in my head, I said, brother, if you sign today and make the first payment, I will have this lawsuit on file by 5:00 Monday. And I knew that I would have it on file by noon Friday. I didn't tell him that.
- [54:26]
A
Yeah.
- [54:26]
B
But I knew that. And so he signed, he paid, he got us the documents that night. My overseas paralegal worked on it overnight. We had that to him, draft review at 9am and it was on file at noon. I just got a real thrill about that. Yeah, I also, I also helped sort of slow down or possibly stop somebody's deportation this week. I had to go to court. So I'm good at lots of things. Right. But where I really get my energy, I don't know why, is the marketing. It's the talking and it's the signing up. I just don't know why.
- [54:54]
A
Talk more about how, like, the law firm owners like, stepping in to, like, whether it's like leads or something like that. Like, and I'm not saying you have to do this all the time, but like how you stepping in and like bringing your energy to it and really kind of taking charge, like how that affects the rest of it.
- [55:12]
B
So that's straight from Grant Cardone. Grant Cardone has a whole couple chapters about that. The team gets totally jazzed when I get on a case and sign it up and they go back and listen to them. I don't know, I just think. I think people like to know that you understand what they do, that you're encouraging them and you're not afraid to get your hands dirty. I think that it builds camaraderie, it builds trust. I think that it really gets them motivated to know that, you know, you're right there with them.
- [55:42]
A
Yeah. So I think some. Something that you do, I think you kind of downplay a little bit your skills at being an actual lawyer. I think you talk a lot. I mean, you talk a lot about marketing and all that. You do downplay it a lot. I don't know why you do, but. Doesn't matter. That's not what the question is. The question is, do you think you need to be a good lawyer to run a successful law firm?
- [56:02]
B
Well, I do think you need to understand everything that's being done. I've had a friend who was not an immigration lawyer who had an immigration lawyer in his practice, and I think it's almost impossible to supervise that person without being actively engaged in that practice area and understanding how it all works. I don't know that you have to be a good lawyer. I'm certainly not the best lawyer. I do downplay it. The main reason I downplayed is because I don't want to handle any cases anymore. So I always say, I'm going to give you to my wife. She's a much better than me.
- [56:31]
A
Yes.
- [56:31]
B
It sets the table. Right. So that's really why I downplay it. I also have sort of fun with it, but also it allows me on the show to avoid questions. But, no, I mean, I think you have to understand how everything works. You know, when I was in college, I was in charge of what was called then the Billiken Bus Line, or the Fire line, it was called then. And so there were school buses that would drive the med students from Frost Campus down to the med school.
- [56:54]
A
Yeah.
- [56:55]
B
And so the first year, I drove that bus, and the second, as a student. As a student, I got a CDL with my car.
- [57:01]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [57:02]
B
Yeah.
- [57:02]
A
That's crazy.
- [57:03]
B
Actually, I got in an accident in the bus before I had my cdl. I wasn't even supposed to be driving it.
- [57:08]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [57:08]
B
So I was the boss the second year, and after that second summer, I got a new boss, like, from the administration. And he said, jim, take the week off. I'm going to learn how everything works. And he did that so that he could then talk to me about everything in the business. So I think I've always. That was Steve Surratt. I've always thought that Steve was really smart in that. That was a very wise approach. And so I think that in order to supervise anything, you have to be able to do it and understand what it is that you're asking people to do. You know, I started at a law firm, basically answering the phone, doing the mail and running errands. So you learn it from the ground up, then you understand everybody's job.
- [57:46]
A
Yeah, I think that that's a really interesting point because I kind of go back and forth about that question. I don't know if you do or not, but it makes me think about my previous employer and how he would go to these conferences and he would learn. Back then it was like the reptile stuff. And he would come back, but he would talk about, this is how we're going to start doing things, but he wouldn't tell us really what it was that we were going to start doing. And it was never really kind of implemented. Nothing was ever implemented. It was just like, we did things how the firm was always doing them. And it got to a point where I feel like he didn't really understand what everyone was doing. He just didn't understand the firm. And I thought there was a massive disconnect. And so I think that that's right, you do have to understand it, but then everyone else has to understand it too.
- [58:30]
B
I remember we have a friend who had an office in Boston and in Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles was where he was spending most of his time. He had built his firm in Boston. Then he wanted to move. He went to a wedding and Los Angeles. And he told me at some point when he would come back to Boston, he was just that guy that comes back from LA and yells @ us. You don't want to be that guy that just comes back and yells at them.
- [58:54]
A
No, no, you don't.
- [58:55]
B
No. If they, because they sense that they can get a whiff of that, if they have any sense that there's a gap between what they're actually being asked to do and doing and you, that's going to really build discord.
- [59:06]
A
Yeah. It's also tough that if you don't have a presence at an office, like a regular presence, like, that's, that's bad too.
- [59:15]
B
I think so, yeah. I mean, you can overcome it with like zoom calls and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, they have to know that you're paying.
- [59:21]
A
Attention 100% or you have someone reliable there that's, that's running that office. All right, I'm going to read another quote for you. Oh, before I do that, I want to ask you something else. What do you think is the difference between running a law firm and being an employee?
- [59:38]
B
When you're an employee, hopefully your workday and tasks are planned for you. They're organized, they're sort of hand delivered to you. When you own a law firm or have a podcast, you have to be ready to adapt on the fly. You have to juggle different things. We've gotten, we've gotten to the point now, I was talking about this yesterday, that if we make a decision in one department, it can really impact how things happen in another department. So, for example, let's say we decide to lower our fees or lower our fee structure, make it easier for people to sign up. Well, that's most likely going to lead to more cases, which means the operations team is going to be busier. So then that can impact customer service, which can then impact Google reviews, which can then impact the intake team and their ability to sign up cases. So I would say it's very easy to be singularly focused when you're an employee. But when you are a. When you are a law firm owner, your head has to be on a swivel and you have to be able to keep track. That's why numbers are so important. That's why systems are important, because you have to be able to see quickly. And I emphasize quickly that there's a problem.
- [60:51]
A
Yeah, there's several studies about quick decision making, and the most successful people in the world have high confidence. Jason Selk talks about that. But then also the other one is like, quick decision making. And it's funny, the study talks about how it doesn't even have to be the right decision. It just has to be a decision, which I think is really interesting.
- [61:08]
B
Norman Schwarzkopf has a quote almost just like that.
- [61:10]
A
Yeah. Well, here's the quote I want to ask you about, and I will be very impressed if you do know this one. It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. And that's by Herman Melville, who wrote Moby Dick, as you probably know. So it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. And I want to get your thoughts on that.
- [61:31]
B
If you had told me that was Steve Jobs, I would have believed that, too. That sounds like a Steve Jobs kind of quote. And certainly that was his mantra at Apple. I believe that our job in the world is to be in touch with our authentic self. It's really hard to know your authentic self, to stay connected to our authentic self. I was asked this week to go talk to the law students at St. Louis University. I went back and forth with the lady, and she wanted me to title my talk How Immigration Lawyers Stay up to Date on the Immigration. The Rapid Changes in the Immigration Nationality Act. The Immigration and Nationality act hasn't been updated since the early 90s. So in a way, there have been no changes, much less rapid changes.
- [62:18]
A
Part of me wanted to yawn, and part of me wanted to. I was nauseous. So that's a terrible title.
- [62:23]
B
So what do I do? I go there and I do exactly what I want to do. I titled it, and I had one slide about how we stay updated. And then I just talked about. I told my whole story. I did all my antics, all my ranting and ravings, and people loved it. Right. So that's because in a lot of ways, I'm pretty in touch with who I am, what's important. And I was at my daughter's parent teacher conference yesterday, and she has a little bio page in her journalism class, and it said Unpopular opinions. And she said, birkenstocks and Sox go together. Like, I've never said that to her. I've never. That's what she said. And that was her quote up on the screen. I almost died. But, you know, I am who I am, you know, and you did that great presentation at Max Locan 2021, I think about. What did you call it?
- [63:14]
A
It was Nerds and weirdos.
- [63:15]
B
Nerds and weirdos. Yeah. I mean, Gina Wickman would say, let your freak flag fly. Right? So I think that authenticity is rare these days. And if you can be authentic and be connected to who you are, that's going to be one of the biggest measures of your success. You're also going to be happier.
- [63:38]
A
So that is exactly why I asked you that or read that quote to you and asked you about it, because I was going to reference the nerds and weirdos. Because the thing that I think I've learned from you the most is about being authentic and being original. Because it's something with. Just something about my upbringing I struggle with, like, kind of letting the walls down quite a bit. And so I've learned that quite a bit from you about just being authentic and being yourself. I was even going to talk about the. I wrote down socks and Crocs because it's easier to say, but it's really Birkenstocks and socks when it comes to that Maxwell presentation. I went back and actually read the transcript about it. And I had talked about how Bernard had sent those socks. Remember, he ate our faces off. You still had good. Nice. And you wore them, which I thought was hilarious, but that's just who you are. And on that one, I think someone posted about. I think Michael, albeit maybe posted about it, like posted online, that it's. That's what's cool about it. Like you're. It makes you memorable. So I think that, that. I think that that's awesome. Like, that's one of my favorite parts about you.
- [64:39]
B
I was with my kids. We were all in Vegas last weekend for my sister's wedding. And, you know, there's a lot of downtime at weddings.
- [64:46]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [64:47]
B
And plus, especially when you don't drink. So as the night went on and the drinking got heavier and heavier, I was sitting with my two younger sons and they were just talking. I mean, I don't mean to brag or anything, but they're talking about what great parents we were. It was really like a full circle moment. They were talking about, you know, they. They have a lot of friends in college who are struggling, who are sort of directionless, who sort of had either tough childhoods or hard teenage years or whatever. And they talked about how, you know, lucky they felt to have us as their parents. And it was really just great, great stuff. And one of the things they said, as evidenced by my crazy sister's wedding in Las Vegas, is they said, we have a cinematic life, right? Like, why? Why not have a Technicolor cinematic life? You only go through once. I think one of the great things about what happened to me when I was a kid is that it made me appreciate every day and to think big and to just be brazen, right? Be brazen with life. And I think that it's just so easy to get worn down, and the system is built for you to conform and just to just say, fuck all that and do what you want. Life's too short. You only get one chance. You only get one chance.
- [65:55]
A
I can't think of a better way of ending the episode, so thanks, brother.
- [65:59]
B
You got it, man.