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The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
I am more convinced than ever that nothing that traditional bar organizations are doing is going to move the needle on the sad stats on lawyer happiness ...
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
Ep. 194 – Raising Financially Strong Kids with Dr. Julia Myers
In this eye-opening conversation, Ben sits down with Dr. Julia Myers—pharmacist, national speaker, and founder of Generational Wisdom—to unpack the intersection of wealth, parenting, and legacy.
Dr. Myers helps high-achieving families wrestle with the big questions:
- “How do I talk to my kids about money?”
- “Am I leaving them a blessing… or a burden?”
- “What does ‘fair’ really mean when it comes to inheritance?”
- “What happens to everything I’ve built after I’m gone?”
Julia’s journey from pharmacy leader to national expert was sparked by an unexpected medical setback—and it led her to a new mission: helping families pass down wisdom with their wealth.
💡 What You'll Learn
- Why your family values may matter more than your net worth
- The 3 biggest mistakes parents make around money
- How to start meaningful conversations without math
- The case for a Family Constitution
- What happens when kids grow up with no ownership, no expectations, and no real-world skills
- And two family rituals that will change the way you think about legacy: the highlight reel and the family fingerprint
Ben and Julia also look ahead to their upcoming talks at the 2026 White Coat Investor Conference in Las Vegas.
🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
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.
Wealth transfer scares people, or three reasons that all of this wealth is lost comes down to three no's. So no skills, not knowledge, no skills. There's no ownership. So there's no skin in the game. And then there's no expectation. So if you can simplify all the things out there about what's going wrong with this generation, yeah, like all the things we can point fingers all we want. We got to point them at ourselves because who says no? The parents. And who says yes? The parents. So we've got to teach them the skills. That's the part where they do the work. That's the part where they practice and develop. Then we have to give them the ownership. What happens if they take risk? Wealth without wisdom is wasted. And you are the parent that you have the like influence statistically and emotionally. It's never too late. It's never too early.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show that challenges the way lawyers and professionals think about life, business, and success. Hosted by Ben Glass, attorney, entrepreneur, coach, and father of nine, this show is about more than just practicing law. For over 40 years, Ben has built a law firm that stands for something bigger. He's helped thousands of lawyers create practices that make good money, do meaningful work, still make it home. Each week, Bett brings you real conversations with guests who are challenging the status quo. Lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and builders. These are people creating bold careers and meaningful lives without burning out or selling out. If you're ready to stop playing small and start thinking like a renegade, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_02:Everyone, this is Ben. Welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast. Each episode I get to interview someone who's inside or outside of Legal who's dinging the world. And today, Dr. Julia Myers. And Dr. Myers is another person that I've met through my relationship with Whitecoat investors. She will also be speaking at their conference in Las Vegas in March of 2026. And this has been a really interesting journey because I'm talking to people. We don't really have this in legal, Dr. Myers. We don't have conferences that talk about physical health, mental health, financial health for lawyers. And, you know, goodness knows they need it and we need it. So I'm really, really uh glad to have you on the program today. Dr. Myers is a pharmacist by original training, um, keynote speaker, writer, and founder of Generational Wisdom. She's a national expert in how to talk to your kids about money. And she's been featured on major events, including Go Abundance. And I was telling Dr. Myers that my son Brian is in the Go Abundance, the GoBros side. And you have a better name for the women's side of Go Abundance, uh, but also for DLP Capital and of course Whitecoat Investor. And she shared the stages with folks like John Maxwell, Tim Tebow, and John Gordon. And she helps families navigate this entitlement. And, you know, she's talking to people that have produced, people that have made money, families that have built wealth, who have children, and who have questions like I do. Like, all right, I got nine kids, and there's gonna be money left over when Sandy and I are gone. And how do we think about that overall? And um, you know, do we need to be quote unquote fair to everybody? So it's great to have you um on the program today. Uh if I can call you Julia. Um Julia sounds great. You coach and and teach this aspect, this niche of financial literacy uh to lots of folks, but particularly you've made yourself a star in the in the white coat world. Um so thanks for carving out some time.
SPEAKER_03:Well, thank you so much. It's it's such an honor to be here. And um I've really enjoyed this niche of hybrid as a very formally trained, well-educated person, as you know, as you are that is listening, there's so much more to the big picture than just checking the box of getting our degrees. And I think that's what unites us all is that we all have worked for something. We have all found that thing that we are known for and we're great at. And then we have to remember there's the rest of the container. And that's our lives, that's our families, that's our wellness, that's our, you know, our everything. Like that's the essence of what I get to do. And I'm just so honored to be here today.
SPEAKER_02:Tell me a little bit about your background because one of the things I speak about often is yeah, we we have our thing that we worked for, that we're what I say we were born to do. Of course, I work in the space of long-term disability claims, and so something has arisen that takes someone like you off your chosen track and into a new world. And you have a background story about that.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. So I grew up always knowing what I wanted to do, and I got it. I did it, right? So I knew that I wanted to be a pharmacist. And I knew that because that was my very first job when I was 15. My friend's mom was the pharmacist. And this is back when you could work behind the counter and you were literally a cashier. You were not the pharmacy technician of today that are amazing and part of all of our teams. And that was my journey. So I checked the box. I was the youngest to graduate from my pharmacy class. I was able to get in a year early. And I just knew that that's what I wanted to do. I also was very entrepreneurial early on, creating my own path within my career. So many times pharmacists are trained with additional training called residencies or even fellowships. For me, I was like, wait a minute, those don't pay as much as the real world. Why don't I get the real world experience while getting a real world paycheck? And I had preceptors and leaders that were like, you can't do that. You can't do that. Well, I did. I created my own journey and I um became board certified in HIV infectious disease. I actually helped write the physician's exam for HIV. And so that's what I thought I was gonna do forever. Corporate bureaucracy stepped in and I said, you know what? I really want to be a leader. I don't want to just be patient to patient. I want to be a leader. And that led me to um leave where I was in Phoenix, Arizona in a corporate setting to work for the University of Missouri as functioning basically as the director of pharmacy there at an academic medical center. And so thought that that's what I was gonna do forever. And then one day I'm sitting at my computer and experienced what we all hear about on the commercials, right? If you experience blurriness, a sudden change in your vision, or anything, you know, like lights, flashes, whatever, call your doctor right away. Well, that was me. And two hours later, I was one floor up from the hospital where I worked, experiencing this out-of-body thing where I walked in as the provider, the person who ran PNT, for goodness sake, for the ambulatory and the outpatient side, getting consent forms for a retinal detachment, spontaneous retinal detachment. And unbeknownst to me, that was the beginning of an 18-month journey, five surgeries, was not really ever able to fully recover, was not able to fully get back to work and life as I know it. So um that that's kind of me in a nutshell. And so I joke that I'm I'm the one-eyed pharmacist.
SPEAKER_02:So there is this entrepreneurial vision and um open what we would call open architecture thinking, obviously, in your in your blood, in your genes. I'm curious about your early life. Were your parents entrepreneurs? And if not, like because mine were not, but where do you think this came from?
SPEAKER_03:Great question. Growing up, my parents were the very traditional kind of boomer Gen X generation of you get a job and you work there until you're 65 and then you retire. And I remember asking my dad, you know, who makes the most money? And he's like, it's entrepreneurs. And I'm like, okay, well, who's the second group of people that make the most money? He's like, probably healthcare providers, lawyers, doctors, things like that. I'm like, oh, okay. But that just planted a seed of watching him go to work every day. At first it was Emerson Electric, then it was McDonnell Douglas, and then it was Boeing. And he finally retired. And I realized I don't know that I want to sign up for that. I don't want to sign up for someday, then I can retire. Um, my mom uh stayed home with us when we were little and she worked part-time, but no, nobody was entrepreneurial. And I just had always kind of had it in me to start making scrunchies when they were cool back in like third and fourth grade. Now I hear scrunchies are back and they're a thing, but it was always a game for me to play, to be like, how could I solve this mousetrap differently rather than more of the same?
SPEAKER_02:It's interesting because I I was I was in high school in the mid-70s, right? And I I tell friends that my first entrepreneurial job was dealing out of the locker. And with that meant I grew up playing soccer. And there this is before the internet, this is before there were soccer stores, anything. And I would I found a place I could order shoes and laces and shirts and shorts and sold them to my teammates. And I don't know where that came from, but it had a little black book and kept track of what it costs and what I got. And at the end of the year, you know, there's a little bit of profit there. Uh, I really liked the fact that at 15 you were working. And and by that, then you like discovered something like, wow, this kind of cool. Like if you had just been traditional schooling, you probably never would have seen, I don't think, like the opportunity, the pharmacy opportunity or opportunities that were out there. Um and so I that I just want to commend you on that. Um I I've talked to so many.
SPEAKER_03:I think that adds a couple different angles to the conversation. One being I grew up comfortable middle class. Everything we needed, we had, but not everything we wanted. And so I wanted to be able to go out with friends or to have spending money or to, you know, have a vehicle that wasn't shared with my siblings and things like that. I'm the oldest child, so I kind of by default didn't have to share for at least a little period of time. I was I'm imagining my and I am terrified to share this data statistic, but it's real. It's been proven out through uh Jason Dorsey, his research in Z economy, and talks about my generation, kind of the millennials, our average age that we first started earning money is about 12 and a half or 13. There was babysitting, there was mowing lawns, cutting grass, the typical things we think about for chores or allowance. Fast forward to Gen Z, Ben, what do you what do you guess the average age of a first income for Gen Z is?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't know. It could be as late as 20.
SPEAKER_03:24 and a half. And that is because of a couple different reasons. One is the millennial generation that's raising kids was like, I started working way too early, and you need to focus on your schoolwork or your academics or your sports or whatever. But what we're finding is they're not entering the workforce until they have to, which is after a six-month gap season after they graduate from college, and then they have to start paying back the student loans. So that that is a generalization, but in general, that's what we're seeing. And I think that shows up for many of us that are entrepreneurs working with different generations of people on our teams, that we have to remember, whether it's in our practice or whether it's in just everyday life, that, you know, that's at almost nine and a half years of work experience different that your 24-year-old is having to learn how to punch a time card or where to park or what to wear. And so I think that's just fascinating as we talk about money, the shift of the focus of why do I need money? Why does money come from? All of those conversations. It's just fascinating in the work that I do.
SPEAKER_02:So I obviously a lot of people who are younger than I am. I always I'm careful to preface, like, I know I'm sounding old, but back in the day, we did a lot of things that we didn't know if we were going to get beat up or be highly successful, right? In terms of working or just trying different experiences. And uh I don't know, like, you know, it is something as a parent, as a as a father of nine, my wife and I wrestle with a little bit. Now all my kids are productive, right? But what sort of safety net do we build? Do we need everything to be equal for the next generation? And I want to talk to you about that here in a few minutes. Uh, but but you would like this too. So I so my 16-year-old experience was I discovered soccer refereeing. And I and it was hard because you're young and parents and coaches and players are abusing you. But 51 years later, I'm still in that game. Um, and teaching the now 13-year-olds, really, because you can start really like, how do you build up resiliency? How do you do this? Make some money, because you can make good money as a youth sports official. Um, but only if your mindset is is good enough, tough enough to be able to get past the first year of abuse.
SPEAKER_03:Um and it's all on camera now, where before it wasn't.
SPEAKER_02:And it's all on camera. Well, that works both ways because there's plenty of knucklehead adults that get caught on camera. Um, but now let's talk about the space now. I and now I'm curious about the part of your journey that takes you into the the wealth um and the financial literacy, but not it's not just that. It's actually then niched down even further to how we talk to our kids, how we teach our kids, how we, as you say, create a family constitution that I, you know, I imagine carries on this DNA of values and principles to quote the next generation and maybe the generation after that. So, how did you find that space?
SPEAKER_03:I found it actually out of my loss of vision and my loss of what I thought I was building. And what I discovered was a disconnection. And maybe, maybe you can identify with this disconnection of what you thought you were building, like you were doing it all right, you were checking the boxes. Um, we were financially not free, but had amassed a net worth with commas in it before I was 40 because we had done the financial basics. We had done the baby steps, we had managed our, you know, our debt and our lifestyle to where I was faced with a position I didn't really have to work, but I I still had this drive, right? My brain worked, even if my eyes didn't see clearly at the same time. And what I had discovered in this disconnection was I had put so much worth and stock into what I was able to produce instead of saying, what are they actually learning? They being the kids. You ask anybody, right? What do you want to do this for? I want to do this for generational wealth. I want to do it so my kids have it easier, my kids have it better, different. Well, hello. They have a computer in their pocket if they carry around any sort of device that is charged with a cord or even a touch anymore. And so for me, that disconnection really had me sitting with is what I'm leaving my kids a blessing or a burden.
SPEAKER_01:We'll get back in just a second. If you're the kind of lawyer who believes your practice can be your platform, not just a paycheck, you need to check out my book, Renegade Lawyer Marketing. This isn't your average law firm marketing book. No theory, no fluff. Just the mindset and tools that helped us build a law firm that serves our family and still fights for our clients. Grab your copy at RenegadeLawier Marketing.com and start building a law practice that actually works for you. Now back to the show.
SPEAKER_03:Am I just providing for them or are they prepared for what it means to be a Myers, what it means to be part of our family? If there were ever buildings with our names on it or anything to that extent, if there's enough money that I'm worried that I'm going to be burdening them or just providing for them, that to me made me pause. And so that led me down this journey of what are other great families doing? What are other people doing that address this kind of disconnection? Um, there's legacy wealth, right? The people that have been born into money, that they have family offices and they have governance in place. And that's not something that I learned growing up. I learned counting, which is kind of punny because now I'm a pharmacist, literally counting and rolling coins with my dad at the table. And, you know, so so when I'm a speaker, I actually present these coins, then these rolls of coins, and people are like, what are those? I'm like, oh boy, come see me afterward.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. I'll I'll let your hands feel like money's. Here's how you fill in a check, too.
SPEAKER_03:A check, yes. And so I am identifying that there's disconnection, not just in how we value money, but how we talk about it, how we approach it, how we're influenced by it. And when there's all those different variables going in, by default, you're gonna have a wonky outcome. The data says that the short sleeves to shirt sleeves is happening. The data says that in one generation, 70% of everything we've built then is gone. It's diluted or it's dissolves, it disappears. And in two generations, 90% is gone. And I don't want to be a statistic. That scared me. And so whenever I was going into surgery, one of the times I sat there facing a form that was like, how clearly and confidently can your family articulate your wishes in the case of your passing? And first of all, I was like, um, this is just an outpatient surgery. This is not like life or death threatening. And yet I said, hold on, they're not, or I'm not confident. And that is not unusual. One in four parents are confident that if something were to happen to us, everything would be okay on the other side. They were confident the kids were able to handle it. And I'm on a mission to change that. And that is kind of the evolution of generational wisdom, is because wealth without wisdom is wasted.
SPEAKER_02:It's interesting. I was just on a uh so my wife and I uh entered the world of these bicycle tours, where you go with a tour group, and in our case, we crossed New Hampshire in like six days of riding. And so you're in there with 20 people that you've never met before. And one of the guys was a wealth advisor down in Texas someplace, and I asked him, I said, like, I'm, you know, I'm I have already made the last dollar I'll ever need in terms of spending. So I'm good. But he deals with, I imagine, the some of the uber wealthy. And I asked him, I said, what are those conversations like when you sit down with someone who has what we would call mega wealth and talk about like transfer to the next generation? And what he said, as I recall, was that um most of his clients, his wealthy clients, say that the kids are not positioned well to be able to handle this. And it's a very interesting conversation. I don't know where you are on this, but just like, you know, once you get as an entrepreneur, once you get to a certain level of net wealth where you could literally stop working and spend it down to zero, right? The book die with zero. It's like what what are we doing with every hour that we're adding to that? Versus, you know, spending spending time getting another life experience. Um so I'm curious now, as the dad to nine, where do you start with conversation? Or you or I imagine you start with you got to figure out what your own principles are. Like, what is the DNA that you want to pass down? Is that right?
SPEAKER_03:I oh my goodness, we we we can go in so many different directions. And this is obviously one of my favorite conversations. You've got to start wherever you are. So I'm gonna give you that permission that this is something that most people either haven't thought about, but once they turn on the lights and they're like, I can't unhear the statistic that everything I built is statistically going to be gone. Today's the day you get to do something different. Um, and so I think that in my process, I call it the blueprint for generational wisdom. The very, very first step is understanding your influences with money and how your money mindset is shaped. So we know that there are four ways that we have influence. We have it generationally. Those are usually the world events, right? The kids that know life before COVID, or the people that know life before TSA taking off your shoes, you know, or the people that know driving before seatbelts, those physically impacted everything we think about. Um, so generationally, we have culturally, we think of Western culture in the American dream, and we think of Eastern culture of multi-generational households. And then we also think socially. Who were the Joneses that you had growing up? And then who are the Joneses that are now surrounding our kids? I'm getting goosebumps talking about it because it's now not even the Joneses, it's AI Jones. Not G.I. Jones, it's AI Jones. And so what is even real anymore? But then finally, the most significant influence that anyone has on their money mindset and the research and the work that I've done with families is their family influence. How their parents handled money or their grandparents or whoever their nuclear family was, whatever that is, is going to be your default approach to money. And so as we think about anywhere in a sort of development journey, you got to start with you, both individually and then as the parent. And then you realize, holy cow, I now have this responsibility of the strongest influence to pass it on to my kids. So I always say start there, understand your influences. And then the exercise I like to give is when you were younger, and Ben, you probably did this nine times, who packed their backpack when it was time to go back to school? You did, right?
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And so at some point, they start packing their own backpack. At some point, they start, you just trust that it's in their backpack. But now that you're an adult and you're logging your backpack around, it might still be packed with some of those things that don't serve you growing up. So for me, when I asked my mom for money, she said, ask your dad. That was just the default. And I said, I don't want that in my backpack. I want my kids to know that this is money, this is what it's for, this is where it comes from. And you can ask either dad or mom, but you're not just gonna ask dad for money. So that was maybe one example of one thing that I'm gonna take out of my backpack, one thing I am gonna put in my backpack is that money doesn't make me better or worse or richer or poorer. Like it's money is both quantitative but also qualitative in a sense of if I've been given what I have, how do I do more with that? My money is not just to consume. My money is just not to, you know, make it all about me. And so those would maybe be two just practical examples that I want to leave you with that if you've never even thought about these conversations, what's a belief about money that you have that you want to let go? And what's one that you either want to create or you want to pass on to your kids? And it starts there. That's my most practical tactical advice.
SPEAKER_02:No, and I think you're right. I mean, our you know, our default approach as human beings to anything is to the is usually what we grew up in, like default approach to accumulation to work, right? To work, to being a producer, to to, you know, does money not grow on trees or does it? Like, yeah, for some people, money grows on trees, literally. And the trees are the you know, are the thing that produces the money. Um there's uh in in some of the literature that that I'm reading as as I get older, you know, there's this whole sort of default gut instinct to save, save, save, because that is a mantra that um has been pounded down for generations. And I and I know that you you adopted, I think, if I read my sources right, a frugal nature in your a frugal lifestyle, I guess, to help you reach your goal, uh, which you alluded to, which I read was you know, to be a millionaire by the age of 40 and you achieve that. So congratulations.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Now let me ask you this, because I believe it's apparent that children uh they they learn a lot more by what they see happening and see you doing and than by the lectures that we give them.
SPEAKER_03:Oh says every parent here, yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:And sometimes they don't learn that until many years down the road, and it's it's hard being a parent. So yes.
SPEAKER_02:So so once you get your own thinking sorted out by reading and talking to people like you, uh, who say, look, you can change the default, and here's how other sort of stable, wealthy, successful people have thought about it. May work for you, may not work for you, but let me give you some ideas. Um how do how then like what are some of the mistakes I guess you see parents who have sorted it out for themselves make in imparting this wisdom to the next generation? Like what are they doing that makes it like incongruent between what they're thinking about for themselves and what they would like to have for their children?
SPEAKER_03:Great question. Cause this is often where people will get stuck, but not because they didn't learn it growing up, but because they've never been there before. So we have to give ourselves some grace to say that even just the awareness of it by default is going to help us kind of be starting to scan to say, what are the things that are helpful? I will say the three reasons that this wealth transfer scares people, or three reasons that all of this wealth is lost, comes down to three no's. So no skills, not knowledge, no skills. There's no ownership. So there's no skin in the game, and then there's no expectation. So if you can simplify all the things out there about what's going wrong with this generation, yeah, like all the things we can point fingers all we want. We gotta point them at ourselves because who says no? The parents. And who says yes? The parents. So we've got to teach them the skills. That's the part where they do the work. That's the part where they practice and develop. Then we have to give them the ownership. What happens if they take risk? I have a story about my daughter the day after her 18th birthday. She was offered to take a line of credit out at the dentist's office to get Invisalign. And thankfully, we had had some of those conversations about credit and all the things, but there's something magical in the world that at 18, they can get their own credit cards, they can get their own whatever's, and there's nothing you as a parent can do about it anymore. Don't wait till they're 18. Give them ownership to take safe risks earlier. Safe ownership. They were not a lunch money, they can be hungry. They take out or co-sign on a vehicle for a friend. It's a slightly different risk. That's not one I want to mitigate when they are 16 or 18 or wherever. And then third, no expectation. Meaning, do they think that their life will always be that way? Do they think that they can just always have what they're used to? So I have worked with several families that have 26-year-olds in the basement, and we call it, you know, basement boot camp. And in six months, they're out of the basement. Think of what it's costing these families at 26 years old to have a fully capable adult hanging out in the basement. There's a lot of stuff that we don't want to have happen that gets us there, but no expectation. Have you even said, I can't wait for you to start your life? I can't wait for you. Like as a parent, my job is not to keep you in my house forever, it is to launch you as a financially mature adult into this world that is a productive, kind, values-rich citizen. That is often the language we're using at whatever age they are. And so I thankfully have two off payroll. So my oldest is 21. Next one is 18 and a half, and they are out and living on their own. And I think that's because we've always said that that's the expectation. Is you're you're going to be on your own. Financially, it might not make sense for you to pay rent when you could live at home, but what is the trade-off there? What is the value? And we talk about this in one of my classes, is what's the cost, like in dollars? And then what's the price? Like the, you know, like what have you like traded for that? So what's the value? And I would much rather them live in a cheap college apartment than have the comfort of our beautiful home and door dashing, to my dismay, with their car parked out front. Anyway, that you can tell that's happened before.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, of of and you know, you're speaking to the choir, and probably everyone who's listening to this is got an example of that in their own lives. And it is, it is so interesting because what we're really teaching them is there's this really long game. Like it sounds like 18 years is a long time, but 18 years is not a long time. There's this really long game after 18 years till the time of your work life expectancy and then your life expectancy, where you're gonna have to navigate the world. And one segment of that is gonna be without mom and dad, because you're gonna outlive mom and dad statistically, right? Um, but what do you think? Like, why are we not, we society, not moving faster and more deliberately to what you would call, I would call what you just said, like launch mode. Like the expectation is that you are going to be independent and out at 21 or 19 or you know, whatever it is. Many parents will say, well, you know, it's uh Julia, like it's so expensive today. Like, you know, I live in Northern Virginia, it's so expensive to go find a place. And so it's just, like you said, it's economic. Economically makes more sense in the short term. In the short term to stay at home. But what what are the barriers that you see that with parents that you're fixing in your basement boot camp? I love that.
SPEAKER_03:I think it is the idea that the intention is as parents, we want it to be better for our kids. And at the same time, we have to remember what made us better. Was it when everything was easy? Was it when the Amazon box of new shoelaces arrive for your cleats because your mom ordered them for you? Or was it because you showed up without the right laces for the right cleats for the right game? And then you had to go to Ben's locker and buy it out of your lunch money. So we have to reframe hard as not this thing that should be avoided, but this thing that we can learn and grow through. You know, if we carried our kids around forever and then we were mad that they couldn't walk, we would be like, that's crazy. You have to let them try. And often in a world where things are very instant and things are very easy, the default mode is to how do I automate this? How do I systematize this? How do I have the housekeeper help clean up and make their rooms or make their beds instead of them doing it? I think it always comes back to the why. And if you're explaining, yes, we have a beach house in the Outer Banks that we rent out. So you said Northern Virginia, right? So, and yes, that also means that mom sometimes has her phone at the table, even though we have a very strong no screens at the table rule, except when we might have a guest. And then if my phone goes off, we all are involved in solving that problem. We don't want to hide the underwater or the behind the scenes things that come with the adulting life. They see the benefit. They see staying up till later or more screen time, no screen time passcode. But are they also seeing the hard and the effort and the work that goes into it? And no matter how much privilege you have or how much wealth you have, you've you've got to be able to find that balance. And in the avoidance of hard, we have to ask ourselves am I delegating my parenting? Am I, am I hoping that the school will do it or that the coach will do it, or that, you know, college, you know, that's where they're gonna learn about their major or whatever. Cause when you delegate your parenting, you're delegating your legacy. And you've got to remember whose job is it? Because it's it's not yours, the world will fill those voids, fill those gaps.
SPEAKER_02:This is this is brilliant. What you know, what strikes me is so I'm I'm in a local church. Part of our role, I think, at least informally as upper 60 somethings, is kind of mentoring and coaching a little bit. This the young parents, right? The 30-something parents who, and and what I hear when we talk about things like even like sports, which is my space, is oh, but you know, everybody else has got the private coach and the 16 camps in the summertime, and the the the it's not just, I'm like, you guys grew up in$300 cleats. Like, you have no idea. You have no idea. Um, but what would be a good way do you think because I imagine this is this work is easier if you're in a support group of sorts, right? If you have other parents who are discussing the issues, who are generally aligned on the overall goal and who can be there to go call you on your BS, like, you know. Um so I'm curious of whether you have organized, you maybe you have like inside your own organization, like support groups for parents who want to do this, but who feel overwhelmed by quote unquote societal pressure, quote unquote, too many activities my kids are already engaged in. Um, like how do we go about digging the world?
SPEAKER_03:I think that's a great question. And I want to hold space for those busy parents that are running between activities and between sports. And everything is a choice. Every yes is yes to something, and every no is a no to something. And the very first step before you, you know, start to see what other people are doing, because then you're just doing more of the same, right? You're like, oh, well, the glass family is doing this travel sport, and then they're doing that. It starts at home. It starts at the kitchen table. It starts with the rituals and the routines that, like, what make your family you? And what are you doing because you want to do it? And what are you doing because everybody else around you says you should? And so I love the personal development space. I love the entrepreneurship space. I think you can find those like-minded people in your physical community, in your virtual communities, in your um religious communities. I don't particularly have one yet. If there were interest, absolutely, I'd love just to come. But as a coach, you you hear it. The parents are already commiserating on the sidelines about my kid this or did you hear that? So let's change the narrative right where we are. Let's start it at the dinner table. Let's start talking about money in these healthy ways, healthy conversations. Let's call it out that you didn't learn it growing up because it was taboo to talk about it, but it doesn't need to be taboo anymore. And as the kids get older, they start having their own opinions about things and they want to be treated like adults. And so I like to say, you know, what's the lesson in this experience? What's the lesson in whatever it is that we're doing? And so for those families, if you aren't sure where to start, I like to say, look at your calendar. That'll tell you what you say is most important according to your time, how you spend your time. Then I'll say, look at your budget, is how you're spending your money aligned with what you think your family is all about. And then the fun part is when you and your spouse talk about it and you're like, but we're about this. And then the other one's like, well, we're about that. And then you bring in the kids that are old enough to have an opinion. So, you know, if they're babies and they can't talk, they don't really get to contribute much. They might distract from the family constitution conversation. But if you're all sitting around and can everybody list the three things your family is all about, I call them the family values, the principles. I call it the almost like the US Constitution, the preamble. So in my family, the Myers family, everybody, if you ask them, can say we're about love, learning, and experiences. And when we can put power to those three words, that also means we say no to eating out when we're at home. We sure do eat out when we're traveling and we love experiences, but not when we're at home. So every yes becomes a yes that is meaningful and aligned. So if every family can start with those three values, no other group is gonna answer that for you. And if it does, you're gonna get caught in the climbing up the wrong ladder trap. You're gonna get caught in the success trap. You're gonna get caught in the comparison. And that's what I say being rich is. Rich is always in compared to what? You'll always have a shorter ladder than somebody else, you'll always have a taller ladder. But the that wealth conversation, that like abundance of like, I have enough because I am clear on what I do, what I'm about, and not just me, Julia, individually, but me as a family. Then that's that's your litmus test. Is everything we say yes to aligned with the values and service of the values? Or is everything kind of distracted and we've got a gap and we go back to that disconnect we started with? And we're like, okay, what's one thing we can do different to start moving towards where we want to be as this legacy extraordinary family?
SPEAKER_02:It's interesting. Um, we run our businesses on EOS, the entrepreneur operating system, and it's a very disciplined way of getting the people together and having these discussions. Um, I'm curious, in your own family, is it is it as disciplined as it just sounded? Or is it like, hey, it's dinner time and uh we're all here and let's we're gonna have a discussion?
SPEAKER_03:Call a hybrid because as a mama five, we we know that life happens and we know that what we want to have happen, and we can't really fire our kids as much as we might dislike them in the moment, we can't fire them. Um and so for me, I think it's a hybrid. It's giving ourselves permission to have the three-minute little conversations, don't wait for the big meeting, but still keep it as a meeting. But we don't call it a meeting. Um, we call it a highlight reel. And for us, that is our favorite time of year. At the end of the year, everybody gets to pull together 10 things. Maybe they've got pictures or experiences or memories. Then they get to stand up in front of the family and they're explaining this was my highlight as part of the family. This was what was hard, and here's what I discovered. And we all kind of come around. And as a parent, what a cool reflection to see what they thought was important. And it's not the toys, it's not the things, right? It's the how they felt or the lesson they learned or the time that we got to like see an iceberg this summer in Norway that might not be there in 10 years because of, you know, all the things going on. Um, and then there are other places that I've seen of very strict governance be very helpful. So Don Wenner with DLP has a really good one. Um, kind of the the family office meetings that he has on a regular basis. Um, I know that there's lots of different ways to do it. I give you permission to make it work for you. I do not give you permission to skip it because you think it's got to be complicated. I love it. You just gotta do it.
SPEAKER_02:I love your ritual of the highlight reel. The I mean, I hope folks that are listening to this, like that is worth going back and listening to again and figuring out like how to how to do that. But what you just said, Julie, is like it's not it's not complicated, but just the whole idea of not just the good parts, but the hard parts and what I learned from it. That's what as entrepreneurs and business owners does, we do this all the time. Like it is, it is embedded in our DNA there if you're running a good business. I think that's organized.
SPEAKER_03:Um we won't we won't say much about healthcare or the legal system, but yes, in general.
SPEAKER_02:Remember, my my members are building uh legal uh law firms that make their families happy.
SPEAKER_03:So this is a love it and I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this is a that is a real cool tool that a family could and I'm gonna promote that tool and tell people where they should go to find out more information um about that. Um, what will you be speaking about uh this year at uh Whitecoat?
SPEAKER_03:I'm going to be speaking about why every family needs a constitution. And I like to use the phrase, we have a will, we have a trust, but what's that third leg of the stool? Don't wait till we're on the other side of life to then surprise them with all the things you never told them. What's that living document now that evolves with us as a family? Because a trust controls the money, a constitution controls the meaning. And so every family needs one. We're gonna take the basic steps at White Coat of how to build one. And then if you really want to get advanced, I've got some fun ways that you can actually print it out using, you know, uh a tool. It looks like a fingerprint. We take your family constitution, and I don't have one in my office here at this house, um, but we make it and we put it on the wall. Kind of like the old school coat of shield and arms, but it's not as corny or as ugly for those of us that are kind of aesthetically feng shui. Um, but how cool is that that your unique family fingerprint is your constitution and it's up for display, it's up for revision. It can be as simple as butcher paper in permanent marker, but it's gotta be something that everybody looks at and is proud of. Who doesn't want to be part of a family like that?
SPEAKER_02:That's two really rituals that you have talked about on this uh call, this program, that are just like, oh, I never thought about that before. Like we have all these kind of you know, mail order, what are your values? You know, our family believes in this and this and this, but they're just kind of off the shelf mail order stuff. Like, let's actually go and create it and put it in the form of a fingerprint. That's awesome. Um, Julia, if if folks want to get on your mailing list or email list or read more about you or see your videos and find out where you're gonna be speaking, where should they go?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I am juliamyers.com, and that's the East Coast spelling. So M-Y-E-R-S, because here in the Midwest, people want to put other letters in there. So juliamyers.com and forward slash talk is the great place to just get plugged in. It's gonna be five conversations you can have about money around the dinner table. And I promise there's no math skills involved. No math. So start there, start the conversation. You can't unhear what you learned today. What I challenge you to do is take one thing and apply it because you know, wealth without wisdom is wasted. And you are the parent that you have the like influence statistically and emotionally. It's never too late. It's never too early. But we're gonna start those conversations now, talk about money, and you can find me on all the socials, but juliamyers.com forward slash talk is my gift, my invitation to you to like try try these conversations on because sometimes the answers will surprise you because kids these days say the darndest things.
SPEAKER_02:Don't they? Julia, Dr. Myers, this has been fabulous. I can't wait to meet you. Uh Sandy and I will be there in um in Vegas, Las Vegas, in Vegas. Although my son says it's not downtown Vegas, Dad. It's actually a nice little resort out there away from the downtown, which is apparently is good uh in uh in the spring of 2026. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_03:So much. I appreciate you and excited to meet you as well, you and Sandy.
SPEAKER_00:It'll be fun. That's it for today's episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where we're rewriting the rules of what it means to build a great law practice and a great life. If something sparked a new idea or gave you clarity, pass it on. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who's ready to think bigger. Want more tools, strategies, and stories from the trenches? Visit GreatLegalMarketing.com or connect with Ben Glass and the team on LinkedIn. Keep building boldly. We'll see you next time.
