%20(1).png)
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Ben Glass Keynote: Lawyers Should Be Happy. Period
Unlock the secrets to a thriving legal career and learn how to craft a life that aligns with your professional and personal goals. On this episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, we pull back the curtain on how everyone in a law firm, from SEO specialists to attorneys, plays a crucial role in transforming clients' lives. Dive into insights from my presentation at NiftyCon 2024, where we discuss the art of building a successful, purpose-driven law firm and the importance of doing work you love with people you enjoy working with.
As we rethink the myth that lawyers are destined for stress-laden careers, I share personal experiences from my journey as a lawyer in Virginia. Learn how an entrepreneurial mindset, coupled with effective time management and delegation strategies, can lead to a fulfilling and profitable legal practice. Discover how building a capable team and setting boundaries can enhance your practice and life. Let’s challenge the status quo and inspire change by focusing on the positive impact legal professionals can have.
Whether you're a seasoned attorney or an aspiring legal professional, this episode is a roadmap to designing an ideal law practice. Explore the power of continuous learning and the importance of aligning your practice with your personal goals. We also delve into the adventures of balancing a bustling family life with a dynamic career, all while making room for personal passions and community involvement. Tune in for actionable advice on mastering time management, fostering team collaboration, and embracing a mindset of growth for lasting success in your legal journey.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
So the work you do is so important and by doing that work, I just need you to remember this for yourselves it's like you serve the world when you really sit and think about what. If you're the SEO guy, you're the marketing, you're the sales department, you're the development department, you're leadership. You move the world when you help people with legal opportunities or problems, get matched up with the right guy or gal who's a lawyer, and the right team. Okay, sit down for a second. Stand up. If you are with a law firm but you're not the licensed attorney, You're part of that law firm. Support marketing team. Infrastructure team.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show where we ask the questions why aren't more lawyers living flourishing lives and inspiring others? And can you really get wealthy while doing only the work you love with people you like? Many lawyers are. Get ready to hear from your host, ben Glass, the founder of the law firm Ben Glass Law in Fairfax, virginia, and Great Legal Marketing, an organization that helps good people succeed by coaching, inspiring and supporting law firm owners.
Speaker 1:Join us for today's conversation. Hey everyone, this is Ben and welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast. This is a very special episode. Earlier this year, I was invited out to Salt Lake City to speak at NiftyCon. Nifty is a terrific web marketing company. They had a two-day conference lawyer marketing, of course, digital marketing, culture, all sorts of things and they invited me to come and speak on living a great life as an attorney. So here is the full, unedited presentation at NiftyCon from 2024, where I showed the audience how to start to think about living a great life through the vehicle of being an attorney and, of course, running a law firm.
Speaker 1:All right, enjoy Good morning. Let me ask you two questions. To start Now. This is not raise your hand. You don't even have to write down the answer to the question. You'll see why in a moment, but think the answer for yourself. Question number one is do you like going to work? Think about that. Question number two is do you like going home? That's awesome. Most people cannot enthusiastically say yes and yes five, six, seven days a week to those questions. No-transcript. How can I move my life forward to happiness? Let me ask you another question.
Speaker 1:So if you are in the room and you work for Nifty or you work for ProSites, stand up for just a second, and it's really hard to see everything. But stand up. Let me, just as I observe your work and have spoken to a number of you here last couple of days let me just tell you what I want you to understand From the side of the consumer. You all are not selling, building and servicing technology that generates leads and makes more money for the lawyer. Technology that generates leads and makes more money for the lawyer, because if that's all you did, you're in a very, very massively competitive field. I need you to believe and I want you to believe and I've talked to a bunch of your leadership so I know they believe that you are changing lives.
Speaker 1:You see, when you help a lawyer in a law firm get more leads, make more money, you make that lawyer's life better. You make his or her team's life better because they have cool jobs, they make money, they pay taxes, they do stuff that's interesting for them. But most importantly and there's no web company in the world I've seen market this but you're helping to match, in our case, a consumer or a small business owner who is in need. They've got a legal problem or a legal opportunity and you're helping them match with the right lawyer for them. So the work you do is so important and by doing that work I just need you to remember this for yourselves. It's like it is you serve the world when you really sit and think about what. If you're the SEO guy, you're the marketing, you're the sales department, you're the development department, you're leadership. You move the world when you help people with legal opportunities or problems get matched up with the right guy or gal who's a lawyer and the right team.
Speaker 1:Okay, sit down for a second Stand up. If you are with a law firm but you're not the licensed attorney, you're part of that law firm, support, marketing team, infrastructure team. Your work is so important. You each bring skills to the business that help move things forward, whether it's marketing, whether it's managing the rest of the team, whether it's meeting and greeting clients all critical. But here's what I want you to go away thinking about the more you understand what it is the lawyers who own the firm and are running the firm want. What energizes them, what type of client they are best at serving like where their superpower is, the better off you are going to be, because you can communicate that not to everybody, because everybody is not your client, but to that client who's wandering around looking for the lawyer and the legal team that you are working for. And so when you remember that, as you bring your individual skills to a business, you move the world. Now here's the part that gets me in trouble sometimes Trigger warning If you're working for somebody and they can't articulate what the mission is, why they are the best for particular clients, why this is a great place to work. You should know that there are thousands of lawyers around the country who would love to have somebody like you come work for them. Okay, have a seat. Like you, come work for them. Okay, have a seat. All right, if you're a law firm lawyer, law firm owner, stand up for a second.
Speaker 1:I'm curious about something, two things really. How many of you who are here are not currently clients of Nifty Awesome? Here's what I want you to know. I've talked to these guys and gals over the last couple of days. They're the real deal. I mean, look, every web development firm is going to have technical expertise. They're going to understand SEO, probably, especially if they're serving lawyers. But the men and women I've been talking to the last couple of days. They get it. They get it that the mission of serving the world by taking your talents and gifts and putting them into the world is real and is important. And so, before you leave, at least start a conversation with people who understand that we are not just lawyers out there making money. We move the world. Let me ask you one other question how many in the room?
Speaker 1:This is the first sort of business lawyer conference you've ever been to. Is there anyone here for that? A couple? Yeah, you guys can sit down. Here's the challenge. When you come to something like this. I have pages and pages of notes just from starting yesterday morning with Kelly. He was awesome and it went throughout the day.
Speaker 1:And I am in this business, full-time practicing lawyer, been coaching lawyers for 20 years. I'm in this business. I have a million ideas a day. You may have pages and pages of ideas and you're wondering where do we start? Oh my gosh, where do we start? I think you go back to the first question I asked, which is asking yourself your firm, how do we make things happier for us first? We'll talk about it in a minute, but it's so critical.
Speaker 1:Whenever you're in occupation, you're doing work, you play athletics, being art, whatever Like, if you're happy and fulfilled and energized, this appliance is better. You know, I'd much rather get a CPA that's really happy, like that doesn't drive me, rank numbers don't drive me, like it makes me jittery. But I'd much rather have someone who's guarding my back and answering my questions, who's really excited about the answering my questions, who's really excited about the work he or she is doing. And so here's my thesis, and you'll like what I have to say for the rest of the hour if you like the thesis. If you don't like the thesis, there's breakfast still up.
Speaker 1:You have this one life to live. It's a one-way journey. You have zero control over who you were born to, when you were born, into what circumstances you were born. You have some control over how many years you get based upon your life habits, some control over that. But it's a one-way journey and I believe that it is meant to be lived for your joy. First, as I said yesterday, each of you has a unique, never before in the history of mankind, set of gifts, talents and interests that your job is to share into the world because it energizes you. And, as Kelly said, I wrote this down. It was so awesome.
Speaker 1:How do they feel when you have left the room, man, if you think of nothing else about this conference and implement nothing else in your business but thought deeply about how does that client, or even that potential client that we can't help? How do they feel when we have left the room, gotten off the phone or whatever it is? How do they feel about the experience I've had with you? They have had with you? Most lawyers give zero thought to it. It's all about skills. It's all about how do I get a bigger verdict, how do I get more leads on my website. All of that's important. But if you take what Kelly said and think deeply about, how can I integrate that? How have I done? At the end of the day, everyone I came in contact with, how have they felt when I've left the room and finished a conversation with them? It'll change your life, it'll change yours and that's how we move the world. All right, this all came to a head for me March 15 this year.
Speaker 1:I'm at Fairfax Hospital. I am getting ready to undergo cardiac catheterization, which is where they stick a tube in your wrist, go all the way in and your heart vessels and they look around, they're looking for blockages. And I meet Dr Celia and she's fabulous. She's an interventional cardiologist, a redhead from Long Island. She comes into my room and Sandy and I are sitting there. She comes into my room and Sandy and I are sitting there and she says Mr Glass, why the hell are you here? She said I look at your chart. You do CrossFit five and six days a week. You referee soccer games, you're very physically active. You don't look like you're obese and you have zero symptoms. Like, tell me the story. Why are you here? I said, well, dr Asili. I said you know, I turned 66 in February and January I got a new doctor.
Speaker 1:He was curious, sore and a little bit elevated blood pressure, elevated cholesterol and he said let's let's, let's be curious. I want you to go and have a write this down coronary artery calcium screen. Okay, I'll do that. I trusted the guy. That test, if you score between zero and 100, they're like you're good Scored 1,400 off the charts. Holy shit, like how does this even happen? That's what Dr Suley was saying to me. She says, oh, I told her. I said, well, I had the test, I scored high.
Speaker 1:Three days later I saw a cardiologist and we started another series of tests and each test is a little ambiguous. Now that's really cool, like we've moved into the world We've been there now for several years of electronic medical records. So what happens with electronic medical records? Right, you have a test, you get the result before any doctor has looked at it. So I'm trying to look at these things and figure them out. And each one was ambiguous.
Speaker 1:The radiologists involved in the test would go I think you're okay. My guy, thank God, he was curious. He says I don't know, he says you might be that one in two million who's totally fit, totally symptom-free, and have major critical blockages. So Dr Silius says look, we're going to do this procedure. It's either a 15-minute or a 45-minute procedure. If I go in and I see nothing, it's 15 minutes. You're out of the hospital in a couple hours. So if I go in and I see a couple of blockages, I'm going to throw some stents. Throw some stents in there 45 minutes. You'll be here most of the day and you'll go home. And if I go in I see more than two blockages, I'm going to have surgery. Awesome, let's go Go to the procedure.
Speaker 1:15 minutes later I'm up, I don't know it's 15 minutes, but she tells me it's 15 minutes and I'm going to quote her, so I'm going to use the S word. She says Mr Glass, did you hear me while we were there? I said no, I was asleep. She said. I said holy shit, come look at this. And when your doctor says holy shit, come look at this, it means you are special. This is Friday morning. Says you need sir, you have five, you have critical cardiac disease. Again, sobering, right, zero, zero symptoms.
Speaker 1:I had done a game the week before, felt fine, preparing for the high school season. It felt fabulous. So, and you can't go, surgery is going to be Monday. We're not going to let you go home. I feel good. Let's take the bags and walk down the hall Like no, no, no, like I made them nervous because I'm a happy-go-lucky, positive thinking guy. So I'm in the hospital for over the weekend, two days See, andy's there a part of the time and so you have a lot of time to think.
Speaker 1:Hmm, one night I woke up and I thought how do they cut your chest open? And there's a YouTube video on this. This I don't recommend watching. I didn't watch it until later and I made. So this picture is a couple days post-op. The black T-shirt is when I entered cardiac rehab, which I'll talk about in a moment.
Speaker 1:But I did two things over that weekend. Number one I committed to having the fastest return ever, the best recovery ever for a 66-year-old CrossFit athlete who referees soccer games. Now that's a marketing message right there, because I very carefully defined the market. And number two, and I was. I was I'd been introduced to this whole thing of TikTok and do your videos and I was like there wasn't videos but I sucked at it. But I said to myself if we're going to have the fastest ever recovery for a 66-year-old CrossFit athlete and soccer referee from what turned out to be triple bypass surgery, why don't we just document it? So I started putting every day in TikTok.
Speaker 1:Surgery was March 18th, on Memorial Day weekend. I went back into the CrossFit gym. I could do most of the movements. I could do everything except hang from the bar without pain and so I quit cardiac rehab. It was a long 12-week program which was boring to me. There was a lot of old people in there who couldn't walk. I'm like I got to get out of here, get back to my CrossFit gym and 110 days after surgery I refereed my first game. So that QR code, if you're interested, goes to the Renegade Lawyer TikTok channel where I document almost every day of the recovery.
Speaker 1:Since starting that I know two people and since telling the story a lot. This is the first time I've talked about it in a bigger, open group. But two people I know zero symptoms, got the screening and had surgery. They didn't have the major surgery but they had stents. So now let's get to what. Hey, you're getting CLE credit for lawyer wellness. I think until they see the presentation where I say and everything that the state bar and all the traditional lawyer organizations teach you about lawyer wellness is absolutely wrong, maybe your credit will get revoked, I don't know. I hope, but here's the deal. This is very typical.
Speaker 1:So I practice in Virginia, got a personal injury, long-term disability practice, and the state bar, of course, publishes their journal and they have a lawyer wellness committee and you know, good lord committee money spent on this. They even have this fake, fake. You must have one hour of wellness credit every three years, like every lawyer in Virginia thinks that this is real until you go and read the fine print, like I always read the fine print. It says nothing will happen if you don't go get the credit. Because I was going to write him and say if I'm in a CrossFit gym four days a week, refereeing a whole bunch of soccer games every year, like do I get some credit for that Right?
Speaker 1:So and they published an article. It says that presume like here's my beef with the industry writ large. They presume that our lives are horrible, that that is just the status quo, that that is what you signed up to do. And so when they posted an article, they wrote it in their journal that this was undisputed truths, undisputed truths about the legal profession. I wrote a long letter back and I said I got to let you know that there's thousands of lawyers in the country many in the solo, most in the solo and small firm market who we interact with and we coach, who are building thriving practices all across the spectrum of practice areas, who love their practices, who serve clients really well, who are energized by running practices, who don't believe that this is a baseline of undisputed truths. And so I'm the little irritant in the Virginia State Bar, because every time they write a letter like this or an article like this, I'm like that's simply not true, and the sad part is that most lawyers because they're not at conferences like this and talking to entrepreneurial lawyers with ideas about how to lift their own lives and how to lift their clients' lives and how to do work that's fun and hard, meaningful and joyful like these lawyers aren't even introduced to this, and so we need to stop whining about how hard being a lawyer is.
Speaker 1:We work in air-conditioned buildings. They're heated in the wintertime. We make money with our brains sitting at a desk. I represent a coal miner in southwest Virginia, so part of my work is if somebody becomes injured or sick and can't work, it's not Social Security, it's ERISA long-term disability claims Group policies. It's a really fantastic niche. It's ERISA long-term disability claims Group policies. It's a really fantastic niche. It's really cool.
Speaker 1:Coal miner, southwest Virginia, oh my God. I argued his case in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals a year ago and we won the case, and one of the things I said to the panel was if you picked up an orthopedic manual, if you picked up an orthopedic manual, my guy literally had every single disease process of orthopedics that existed in that manual. Earlier this summer, sandy and I traveled up to a place called Jim Thorpe, pennsylvania, took a little vacation. We like to go to places and ride bikes and stuff and Jim Thorpe Pennsylvania is known for. It's a coal mining country in Pennsylvania and there was a. We're looking around at the visitor center like there's a mine tour. I've been in caverns, been to museums, never been in a mine. Holy crap, 1600 feet underground with a guy with a tour guide who was really interested in the history of mining. Think you know they were digging this thing before there was power, before there was electric light. There was little kids in the mine.
Speaker 1:These people have hard lives. Most of our clients particularly if you're in the personal injury or workers' comp or social security you know that sort of space. They have hard lives. We need to stop whining about this. By the way, every profession does it. If you go and look at the literature, they all think that they have hard lives. I'll tell you those hard lives People in the service, first responders.
Speaker 1:I was assigned as a firefighter, paramedic. That's hard stuff and maybe I'm speaking to the choir here, but one of the messages, one of the things I do in my life is to generate ideas with people like you when you go back to your communities and you're sitting around at regular lawyer meetings, which I don't go to anymore because they're always complaining in the litigation world. They're complaining about adjusters, judges and juries in tort reform All legit but that's the whole conversation. When they're bragging about their biggest work, it's a whole conversation. Not a very interesting conversation for me, and what I want you to be able to do is go back and go. You know what? That's not true. There's lawyers out there who are having fun, who are prospering, helping their clients prosper, helping their team members get more skills, have a great place to come to work, and I try to get that message out.
Speaker 1:So the profession's response is all directed to symptoms, confidential assistance programs, mandatory CLE. This is the dumbest thing. It is a participation trophy scam in Virginia. Right, think about it For Virginia, the people who are listening to this and revoking the credit. It's true, you know it's true. 12 hours of mandatory credit. No one's looking to see what class you take. No one's looking to see if you learn anything in the class. We just do it because we think that somehow this is important and it is absolutely no measure. Getting your 12 hours every year is zero measure of your impact on the world. They carry wellness committees and task forces. Nothing good was ever, ever, ever accomplished by a committee.
Speaker 1:It takes individuals like you going back to say you know, I was in Salt Lake City, utah, and I heard an interesting talk that I don't think I've ever actually heard before. Mine is in Salt Lake City, utah, and I heard an interesting talk that I don't think I've ever actually heard before and that sparked some ideas and I'd like to learn more about that. Here's what you come to a conference like this, you get tons of great marketing technology ideas. Write this on your whiteboard back in your office. For me, this is the gold target Building a place that allows you to do work that you like doing 41 years in practice. For many of those years 30, 28, 30 years I did medical malpractice cases until I got to the plaintiff's, first on the defense side, then on the plaintiff's side, until I got to the point I didn't like that anymore. I didn't like other people running my schedule. Pivoted that's a word we heard yesterday. Pivoted I can't tell if you're back there. There you go, yeah, pivoted, justin, justin, doing work you love with people you like for people you like, and I'm here to tell you that, no matter where you are and how far away you are from this model goal, you can get there.
Speaker 1:And one of the great fun joys of my life is having lawyers come to my organization, great Liberal Market. Come there, who have been in practice 30, 40 years, who are kind of burned out, who, when you ask them if a kiddo in college came up to you and said, should I go to law school? These lawyers, sadly, are like hell, no, it's horrible. I'm like you get to make money with your brains working in an air-conditioned and a heated building helping people. I think that's awesome. But having these lawyers who are burned out come and maybe for the first time in their life, someone is telling them that it's not a baseline of undisputed facts, that this profession sucks and that's just what you signed up to do, so live with it, but that it can be joyful, not supposed to have the band thing. Now imagine this. This is what this transition was supposed to be, what you should be learning business development, marketing, sales, training, enhancing profits, firm building, hiring great lawyers that's what you do at a place like NiftyCon. That's what you do at a place like one of our conferences, and today there's many conferences like that.
Speaker 1:This list it's much cooler, the way it was designed is on the list that Virginia bans the Virginia CLE committee bans any talk of this things that we're talking about in this room as a way to get CLE credit, and for me that's so stupid. We're good technically right. You went to law school, you've got experience. You know how to do your thing. The thing many of us struggle with because no one ever taught it to us is the whole build your business thing, and my argument is you're better for the client if you've got a profitable business that's fun to run, that has leads coming in and a line of people waiting to get inside your door hoping that they can hire you, helping that they can hire you, because now that changes the discussion all over the place. That's what we should be teaching, and the reason the profession is so afraid of that is that we've never done it that way before and that's not how I grew up in the practice, and so everybody needs to learn how to be miserable.
Speaker 1:Here's what I want you to know, and we can say this in this room with the doors closed by being in this room, you are superior to most other lawyers. If you go out and shout it in the street, they're going to think you're arrogant, they're going to think your head is too big. But I want you to believe that I think it's true. You move the world, and not only that. Lawyers often when we talk about why is it good to be a lawyer, we talk about the clients right, we talk about the clients. We talk about we help people. Okay, that's awesome. But again, that's what everybody says. That's why I said to Nifty you can't say we build technology that gets leads and makes you more money because everybody says it, but you think about it when you're running a law firm or any business, you're taking on that role of the entrepreneur, which is a rock and roll roller coaster place to play, and you take on a lot of responsibility because now you have to know a lot more than how to take a deposition. You need to know how to manage money, build culture, build a place where your team is saying to their friends and other law firms you should come check us out, is saying to their friends and other law firms you should come check us out.
Speaker 1:Our best recruiting tool is in our offices in the Fairfax 42C Training Center, because we do a whole bunch of Justin. We do CLEs in there, we do great legal marketing mastermind meetings. But then we say hey to the paralegal groups, come to our. You got a meeting, paralegal meeting. Come over to our place. By the way, when you come, we're going to snack you, we're going to give you coffee, drinks, whatever you want. You want to wander around our office? Wander around our office.
Speaker 1:The number one question asked in our office by people who come is what is this place really? Because it doesn't feel like a law office. And then when somebody who's working for somebody else that doesn't have a firm that drives energy, they're like you come knocking on our door, got any openings? I have people in the building that work for doctors in our building. They come knock on our door and go are you hiring? I don't know? What do you do Like? What's your superpower? So I want you to walk away from here head hell high, that you make a difference, not just for your families, not just for your clients. You make a difference for the world by all of the interactions when you build a business that you're not stressing over. Is the phone ever going to ring again? Haven't had any leads this week. Is there money coming in by Friday Because we've got to pay the bills? She built a great business, allows you to use your super pump. All of my stuff is philosophical. This isn't selfish. The world needs you to be physically, spiritually, mentally, financially fit.
Speaker 1:If I am going, when I when I didn't pick Dr Celia because I'm looking five stars on some damn website right, she got assigned to me. But just her presence in the room and the discussion she started with mr glass what the hell are you here like? I had confidence that she was happy. I asked her. I asked her because I ask everybody sandy, we got into the car of the uber two days ago. My friend, hey, dude, like, tell me your story. I asked her tell me your story.
Speaker 1:How did you pick putting catheters up people's arms? It's kind of cool, she says. I thought about it. It's really easy. I do the same damn thing all day long. I work, you know, six in the morning till four in the afternoon, then I go home. That's awesome, you're happy. The brand that you work for I trust. We're good. I don't have any questions with that.
Speaker 1:How do your clients feel when they've spoken to you? Or to your intake and sales team. Again, when you leave the room, get off the phone, do they feel, yeah, this is a firm. Not only do they have experience, but they like doing what they do and their team likes doing, and this is so important. Like most people in this, the team likes working and doing what they do. That is worth more to you than almost any other technology strategy idea about marketing. It also happens to be probably the hardest thing to get the right team in place, because one of the things that happens is, as you grow, the team that gets you to a certain level is not going to be the team that gets you to the next level. That's just a fact of life. It's neither good nor bad, it just is. And so, as you grow, we're always looking for who are the people on the next team that I need to be able to play with at the next level. All right, let me share a couple of things with you. Maybe we'll have some connections.
Speaker 1:So, sandy and I, we have nine children. Very quick story. We had four kids and a dog. We're done. We're busy, we're happy. I took golf lessons. Those guys who were last night watching me hit the golf ball Seven years later, I think Seven.
Speaker 1:Number five comes along After four. Sandy says to me you know, I think we're called to adopt. I said we're full up, got no room for that. Five came Says I think we're called to adopt. I said full up, we got no room for that. God said I want you to do a concert. I went to a Stephen Curry Chapman concert.
Speaker 1:18 months later we were in Beijing, china, adopting Kevin, who's now 22. He was adopted 18 months, went back several years later, adopted Emma at six and a half years, went back several years later, adopted David and Leah at the same time. They were not blood related, they were 11 and 12 years old. And that started off on a whole nother journey, which is a whole nother lecture. But we had to relearn everything that we thought we knew about parenting Because a couple of our kiddos came from really hard lives and hard orphanages and everything we thought we knew about how to communicate with kiddos and the brain and all that stuff. We had to go and relearn, going to conferences like this in the brain science area. Oh, the nine dogs are. We fostered 60 puppies and adult dogs and on this particular day we had nine of them running around, so, like when we get unbusy and feel like we've got some free time, we just make things busy.
Speaker 1:We've been married 43 years. My daughter Emma, she saw the picture on the left and she says to me one day she says I showed it to her. She says you know, dad, sometimes really, really beautiful women just want to date average guys and every once in a while we get out and do trips like this. What we try to do is coming out to Salt Lake come a day early. Bike riding is like kind of our drug of choice, so a great little bike tour went on the other day. We've got seven grandkids. Most of them live. They all live within three hours of us. They multiply faster and that is joyful you talk about joyful, having coached my kids playing sports and all of the hours spent with that right. When you're the grandparent, you just show up with your chair. You don't have to line the field, set up the goals, do batting, practice, anything. You just show up and you cheer and then this is my brand. We talked about brand all day yesterday. This is my brand Crossed over 50 years of refereeing soccer, crossfit athlete, and I try at least every couple of years to publish a book or two.
Speaker 1:Some of you have seen them. Where's that buddy, gabe? You here, gabe, come on up. So a couple of years ago I wrote a book for teenage soccer referees. I'm very passionate about youth sports sportsmanship. If you go on YouTube and you Google Ben Glass, crazy Soccer Parents, you'll see some videos we put up and Gabe is a local famous. Going to be awesome. You should get your picture taken with him. He's going to be a FIBA referee one day. And he came up to me yesterday he said oh, I'm a referee too, so take that book, read it, pass it on to someone else. Does anyone else have a kiddo? Does anyone else here have a kiddo who's involved in youth sports, officiating Baseball? Okay, got a book for you. So, whether he or she is a soccer referee or a baseball umpire, this book now everything Ben Glass does is a philosophy book. All my marketing books are really philosophy books.
Speaker 1:This is not a book about the laws of the game. It's about how, for the first time in your life, someone like your mom, dad, your coach, your teacher yelling at you how do you survive that? What's the mental mindset to survive? That Dan Kennedy and I published earlier this year. This came out a couple months ago. No BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs. It's a great book. We'll talk about some of the strategies here. In just a few minutes we come out with.
Speaker 1:The latest edition of Renegade Lawyer Marketing comes out in two weeks. We'll release it at our conference. If you'd like to come over to Arizona in two weeks, I've got some really good discount tickets if you're not already signed up. But if you would like me to send you the second edition of Renegade Lawyer Marketing after we get back from Arizona, just you send me a direct message on LinkedIn, like that's my place of choice. You can find me an email, but that'll get lost and I'll make sure, because you're here, that you get a fresh off the press copy of Renegade Lawyer Marketing, a fresh off the press copy of Renegade Lawyer Marketing. Also, I wrote this book, the Live Life Big User's Guide Journal, several years ago, really just walking through my journal and picking out inspirational ideas, that things that I put on my whiteboard.
Speaker 1:Anybody could do this. I give it to all my clients. I give it to as many prospects as I can Because you think about it. My clients all have. Give it to as many prospects as I can Because you think about it. My clients all have hard stuff going on. They're sick or they've been in an accident and oftentimes they don't have anybody in their life who's a positive mindset. You can move forward person.
Speaker 1:Most of my discussions with clients and Brian, my son as well Like we're good lawyers and we're going to get the legal done for you. Like we're really good at the things the two things we do, like PI and long-term disability, but you have a life after this and, if you want, we will help you figure out what's the next step towards making your life better. Now think about that when all of the other personal injury lawyers in the marketplace are just talking about big verdict money. The billboards out here interact get a check, so I get it. Like it works. This is branding, how we show up differently by unabashedly saying and our team knows this too, so our team resells this concept in every conversation Ben and Brian are going to help you with your life. If you want, I'm going to force it on anybody, but if you want, they're entrepreneurs. They're really good at coming up with ideas of how to go make money, how to take your skill set and go make some of your life, even though you're hurting, you can't do what you were born to do anymore. I talked to a lot of doctors who across the country because we market inside of a website for physicians and money and we are the only disability claims lawyer inside this major website and major platform that speaks to doctors about money when they have something going on in their lives that makes them unable to do what they were born to do. They call me All over the country.
Speaker 1:It's not just about the money. I talk to the most interesting people in the world almost every week. How did you get here? What do you like about your job? How come you can't do it? What can we do next? It's interesting to me, it's fun.
Speaker 1:Brian and I view the business of the practice of law as playing the endless game. It is puzzle after puzzle after puzzle, and we both speak and attend as many conferences like this again, not the traditional CLE conference, except to the extent that it's mandated by the rules, but as many conferences as we can like this so that we can keep getting better at playing the endless game. It doesn't mean that it's easy. I mean there are days in San Diego you grab her later on, like there's days where it's chaos right, everybody is chaos but we want to be in rooms of people doing things bigger, better and faster than we are, like we're small at a firm We'll do maybe 4 million top line revenue. We like to be in the rooms of the guys and gals doing 40, 50, 60, $70 million of PI revenue, like I want to know how do you think, how do you run your practice? How many bookkeepers do you have?
Speaker 1:Like that's the stuff that is interesting to us, so that as we level up and continue to grow and make decisions about how big we want to get because we both have lives and our team have lives right, we're coaching and refereeing and CrossFit and all this other stuff right, we're trying to figure that, and so one of the best things you can do, I think whether, again, whether you're working for somebody else or whether you are an owner of a law firm or any business is to get yourself in rooms of people where you are not the smartest person in the room, where, in fact, you feel inferior because everyone else around you seems to be a little bit smarter and a little bit more successful, and that's an uncomfortable place to go. We call them mastermind groups. We run them, we're in them, warriors and what we call mixed breed, different business owners. Here's what you find when you're in those groups. The most successful people have something really dysfunctional going on in their lives. They're very normal like you in some aspect of their life and in each one of those rooms you have something they don't have that they could learn from, and they have something that you don't have that they could learn from. And they have something that you don't have that you could learn from. And my experience is in playing in that world, at least the last 25 years, is that the most successful people in the business industry are the most giving people I associate with.
Speaker 1:If you are interested in Kelly again, go back to your notes. What Kelly talked about, get the recording, get the notes. If they haven't been able to be curious like, stop talking about yourself and be curious about the next person's business. That's why when I'm on a long flight with someone and I meet and sit down I don't know I was on a flight two years ago to Phoenix. We're flying for a bit and I say to the lady next to me like my question always is Phoenix, we're flying for a bit and I say to the lady next to me, like my question always is it's not what do you do, it's what's your superpower.
Speaker 1:Turns out she was a world-renowned neuroscientist in the field of pain and pain management, and we spent the next two hours just talking not only about the science, which was interesting, but I wanted to know how she thinks. How does she prepare for her conferences? How does she balance her life? So be in rooms of people doing things bigger, better and faster than you are and ask curious questions. Stop talking about yourself. Nobody cares about your verdicts. I swear to God, I don't care about your verdicts and you will learn your brains and you will learn All right. So here's things that will help you, and none of these are easy. None of these are easy.
Speaker 1:But as you leave a conference like NiftyCon, you got all these ideas and you fly back and it'll be Monday. I got all these ideas to come back and bring them back to the team. The team's like she's been at conference. We're going to play for 12 days and then we'll go back to normal, all right, you need to decide what you want your life to really look like and, again, it doesn't matter how many years you've been in life right 66 years.
Speaker 1:I'm still working on this, and the topic that Sandy and I spend a lot of time discussing amongst ourselves and asking others about who are farther along the chronological timeline than we are, is what does next stage of life bring for us? What do we want it to look like? And when you do that, your brain will start, will say at the beginning bless you, you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you don't have enough money, you're too busy. This will never happen, and what you need to have is the discipline to put that shit aside for a moment and just journal. I'm a journaler. I fill journals. What would be perfect for me? Because, as you'll see, the clearer that you can make that picture, the more likely it is you're going to see the things in your life that are coming to you and be able to take advantage of things in your life that are coming to you and be able to take advantage of.
Speaker 1:So for us who are in practice, so decide like, let's just go back. I can see two screens. What do you want your life to be? What type of practice will serve that life, when I was no longer interested in flying around the country, taking depositions of expert witnesses and being involved in weeks-long trial and all that stress. I said I don't want that practice anymore. Like so we decided, found a referral partner because our marketing still drove a lot of leads. For that we make money from our referral partner. Like, I don't want to do that. I happened to discover, or God sent to me or something. A client came in one day with this ERISA disability case and I got my butt kicked for the first couple of years and then I figured it out and now we're a major force in the middle, we're the top and we can say that. And we know it because you can go on Pacer and you can see who's filing cases. We know that we're number one there. It's a very interesting niche I'm happy to talk to you about later.
Speaker 1:So you get to decide it doesn't matter if you grew up in a practice and you're working for your parents and your mom. Your dad always had this kind of practice. It's like not driving you. You get to decide what kind of practice that you want and you get to change that. If you want and today more than ever, if you want to change the practice model or the area you're in. You find conferences like this and you go there and you sit in rooms with people smarter than you are and you ask curious questions. That's the model for how you do it. And then it's like all right, I got that practice.
Speaker 1:Who's a client? Who is a client that when they call on the phone and they walk in the door, it excites you and they're excited because they're in the room with you? I'm telling you that this is possible and it caused you to say no to a lot of people. And I'm giving you permission to say no to a lot of people Because, contrary to what the establishment wants you to believe often, we're not here to serve everybody. We do a disservice to the world when we serve people that are not in our lane, who we don't like serving. And you can ignore Ben says. You can say Ben Glass said on this stage in Salt Lake that it's okay to say no to things that don't drive my own energy because it's not serving the world. Because here's the thing for that client, whoever that client is, there's somebody who would be energized by that client. There's someone who loves that work. Your job is to develop a network.
Speaker 1:Justin talked about this. Our Rolodex is huge. Right, we know who the good lawyers are. We know who lawyers would be a great fit. What I want is I want people in our community to trust us enough to call us first, no matter what the legal problem. Is Lincoln Legal Authority in the community who's going to guide you to the right person? And maybe us, and if it's us, our team is going to enthusiastically resell the good idea. You had to contact us. But if it's not us, we're going to send you to a great place, and that experience had better be good, because if we hear that they don't have a great experience at that place, you're going off of our list. And only when you have those first three questions answered.
Speaker 1:What do I want my life to be? What's the practice I want to have? Who's the avatar client that comes there? Now you start to think about designing the marketing. That's how you work with guys and gals at Nifty Like their job is so much easier when you are really clear, really clear. It's not just car accidents it's not everybody who's been in a car accident, actually but the clearer you can get on who you want to see walking through the door.
Speaker 1:A brand that we have is hey, we serve lawyers, doctors, ceos, entrepreneurs and other C-suite executives who can no longer do their work, and I just invented that. I just decided one day that that was the avatar I wanted to serve. They make more money, their claims are bigger. I make more money and I help change their lives because their lives are complicated and when they come to me, first we make it easy for them. Then, and only then, can you communicate with a marketing partner and say now go do your work. To find me this avatar. Big mistake, lawyers make PI world 27 different flavors of PI. Oh, really, like, when's the last time you did one of these nursing abuse cases? Oh, we don't do those. Why is it taking up space and energy on your website? Because really, what you're saying is I'm a generalist, people want specialists. All right, let me give you a few minutes here and then maybe we'll have time for questions.
Speaker 1:A couple of ideas from no BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs about, quote, managing your time. Again, the book is a philosophy book because if you don't buy the philosophy that you are the king, you get to decide how you want to live your life. You get to decide who you're going to work with. You get to decide what barriers you set up around you to help you work in your zone of genius, which is what you were born to do. If you don't believe that that's the way to live, no strategy is going to help you Understand the value of your time and stop doing stuff that's not at your pay. Grade Warriors have the hardest time with number two.
Speaker 1:I used to think I was the only one who could talk to a new prospect, who could answer an interrogatory, who could read a medical record, write a brief, write a complex ERISA brief about ERISA regulations, business. My mindset coach, sammy Chong, out of Toronto, like trying to scale this thing, but I hate like these breeze took a long time to write and I'm the only one who can write it in the whole world. He's like Ben. You guys know Sammy's awesome. I don't think that's true. All right, what are we going to do about it, sammy? We've got to ask the universe. So that's the language Sammy talked and what he meant was being very clear on. If this perfect person walked into my life who I could teach to write, teach the basics, they could produce 80% product. And now I get to come in and put icing on a really nice cake. And the only thing that stops lawyers from doing this is our own damn ego. We've got about 23 under roof at Bengals Law. I think we're at six or seven working out of the Philippines for us. Awesome.
Speaker 1:Ai and out-of-country workers are the two biggest changes for us solo and small firm lawyers in the legal industry. This is our huge advantage is to make our lives easier by eliminating scrolling through hundreds of emails, managing the calendar, dealing with all of the people who want to maybe get on my stage or sell me something, creating. Hey, claire, I got PowerPoint, here's my ideas. Can you go make me the PowerPoint? And we've learned. We've spent time this year really being coached on how to be great delegators, how to really be able to give instructions that are followed, how to have great feedback loop to fix things.
Speaker 1:It's going to be messy at times, that's okay, but what it does is it releases you to do what you were born to do. If you're a lawyer, you were born to think strategically about your client's problem or your client's opportunity. I haven't taken an unplanned inbound phone call in over 25 years since I read the first edition of no BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs. When I started that my team said that's crazy. You're a PI lawyer and people want you and they need you and I go. I don't think so. Look, they can still get to me. It's just not going to be on their plan. It's not going to be on their time, like if I'm working on your brief and Billy is calling me because he's got a brain fart and he's got a question about his case which is, by the way, usually a process question, not usually a legal lawyer question.
Speaker 1:There's so much science about how long it takes me to get back to doing the work on this brief so I turned that off over 25 years ago. And people know Megan knows I have barriers around me. Claire is my guardian. You can talk to Ben when I let you talk to Ben, but until then, let me Claire get all of the information to go so Ben can make a great decision about whatever it is you're asking. Time block, all activities. This is so easy now with technology. And again there's chapters and chapters here in the book. And then I want to stop and take some questions. I've got a few more slides, but I don't keep a to-do list If an idea comes up here or I'm in a leadership meeting and something that Ben is responsible for, accountable for I need to do. I do write it down, but then by the end of the day, it has to find a slot on my calendar. It has to find a physical slot with a start and end date on the calendar A start and end date on the calendar.
Speaker 1:What you will discover when you engage in this practice for as little as five business days is that you have way too much shit to do. And so now what do you do? You start to learn how to say no. You start to learn how to delegate. You start to learn how to say no. You start to learn how to delegate. You start to learn the importance of building up a team.
Speaker 1:If you look on here, number six, you need an audience for client calls. Every time I have a client call, it's on speakerphone on my team, especially new members. Come on in just listen, listen how I talk to the client, listen to the questions the client's asking. I want you to know what the answers are. Again, not the lawyer legal question. Most questions are not strategy lawyer legal. What happens? Next question? I want you to sit in and listen. Got a mad client. I want you to sit in and listen. We have crowds. Anybody's over a pizza it's kind of rare, but somebody might be mad. Usually we don't take their case. I bring an audience in speakerphone. Well, I want them to see how I behave, how I respond, so they can model that, so they know not only what we say but why we say it, because we'll do a debrief out of it when you start to build a team that is fully engaged in the mission.
Speaker 1:There's a chapter on time vampires. Time vampires are all those people that come lining up outside your door that says I just need a minute. And you're like no, write it down. We'll find a time on the calendar when you come to me, bring me three of your best ideas for solving the problem you think you have. Give me your recommendation for the idea that you think is the best, and now we'll talk about it. And you know what? Usually they figure it out. And if they don't figure it out, the world doesn't end.
Speaker 1:Mistakes happen. You delegate your calendar, your email, your travel schedule, so many things. Now we're delegating and we're building playbooks about Ben and about the two businesses I run. There's going to be mistakes, but the alternative is the alternative is you don't get to play in your genius zone most of the time and that's what you are paid to do. And what happens is when you don't understand time management and you're not ruthless and ruthless does not mean mean Ruthless means I'm paying attention to this what happens is we steal the time from our families, go have dinner, your phone's on After dinner. You're back working because you let a time vampire come in with an unscheduled visit. Or you talk to some client who didn't schedule and didn't even have an organized thought in their head about what it is they really wanted you to do. You spent time with that, you didn't get finished with your brief. The brief's due Monday and you're in the office on Saturday rather than at your kid's baseball game because you let it happen. And I'm here to give lawyers not just the information that makes this possible, but the mindset and the philosophy that says not only is this okay, but this is what the world needs.
Speaker 1:I've got a couple of slides on building a great team. We run EOS. The book is Traction Weekly meetings, quarterly meetings, two-day off-site retreat, where one of the questions we ask each other on our off-site retreat is we go around the room with our leadership team. Two questions. One, everybody else is saying what they appreciate about you. That's easy. And then everyone goes around the room and says here's one thing I see that maybe you don't recognize that if you change this, it'd be better for the business. Ooh, you have to have a really trust-filled leadership team. That's complex. I recommend Traction. I recommend the EOS program, qr codes to my LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Who's got questions? I got three minutes Questions, any of this, and I have prizes. I have prizes for questions. There we go, yes, by addressing a question which, come on up, here's no BS. Time managing for entrepreneurs. You take your choice, pick one.
Speaker 1:So look, I'm easy to find Ben Goswami. I'm a full-time practicing attorney. Brian runs the PI. I run the long-term disability division. I'll tell you, the coolest thing about long-term disabilities is, unlike social security, we keep getting paid as long as the client gets paid. So we have clients that are getting benefits. For years. We've got about $33 million of future benefits under management, which really adds to the value of the firm. We believe and we are, and our clients are, ecstatic about having us there.
Speaker 1:So benglasslawcom, greatlegalmarketingcom Chad's coming to speak at our event and a couple other team members are coming out in two weeks to Phoenix, to Mesa, glm Summit. I've got discount codes. If you haven't signed up, you've got some time. And look, we run mastermind groups. I love helping lawyers and I will spend some time with you If you're interested, if you're curious, don't waste my time. I will 100% help you. I'll pour into you. Did you have your hand up? Yes, then I did a good job. So the clients are the client and the client. Take the pair Okay, yes, so changing the mindset is the hardest part.
Speaker 1:And telling the client, like you can't know the front desk, yes, so, oh, ben doesn't answer emails, right? So? So the question is now how do I change? How do I change? I've built this thing. I've given everybody permission to disrupt my life and make me steal from my family. How do I change that? Well, first you. First, you have to make a decision to do it. Number two again, it's an ego thing, right?
Speaker 1:Our clients have relationships with our team members. They love our team members. Here's a tip A real online review. The purpose of it is to get the client to mention the team member. We then take that online review, we put it on a placard and we put it in the team member's office. That's a really cool idea. Now clients can get to you. I didn't say they don't get to me. They just don't get to me when they have a brain fart and decide at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when I'm writing a brief, to get to me. So then the process is terrific.
Speaker 1:You, you need to talk to Mr Goss. What questions do you have? Most of them are process questions. What other documents Do you have? All the documents in your estate planning. I think your estate planning Is that right? Yeah, estate planning. Yeah, so most of it is a process question. So when your team is saying, great, we're going to set you up a time, what are the questions? Oh well, here I'm going to send you three. I'm going to answer your questions. Here are your three process questions and answers Number one. Number two is now you are going to be prepared. You're going to have the documents in front of you so that you're not caught on work, because if you're working on one case, somebody says there's a brain fart, they call you, they have this question.
Speaker 1:You look silly if you don't have the memory of a 25-year-old, not to say that you don't look like you're 25, but I used to be able to remember every case, every client. I didn't do that anymore, right? So when I'm having that meeting, I have the documents in front of me. I know exactly what the questions are. Usually my team has already answered all those questions in exactly the same way. I'm going to answer them.
Speaker 1:I answer them and the client goes oh, you're so smart, you have to have the willingness to do it and you have to understand clients that we think what you just you think what you just said about the clients wanting and needing you is true. I do not think it is true. It's a story we tell ourselves. It is ego getting in the way, and if your team isn't good enough to be you, to rep the brand to that client, then you need either more training or a better team. Trigger warning right, I gave them permission to leave you if you're not totally like energized by this. But you can get rid of them too, and that's the challenge. I will say this too Try it. I don't think you'll find that I'm 100% wrong. I think you will find that, holy cow, this is actually a really good idea. I like this. Hopefully that helps. Yeah, yes, look.
Speaker 1:So the question is is husband, wife, spouse yeah, husband, wife, quasi in business together, because all the money is ours. And you know, and Sandy knows, like if I come on the end of the day I have these three questions. I'm like no, no, come to my meeting in the daytime. The the way to solve that, and some of my friends run family EOS meetings. So Sunday afternoon three o'clock, bring your questions and then what that does is you know, whether I'm preventing the line coming into my office or I'm having this meeting with my spouse is now, as the week goes on and we have these questions, we're bundling the questions. On Tuesday you might go here's a question, or she might have a question, and maybe by Sunday you guys have figured it out. You don't even need to talk about it. Rather than this interruptus action, which is it irritates me, right, and it probably irritates her, and so let's just plan it.
Speaker 1:There's a book called the EOS Life. It's short, it's easy to read, but it is a philosophical book about this. We good, I have a couple more copies of the books if you want. If you need any of my books, hit me up on LinkedIn Again. You want to come out to Arizona? Love to have you, if you just want to get on a 20-minute call at some point just to have a chat about your practice or even about your life, I love doing that. We will get it scheduled. I'm really busy until the beginning, until after the end of the first week of October because it is conference season. I do have cases and hard work and stuff. Thank you all very much, it's been awesome.
Speaker 2:If you like what you just heard on the Renegade Lawyer podcast, you may be a perfect fit for the great legal marketing community. Law firm owners across the country are becoming heroes to their families and icons in their communities. They've gone renegade by rejecting the status quo of the legal profession so they can deliver high quality legal services coupled with top notch customer service to clients who pay, stay and refer. Learn more at great legal marketingcom. That's great legal marketingcom.
