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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. 229 - You're the Hero. Start Acting Like It.
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Everyone celebrates the lawyer who wins the case.
Nobody celebrates the entrepreneur who builds the business.
In this episode, Ben Glass delivers a powerful reminder: you're not just practicing law—you're leading people, creating value, and building something that matters. Success starts when you take ownership of your decisions, train your mindset, and prioritize the one asset your business can't survive without—you.
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.
Welcome To Great Legal Marketing
SPEAKER_00Here's more from the renegade lawyer Ben Glass.
SPEAKER_01I'm going to tell each and every one of you that you are absolutely in the right place, that you will not find a more giving, sharing, entrepreneurial, positive thinking tribe of lawyers anywhere in the country than what we've assembled here at Great Legal Marketing. You know, when you uh when you come to an event and you're in a room and you have you have speakers and you have conversations on the floor and in the hall and at meals, big things can happen and you can you you can change the trajectory of your life.
Redefining The Hero In The Room
SPEAKER_01But for the next two days, I want to talk about a different type of hero. And so for the one and only time that I think it's okay for you to take out your cell phone, I want you to take out your cell phone. You got it? Who's got their cell phones? Everybody has their cell phone. I know you do. Go to the camera app, hit that little reverse button, look in the camera, and take a picture of a hero. And inside this room with these doors closed for the next two days, I want you to acknowledge, to appreciate, to recognize, to congratulate yourselves because you are true heroes. There are, yeah, you can share for that, absolutely. And it's not just in the traditional sense because you know, the established bar and the established bar and I have a yin and yang relationship, and I'll tell you a cool story here in a minute, right? The lawyer and he's fighting for justice, and you know, she's helping uh people, you know, get their rights fixed, and yeah, all of that stuff, and all of that stuff is true, but they never talk about you. When's the last time you went to a lawyer event where they said you are a hero for running a small business? Most small businesses fail in five years, and they almost all fail in 10 years. And here you are getting up every day, spending time coming to conferences like this, usually being the first to arrive and the last to get paid, often, spending time learning not just how to take depositions or do negotiations or mediations or trials or whatever it is that you do, but learning how to lead others to build teams, learning how to get clients, learning how to how to deal with the world, and that's really, really hard. Everyone in here knows that that's really, really hard. And there's nobody else in the outside world that's saying, you know what, Ben, you're a hero for running a small law firm. You're a hero for being a leader of lawyers. And I want each one of you to know and to just to recognize and appreciate and say to each other, damn it, yes, yes, we are heroes, and it's okay to say that in here, right?
Mindset And Owning Your Circumstances
SPEAKER_01All right, so let's talk about what heroes know. I think that the mindset is so important. Um, whatever circumstance that you're in right now, today, you can't change. That circumstance is a product of all of the decisions you have made. And I want you to accept that and to understand it that wherever you are today is a product, it's your responsibility. Yes, bad, unexpected things happen, but 99% where you are today and what's happening to you today is because of the decisions that you have made. When you're faced with a circumstance that you can't change because it is, what is is right now, the thing that you have total power over is your thoughts about that circumstance. And the older I get, and the more I read some of this literature, the positive thinking literature from anywhere from 80 to 150 years old, it's all the same, is that all of our power as human beings comes from our ability to control our thinking.
Lead With Value In Any Market
SPEAKER_01Best example I can give, of course, is in the uh in this market, you know, the stock market and the recession on the that we're in, you need to put value into the world first, train your mind, prioritize yourself, be open to new ideas, systematize everything and pay for speed. Let's talk a little bit about that, what that means. The fact that you went to college, did well enough to get into law school, did well enough to graduate, did well enough to pass the bar, the fact that it may be really, really hard to run a law firm because you have to know so many things, the fact that you often have adversaries who are mean or judges who are mean, whatever is going on in the world, doesn't entitle you to anything, right? Just because you're a living, just because you're a lawyer, the market, the world, they don't care. Your job is to put value into the world. And there's so many ways to do this. Again, most lawyers think, well, my value is I just showed you how to save money on that contract. I just showed you how to increase your recovery. My view is it's far, far bigger than that. It's every person that you interact with in the world, going to the uh airport and the TSA people, the the folks who are making your rooms here at night, and the services top class and probably minimum wage or just above minimum wage workers. And I hope everybody is like, you know, tipping them with graciousness, right?
Prioritize Yourself To Perform
SPEAKER_01Because um prioritize yourself. Again, this is not something that we can say to the outside world, right? But you're the hero, you're the priority, you're the racehorse. If you're not good physically, mentally, spiritually, financially, emotionally, if you don't have good relationships with your family and with your teams, then nothing else works, or at least it's it makes everything else a really high struggle.
Keep The Conversation Going
SPEAKER_00Like what you heard? Keep the conversation going. Explore the archive, listen to another episode, and subscribe for more conversations that challenge the ordinary.
