The Power of Mindset: How Language and Self-Reflection Shape Success with Marco Brown

Summary

Maximum Lawyer Podcast Summary

Title: The Power of Mindset: How Language and Self-Reflection Shape Success with Marco Brown
Host: Tyson Mutrux
Guest: Marco Brown
Release Date: December 31, 2024

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1. Introduction to the Episode and Marco Brown

In this insightful episode of Maximum Lawyer, host Tyson Mutrux welcomes Marco Brown, a renowned attorney and thought leader in the realm of mindset and personal development for law firm success. Tyson highlights Marco's expertise in personal branding, professional presentation, and the strategic use of fear as a motivator, setting the stage for a deep dive into the psychological aspects that drive professional achievement.

Notable Quote:

"You'll discover how your mindset, the language you use, and your presentation can shape both your professional reputation and personal success."
— Tyson Mutrux [01:17]

2. Personal Branding: The Power of the Suit

A standout aspect of Marco Brown's professional persona is his unwavering commitment to wearing beautifully tailored Italian suits, which he refers to as his "suit of armor." This sartorial choice is not merely aesthetic but serves as a strategic tool to project confidence, respect, and professionalism.

Notable Quotes:

"It's a brand thing... I'm dressing up to respect the people in the room and then talk with them in a certain way."
— Marco Brown [08:11]

"I kind of put on my best self and think better when I'm dressed like this."
— Marco Brown [08:40]

3. Building and Scaling the Law Firm: Hiring and Maintaining Quality

Marco discusses the challenges of expanding his law firm into new states, emphasizing the importance of hiring the right individuals who embody the firm's values and entrepreneurial spirit. He elaborates on the meticulous hiring process, ensuring that new hires not only possess the necessary skills but also align with the firm's culture.

Notable Quote:

"The way I think through hiring is first, I have to like you... I made it 18 months and I thought, if I ever own my own place, I'm going to like the people that I work around."
— Marco Brown [13:48]

4. Early Struggles and Adversity: Starting in the Great Recession

Launching a law firm during the Great Recession presented Marco with formidable challenges, including deep student debt, lack of a professional network, and personal financial strains. Balancing an $8.50 per hour job with running the law office exemplified his resilience and determination to succeed despite unfavorable conditions.

Notable Quotes:

"I have very serious internal locus of control. So it's my fault."
— Marco Brown [37:34]

"I started with absolutely zero. We're deeply in debt from law school because law school decides to indebt all of its students and not teach them how to make any money."
— Marco Brown [22:34]

5. Rock Bottom and the Turning Point: The Great Shower Incident

Marco recounts a pivotal moment in 2015, known as the "Great Shower Incident," where a profound vision during a moment of intense stress compelled him to overhaul his approach to business and personal well-being. This experience marked the beginning of significant positive changes in his life and professional practices.

Notable Quotes:

"I saw my funeral... It was a vision of my future... And I said, absolutely not. I will not do that to my family."
— Marco Brown [38:00]

"This was super cool for two days and then I realized on the back end that I just had all the same problems that I had before I won the award."
— Marco Brown [35:19]

6. Financial Turnaround: Implementing the Evergreen Retainer

A cornerstone of Marco's financial revival was the adoption of the evergreen retainer model. This billing strategy ensures that a consistent amount remains in the client's trust account, enhancing cash flow and minimizing unpaid bills. The implementation of this model resulted in a remarkable increase in payment collection rates, reaching up to 99%.

Notable Quote:

"An evergreen retainer is a retainer in which you always have money in the trust. So if your retainer is $5,000, you always have $5,000 in your trust."
— Marco Brown [43:04]

7. Client Management and Sales Strategies

Transitioning from a fear-based approach to a structured sales strategy was instrumental in Marco's success. Influenced by thought leaders like Lee Rosen and Grant Cardone, Marco focused on closing techniques and effective communication to enhance client conversions and satisfaction. Charging for consultations increased commitment and boosted conversion rates from the teens to around 30%.

Notable Quotes:

"They convinced me to stop doing unpaid consults... just charge for them, and if you don't like it, then you can always go back to free."
— Marco Brown [53:18]

"You have to prime the pump... [when closing] we tell them about what we do, how much it’s going to cost... and then we ask, how do you want to pay?"
— Marco Brown [60:13]

8. Maintaining Client Satisfaction and Communication

Marco emphasizes the importance of clear and consistent communication with clients. By avoiding legal jargon and maintaining timely updates, his firm ensures clients feel informed and valued. Systematic communication practices, such as weekly calls and regular text updates, bridge the gap between professional legal services and client expectations.

Notable Quotes:

"We call every client every Friday. We send out text messages every Wednesday to answer questions."
— Marco Brown [84:03]

"You're going to get to know your own brain... shut off distractions and just sit around with your own head."
— Marco Brown [71:07]

9. Mental and Physical Well-being: Health and Happiness

Recognizing the impact of health on professional effectiveness, Marco made significant lifestyle changes post-2015. Regular physical exercise, such as morning walks, and eliminating sugar intake were crucial steps in improving his physical health and mental clarity. Marco advocates for minimizing sources of misery to achieve a state of happiness through the "via negativa" approach—removing negative influences to enhance well-being.

Notable Quotes:

"I started reading voraciously on the business of law... and I started getting better."
— Marco Brown [50:48]

"Shut off distractions... just do that."
— Marco Brown [70:12]

10. Visualization and Goal Setting: The Glass Chandelier Story

Visualization played a pivotal role in Marco's goal-setting and achievement. The story of the glass chandelier serves as a powerful metaphor for his journey from humble beginnings to substantial success. By visualizing his goals and taking actionable steps to realize them, Marco was able to manifest his aspirations, exemplified by the acquisition of the mosaic "Women in Gold."

Notable Quotes:

"If I can visualize something and then have a picture of it, then I can make it happen."
— Marco Brown [86:50]

"What's remarkable is the progression from small glass characters to these much larger, stunning pieces of art."
— Marco Brown [86:50]

11. Conclusion: Lessons on Mindset and Success

Marco Brown's journey underscores the transformative power of mindset, strategic communication, and persistent self-reflection. From overcoming severe financial strains to implementing effective business models and prioritizing personal well-being, Marco exemplifies how language and self-awareness are integral to professional success. His experiences offer invaluable lessons for law firm owners and entrepreneurs aiming to cultivate a resilient and prosperous practice.

Key Takeaways:

• Mindset Matters: Adopting a growth-oriented mindset is essential for navigating challenges and achieving long-term success.
• Effective Communication: Clear, jargon-free communication fosters client trust and satisfaction.
• Strategic Billing: Implementing models like the evergreen retainer can significantly improve financial stability.
• Sales Skills: Developing strong sales and closing techniques enhances client acquisition and retention.
• Personal Well-being: Prioritizing physical and mental health boosts professional performance and personal happiness.
• Visualization: Setting clear, visual goals facilitates the realization of professional and personal aspirations.

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Quotes Overview:

• Mindset and Success: Tyson Mutrux [01:17], Marco Brown [08:11], [08:40]
• Challenges and Adversity: Marco Brown [13:48], [22:34], [37:34]
• Financial Strategies: Marco Brown [43:04], [53:18], [60:13]
• Client Relations: Marco Brown [84:03]
• Personal Growth: Marco Brown [50:48], [70:12]
• Visualization: Marco Brown [86:50]

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and lessons from the episode, providing a valuable resource for listeners seeking to leverage mindset and strategic practices for law firm success.

Transcript

[Tyson Mutrix]

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 jump start 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 and strategies on what to do next. 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 maxflatevents.com.

[Marco Brown]

Foreign this is maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Today I'm excited to bring you a fascinating conversation I had with fame law attorney Marco Brown, someone who I consider to be a thought leader when it comes to understanding the critical role mindset.

[Marco Brown]

Plays in achieving success.

[Tyson Mutrix]

In this episode, Marco and I explore the importance of personal branding, how a professional presentation influences confidence, and the power of using fear as a motivator. We also discussed the challenges of running a law firm, how reflection and persistence drive growth, and why he chooses to wear a beautifully tailored suit everywhere he goes. This conversation is packed with actionable advice for anyone. Whether you're just starting out or have decades of experience running a law firm. You'll discover how your mindset, the language you use, and your presentation can shape both your professional reputation and and personal success. I'm glad you're here. So let's dive in.

[Marco Brown]

Welcome, Marco.

How you doing, Tyson?

Doing all right? We're in Vegas. This is pretty cool.

Yeah. This is the third day that we've seen each other.

Yeah, the. It's one of those things like Vegas, like you, you can be here for like a few days but then you get, you gotta get out of here. Like this is. Luckily I'm working all day today. This is a long day for me. But like, when do you go back?

So I go back right after this. My flight's at 1:30, I think, so I'll go straight to the, the airport after this.

Do any shows? Did you do anything fun while you're here?

No, dude, I hate Vegas, so no, I don't. Vegas is not my jam. So I come here, I do the thing that I have scheduled to do here and then I get out and go home.

Yeah, it's funny because Paul. I was talking to Paul Yokobitas this morning and we were talking about Vegas and it's just. There's like some fun things and stuff, but for the most part, like the whole vibe, I think I'd rather go some out in nature somewhere, you know. Not necessarily, like, absolutely. With a lot of artificialness in the city.

But yeah. So we, I was in Austin last week. Buddy of mine went down and had some barbecue and just like checked out Austin. Then we went over to Houston for a University of Houston, University of Utah game. And that was like way more fun because we just drove around a barbecue. Yeah, right. Like that's the, that's the kind of stuff I, I really dig.

Austin and Houston. Completely different cities.

Completely different cities. And University of Houston is in like the hood, dude.

Really?

Straight up hood. Yeah, it was, it was funny. So I'm the widest guy on the earth and my buddy's whiter than I am. So we're, we're going around, we get out of the. My buddy gets super nervous. We get down, he's like, we're gonna get carjacked. I'm like, we're fine, bud. And we have to, you know, kind of negotiate our way around it. We park at this place and I walk up to the lady and I said, well, obviously I'm not from here, so where do I go eat? And she kind of tells me where to, where to go eat around the stadium and then we go to the game. So. But it was, it was super fun. But yeah, that sort of thing. Like, I love that, you know, get to go out and hike around Austin, go along the river. Cause Austin has this beautiful river running through it. And then, you know, go to west kind of the hill country and eat meat and do that sort of stuff. Like that's the kind of stuff I dig.

Yeah. We were in Austin for a mastermind. It was last year. It was just, it was a, it was a cool city. The thing about their city that there's too many people and the roads are not wide enough. It is, it's like they took like a two lane road and made it a four lane road. And there's just barely enough room to drive on it. It's kind of crazy.

And then they dec that they would use one of the lanes for bikers that don't exist.

That was the other thing too. There's these highly, highly trafficked roads that have bike lanes. And you're like, there's no one on these things.

Literally no one Salt Lake has done the same thing. But we have like, really wide roads, but they take up an entire lane with bikers. I'm like, there are no bikers ever. This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

It's wild. Yeah.

Yeah. But no, that's totally true. You know, the other thing I notice about Austin is it is the Lululemon capital of the United States.

That would, that would be, that was accurate. That would be accurate. I, I agree. That's. It's all over the place. It's like everyone's wearing it. It's like you're the official uniform of Austin.

Yeah. I mean, I saw people wearing it. Just, they were like, they had backpacks on. It's like they were going to work.

Well, this is. So this is actually a good segue because I want to, I wanted to talk to you. The, the first thing I want to ask you about is the suit. Okay. We were talking a little bit about it yesterday. The thing that everyone mentions when they talk about Marco Brown is that you are decked out in a three piece suit. Everywhere you go, you're wearing one. Now you, you look, you look wonderful. You get all your suits from Italy and I asked you questions yesterday and we didn't really get to dig enough into it. So I'm going to come back to it where I feel like it's almost like your suit of armor. But.

Yes.

So tell me, tell me about the suit.

Yeah. Okay, so I'll try to, I'll try to do this rather quickly. So when I'm 19, I go live in Italy, a Mormon. So I serve my religious mission in Italy for two years.

You know, of all the places you could serve a mission and you get to, you get Italy. That's, that's, that's the jackpot.

Yeah, dude. My brother went to Anaheim, California. My dad went to San Francisco in the 70s.

That is crazy.

My brother was so angry when I got Italy. He's like, of course you got Italy. So I go over there for a couple years, I fall in love with the place and I go back. I go back often and we can talk about that. But I go back quite a lot. Inspires me. But then during COVID I realized after a couple years of COVID we're starting to see other people again, that all of my suits were terrible and I was making enough money at that point where I could actually go back and get some Italian suits, which I'd always wanted to do. So, so I said, okay, cool. And I like did the research, found a guy over there that knows the. The market and then started going over there to. To make suits.

Yeah, the. And, And. But you. You wear it everywhere, though. And I asked you how many. Cause I assumed you wore it every day. Like it's. Or at least six days a week. And it sounds like you don't. It sounds like you don't wear it to the office. Right. But what, what is it about, like, why is it that you do that you wear it? Like, why is it like, when you come to the mastermind, most people are dressing pretty comfortably, but not you? And I wonder what, why, like, what drives that? What's the reason for that?

Yeah, well, I'll push back on this a little bit in the sense that they are comfortable, they feel like pajamas. So I get bespoke, like handmade to my contour to myself suits, and they literally feel like pajamas. So they're like super comfortable. So I either I'm like a 100 or nothing or 100 or zero type of guy. So I either wear these suits or wear what are called cule clothes. They're like outdoor wear. A. It's a brand in Utah. And they're super comfortable. Like I. I love it. So it's that and like a BYU hat. Right. I have nothing, literally nothing in between. I don't have business casual.

Yeah.

So I. That's what I wear. But why I wear it. It's a brand thing.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? So there are a couple different reasons. One, it's a brand, and then it's also a respect thing. Like I'm going to dress up and get myself in a mind space where I. So I'm dressing up to respect the people in the room and then talk with them in a certain way. Because you tend to talk differently depending on how you dress. Right. And this is just how I'm comfortable with it. I think I kind of put on my best self and think better when I'm. When I'm dressed like this.

What I found interesting is you. You had brought an employee down with you, Tarl, and he was wearing a suit, and I was not surprised. But did you tell him to wear a suit or did he just pick up on that's what he should do?

I think he picked up on that because I told him business casual. But yeah, I think he just kind of picks up on this is our brand. Here's the funny part. When I interviewed that guy, good dude. But when I interviewed that guy, he came in in a suit and I judge Suits, Right.

I love that you do.

Very, very quickly now. He came in. I'm like, that suit is trash. And it was within, like, five seconds.

Did you tell him that or did you.

Not right then.

Yeah.

But very soon thereafter, like, when I said, hey, you want to do this? And we had this discussion, and he said yes. That was made when his wife. I flew him and his wife up to Salt Lake, and we sat down and we all had dinners, kind of the executive team and whatnot, to figure out if we wanted to do this. And then I talked to them, and he said yes. And then I went to his wife, who was also there, and I said, all right, so here's the first thing. You make him buy new suits. These are ridiculous. And she said, I know. They're terrible, aren't they? And I said, yeah. And you throw out those shoes, too, because the shoes were worse than the suits. So, you know, is that like, hey, you know, we have a standard to uphold here. Right. And you need some new suits. So thankfully, he's picked up on that.

It's interesting how your backgrounds can shape you, though, because I had the opportunity to talk to him over dinner a little bit, and his background is wild. It's wild. Yeah. Essentially abandoned when he's 8 years old, drug addict. As a mother, his dad was not involved. I mean, just an incredible story. I mean, he was raised in a children's home. Just really interesting. And. And I'm guessing he probably had no guidance growing up about, okay, this is how you dress. This is how you don't dress. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I think. I think there's a fair bit of that. I think to his dad's credit, his dad is the guy who kind of raised him in the foster care system and whatnot.

I think we're talking about not his biological father.

Not his biological father. Yeah, exactly. The guy he calls dad.

Sure.

So, yeah, I think he tried the best he could, but, you know, it's a foster care system. It's really rough. And Taro was. He was kind of rough, and then he went in the army, and that doesn't do you any good. You know, that doesn't teach you how to rate, how to wear a suit. So, yeah, there was part of that, but, you know, he's catching on, and it's totally fine. And I don't really expect that of my team. I don't expect the same level of my team, but, you know, I get to do things because this is my background, and I love Italy, and I wanted to do that. But, you know. Know, going back to what you said about the suit of armor. Yeah, absolutely. Like, I. I love it. It's kind of a. You know, I feel like James Bond when I. When I put these on.

Well, I wonder. And I wonder if Tarl. If he kind of picks up on that, too, where, like, he. It's his suit of armor almost, because he. Because of his background a little bit. You know, like, I'm. You've been taken. He was taken under your wing. You've given him some guidance, and I. I wonder if he's picked up on that. Have you. Have you gotten any sense of that?

I haven't talked to him about that. We'll have to. We'll have to check. He's. He's only been on for about two months now, so. Yeah, I'll. I'll talk to him about it.

Yeah. Because the reason I say that is on the Zappos tour, he showed up in a suit, Right?

Yeah.

And. Which I thought was.

Didn't they make him take.

Yeah, they made him take his tie off, which is so funny.

I would have had a real, real issue with those guys if they tried to make me.

I was. I was. I was hoping that you would have been there because it would have been funny to see how you squirmed. I. I just. I thought it would have been so funny because I saw Tarl. I made Tarl squirm. It was just. It was a. They do it in a fun way, but it was. It was an uncomfortableness to it a little bit, because you're like. Are they ser. Like, you're. Because you're. There's like the. Oh, it's a joke. And then. No, no, there's. They're serious. The. You have to take. They don't allow ties. And there's even a part of it where they say, we'd like for you to donate your tie, but if not, it's. If it's like a. If it's something, you know, personal to you, obviously you can keep it, but we would prefer that you donate it because there's a. There's a wall with, like, a rack of ties. It's a. It was a. It would have been interesting to watch you score a little bit.

That's super funny. Yeah. That's like a clash of brands, right?

Yes.

My brand is this. And that brand is entirely the opposite, 100%.

Well, the. And the reason why I asked you about Tarle, though, is your. Your background seems very, very different. And so, I mean, part of your. In your hiring process, Something drew you to him. And I wonder. And you. It sounds like you really got to know him. You. This is part of your expansion plan into another state. So he's got. It's a key. It's a very key role. And what was. What was your assessment like? How did you. How did you choose Taro, of all the candidates he could have chosen and. And for such a big role. Cause he's the only guy in that state, right?

Yeah, he's the only one in the state. And this is the first time we've gone outside of Utah. So I really did want to pick the right type of person. So the way I think through hiring is first, I have to like you because that's the great thing about running a law firm, is that you get to curate the people around you. Right? You could just. You get to choose. And I worked for a big 50 guy shop in New Mexico. And I mean, they were nice enough, but I didn't really like anybody there, you know, So I made it 18 months and I thought, if I ever own my own place, I'm going to like the people that I work around. So that's my first thing. And. Sorry. And I got that feeling very quickly that this is the kind of guy that I. That I could get along with and that I would enjoy. So that was kind of the first hump. Getting over the first hump. And then after that, it's really. Is this person entrepreneurial? Is he going to abide by our values? Right. Does he want to expand? What's his motivation? I'm trying to assess all of that, and it's an inexact science, But I just got to the point with him where I thought, yeah, I think this guy. I think this guy could do it. He had some management experience before, but he also realized that he didn't know what he was doing. And then he wanted some guidance in what to do, but he wanted to grow and he wanted to accelerate his path on growth. And those were all things that I was looking for because that's what we're really selling to people in the new. In new states is, hey, you've done this and you want to grow, but you just don't know how. And we have the secret sauce to be able to make that happen. We have the marketing, we have the systems, we have the team, we have the intake. We got all that stuff. So let's do this together. And you're going to be better off and save yourself five or six years as opposed to doing it on your own. Just come do it with us. Right. And. And he felt like that guy.

So I, I guess the sell to, to the new. Anyone that you're. Any new state you're going into, it's essentially like we're going to give you everything you need. You can almost operate like you're running a law firm in a way. Right? Is that kind of. That's the sell. So.

Yeah, yeah. So these are all separate entities in different states. And that's the way I look at them is that they're. They are separate law firms. And the person that I hire in the beginning I expect to run the law firm in that state. I mean ultimately I get to. But you know, I want them to do that because I'm not going to be there for the day to day. So I have to trust them. And they're going to grow an organization. Right? They're going to grow their own organization that's going to be part of a whole. But really like I want them to focus on theirs. And those are the types of people that I'm. That I'm looking for. Not just like worker bees in the beginning, you know, we'll get those. But like somebody who actually wants to expand and wants to be an entrepreneur.

So the first firm I worked for at a law school was a volume injury firm and they had started. And so in St. Louis you've got the St. Louis side of the river and you've got the Illinois side of the river. Right. And they had a firm, a small office that they'd started on the other side of the river and it was the same thing.

Is that like St. Charleston? Is that what it's called?

No, St. Charles is. Now there's another river. So I'm talking about the other side of the Mississippi. So yeah, on the other side of the Missouri river you go to St. Charles. But in Illinois they started a little small office and it was run by another guy. Very similar to what you're doing. But the proximity is like within 25 minutes. Right. It's really close. And they really struggled with the consistency between the two offices. The way they took notes was different. They all used the same needles platform. So all the files were in the same system. But the way they took notes was different. The way they abbreviated words was different. The way they handled the files was different.

The.

And so there was a real difference in quality. So I wonder how are you going to be able to maintain that same quality from state to state?

Honestly, it's an incredibly good question. And I don't know the answer right now. I mean, we have our systems, and there are some things that are consistent simply because we're doing them in one place. So, for example, the intake side of things, it's all run out of Utah. So everybody calls into the Utah intake, and we train them on how to handle Arizona calls, because Tarle is training them to do those things because there are differences between the two systems, but they're very much doing things in the same way because they're the same people taking the Utah call. So that's one way that we're doing it. But when it comes to the legal work, really what. What's happening is that Tarle's writing down how things get done, and then we'll eventually just kind of merge that into the way we do things in. In Utah. But I don't have a great answer for that because I'm just not sure, you know, we'll figure it out as. As time goes on, because that is. That is super important. I mean, we do have ways that we run through cases, and we're going to make those consistent as. As consistent as possible between the different states. But it's a question that I don't really know the answer to. And we'll figure it out.

That is, it's funny because a lot of what, you know, running a law firm is like, figuring it out, right? You. Because I'm guessing you have not done this, but I'm going to ask you about it. What if Taro left? Right. So you probably have not figured out. Maybe you have, but I'm assuming you probably have not even figured out if Charles said, you know what? I'm leaving tomorrow. You probably don't know what that looks like, right? Or do you?

Not a clue.

Yeah, it's like. Like there is sometimes the. This idea that, like, oh, you figure this all out first and then you go do it, and there's just none of that. I mean, have you. What have you done in running your firm that you've actually done that, where you've figured it out first and then did it?

I don't think there's one thing, honestly. I think it's literally you have a generalized idea of how you think things will go, and then you go do it, and it's different than what you think, and then you make the best of it and. And you refine things over time. I'm literally trying to think of something that. Where I just imagined it in my head, and it actually went that way, and I can't think of a single thing just doesn't.

It doesn't work that way. But with that. So speaking of not going the way you want it to, do you mind if I ask you kind of about the. Before things went well for you?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, like, one of my favorite subjects to talk about, actually.

I was hoping you were comfortable talking a little bit so you, like. Things weren't going great at first, and then you. You turned it around. Like, talk. Will you talk about the. The hard times?

Yeah. So 2010 is when I start the law firm. I graduate in 07. I clerk for a year, then I do 18 months at an insurance defense firm, which, as you know, is working for Satan and losing your soul.

Absolutely.

That's terrible. So it was the worst job I ever had. I didn't smile for three months at one point.

Oof.

Yeah. Left. Came to Salt Lake in 2010 in the height of the Great Recession. Right. My wife wants to get a doctorate. I'm like, sure, let's do this. So I open a law firm because no one's hiring, and I'm a terrible employee is what I figured out.

So I graduated in 2010. So I was in that. That same job. Yeah, it was terrible.

Yeah, it was awful. Like, shutting. Large law firms in Miami, New York are shutting down. People forget how bad it was.

They were deferring, and so we were on. I was on. We were on the back hump of it. But, like, the worst part was probably.09 maybe. Oh, but we were on the back.

But it was still 9 to 9 to, like, 11. Yeah, it was all.

And they were. They were deferring. So people were taking these. Getting these job offers, but they. It was in two years, and so you were. They were initially deferred for a year and like, one of these big firms, and then they were deferred for two years. So they didn't have a job for two years, which is. But some of them stuck around. It was wild. It was just. It was a bad market. It was terrible.

It was terrible. So that. That's kind of the backdrop. And we get up there. I'm a terrible employee. I figured this out, and I thought, okay, well, I probably just need to do this on my own. Right. And do that. So I start with absolutely zero. We're deeply in debt from law school because law school decides to indebt all of its students and not teach them how to make any money. So we're deeply in debt. I have no network. I have nothing at this point. And I have a two year old and a wife who just started a doctorate program and she gets paid seventeen hundred dollars a month.

Oh, geez.

So you start with, you know, with zero and just kind of make it work. And I did make it work, but that, that meant that I worked an $8.50 an hour job, like the one I had in college, to like pay bills.

Oh my gosh.

On the nights and weekends, and then ran the law office during the day.

See, I didn't know this part of it. What did you, so what did you do?

So I worked with mentally handicapped people. So mentally handicapped sex offenders actually doing what? So what we did is we ran apartments in the community and helped them live in the community instead of in institutions, essentially.

Wow. So you were doing that at the same time you were trying to run a law firm?

I was, in fact, one of my, I remember one of my guys. So I had done this during college and I had been in administration during college and then after college, so that was going to be my career. And then I decided to go to law school. So I had like been in the upper echelon of this company. And then I went back and I said, hey, I know that, you know, I'm not going to get back to that. Just give me a, give me a job, give me something. So I started at like the bottom, which is what I did as a sophomore in college. But I remember one of my guys, he was profoundly mentally, I mean, my IQ of probably like 25, and I was changing his diaper every day as an attorney.

How humbling is that?

Oh, man, it was. Oh, it was, it was a trip. It was a trip, that's for sure. I felt like a loser.

Yeah, well, and you're seeing, you're seeing classmates that are making good money because some of them were getting jobs. Right? They're making good money. You're seeing other lawyers. You, you went to law school. You didn't, you didn't think you'd be back in that. And then all of a sudden you're in it again and that's, I mean, where was your confidence at that point?

There was no confidence. I mean, it was just in the drain.

Yeah.

You know, I felt like a complete loser all, all the time. Right. But feelings aren't facts. So I just kept kind of reminding myself of that and just kept going.

And where'd that come from, though? I mean, it's. Yeah, you can say that. Those words, those are words right now. But like, how did you, how were you able to go back to that and actually believe it.

No, it was just, it was straight fear. That's all it was. I think people don't use fear the way they should use fear because it is very useful. You don't want to stay there very long because it takes up huge amounts of energy and can kind of ruin you. Right. Being in fear. But it's super useful. Especially in the beginning. I was just afraid that I wouldn't be able to provide for my family and that we were going to go hungry and we weren't going to be able to afford a place to live sort of thing. So I, I, that motivated me, man. It was just straight fear. And it was, it was very, very motivating. But again, you can't stay in that place. So I try to get out of it as quickly as possible.

It's really is amazing how much like that, like not wanting to let down the family kind of thing where you have to keep going, keep going because that is, that is, that's a motivator that really I, I, I think that the hard times like that you can kind of return and return to those even in the good times to keep you going a little bit.

Yeah, you can, yeah. I mean that memory is pretty helpful. Although I try not to go there very often because I, now that I look back on it, I hate it so much. I hate it so much that I don't really want to return there. I get fearful of that fear. Right. It's funny though because in our house we don't say the word need. Like Demery doesn't get to talk to me about need. She doesn't get to tell me we need something. And I actually have tried to excise that word completely. Like I have to, I need to, I gotta all that. I try to excise that completely from my speech because that was what I felt back then is I need to do this, I need to do that. And that that need kind of kept me going, but it also meant that I made a humongous amount of mistakes that we can, that we can talk about in the law firm. And we're past that now. Like we're not in the need phase. Like I don't kind of need much of anything because I can just do whatever I want.

What are you replacing those words with?

I want or I will? I will is the, is the one I really try to replace it with.

So more active, you know, I'm going to do something. There's something. Yeah. I like whenever the, my kids say something like, you know, I'M not very good at. I like to replace that with. I'm working on getting better at.

Yeah.

And.

Exactly.

And it's funny because my daughter Emma, the other day, I can't remember what it was, but she said something like, I'm not. I'm not very good at. And she stopped herself. She goes, I'm working on getting better at. And I thought. I was like, yes, thank you. That's. That's it. But it is interesting how you change the language a little bit. And I saw it in her where she. She took that moment where this could be something that is not as negative, and then she. She flipped it into a positive just like that. The. The mindset part of things, which we can. We can talk. I don't want to go too far down the road because I want to come back to the mistakes you made.

Sure.

In the law firm. But you're in this $8.50 an hour job or whatever it was. You're running the law firm. So talk about the law firm side of things. Back then, were you doing that during the day and then doing the other job at night? Or how was that? What was the balance?

Yeah, So I did mostly weekends. I would work Friday afternoon through Saturday. I'd work a shift on Sunday afternoon. So we'd go to church and I would do, you know, what we had to do on Sunday. And then I would go over there. And then I think I worked one day a week as well. But Friday into Saturday was like, I worked like 24 straight hours or something. Something insane like that.

How long did you do that?

You know, I did that for about six months. Six or seven months, I think, at the very beginning of it. And then obviously, the times that I wasn't working there, I was working in the law office, trying to figure that stuff out during the day.

Yeah. So let's talk about the law office. What were some of the. You mentioned those mistakes. I'm very curious. I'm sure the people listening are curious, too. What are some of those? And how did that lead to the financial problems that you eventually got yourself into?

Yeah. So the first problem I had was I had no vision. It was all fear. Right. When you have fear, when you're just motivated by fear, there is no vision. Right. Your vision is like the end of your nose, essentially. And what that meant was, I took every case that came in the door.

Yeah.

Stuff I was terrible at, stuff I figured out later on that I was good at. But I just took everything.

You said something yesterday. You said, need Makes you dumb. And it makes like, it's essentially like the fear part of it. Like, so fear makes you dumb too. But the, the, it was really, I, I wrote that quote down. I don't remember the full quote. There's another part of it. But it was need makes you dumb. And because someone was talking about need I need, I think they were saying I need more money or something. You said, no, need makes you dumb. I, I think that fear makes you dumb too.

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I just, I took all these cases and I mean it was crazy stuff that I just didn't have any idea and I had to go kind of figure it out on the fly and it just took so much time. So I was spending humongous amounts of time on these cases I should never have been doing if I didn't commit malpractice, which is a real big if. Like, I certainly came very close on a number of occasions. I remember I ended up taking over the, essentially the practice of a criminal defense attorney who got disbarred.

Oh wow.

Because he, I had space in his office. Right. And then he ended up getting disbarred and just all of his client he had paid, they had paid this guy. Right. And he wasn't giving him the money back. So I just inherited all those cases and I ended up like a vacuum, tons and tons of these criminal cases that I had no business working for. No money.

Did you have any experience in criminal law?

No, no. None whatsoever? No. Like I said, if I didn't commit malpractice, it was by the skin of my teeth. So I mean just tons and tons of different things. You know, I got associated with, with people on the kind of lower end of lawyering in instead of getting mentors on the higher end, which I should have. So that was, that was another kind of very blatant mistake on my part. And then I never got paid. I got paid very, very poorly. Right. Because I was scared to ask.

Meaning you weren't from clients, you weren't charging enough, you weren't make sure you collected on it.

Yeah, I wasn't billing regularly. I wasn't collecting because I was just scared to ask them for money. Right. Because we're never taught in law school how to do that sort of thing. And everything was fear based anyway at this point. So it was just scared all the time. And that meant that I didn't go to them and when they didn't pay me, I didn't, you know, push the issue. So I did tons of work that I shouldn't have done. Right. That it was never getting paid for. Which just exacerbates all problem. Like if you're not getting paid for the stuff you're doing, it exacerbates every problem you have.

Let me ask you something kind of odd. I wonder how much of your religion played a role in that where you, you felt a little bad about asking for money. Is that was. Did that any play that play any role in it where you wanted to be? Like, I want to help you because you're in need and so I'm not going to push you for money.

Yeah, I think that probably did a little bit. I've always been a service oriented guy. It's funny now I talk about money all the time and people think I'm not service oriented. But my entire adult life has been in service industries. Like I went on a religious mission to serve people. I worked mental health to serve people. I do divorce to serve people. So. And that is directly because of my religion and the way I think about how humanity should treat each other. But. So it probably had something to do with that in the beginning. And then I thought through things a little bit more deeply and now I serve people, but I get paid for it. Right. So yes, it probably was the impetus for a lot of those behaviors in the beginning and then it was also the impetus for change over time.

Yeah. What. What was rock bottom during those times? So you, I mean, you were. Because. And I, I imagine I call it gridlock where like you get so many cases and you can't turn the cases and you're not making enough money. And so but cases are still coming in where you can't really do anything. Like cases are coming in, so you're collecting some money, but then you can't move the cases that you have. So I'm assuming there was some of that. And then you probably had to have hit rock bottom at some point. So.

Yeah.

What, like, what was that? What was the point where you're like, I'm. This is the worst it's ever been.

So rock bottom would have been really 2015. So I had. It's interesting it was rock bottom, but it came after I won a big award.

So what was the award?

Divorce Attorney of the Year.

Oh, interesting.

As. As voted on by my peers in the bar in Utah. I was the youngest person.

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[Marco Brown]

To win it and still am the youngest person ever to win it. And they. The year after I won it, they changed the rules so people like me couldn't win it again.

What do you mean by that?

So it was an open vote is what it was like. You got nominated and then the body of the family law section actually voted on it. And I won rather handily. And then the next year, the executive committee didn't really enjoy that, so they, they changed it and they took it back. So the executive committee is the one that, that makes the decision.

Eerily similar to the primaries that the two parties had this oddly.

Yes, yes.

Not to digress too much, but. All right, so you get this award. Did you feel like you were the, the divorce attorney of the year?

Not particularly. I mean, I was good at what I did.

Yeah.

But honestly, more than anything else, I wanted to win it because I wanted to prove to myself that I had done something good in the last five years. Because it's been five years since I opened the place and nothing else is going particularly well in my, in my life. Like I'd let myself get fat. I wasn't sleeping well. I'd work, you know, 12 hours a day. I'd come home at 8, 8:30 at night. I'd eat like 3,000 calories and then go to sleep. And that, that ain't healthy. There was nothing healthy about my lifestyle.

How was the. I'm gonna divert a little bit that. Because that is a very dangerous thing I was doing the same thing, Amy can tell you. I mean, it was just one of those things, like I was unhealthy, I was up way too late, working way too late, coming home too late. And it was. Had a bad effect on the marriage.

Yep.

So how was your marriage at that time?

Let's say that my wife is the nicest human that has ever existed. And if she had left me during this period, I would not have blamed her.

Yeah.

Because I was not a particularly good husband.

I think that's an important part of the picture because you've got. I'm not going to call it a failing law firm, but if it's not failing, it's pretty damn close. You've got a marriage that is. I won't call it on the rocks, but like you said, you know, if she left, you wouldn't have blamed her. And so you. But then you get this award where you're the divorce attorney of the year. And how do you, how do you balance all that? Because that is, that's a tough thing to.

Yeah, so I didn't balance it at all. So at this point, I have 112 active case files and it's like me and one contract attorney. So I'm doing literally everything right. And, and I get this recognition and I have all these problems and I get this recognition and I thought it was super cool for two days and then I realized on the back end that I just had all the same problems that I had before I won the, the award.

Right.

So it solved nothing. And at that point, that was rock bottom because I was doing well as an attorney, but everything else was quite poor. And it was all my fault. Right. Because I have very serious internal locus of control. So it's my fault. So what happens here is rock bottom. But then it switches. So I'm in. I call it the great shower incident of 2015. So I'm in the shower and this sort of thing had happened to me before. I'll get in the shower and I'll be fine for the first five minutes. And then I start thinking about cases and my heart starts to palpitate and my chest starts to constrict and I can feel it. I can literally feel it in my heart, man. And then I start getting a stress headache that starts at the crown of my head and will envelop my face by 3:00 in the afternoon because the stuff this happened before and there's no amount of ibuprofen or Tylenol that will make that that headache go away. So it starts, and I think, not again. You know, today is going to be like the other days. And then today was different, though. I was shown my future when I was. I was 60 or 65 and I was in a casket. I was dead. It was my funeral. And I was being mourned at that funeral by my wife and children that I didn't have at that point. I could see out from the. From the casket. And I remember that was. I remember just being kind of in that place. And that lasted for about 10 seconds, and then I came out of it. And when I tell you, like, it was a vision of my future, it was like, it was absolutely a vision of my future. I have absolutely no doubt about this. I'm a. I'm a believer. And God spoke to me me in that moment and showed me the thing that was going to happen to me. And I remember I got out of it and I said, no. It was immediate. I was like, absolutely not. I will not do that to my family. I'm not going out like that. So, no. And in that shower, I started thinking, like, okay, like, everything has to change. And then it was like, well, how do I change things? Because I don't know how to change anything. So I started, like, actually thinking through the process in that shower. And that's when everything. It starts going up gradually. Like, this is not a story in which everything is way better after that. No, no. Like, I'm still stupid, and I don't know how to do stuff, and I have to figure things out. So it still took time after that, but everything changed that day.

Do you remember the things that you were thinking in your head at that time that you needed to do?

Well, not during the shower, but very soon after. This is the thought process. So the thought process was, okay, I have a thousand problems, and I can't solve a thousand problems, so I need to solve one problem, because I can probably do that. So what one problem can I solve that solves other problems, right? And I started thinking through that, and I thought, oh, hey, I'm only getting paid, like, 50 cents on the dollar, so maybe if I get paid 100 cents on the dollar, then I can use that money to solve other problems. Maybe that helps things out. And so I thought, all right, let's. Let's give it a whirl, right? And then I just started thinking, like, how. How do I do that? Because I didn't know how to get paid, so what do I kind of think the steps are? And then I Went online to try to figure out how to get paid.

Okay.

And this is 2015. So now we're in 2024. There are gurus, charlatans, like, coaches, all over the place in the.

Disgusting.

Right. It's amazing. It's in. Incredible. But those didn't exist in 2015. There was, like, Lee Rosen.

They existed, but they were harder to find.

They were very hard. They were very hard to find. Yeah. But there was essentially, like, Lee Rosen back then, a couple other guys. Right.

So I remember John Fisher and Lee Rosen. Like, those are. But. And John Fisher doesn't put himself out there as a guru, but he just. He's just. He. He's. He's connected to a lot of people that know how to do things. And so it's. Yeah. Very influential.

Yeah. John Fisher is not a charlatan.

No.

Neither was Lee. And I just went to the Internet and started Googling, like, how do lawyers get paid? And then I cobbled something together from the stuff that Lee wrote and stuff I found on, like, fine law and whatever, and then I put it into a system and tried to figure out what worked and what didn't. And then I had. I had a friend who worked for Cordell and Cordell, and they used an evergreen retainer. And I thought, that sounds like a really good idea. So I think I kifed or cribbed their evergreen retainer.

So for lawyers that are maybe listening for the first time, that don't know what that is, I think if I'm only doing family law, that's all I'm doing. Right. Cause that's the way to do it. That's the way you always get paid. So talk about what that is.

So an evergreen retainer is a retainer in which you always have money in the trust. So if your retainer is $5,000, you always have $5,000 in your trust. And then you take money out of that every month, and then you bill it until it gets back to $5,000. Right. So it's evergreen. And. And that was a serious. Just a straight logistical game changer.

And so some of the questions might be because, again, some. Some are probably new, and they think, oh, maybe I'll do family law. What if. What if that runs out? The. So they hit their limit, and so it dips below the limit, what do you keep working? What do you do?

Well, yes, I mean, in the sense that if it dips in the month, so say it's $5,000, and then you do another additional thousand dollars. So they owe you $6,000. Then you just bill them to get Back to the $6,000. Now, here's the. Here's the other part. So the evergreen retainer solves a lot of problems, but you got to have guts. You got to, like, combine that with guts, which is if they don't get back to the $5,000, then you stop working on your case. On their case. And you call them and you say, I have stopped working on your case until you pay me. So pay me my money. Right?

So. But, Marco, I've already paid you money. What do you mean I don't owe you money? How do you respond to that?

You're right. You've paid me money. And in the retainer, we went over this when we met. In the retainer, it says that you will keep it at this level and for me to continue helping you, you know, get your kids and. And minimize your alimony, then you'll get this back to $5,000. So how do you want to pay?

Yeah, and so that. So for people who don't understand, like, that, that prevents you from ever going in the red. Like you. You've always got money in the tank, and you'll never go red. And if they fire you, fine, they can take what's left in the. In the trust account and take it, and they can go to another attorney. But yet what you. That's what I love about it. You'll. You'll never lose money. And that as long as you are keeping that money in the tank and you're always. You're following up, making sure that they refill the tank, that you'll. That's why I think it's brilliant. I think it's. It's a wonderful. To me, it's a. It's a wonderful way of doing it.

Yeah, it's absolutely. It's absolutely a game changer. Like, my life changed very, very dramatically when we instituted that. And we. That's still our hallmark. We. We collected about a 99% rate. Between 99 and 100%.

Yeah.

All right.

So you implemented the evergreen retainer, and then what?

And then I had to figure out the other steps to get paid, which is, you know, bill regularly and stop work if they don't pay you these types of things. I also figured out in this process, because they were used to not paying me, and then I told. I mandated that they pay me that firing clients was a big deal. Like, that was. It was very beneficial, let's put it that way. So I tell people, I teach a CLE on how to get paid, actually. And like, the last, kind of the last rule, the last step is fire your worst client. Yeah, right. And then fire your next worst client. And do that until you end up with like A and B clients.

Right.

But if you force people to pay you, you're by definition not really going to have F clients. Right. They're going to be kind of A and B, maybe C clients, but. But it's a lot. It's so much easier to run a law firm with just A and B clients than it is like DNF clients.

So you remember, I know whenever I did criminal defense, like, early on, there would be clients that owed me money, and I would hold on to that client in the hopes of getting paid. Right. And you know that.

Chasing money, man. Yeah, chasing money.

Remember, like, so I wonder if you remember those times, like, and, like, just what your advice would be to someone that is. They're. They're chasing that money. They're still working on a case. It's like. It's like working for an employer, and you're not getting your. You're not getting your paycheck every two weeks. Like, oh, I'm going to get paid. They're going to. They're promising me. They're going to pay me.

Yeah.

So, like, what's your advice to someone?

They're not going to pay you. They're going to pay you, man. No, no, what you're going to do. This is what I tell people I have pay. And I've done this to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I paid what I call the stupid tax. Like, if you believe somebody is going to pay you and they're not paying you right now, you're. You're going to pay the stupid tax.

Yeah.

So just pay it and move on with your life. And like I say, like, fire those clients. Those are F clients, so fire those F clients and then go find A and B clients.

Well, I want to change gears a little bit because it's related to this, because part of it was you collecting on cases that you should have been being paid on up to this point anyways. But you're big on sales. And when did that start to be part of your process, like, you really focusing on sales? Was that around this time where you shifted? Because you're. I mean, you're highly successful now, or was this later?

Oh, this is about. That's about 2019.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So we went from real quick and sorry to cut you off, but is. Is that was the billing part of it? The main reason you were able to turn things around is, like, actually collecting on what you were. You were working on.

Yes.

I mean, I think in the beginning.

Yes.

Okay. Because that is. I think that is a very profound thing that people need to know that if you need to collect on what you're owed, and if not, fire those clients, because that can make. That can solve a lot of problems.

It solves a tremendous amount of problems.

Yeah.

I mean, between. So 2015-19, things are going pretty well. Like, I start figuring some things out. For instance, between. So in 2015, I have the great shower incident. And then we decide to get paid and whatnot. And by the end of 2015, I think it's the first. Was it December 2015 or Jan. No, it's January 2016. So very, very early in 2016. This is a really pretty dramatic swing. We had paid off all of our debt.

Oh, wow.

So, yeah, I mean, it made an absolute, immediate material impact in my life. I think we paid off $160,000 in debt in that year simply because I got paid and then the debt was gone, which decreases stress. And it was something that my wife and I worked on together. So we were on the same page again. Right. And I had worked on my own, my health, my mental and spiritual health during that period of time. But everything was precipitated by the fact that. That I got. That I collected this money, and we had a lot more money to be able to solve problems.

When did the health part come in where you were? And we'll get to the sales part of it in a second. But the. I did want to ask you about that because obviously that was a big part of probably that you had the stress, but you probably weren't sleeping well. And I'm guessing the. You weren't working out. You said you were getting fat. And, like, when did that start to turn around?

It was 2000. It was 2015. It was. It was the same. Same time period.

Because that's a lot to take on at the same time. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I. I think it's. I think what happened was the great shower incident happens, and then I start reading books, right? I go online, I start figuring out how to get paid, but then I start reading voraciously. I've always been a big reader anyway, but I started reading voraciously on the business of law because I realized that I didn't know anything about the business of law. And one of the first books I read was the Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. Which is kind of dated and kind of hokey.

The principle is so sound. But it's simple. It's simple. Simple and sound.

It's so good. And he writes, you know, he writes books that are like 600 pages. I remember reading that book in like a day.

Yeah.

And I think I finished. Where was I? Yeah, I was, I was in, I was in bed with my son. I had, I got in bed with him to kind of, to put him to bed. And then I read that book until like 1:00 in the morning or something. And I finished it and I decided I'm going to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and go on a walk. Right.

Wow.

As is kind of the first step to actually do something, you know, physical and exercise. So I woke up 5:00 in the morning and I got up and I took like an hour walk and that was, that was the beginning of that.

Have you ever, you ever heard of the principal Wilson's Law?

No.

So Wilson's Law says the more I think it's the more knowledge that you gain, the more money you'll make.

Oh.

Oh, yeah. It's a really interesting law. So Wilson's Law. Yeah, it's. You should look into it. So I wonder how much you started learn about running a business at that time and then how much of that led to the money that then followed?

I don't, I don't know exactly. But I can tell you that the more knowledge I have gained now here. So Tony Robbins says knowledge is potential power, right?

Yeah.

Because then you have to go implement it. So I think that's, that's real. Like we can read. You can read everything under the sun, but unless you actually implement like the five things that will make a difference in your life, like it's all kind of meaningless. But no, that's true. Like the more knowledge I've gained, the more I've read, the more I've experimented, the more money I make.

Yeah, yeah. Implementation, that's one of, one of my Max Lacon presentations was about your ideas don't matter. And it was all about implementation. Like if you don't take action, it doesn't matter. Like you can have, you can have the billion dollar idea. It doesn't matter. Like you. Unless you actually go and take that risk. There's, there's no. It doesn't matter. Like it does not matter. Like the implementation is the tough part.

Yeah. Because it just sits in your head. Who cares what's in your head?

Yeah, exact. Exactly. Who Cares. You do, but it's. It doesn't matter. It does not matter.

Yeah, but you don't matter. The stuff you do in the world matters.

Yeah, exactly. So back to. Let's go back to the sales a little bit because you're. You're a big Grant Cardone fan and I. So what we did is I was based on. Oh, if you recommended this specifically, but you. You recommended all the Grant Cardone stuff. And so what we did is we went and got a. A license, user license for one of these online university thing, and we put our CARES team through it.

Yeah.

And so it was. I mean, like, they loved it. That was really good. So is. Was. Was Grant Cardone the beginning of the sales stuff or what was the beginning of the sales stuff for you?

No, Lee. Lee was the beginning of the sales stuff. So. Lee Rosen. So I remember one thing that, that Lee did that I really appreciate was I went to his little Mastermind in Vegas. 1. You know, we're in Vegas, but. Yeah. But anyway, I went to. In Vegas and I can't even remember when it was, 2017 or something like that. And he convinced me to stop doing unpaid consults. Free consults, where he's like, no, just charge for him, and if you don't like it, then you can always go back to free. And that was the one thing, One thing I very, very much appreciated about him was help me with that. Just to kind of get over the fear and the hump of that. Because I'd meet with six people a day and maybe one person was somebody I could actually close.

Okay, so you were. Your time was taken away and your conversion rate was extremely low.

Yeah, it was very, very low. Like in the teens, I think, if I remember correctly. And then we started charging for it, and it went up, and then it was probably like 25% or maybe 30% or something like that.

Yeah. What made it go up initially?

Skin in the game, they were just paying. Right. And there's something to that.

So that alone, just charging the consultation fee, is that. Do you still do that?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, interesting. Okay, that's. Okay. So you. You did that, which you get Skin in the game now it's almost like you've committed a little bit. It's like the people that you've got, like, they call it the Tripwire. I think Ryan Dice calls it the Tripwire. You pay a dollar for that, that E Report, and then they're upselling you and then upselling, you know. Yeah. So it's kind of like a tripwire yeah. Interesting.

No, it's easy to spend money. The Is always easier than the first sale.

Yeah.

Right. So, yeah, so that. That helped out. But I. Then I realized, but I kind of tapped out on that. I mean, that did what it did, but I didn't get any better. So then I realized, like, oh, hey, I need somebody to help teach me how to be, like, really professional with the sales thing so my conversion rate can go up so I'm not just wasting this time.

Sure.

And I, man, I just started Googling sales, and it's 19. So there are more people in this space at this point. And I remember I go to Amazon, so I read books. Like, that's how I learn, really is.

Read books and Google, apparently.

Yeah. But I'm doing this while I'm driving in the car, like, trying to find a book on Amazon, and I'm reading these reviews on these books. I think, like, Jed Blount, you know, Zig Ziglar, these people.

Yeah.

And then I happen upon Sell or be sold by Grant Cardone. And I read the reviews and you know, Grant. Grant is who he is. Right. And half of them are like, this guy's. This guy's an idiot. And then half. Half are like, no, you need to get past the kind of. His shtick.

Yeah.

And his stuff is really good. So I just decided to. To get the book. And I read it and like, this is my dude. Like, this dude speaks to me. So I read that one. Then I read Closer, the Closer Survival Guide, which is still the best business.

Book that Grant is. Okay. I don't know if that was him or not. Okay.

No, it's still Grant Cardone. I read that book, and that was a real how to. On how to close people. Right. Because selling and closing are two. Two different things. Closing, selling is the emotional side of things where people decide they're going to buy from you. And they do that on emotion. They do that by knowing, liking, and trusting you. And then closing is getting people to give you money. And that's a logical process. Now people are emotionally sold, and then you have to logically take them through the process to pay you money. And that's what the Closer Survival Guide is all about, is how to do that. Like the theory of closing. And then there are certain objections that people raise. And it's like, how do I overcome those specific objections?

Can we. Can you walk me through the logical part of. So let's say that I'm sitting in your office and so, like, what? Like, give me an example with that what that looks like?

So you're sitting in, in my office. We get to the end of the consultation, you want to hire us. You're, you're convinced that we're the right people. It's, you know, the whole bed. We can help you with the kids and your money and whatnot. And I say, well, how, how do you want to pay, Tyson? And you say, man, that's a lot of money. And I say something like, you're right, Tyson, that is a lot of money. But you knew that before you came here. I mean, I'm an attorney. You knew that you were going to pay. And paying this money isn't going to kill you. What's going to kill you is that you're not with your kids, that you don't get to spend time with them, to influence them the way you want to over the next 10 years. She's going to take that away from you.

Well, I need to talk to my, I need to talk to my mom. My mom's going to help me with money.

Yeah, great. That's great. Let's get your mom on the phone right now. Let's talk with her. I can answer any question she has, and then she'll, she'll pay up and we'll get going.

Yeah, she, well, I think she's in the hospital today, like, so, I, I, I'm not, I don't think we'll be able to get her on the phone.

Yeah, you know, if you had an emergency. Right. Would she read your text message?

Nice, Nice pivot. I didn't see like, so I thought I was gonna throw you for a loop there, but nice. So I liked whenever you started talking about, you knew, you, you knew whenever you came in here, it was gonna be expensive. Like, I, I, I like that. That was, that was really good because I kid in my head. I was kind of logically. Yeah. I knew whenever I was coming here that I was gonna have to pay money. That's, that's interesting. Do you think it's more technique or more just asking the right question?

No, I think you need to prime the question. You need to ask the question, and a lot of attorneys don't actually ask the question. Like, a lot of attorneys don't ever ask for the clothes, right? Yeah, like, hey, give me your credit card. They just don't ask for that sort of stuff, but you have to prime the question. So the way we do this is we take people through the information gathering stage. Right? People need to tell their story, and you need to listen to Their story. And then you need to actively listen. You need to actively listen to it, and you need to recapitulate what they tell you and so forth, because that's all, that's all the emotion part of it, right? People like people that listen to them.

Absolutely.

So you do all that, and then you get to the point where you tell them, hey, look, this is what our intention is. Our intention is to get you to sign up today, and this is how much it's going to cost and to help you make sense of the cost, because that's a lot of money. We're going to tell you about what we're going to do for you, like features, advantage, benefits of the law firm. So let me go through that. And then we prime the pump there, right? Because we tell them what we're going to do, how much it's going to cost, why they want to do this, what the overall benefit to them is. And then at the end of that process, we say, well, how do you want to pay?

Yeah. What do you say to people that would say, you know, oh, that's manipulative. That's something like, we're, we're attorneys. We shouldn't be doing things like that.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

I, I agree. It is. And it's. It's not. Your, Your, your job is to help these people, right? And they're scared. They don't know what to do. And it's your job to try to try to help them. And this is the way you help them. And it's funny, there's nothing manipulative about what you just said to me. You were, you were. They had objections and you answered those objections. Those are questions that they had in their head, and you just answered the questions. That's it.

Yeah, exactly. Now, if we didn't actually want to serve the people, right? Or we couldn't serve them, and I went through the same process, like, we're not the people to serve them. I went through the same process that would be horribly manipulative. So we screen the people out. Like, if they're people that. And we screen out a lot of people, right? Because we want A and B clients, so we do that. But if we decide that they are the type of person that we can help, then we have a moral obligation to help them and we just take them through that. So, I mean, anybody who thinks that's manipulative, like what I just said, which is, hey, I'm going to listen to you, we determined we can help you out. Here's what we're going to do for you. Like, here's what you need. Here's what we're going to do for you. Here's how much it's going to cost, and this is how we're going to do it. How do you want to pay? Like, I don't know what definition of manipulative you're using, but it's not one that's understandable in the English language.

Yeah. And it's one of those things where I think my definition is probably the same as your definition of manipulative. But you see it. I'll see it when we talk about sales, you know, a maximum lawyer that, you know, inevitably you'll get the one person that says, well, that just seems really. That seems sleazy or that seems manipulative. And it's like, no, that's not what it is. In their minds, they're visualizing a car salesman or something like that doing sales, which, yeah, they're using similar techniques, but they're trying to help the person buy a car. That's what they're trying to do. You're trying to help someone that is wanting to get a divorce. You know, we're trying to help someone that has been injured and they're. They're about to be taken advantage of by. By an insurance company. So, like, we. We all have our things that we're doing. We're trying to help that person. And you're right. If you're not. You're not trying to help that person. That's a different thing.

But, yeah, exactly.

So I. I want to talk to you about. You said something yesterday about divorce. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna change gears quite a bit here. You said, I hate divorce, and I loved the message. You're a divorce lawyer. Will you. Will you talk and say. Say the same things you were saying yesterday about divorce?

So the context of this. Yeah, I can say this. This. This isn't breaking any privilege or anything like this. So the context was somebody's talking about passion. And, yeah, passion's great, I guess, but, like, I have a passion for pizza. Like, it is. No, it's how we know God loves us. I don't make pizza. Right. Like, I ain't doing my passion thing right. Anyway, so that was the context of it. But I. I said, look, passion's not all that important, to be honest with you. And I. The example is divorce. Like, I hate divorce. I. I disdain it. I don't want people to get divorced. Unless it's absolutely necessary, which it usually is not. People are divorced. People are choosing to get out of their marriage and kind of ruin their kids lives when they shouldn't. A lot of times. Like a lot of times. But you know, I'm the coroner, I'm not the murderer. Right. And I just happen to be extraordinarily good at this thing and have put together a really good team to help people with it. But I actually don't like it. And that actually makes me a better attorney. It makes me a better divorce attorney because I'm not gung ho on it. I'm not ratcheting up the temperature. I'm not trying to ruin kids lives. I'm just trying to get people in and negotiated and then on with their life so they can go find somebody else and we can minimize harm to kids.

Yeah. And I think the reason why I like that so much is that if you are a nail and you go to a hammer, what's the hammer gonna want to do? Hit you in the head. Right. So if you are thinking about getting a divorce and you go to a divorce lawyer and they're going to try to convince you to get a divorce. But if you go to a divorce lawyer and they say, well, you know, I hate divorce. And I think, I think that your parents should do everything they can to stay together so, you know, to benefit the kids, that's a different message that you're getting from 99% of divorce lawyers. Probably.

Yes.

And that's why I liked it so much. That is, it's. You have differentiated yourself so much from all the other lawyers. And it was a. When you said, I was like, wow, that's good. Yeah, that's a really powerful message.

Yeah. And I'm totally sincere about it too. Like I hate divorce.

Right.

And I talk with my friends and even the ones that are, that are happily married, like they're still kind of gung ho. Like, oh, yeah, you know, we're gonna do this and it's gonna make your life better. Like, absolutely not. Like, what are you talking about? No, we're not making people's lives better. Like every once in a while we have a situation where we're getting people out from abusive relationships. By all means, please do that. That's going to significantly increase your life quality. Right. But that's not what we're doing. We're, we're helping people get through a terrible, terrible situation. And you know, we're going to mess up their kids and our job is just to like minimize A train wreck and minimize the damage that we do to children. Let's just be realistic about that. But no one talks like that. Like, I'm the only one that actually.

Says stuff like that. I've read that the divorce rate is really high among divorce lawyers. So how do you prevent. From, like, taking that home with you? You know, because it could be easy. Kind of caseworkers where you take it home with you, lots of stress. So how do you prevent that?

I don't know. I know that one of the reasons that I am successful at what I do is that I simply have a personality that allows me to do it. And I'm not entirely sure why. I literally think that. I don't think that as attorneys, we're born. We're more made than anything else. Like, salespeople aren't born, they're made. That type of thing. But I was born with this ability to just kind of deal with this type of stress, this particular type of stress, and then not take it home with me.

Yeah.

So I don't talk to my wife about my cases. I don't do any of that kind of stuff. Like, I keep that within myself. I don't have a therapist. I don't do any of that kind of stuff because I don't need it.

Sure.

So I don't need an outlet for those sorts of things. I. I can just deal with it.

You were born in Anchorage, right?

No, I was born in Corvallis, Oregon.

Oregon. Okay.

So my dad was going to Oregon State.

Gotcha. And then did you be. You lived in Alaska, was that right?

Yeah, 17 years. Lived in Cold Bay.

Okay, so you were raised.

So I. Yeah, I went to. I went to high school in Anchorage.

Okay. That's because I. I knew that there was a connection to Anchorage. I thought you were born there. So you were born. When did you move there then? So you're probably born there and then pretty shortly thereafter, then moved three months old. Okay. So pretty. Pretty damn young.

I'm Alaskan.

Yeah. How much. I mean, how much of that do you think is shaped kind of like who you are?

There's tons and tons of it, actually. So I'll talk about the, like, the funny one, and then I'll talk about a more serious one. So, for example, I have no concept of why people in lower 48 have problems with guns, because we just had guns around all the time. We loaded guns around. Like, I had a gun from the time I was a little, tiny kid. I would walk around with shotguns. We'd take we'd take guns to school, all this stuff.

Yeah.

It was just literally a normal part of everyday life, and I have no concept why anybody down here has a problem with it. Like, no one ever shot at each other the gun? Like, that's silly like that. No, no, absolutely not. So that's kind of. That's a little facetious, but kind of funny. More realistically, I'm pretty individualistic, and I know myself pretty well because I grew up in a village of 85 people, so there weren't a ton of kids around, and I was just outdoors all the time, like with my dogs, hunting, fishing, exploring, that type of thing. So from a very early age, there was a lot of executive functioning that had to go on in my. In my head. And there was also just a lot of downtime. Like, I would just walk around for hours. And you kind of talk to yourself. I still talk to myself all the time now, so my family thinks I'm crazy.

But they might be a little crazy to you.

Yeah, probably. But that's just what you did. So I got to know my head really well, like how my brain actually functioned.

Yeah.

And that has been really, really invaluable over. Over time.

That's interesting. The. The whole getting to know you part, the. Or getting to know yourself, that's what I've always appreciated about Jimmy is like. I feel like he all. He's like, really. He's. He's going through lots of therapy. You know, he's like, really kind of done that. So I wonder what, like, what advice would you give to people to kind of do that work? I'm sure it's probably not just talking to yourself all day, but if. If you could give someone advice about how to do that, what would you say?

Oh, so I'll say this about. So therapy works for some people. Right. Therapy does not work for me. I find. I've worked with therapists. It's probably going to get me in trouble here. But anyway, I've worked with therapists my entire adult life, and 95% of them are entirely worthless. And I say this as the grandson of a lady who was a professor and a psychologist, but most of them are just worthless, and they don't. It doesn't do anything for me, so I don't need that sort of thing. If you do need that sort of thing, fine.

Cool.

That's great. But what I find to be more useful is that you shut off your phone and you shut off distractions from the outside world that distract you from your actual head because all of that stuff disables your ability to get inside your own head and think about your thinking, right? And think about who you are as a human being. Because you may think you know who you are, and then you get into your head and they're like little factions fighting with each other in your brain, right? And you get to know, like, it's work to get to know those little factions, right? So you need to shut off the distractions and just sit around with your own head. And whether that's working out, you know, in the gym or going on walks or literally just sitting in a room or whatever it is, do, do that.

Sure, right.

You're going to get to know yourself. But if you never shut off your phone and you allow people to suck up all your time, because everyone will suck up your time, your family will suck up all your time, your work will suck up all your time, whatever it is, right? The news media will suck up all your time. If you allow that, then you will literally never get to know your own. Your own brain.

Yeah, I'm kind of thinking about, like, what the recipe for like, living like a healthy, successful life is. It's a lot of, like, there's like the. There's the mindset part of it, so, like, turning off the distractions and all that. There's a lot of the health part of it, but there's the taking care of your body, like, working out and, like, make sure you're getting paid when it comes to running the law firm. And like, what would you say is, like, some of the other key factors? Because I want to pivot back a little bit to, like, where things started to take off with you. So. Yeah, like, what were. If you were to kind of like, look at the recipe, like, what was it?

So it was the getting paid and the physical. Physical exercise were the first two things, I think, and that facilitated weight loss, which is a big thing to me because there's another one that might get me in trouble. But this whole body positivity thing, you know, you can be fit and fat and you're. You're. Everybody's beautiful, that sort of thing. Whatever, dude. Like, I don't. I don't buy that at all. Like, everybody's beautiful, but a lot of some bodies get cancer and some bodies don't.

Right.

And somebody's get heart disease.

It's a health thing.

Yeah, exactly. This is just objective reality, right? So that, That's a huge thing. Like, if you are miserable and fat and completely unhealthy and you don't sleep well, then you're going to get sick and you're not going to be a terribly effective lawyer now. And this kind of, I think this is a segue into really where we're talking about which is how can, how can we be happy in our lives? And what I can, what I can tell you is that most human beings don't know how to be healthy or don't know how to be happy. Sorry. They actually don't know that because they don't sit around in their own head and we're really complicated creatures. So we actually don't know what makes us happy a lot of times. But we know what makes us miserable. Like we are very, very cognizant of what makes us miserable. So I call it walking the via negativa, which means really all it is. You just have to take away the stuff that makes you miserable and then you reach a pretty good level of happiness.

Sure.

Right. And then you can kind of add on to stuff. Add on stuff to that to become happier or, you know, more deeply. I don't like the term happy really, but more.

Because happy is not a destination.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a state of mind that is temporary state of mind that it fluctuates. It's not, it's not something where you're going to be at happiness at all times. It's just. That's impossible. It's not something that. It's not a destination.

Yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of like 15 year old view of life. Right. But to be, to lead a deeply meaningful life, you can layer some things on there, but really what you need to do is like figure out the stuff that makes you miserable and that is not meaningful and then just take that away from your life. And that's probably 80% of the game right there.

So at what point then. So 2015 was the bottom. You know, you had the, the shower incident and then you started to kind of take off. At what point did you kind of figure all that out? Well, we're actually. Let me different question.

Okay.

When did you start to remove those things that made you unhappy or that made you miserable and like what were some of those things?

So I think it kind of, it kind of starts in 15. When I removed a ton of the clients that were f. Clients.

Remove the clients. Remove the weight. That's good.

Yeah, remove the, remove the weight. Those were a couple big things we think. Remove the. Then I started removing negative, negative people from my life. Because at that point is really when I started getting a vision. Right. I got over the fear part of things. And especially paying off the debt really helped get fear.

All right, so hold on, because I got it. I can't let this one go. The miserable people part. I 100 agree with this. But can we talk some more? I want to dig into that a little bit and then some other things that you removed. But what was. What do you mean by that?

Well, they're just. They're attorneys. Like, I really love attorneys. Like, I like being a lawyer because I like attorneys.

Yeah.

And they're. I like 90% of attorneys, let's put it that way. And they're in 10%. I don't really enjoy. So I just started excising.

Those are the 10% no one likes, so.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly. So I just started excising those people. Like, I stopped talking to them on the phone, for instance. I'd have cases with them.

Yeah.

And usually I would, like, get on the phone and I would argue with them, or I get an email and I would start arguing with them. And then I thought, yeah, I'm not doing this anymore. So I just stopped. I, like, didn't communicate with them. And you might think, well, that's going to prejudice your client. And no, it doesn't actually. Like, you just do your thing in a case and then you talk with the attorney. Like when you get to the hearing or in a mediation and you get stuff done just as well, but you have cut off 90, 95% of the communication. That makes your day worse.

100%.

Right. So that was one. That was one thing. Started cutting those people off. I started cutting off people in my personal life that they were negative. I just didn't want them around. So I was like, okay, cool.

How hard was that?

Not terrible. It's not terribly difficult for me, actually. So I have. I have that ability to cut people off for better or worse.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that was never real hard for me. It's harder for my wife. Right. Because she has some pretty negative family members that I just won't interact with, and. But she feels compelled to continue a relationship with them. And I say, cool, that's. That's great, but I'm just not going to interact with them anymore. And so there's a little bit of tension there, but ultimately, I think, you know, that's better. And that's a personality difference that we have. Like, I'm just able to let people go that way.

All right, so you started removing, you know, the negative people from your life. Those negative Influences. What were some other things that you were removing that helped you turn the ship around?

I, on the physical side, I remove sugar for a long period of time.

Oh, interesting, huh?

I've. I've moderated on this. So I, I eat sugar again. But there were years and years and years where I, like, literally didn't eat, didn't eat sugar.

That's, that's really difficult to do because everything you pick up, I mean, I picked up a bottle of honey a few months ago and it had sugar in it. And I, I was like, what? It's honey, it's sweet enough. Like, why is there sugar?

Why is there sugar? I know that's nuts. I've never seen them before. Yeah, so that was one thing. So it was like, what am I going to sacrifice? Right? And sugar is the thing that packs pounds on me. So I had to sacrifice something. And that, that was, that was one of them. Now I've been, like I said, I've been able to moderate that over, over time, but that was one of the things that was making me miserable. So I, so I stopped doing it.

Do you remember the moment that you, you felt like you were out of it? Like you had, you had got. You had escaped that 2015 phase?

Yeah, it's 20. Is it night? It's like 2020. So right before COVID And Covid ruins everything, but actually didn't ruin everything. We talk about that, but it's like right before COVID I think we have three attorneys in me, so we have four attorneys total. I'm kind of out of the day to day on stuff, and I'm beginning to manage the law firm kind of full time, making a fairly good amount of money. I think I was making 300,000 a year at that point, which is way more money than I ever anticipated making in my entire life. I remember having a conversation with my wife before we got married, and I told her, sweetie, I think the most I'll ever make is $100,000 a year. Are you okay with that? And she comes from a family of 10 kids and her dad was in the Air Force. So she said, that sounds great.

Sounds like a billion dollars. You know what I mean? Like, it's like.

Because her dad had never made that much, that much money before, so, yeah, she was totally fine with it. So it was like way more money than I ever thought we'd make. And it seemed like I was getting a handle on how to run a, how to run a business and how to run a law office. We were, you know, we were traveling a bit more and yeah, it just seemed like, okay, I've kind of. I've kind of made it. I've kind of figured some things out.

Yeah. Did you have money growing up?

My parents did. Okay. So we lived a upper middle class life probably, but we lived it in Alaska. So we lived it in a village of 85 people and then in Anchorage. So that's a very different sort of thing. Like having upper middle class money there is very different than having upper middle class money in a suburb of Phoenix.

Yeah. Well, how's that different? What do you mean?

It just doesn't go as far. And no matter how much money you have, you didn't get the material stuff of it because there's just less material stuff in Alaska. It's just not that type of culture. So we never really used the money that other. That people in the way that people could use the money in the lower 48. Because you just didn't have, like, you just didn't have the stuff around. Like you could buy a truck, but it was never as nice as the trucks you could buy in like Denver or Texas or something.

Why do you think money's such a big thing to you now, though? Because you said you talk about a lot and you do. I mean, I. I think it's a, it's a good thing. The, the fact that people don't talk about money or they're not comfortable with it is. I don't know, I think it's probably debt to their detriment. So what is it that. Why, why is it that.

That.

I don't know if that drives you or if it's. But you do talk about a lot. It does. Does money drive you?

Yeah, it absolutely drives me.

Yeah. So what, like, where's that come from then?

So it's a scorecard. So a few things. One, it's a scorecard, Right. I can. I can figure out objectively, like kind of where I am as a business owner by how much money I'm making. Because, look, if someone makes $10 million a year and you make $300,000 a year, that person is significantly better at the business of whatever you're doing. Yeah, that's just objectively true.

Right.

You may think you're a better attorney, and that may be true, but you're not a better attorney as business owner.

Yeah.

Right. So it's a scorecard. And it's tended to be a scorecard for my life as well. Like, as I made more money, I've grown as a human Being so that, you know, those are indicators. For me, the freedom that comes along with it is a very, very big thing. Like. Like I said, I'm pretty individualistic as an Alaskan, and I like freedom. I don't like people telling me what to do. I like being able to use money to buy access and do what I want. So that's a huge thing. It really provides for my family. I think all these things are great, and it gets me what I want. I bought a villa in Italy recently, which was a lifelong kind of lifelong dream ever since I was 19. And that don't happen without money.

Yeah, you said something about that triggered this question. And I don't know what it was that you just said, but that made me think of this. But how do you balance the idea of making a client happy and getting them a really good result? Because you could do a really, really good job and the client is extremely unhappy. It's probably because some of the things you did in the case, you got them great result, but they're unhappy. Or you could do an average job and the client's extremely happy. And it makes me think of a time where I handled a family law issue for a friend. It was like the last thing I ever did with it, with family law, and I'll never do it again. But it was like in the early days where you take a case you shouldn't have taken. And I remember leaving. My client was extremely happy with me, and I probably got. I probably. They. They probably wiped the floor with me because they were a fame law attorney. My client was extremely happy, and in the. Outside, the courtroom, their client was screaming at them. And it's one of those things where, like, I'm sure I did a terrible job on that case. I don't know anything about family law. So how do you balance those two things? Because there is a balance that you have to take with it.

So I don't see it as a balance. The way I see it is you can do both of those things simultaneously, but they're disconnected. Okay. So where I. When I learned this lesson, I was a family law attorney. And I remember, I. And it was. I was good at this point. Like, I was very good at this point. So I go into a hearing with a client, and it's still one of the best hearings I've ever done. You remember those hearings where you just wipe them?

Oh, yeah, right.

You feel like the. Of the walk. Yep, that was it. Like, I cleaned up and I walk out and I'm feeling great, you know, like, my chest is out and the whole bit. And I turn to my client, I said, so, you know, what do you think of that? Right? That sort of.

Yeah.

She berates me. She is livid. And I. She talked about how we lost and. And how I was late. I was five minutes late. So she talked about how it was late and that caused us to lose because the judge hated me and so on and so forth. And none of that was true. Like, literally none of it was true. And I realized. And I had to talk her down. I said, no, you got 95% of what you wanted. And she said, no, I didn't. And I said, yes, yes, you did. And then I had to explain it to her. And it took me 15 or 20 minutes. And her mom was convinced, too. Her mom was like, no, you lost us the case. So I sat there for 15 or 20 minutes explaining this, and finally got to the point where she kind of bought it. She's like, oh, okay, now I understand. But I learned something from that experience, which is that our clients have absolutely no concept of how we good. How good we are as attorneys. Like, none.

None.

It doesn't register because they are unfamiliar with the entire process. They simply don't know. Unless they're a lawyer, essentially, or a very sophisticated actor. They simply don't know. And what I had done was I made a fatal error in showing up five minutes late because that was the thing she understood, okay, she didn't understand any of the amazing stuff I did in there, but she understood that I was five minutes late because that's what's familiar to her. And I realized, oh, my goodness, I have to give clients what they're familiar with, and then I have to be a really good lawyer on top of that. But those two things are disconnected. So at that point, I thought, oh, okay, so how do I do that? What is familiar to clients that they want all the time that I can give them and make them happy? And then I can be a really good lawyer as well. So that's when, you know, in our law firm, it's communication. So it's. You know, we call every client every Friday. We send out text messages every Wednesday to answer questions. So we have systemic communications. We actually talk with our attorneys about how to talk with clients. Like, we don't use jargon. We don't sound like attorneys. You know, we don't do any of that kind of stuff because they don't know them our jargon, but they know how, like, normal people talk to them. And then we're on time. We don't miss deadlines. You know, we look good when we go to court, because these are all things that people understand. So you have to give both of those things to clients simultaneously.

Such a brilliant message. It's really good. I love that. I'm going to go back and cut that part and just re. Listen to it because it's. There were so many valuable lessons, and that's great. I want to ask you, with the time we have left, I want to ask you about one last thing, and that's the glass chandelier. Chandelier. So, yes, ask you about the glass chandelier. So tell me. Tell me what that's about.

All right. So Venice, in the Venetian lagoon, there is an island. It's called Murano, and it's where they make glass. So back in the days in Venice, you used to have the foundries, the glass foundries that were on the main kind of series of islands in Venice, but they kept blowing up and setting everything on fire. So they said, no, you get this. This place, Murano, like, way out here in the. In the lagoon. So they go out there. I don't even know when that happens. 1200 A.D. or something like that. And they've been out there ever since. And they're amazing artists, the best glass makers in the world. So I remember when I was a kid, actually, it's funny, when I was a kid, I went there for the first time, was eight years old, and I had them. My parents got some glass, and I had them make little snoopy characters. And I gave those to my grandmother. And my grandmother died. And the only thing I got from my grandmother was little snoopy characters right in Venetian glass. And they have lasted. Those things are tough, man. So now my daughter plays with those little snoopy characters all the time. And I, like, berate her because I don't want to lose them. Like, put it back. So. But I have those. And that, to me, symbolizes the first time I went out there and I got these little tiny things. But over time, I obviously wanted to get bigger things, right? So I remember I had this PI case come in, and I got this huge PI referral from it. So I went and I bought the chandelier out there, and it's this crazy white chandelier with what are called tagliatelle. So there are ribbons coming off of it that look like pasta, right? Because it's Italy. It's this crazy chandelier. And I just adored it. And my wife's like, okay, you know, we can do this. So went and popped down the cash for it. And we have it in our. In our house. And we've actually upgraded since then. So right now we're having sent to our house a mosaic in Venetian glass of Women in Gold by Klimt. Just this amazing, amazing piece of art. Like, it is stunning, and I'm so happy to have it in my house. But really what that shows me is that kind of progression from the Snoopies. Yeah, right. To these much, much larger things. And I just love the artwork of it all.

And so at one point, you had taken a picture of. Was it the mosaic that you. So talk about the. The picture part. Because I want to talk about. I want. The visualization component of this is really what I want to focus on.

So visualization really helps me with goals. If I can visualize something and then have a picture of it, then I can make it happen. I can do the work that's necessary to make it happen, because I can look at the picture. Right. So six years ago, I think it is, I went to Venice with my son Elliot, and we stayed there for 10 days, just kind of lived in Venice. And we went to Murano to my. My favorite artist out there. And we're just back there kind of tooling around, looking at stuff. And there is a mosaic of Klimt's Woman in Gold, which is one of my top five paintings in the history of mankind. And I remember looking at it and thinking it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. Cause I love mosaics in general as an art form. And I said, how much is it? And he said, it was €38,000, which is about $43,000 in today's dollars. $43,000, $44,000. And I thought, well, I don't have money for that now, but I'm going to buy that. I told him, like, I'm going to commission that and I'm going to buy it. He said, cool. So I took a photo of it, and I've looked at that photo thousands of times. I have shown it to other people. I've told them I'm going to buy it. But I've looked at that over time, and it has fueled me to do. To do what I do. And then the moment we had the money for it the last time we were there in July, we went and commissioned it, and it is being delivered right now.

It's incredible. From where you went in 2015, you took that picture in 2018, and then to where you are now. It's incredible. That's a great story. Thanks, Marco.

Hey, thanks. It was great to be here.