Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson Mutrux sits down with Maximum Lawyer Association member Jeremy Danilson for an unscripted conversation about AI, consistency, entrepreneurship, and what it actually takes to keep growing as a law firm owner.

Jeremy shares how he is using AI not just to complete tasks, but to teach himself how different parts of his business work. After building an interactive course around his own advertising data, he uncovered issues between Google Ads and HubSpot that helped him ask better questions of his marketing vendor and improve performance.

Tyson and Jeremy also dig into the limits of AI and why law firm owners still need to understand enough to question the answers they are getting. Tyson shares his own experience using AI during the launch of Founder Optional and what happened when too much of the thinking was handed over to the technology.

The conversation then turns to Jeremy’s path from professional golf to law firm ownership. He shares how taking a chance on himself, losing the one client his firm depended on, and choosing to keep building helped shape the business he has today.

At the center of it all is consistency. Jeremy explains why he believes self-confidence comes from keeping promises to yourself and how years of simply showing up, learning from other firm owners, and taking the next small step helped transform his firm.

It’s a conversation about betting on yourself, using AI without outsourcing your thinking, and recognizing that success is often less about one massive breakthrough and more about consistently doing the right things long enough for them to work.

Listen in to hear how Jeremy’s approach to learning, risk, and consistency has shaped the way he builds his law firm.

What You’ll Learn

• How Jeremy uses AI to better understand and improve his firm’s marketing.
• Why AI should support your thinking instead of replacing it.
• What Jeremy’s professional golf career taught him about risk and betting on himself.
• How losing his biggest client forced him to truly build a law firm.
• Why Jeremy believes self-confidence is built by keeping promises to yourself.

Timestamps

00:00 — Bringing back unscripted Maximum Lawyer conversations

04:00 — Using AI to learn, analyze ads, and ask better questions

09:00 — Where AI falls short and why human judgment still matters

14:00 — Founder Optional, fear of judgment, and defining success

19:00 — Professional golf, risk, and learning to bet on yourself

24:00 — Losing a major client, building a real firm, and the power of consistency

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Full Transcript: 

Tyson Mutrux (00:06)
Welcome back to Maximum Lawyer Live. I'm here with my good buddy Jeremy. How you doing, dude?

Jeremy Danielson (00:12)
Good. How are you?

Tyson Mutrux (00:14)
Good. We're doing something a little bit different where we're just going to bring on, kind of like Jimmy and I used to, some Association members. This is your idea, so just so people know, I got a message from Jeremy last week, maybe, suggesting that we bring on some Association members.

You mentioned kind of like back in the day, whenever it was just me and Jimmy on Saturday morning, just chit-chatting. So it'd be Wednesday morning chit-chat with Association members.

I don't know. Maybe we'll just call it Chit Chat. Maybe we'll change the name of the show to Maximum Lawyer Chit Chat instead of Live. But how you doing?

Jeremy Danielson (00:51)
Good. Yeah, I sent this thought last week. Well, I've been thinking about it for a little while.

What brought me to the group was the genuine and honest conversations that you and Jim had at the very beginning, and then what I was able to experience when I go to the masterminds.

The more we can do things like that, I get a lot of value out of it, and I think other members do too. I love learning what other members are doing, so the more we can hear from everybody, the better.

Tyson Mutrux (01:24)
Yeah, I think some of my favorite moments have been on those Saturday morning shows because it's not scripted, right? There's no prep for it. You're just talking.

Jim and I actually had lunch yesterday. We were just chit-chatting for a while, and then I showed him my Tesla. I took him on a ride.

It was so funny. He did the thing that people do whenever they're driving a vehicle that has some capabilities of self-driving. He's like, "Yeah, my Cadillac does that."

I was like, "No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't."

He recorded it. He was like, "Oh my gosh." I did all the functions. I did Grok. I parked the car in a really tight corner behind his building, and I used Summon to summon the vehicle. It performed very well. It came around.

It was so crazy. He was so surprised.

Jeremy Danielson (02:19)
I think there are so many people who don't know that capability exists yet to the level it does.

Tyson Mutrux (02:27)
That's the thing. I told him, before I took him downstairs and we went for a ride, "I promise you, what I'm telling you right now, you're not believing."

I said, "I know the exact same mindset you're in because I was in the same mindset whenever Jeremy Danielson told me about it."

I didn't believe him. Then the next week I did a test drive, and the week after that I bought a car. Then I bought another one a month later. So it is that big of a difference.

Jeremy Danielson (03:02)
The fastest sales cycle ever.

Tyson Mutrux (03:05)
Completely.

What's new with you, though? Just so people know, when we do this, if you're not familiar with it, we just chit-chat. Sometimes gems come up. Sometimes we're just chit-chatting. That's how this is going to go.

You did not send me a list of topics or questions.

Jeremy Danielson (03:27)
Not at all.

I did a fun thing on Sunday. Fun in the context of work. I think it was a week and a half ago now.

With ads, we keep working to try to improve our ads and figure out how to target the audience we want to target more effectively. I need to learn about ads so I can hold my vendors accountable.

So I went to Claude. That's one of the AIs I use. I asked it to create an interactive educational experience for me about Meta and Google Ads, but to use my data to teach me in the course.

It built the entire course. Six different modules with my data because my ads are connected to it.

After six different modules, it uncovered several different things for me to ask my vendors about.

I learned that Google Ads was sending data to HubSpot, but HubSpot was not effectively sending good conversion data back to Google. So we weren't telling Google what signals were effective conversions.

That only got uncovered because of this interactive educational experience I had it build for me.

Tyson Mutrux (04:35)
That's so cool.

Real quick, you keep tapping the desk, and I'm sure the people listening to this are like, "What the heck is going on?"

He's very excited with his hands, if you're listening to this. I just wanted to let you know because you probably didn't realize it.

I think what's really interesting about you is that you use AI, I don't know if it's mostly for education, but you use it to educate yourself probably more than anybody I know.

Here's the difference between the way I use it and the way you use it, for the most part.

I know you use it to build things. I mostly just say, "Go do this thing," or, "Go analyze this thing and then tell me what needs to change."

If I had the same situation you have, I would have it go analyze the stuff and then give me instructions on what to tell my vendor to fix.

Whereas you educate yourself with it. You say, "Teach me all these things," and then you engross yourself in the topic.

Is that fair?

Jeremy Danielson (05:39)
To some degree.

I think some of the output it was giving me during this experiment was amazing. It said, "Well, A, B and C need to happen, and tell your vendor to go do this."

I have a really good relationship with this specific vendor, and I wanted to protect that.

So I had Claude help me. I said, "Rephrase all of this, but in the context of questions, because I want to protect that relationship and I don't want to attack them."

So I just asked some questions, some of which I now knew the answer to.

Those are my favorite kinds of questions to ask people, when I already know the answer.

I was very happy with the response that I got. Several of the things, they went in, they agreed, and they fixed right away. One or two of them they pushed back on and explained why.

We're making progress faster because of how I used AI that day.

Tyson Mutrux (06:38)
It's interesting. I had this thought yesterday because sometimes we do delegate the thinking to AI.

We did the book launch yesterday for Founder Optional.

Jeremy Danielson (06:50)
Congratulations.

Tyson Mutrux (06:52)
Thank you. Appreciate that.

It was interesting because we were using AI. We were using ChatGPT to help us with the launch, and it was given certain instructions.

It advised us on which categories to put the book in. I guess, like any other author, we want to be number one. We want to be on the top of whatever list.

It was interesting because it did not do a good job of telling us which categories to be in. It told us the wrong categories, in my opinion.

I think it's because we had delegated that thinking.

Someone who had expertise in that area would have been like, "No. Don't do that. That's not a good idea. Put it in these categories over here so you can hit these targets," yada, yada, yada.

It's the same thing with the ads and your vendor.

I don't really know why. I can't tell you why humans can figure that part out better.

You know what I mean? Why is it that the humans would be able to figure that out, whereas you would think AI has the experience? Not because it's done it, but because it's absorbed all this information from the internet and everywhere else.

Why can't it figure that part out?

Jeremy Danielson (08:04)
Wouldn't it just be context?

Context is king, but the human in that case has more and broader context than the AI, or than you had given the AI for that question.

Tyson Mutrux (08:20)
Maybe. It could be completely that.

Becca was prompting it, so I don't know how she prompted it. It could have been the context.

That being said, it knows everything we do. It knows what our jobs are. It knows all this information. So I guess, why wouldn't it have the context?

Jeremy Danielson (08:44)
When I say context, I'm also thinking experience.

The human in this situation has helped dozens or hundreds of authors with different kinds of subject matters.

They've spent the time, and they've also seen the backend and the performance after the book launch in those different categories.

I don't know if AI has that breadth of experience from pre- to post-book launch for the different types of areas.

Maybe.

Tyson Mutrux (09:20)
Here's where I push back on that.

What you're saying makes sense, but I saw something last week that over 50% of books that have been put out have AI slop in them now.

Jeremy Danielson (09:34)
Not surprised.

Tyson Mutrux (09:36)
Yeah. So I do think it has a lot of experience.

I've also seen a massive increase in legal books. I was just kind of seeing, okay, what's on the list?

I was like, "Oh my gosh, there's a lot."

It used to be, what was that Carolyn Elefant book? Solo by Choice. It was one of the big ones. Then there was that big blue book, How to Build a Law Firm, or whatever it was called.

Those were the books.

Now there are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of them out there.

I don't know. I don't know the answer.

Jeremy Danielson (10:17)
You put all of this time and effort into writing this book. How do you define success now that it's live and launched?

I did buy my Kindle copy yesterday from the email.

Tyson Mutrux (10:30)
Thank you.

We have a launch sale. It's only two dollars. We made it really, really cheap for the launch.

To me, success was getting it done.

I know that sounds like a really weird answer, maybe, because I didn't set out to write that book.

The book I set out to write was a different book. Then this idea came out of that one, and I was like, "Oh."

So I set that aside. That other book, which I don't want to mention the title of here—I mentioned the title in Chicago—but I'm not going to mention the title here because I don't want anybody to steal it.

That was a really, really big book. It's a really big project that I've set aside for a little bit just so I can clear my mind and then come back to it. It ended up being a massive, massive project.

This book was like, "Okay, I can easily get this one done, probably."

The idea is pretty simple. It was based on gravity.

So let's write this book. I just wanted to get it done.

I've always wanted to write a book. I'd never written a book.

So success was just getting it done.

Have you ever written one?

Jeremy Danielson (11:51)
No.

Tyson Mutrux (11:53)
It is this thing that eats at you and eats at you and eats at you.

You go back and you pick at it, and you pick at it, and you change it, and you change this.

"Okay, so I have this many. I've got 26 chapters now. Let's go down to 18 chapters."

"I don't like the wording of that one."

It's funny, I probably changed chapter one 20 times. Over and over.

So just getting it done was a success.

Jeremy Danielson (12:24)
Is there any parallel to the conversations you have with other firm owners about starting to create videos, where success is just starting to do it and creating that consistent habit?

Tyson Mutrux (12:39)
Yeah. I think there are probably a lot of parallels.

I very much was concerned about how I would be judged on the page and how people would read it. That was a massive concern of mine.

Becca was like, "I need the book. I need the book. I need the book."

And I'm like, "I'm just not comfortable with it yet. I'm not comfortable with it yet. I just want to change it."

I think it's a great example because a lot of people hesitate because of how they're going to look on the screen.

Most people don't care.

I was really concerned about how I was going to look on the page, and most people probably won't care either. That's my guess.

Jeremy Danielson (13:27)
The coaches tell us not to look at your metrics or your subscribers or your followers for the first six or 12 months.

You just have to build a habit and create the videos, and all of that stuff comes down the road.

Tyson Mutrux (13:45)
Maybe. Yeah.

It's funny you say that because I've not looked at the numbers.

I know Becca has been looking at the numbers, and that's the only reason why it came up yesterday with the rankings and the categories.

We were not in any legal categories yesterday. So I was going against the Malcolm Gladwells of the world.

Okay, I'm not even in the same atmosphere as him.

But it's funny you say that about the videos because I noticed a few months ago we were oddly seeing a decrease in our YouTube numbers.

Our podcast numbers have stayed steady. They've been steadily increasing.

But I was like, "Why are our YouTube numbers..." I was getting frustrated every day just looking at it. Every day, down, down.

I'm like, "What is the bottom of this? This is crazy."

Then I set it aside.

I looked at it yesterday and our numbers are back up.

So I'm just going to ignore it. I'm not going to look at the numbers anymore. I'm just going to focus on the show. That's it.

Jeremy Danielson (14:54)
Do the activities or the behaviors that you know will lead to success.

Whether it's making videos, whether it's working out, whether it's eating right, you may not get the feedback you want in the moment.

But you know that if you're doing the right behaviors, down the road you'll get the results you're looking for.

Tyson Mutrux (15:14)
Yeah.

So let me ask you about this.

Were you considered a pro golfer, technically?

Jeremy Danielson (15:21)
Yes. I had to get my amateur status back. Yes.

Tyson Mutrux (15:26)
Okay. So to me, that takes a lot of discipline to do all that.

I wonder—you do the cold plunges, you do your workouts, you do all those things now. You're very focused.

Were you that focused back then?

Jeremy Danielson (15:47)
It was different.

Not in my health. Actually, my health journey probably didn't start until I was like 35.

My work ethic for practicing golf was that intense, though.

I would get up—I got made fun of for this in college—I would get up and stretch for 30 minutes every morning before I went to the golf course.

It got to the point where, if I didn't wake up and stretch, my body hurt.

I don't do that now.

But I would practice for hours upon hours a day.

I think it was more of a passion. That's where I wanted to be, and I liked the pursuit of trying to get better at this thing.

That's where I put my energy.

It never felt like work. It was never hard to do. It's just where I wanted to be.

Tyson Mutrux (16:40)
So if you were to go back and do that again, would you have done anything differently when it comes to what you focused on?

Right now, you know the things to dial in to make sure you're fully healthy, you're good to go, and you know what success looks like for you.

If you look back at the golfing days, would you have done anything differently?

Jeremy Danielson (17:05)
I have to say yes because I frankly think I'm a better golfer now than I was then.

But I think it's the life experiences and the mindset that I have now.

I can put myself in the right state of mind when I'm on the golf course, and I understand where golf fits into my whole life.

I'm not trying to pay my rent based upon how this round of golf goes anymore.

That's a different mindset.

That's really hard when you're living in Orlando, Florida, saying, "I've got to play well today because I've got to pay rent."

That takes golf from being fun to not fun really fast.

But the perspective that I've built—having kids, having a family, being married—makes golf a lot easier mentally now than it was back then.

Tyson Mutrux (17:58)
So were you on the 12th hole thinking, "Oh my gosh, I've got to turn this around, otherwise I'm not going to pay rent"?

Was that actually going through your mind?

Jeremy Danielson (18:12)
It was never that intense because my lifetime as a professional golfer was so short. Probably a year and a half.

I had some investor money to start with when I went down there, and that disappeared pretty quickly.

Because professional golf, honestly, at the time on those mini tours, it's organized gambling.

Everyone basically throws a thousand dollars into the pot when you show up to an event.

You've got 140 guys. You play.

Sixty guys make the cut. Forty guys make their money back. Twenty guys probably make a profit out of the 140 who threw money in.

That's all it is on the mini tours.

It's day by day, and it's a grind.

What I learned really quickly is that I hit the ball well enough to play out there, but chipping and putting? Those guys were so much better.

That's what separated them from everybody else.

Tyson Mutrux (19:18)
Interesting.

Okay, so the legalized gambling—

Jeremy Danielson (19:24)
I don't know if it was legal, but it was organized.

Tyson Mutrux (19:28)
You did say organized. I said legalized.

Organized gambling.

So is that why you feel like you were comfortable starting your own firm? Because you're willing to take on that risk?

Or was it something else?

Jeremy Danielson (19:49)
I've always been comfortable betting on myself.

If success is defined by my own effort, I know I'll give the effort, and I'll do the things it takes to be successful.

If I fail, I can look at myself and say, "What do I need to do differently to be successful?"

I've just always been comfortable with that.

When my success depends upon someone else's effort, that's really hard for me.

So whether it's golf, whether it's starting my own firm, whether it's my health, those all depend upon me taking the next step.

Tyson Mutrux (20:31)
So what do you think was different?

I feel like you've had pretty massive success over the last couple of years.

What was different in the last few years compared to the first seven years?

You've been doing it 10 years, right?

Jeremy Danielson (20:48)
Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux (20:49)
So let's say those first seven or eight years.

What was different about Jeremy then versus Jeremy now?

Jeremy Danielson (20:59)
I would say those first four years, I had one referral source and I wasn't really building a firm.

The last six or so, I actually started to build a law firm with a team. I wanted to grow something and diversify referral sources.

I think it was probably building self-confidence.

Something I like to say to my boys—they know the answer to this now—is, "How do you build self-confidence?"

You keep promises that you make to yourself.

The more promises I make and keep to myself, including showing up on Monday and Friday calls here, the more consistent I am.

The progress comes from that consistency.

It's not any one big thing I do.

It's just: keep showing up. Keep working diligently. Keep trying to do one thing.

I've been doing that now for at least three years with this group specifically.

Before I came to MaxLaw, I had never hired my first associate.

That's where the growth has come from—the consistent effort, day by day, week by week, learning from others, learning from you and Jim, going to masterminds, just plugging away a little bit at a time.

I think consistency is the key to success in anything.

It's not one big effort today. It's just a little bit at a time.

Tyson Mutrux (22:13)
Jim and I were talking about you yesterday, about how consistently you show up.

A lot of times, it is just consistently showing up and doing the thing.

Let's go back to you. Let's stay on you for a second.

When I look at those first years, I picture you having this one client. You're not having to hustle because you've got the one big client.

Were you just coasting back then?

Jeremy Danielson (22:42)
I was hustling doing all of the legal work.

It started out as just me doing everything.

Answering the phone, doing the meetings, doing the document prep, doing the closings.

It was just me.

I was trying to do all of the things and build systems as I was doing it.

I was also learning the subject matter because I was a baby attorney. I had to learn how to do the legal work.

The best lesson I ever learned was when that one client fired me and went to somebody else.

Sarah and I had a decision to make at that point.

Do I want to go get a job, or do we want to actually build a law firm?

That was an awesome crossroads for us.

We chose the harder thing, like we tend to always do.

But we had to actually start building a firm, have multiple clients, and be independent.

I had the four or five years of experience. I knew how to do the thing now, so I could try to build a business.

Maybe those first four or five years were everybody else's big-firm experience before they go start their own firm.

I had to learn how to do the thing before I could build the firm.

Tyson Mutrux (23:56)
How did you talk your way into this big client whenever you didn't really know what you were doing?

Jeremy Danielson (24:04)
Oh, God.

I think I was going to be a client of theirs.

We had to sell a home when I was let go from my first job out of law school.

We wanted to keep as much of our equity as possible, so we talked to them.

They said, "You're an attorney. We're actually needing an attorney. Let's talk about this."

At that crossroads, I had this job offer where there was no salary. It was just a referral source.

"If you start your own firm, you have this."

Or I had a corporate counsel offer for a large brokerage with a corner office, benefits, and a window.

I took the hard thing with no guarantee.

Tyson Mutrux (24:46)
You took the more rewarding thing.

Jeremy Danielson (24:50)
Yeah. I absolutely took the more rewarding thing.

It's been a ride.

Tyson Mutrux (24:57)
Did you have to sell the house?

Jeremy Danielson (25:00)
We did sell that house.

And thank God we did.

Have you ever seen the movie The Money Pit?

Tyson Mutrux (25:08)
Yeah.

Jeremy Danielson (25:10)
It's that house.

That was the first house I ever bought, and it was so bad.

At different times, I had a wrestling match with the sump pump. That's a story for another time.

We found piping outside that had been duct-taped multiple times to keep it together by a previous owner.

The shed had been destroyed once and duct-taped and screwed back together.

That house needed to not be ours anymore.

Tyson Mutrux (25:37)
That's probably a good idea.

It ended up being a blessing, getting let go.

We've never really talked about getting let go.

Was it an economic thing where the economy wasn't doing well and the firm wasn't doing well? What was that story?

Jeremy Danielson (25:59)
It wasn't a firm.

It was a startup commercial real estate company that was trying to convince the market to use brokerage commissions differently in commercial real estate purchases.

They never got their marketing message figured out to where they could gain any traction.

When I joined that company, they had dreams of expanding regionally and nationally.

After two years, it never happened.

So it really didn't make sense for them to need an attorney or in-house counsel, and they actually just broke up. The company kind of dissolved.

That was actually really good for me too, because I wouldn't be here if I didn't get let go then.

Tyson Mutrux (26:42)
I'm assuming you also got to give them insights into maybe how to think about the industry differently.

Because the way you think is different than, I'd say, most lawyers. We've had some pretty deep conversations.

Jeremy Danielson (26:57)
I absolutely did.

I got to spend two years trying to build somebody else's company—working on systems, processes, tools, software.

I had no experience with it, but I was allowed to tinker for two years and get paid to do it, to be honest.

That's probably what led me into making the decision to start my own firm instead of taking the in-house counsel position.

I thought, "Well, I spent two years tinkering on somebody else's company. Let's go do this for myself with this thing now."

And now I just get to tinker a lot more all the time.

Tyson Mutrux (27:36)
It's a pretty cool story too.

You were involved in a startup, and it was in the real estate industry. It all kind of ties in well.

All right, we have three minutes left. Anything else you want to talk about in the last few minutes?

Jeremy Danielson (27:53)
I got a cool piece of mail yesterday.

Tyson Mutrux (27:57)
Okay.

Jeremy Danielson (27:58)
I didn't know this was coming.

I got nominated for an award at MaxLawCon.

Tyson Mutrux (28:04)
You did? Oh my gosh. I had no idea.

Jeremy Danielson (28:08)
The Trailblazer Award.

I don't know exactly what that is, but I had forgotten about that piece.

That's going to be pretty fun. I'm looking forward to going to Atlanta.

Tyson Mutrux (28:20)
I love hearing that people are getting the letters and sending text messages or telling me just now.

It's really cool because people got nominated, and we picked the top three.

It's going to be awesome.

I'm trying to get Becca, for the Maximum Lawyer of the Year Award—which is the top award—a crown and a cape.

She's not so convinced.

Jeremy Danielson (28:44)
A crown and a cape?

Tyson Mutrux (28:46)
I want a crown and a cape for Maximum Lawyer of the Year. Like a superhero almost, but with a crown.

Jeremy Danielson (28:54)
I'm going to send you a picture of a guy with a cape because I took the boys to Minneapolis for SummerSlam on Saturday, which is a whole other story for the next time we see each other.

This guy has a cape on, and we got a picture taken with him.

So you can dress the winner up like this for the award.

Tyson Mutrux (29:12)
Okay.

The other option is, you know those little things that the Ninja Turtles wore around their eyes?

Jeremy Danielson (29:18)
Oh yeah, headbands.

Tyson Mutrux (29:20)
Yeah, headbands with the eye holes. That would be awesome too.

Which Ninja Turtle would you be?

Jeremy Danielson (29:27)
Oh, I'd be Leonardo.

I like Raphael too, but he had the nunchucks, right?

Tyson Mutrux (29:34)
Michelangelo had the nunchucks.

Jeremy Danielson (29:37)
Okay.

Tyson Mutrux (29:38)
Raphael had the sais, and then Leonardo had the swords.

Jeremy Danielson (29:45)
Okay. Donatello?

Tyson Mutrux (29:47)
Donatello had the stick, the bo staff.

Jeremy Danielson (29:51)
Okay. Well done.

Tyson Mutrux (29:53)
Yeah. I love Turtles.

All right, dude. I gotta go. Have a great day. Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it, man.

Jeremy Danielson (30:01)
Have a good week.

Tyson Mutrux (30:03)
You too. Bye.

Jeremy Danielson (30:05)
Bye.