Maximizing Your Legal Practice and Personal Development with Brita Long

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

This week on Maximum Mom, your host Elise Buie is joined by Brita Long. Brita is an attorney and attorney coach who teaches flat fees to other attorneys and more importantly mind set. 

One of the workshops Brita provides is on our relationship with money. "It ain't about the money" isn't about the knowledge of personal finance or small practice finance, but about our thoughts, beliefs and feelings about money and how those affect our behavior. Including: charging flat fees. 
When Brita began working with attorneys she quickly discovered that nearly all of them had money mindset/belief issues that were causing them to self sabotage in regard to money. Take a listen!

Episode Highlights:

• 04:20 Brita’s mission to maximize attorneys by teaching flat fees and emphasizing personal development and mindset in the legal profession
• 13:44 Every problem in the office is a leadership problem
• 19:25 The importance of emotional intelligence in the legal profession
• 21:59 The impact of money mindset on legal practice
• 26:26 The financial challenges and self-sabotage tendencies observed in small law firm owners
• 28:29 Advocating for the adoption of flat feesLearning and Ego in Legal Practice 
• 32:50 The role of ego in legal practice
• 41:11 Energy management
• 49:02 The lack of safety in expressing vulnerability in the legal profession and the potential for limitless reform in the profession

Connect with Brita:

• Website
• YouTube
• Facebook
• Instagram

Resources:

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• Subscribe to the Maximum Lawyer YouTube Channel
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Transcripts: Maximizing Your Legal Practice and Personal Development with Brita Long

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Welcome to Maxima Mom with Elise Buey, where you'll hear from women who are navigating the same messy journey as you lawyering, entrepreneurship, and mothering. What a trifecta. We're here to share tips, resources, wins, losses, and encouragement for moms who are raising a family while building a law firm so you feel less alone in your journey toward a fulfilling career and being the best mom you can be.

Speaker 2 (00:00:30) - Welcome to the Maximum Mom podcast! I am so excited to be back today, and I am super excited to welcome Brett along to our podcast. Welcome. Well thank you, thank you. It's afternoon here, but it's good afternoon wherever you are. Yes, indeed. Well, first I always like to just start. I mean, let's just get over the initial part of, you know, it's called the Maximum Mom podcast. So I always like to know who and what makes up your your home, your family. Like, you know what makes you a maximum mom? Well, what makes me a mom? I don't know about maximum mom.

Speaker 2 (00:01:09) - I don't know what that means. My kids are grown, so I have one biological son who is now my law partner, which is a whole different ball of wax. That's been crazy. Um, and then my my two stepsons, they are 30 and 33, so I'm on the tail end of and with the. Hindsight's beautiful. Isn't it? I mean, it is absolutely beautiful still in the midst of those 20s. So, you know, we're still in that, you know how it is. Yeah. But they're coming around in their 20s that you're not so stupid anymore. They've figured out maybe you maybe knew something. Oh, isn't that the most powerful thing when one of them just says, I had one say to me recently, they were like, mom, I really probably should have been listening to you a lot longer. And I was like, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me get let me take hold. Can you talk into the can you talk into the phone one more time? So true.

Speaker 2 (00:02:18) - And I have to say, I tend to think the girls tend to listen earlier, which is interesting than the boys. Whereas the boys are like, yeah, mom, I don't know. But then when they come around, they're like, oh, all right, so you did have something to say despite your mom ness. And yeah, it's pretty interesting. But you know, better late than never. I'm a firm believer in people have to figure their own life out, you know what I mean? Absolutely. Start their own, make their own mistakes, do their thing. And I surely don't sit here with I told you so. I'm just like, go do your thing, you know, because how else do you do it? That's the way to do it. I mean, would you really want a kid that was just like, you know, shaking their head, yes, yes, yes, yes. I mean, no, there's no way I could have raised a sheep. It would have been an impossibility with my personality.

Speaker 2 (00:03:10) - It just would not have worked well. And how boring. Yeah. Well, yeah. And horrible for them. Like. Right. They need to. Absolutely. Yeah. Go do their own thing. Well I want to let our listeners know what you do. I mean, I think of you and obviously you correct me if you think of you differently. I think of you someone who is really working to maximize attorneys so that they kind of, I don't know, harness the power of flat fees, financial security and ability to have more stability in their practice and really conserve and enjoy their time and energy more utilizing flat fees. What would you say is your mission? Yeah, that's that's part of it. It's definitely partly to teach flat fees. I would say that the bigger overall is personal development and being. I'm not sure that there's a word for it. I'm kind of being the a voice, a voice for some sanity in this profession that I think we have lost sight of tremendously. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:04:20) - And for for people who are fairly courageous in advocating for other people. We don't advocate for ourselves. We don't question what we're doing. And so I work with attorneys, mostly attorneys, um, some other normal people, but mostly attorneys on really creating the life that they want to live. You know, I don't buy this. The law is a jealous mistress. If you want to be an attorney, that means you have to work 80 hours a week. You have to have no relationship that is any real value with your kids, with a spouse. You know, I just don't buy that. And when I see I've been practicing since 1997, when I see attorney after attorney after attorney literally killing themselves or slowly killing themselves with drugs or alcohol or numbing or numbing in any facet, you know, I'm like this. This is not working. Right? Exactly. Clearly what we are doing is not working. And I certainly believe that flat fees can be a big part of that. But when I started teaching flat fees, I very quickly realized that, you know, you don't see your own things.

Speaker 2 (00:05:39) - And so when I started teaching, all these other attorneys started having issues that I hadn't had. And when I really realized so much of it was mindset, and now I say about 1% of flat fees is the knowledge. You know, everybody wants the fee agreement. Forget the fee agreement. That's that's the least of it. Seriously, it's not the knowledge, it's the mindset. It's being willing to feel uncomfortable. It's so much deeper. So then I really started and I had been doing my own personal development work for years. That had changed everything internally and externally in my life. And when you do something like that, you feel it as an obligation to help other people. If they're willing, if they're open, I can't help somebody who's not open to it. Exactly. I mean, it's so the timing of this conversation for us, I cannot even tell you the just, like, weird. Universe timing. Just this morning, I decided to just launch this whole idea of consulting with attorneys because I've been working with attorneys every Friday, I've been setting aside all these Fridays, and I work with attorneys just for free, like helping them, mentoring, whatever you want to call it, what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (00:06:57) - And I've been doing it for months, and my leadership team is like at some point at least this you can't just like keep. I'm like, well, I could keep doing this. And they're like, yeah, but you know, there's issues of money mindset, like how do you have somebody who they have to be brought in as well. And so this whole thing and we're going to talk about that in a minute. But I was talking to somebody this morning and they were just like, yeah, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this. And I'm like, I can never help you. You know, in like, there is no like if you can't consider the possibility that there could be a change in that, the change would come from within you, you know, as the leader, unlike we are kind of, you know, like, I'm not here to be some kind of, like, crazy drill sergeant or whatever. And it's like, you've got to be willing to do the work and do the change and the mindset around this, it it it's everything.

Speaker 2 (00:08:00) - And I, I know I like sound like a broken record to people where I'm like, we've got to work on your mindset way before we figure out, you know, how you're going to hire this next person. Because, you know, we got to look at the whole thing about what you're doing. And I think that that mindset piece is just critical. Oh, it's it's everything. Well, and I would say even more so than mindset is soul set, which is a term my coach and and mentor Phillip McKiernan came up with. So I always want to give credit. I do think, though, that I've it took me a while to to I think I figured it out to figure out why some people were so reluctant, you know, reluctant to do flat fees, reluctant to do what I told them to do. I mean, I've had people spend, you know, I'm not cheap, a lot of money on my work and not do any of it. And I couldn't figure it out.

Speaker 2 (00:09:00) - And then I did. And then I had to look at my own life and went, oh, shit. Right. Sorry, I swear. Um, and I do think that for so many people, you know, this might be offensive, you know? Whatever. A people want. Easy. They want. Easy. And attorneys. We have no problem working hard. But when it comes to. Is self reflection when it comes to lying to ourselves when it comes to being uncomfortable. Oh, we are ridiculously horrible. Horrible. And I think that there are so many people who would rather have failed because they didn't truly try. They didn't play full out. Oh yeah. Then try and have it not work. And then because then something's fundamentally wrong with them. Now that's I think that's a totally false. And I don't think they're aware of this consciously. I think it's a totally false dichotomy because. If you play full out and you continue to play full out, it might not work as you expected, but there's no way that you're going to fail because even at the end of the day, you will at least set.

Speaker 2 (00:10:28) - I gave it everything. I gave it everything and it wasn't meant fine. Failing sometimes is my greatest teacher. Oh, I mean, sometimes it has. Always. Always. When? When I started the happier attorney. I did, you know, what do I know about video courses? I did all these things and I had taken a sabbatical from practice. So, like, all my eggs are in this basket and my ego was in this basket, which is always dangerous. And, um, I've been taught, you know, you open up the course for a week and then you shut it down on Friday and nobody will buy till Friday. So, you know, Monday. And I think I had like 300 people in my Facebook group. So, you know, and they had said, oh, 10% will buy. So I'm like, okay, 30 people will buy. Okay, here we go, here we go. So Monday. Nothing. Tuesday nothing okay. So Friday, Friday.

Speaker 2 (00:11:23) - Guess how many people had bought the course? Friday 5000. So then, like, I'm freaking out. Sure. Freaking out. And then I do the, you know, pity party. What's wrong with me? Nobody. You? No no no no. Why? You know, why can these, you know, 30 year old teachers from Duluth sell their courses to, you know, 30,000 the first day and you know all of the nonsense, okay. And thankfully, I, my mentor, I reached out and he's like, good. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Good. And I you know, I knew what he was going to say. And he said. Why did you need this? And so I asked my clients all of the time. How is this exactly what you needed? And some get really pissed off at first. Oh, yeah, because nobody wants to hear that. Okay. But then it starts to sink in and well, actually, you know, my marketing was crap or that was a crappy client to begin with.

Speaker 2 (00:12:34) - You know, there's always so for me, and I've had some pretty horrible things in my life. I mean, I, I always tell people, we're not in the trauma Olympics, right? Okay. You know, you can always find somebody that's had more trauma than you. That doesn't mean that it didn't. Right? It wasn't bad for you. But every bad thing that has ever happened in my life has been what I needed. Yep. I mean, isn't that powerful though? Like to actually come to that realization. And I know for me, one of the biggest realizations in this whole journey of leading a law firm and, you know, just doing all this is really coming to understand that every single problem in my office is a leadership problem. And I'm like, well, turn that mirror over again, dear, and see what the problem is. But that's pretty empowering, I find, because I can't ever make anybody do anything like, that's not even a thing. I even try anymore.

Speaker 2 (00:13:44) - Whereas when I realize it's a leadership problem and I can turn that mirror on myself, I'm like, I can make a change here. Like I can do something different. It's pretty empowering, you know, where if I'm constantly pointing out the window, we're doomed. I mean, it's exhausting. As someone who has tried most of my life to make that person do there. It's exhausting. And it doesn't work. It doesn't work. I mean, it doesn't even slightly work in the drama it brings around. Your entire existence is so overwhelmingly exhausting to me. Like, I just I was not a big fan of drama as a young girl, and I'm not a big fan of drama as an old girl. Like, I just am not a not a fan. And so but I mean, it has taken a long time to realize how to eradicate that drama and just like, bring it all down. I said something to somebody the other day, and I mean, they looked at me, but I was like, it's really true.

Speaker 2 (00:14:47) - I said, you know, you cannot operate your firm from your stomach and how it feels. It's got to be operated from data, like you need to be able to make objective decisions. And when people tell me, oh, this is how I feel, I'm like, that's great information. But it's not going to inform any of my decision making. Like we must look at the data. And that has been pretty empowering to to understand, like, you know, how can we move things forward? How can we just be empowered to solve problems? But you know, how many people are addicted to the drama and the chaos? Because and I used to be I didn't know this. I used to be addicted to chaos because a I was very comfortable with it. I knew what to do. Yeah. I mean, that was my superpower, right? That was absolutely my superpower. And I didn't think I was. Worthy I this wasn't conscious, but until it was brought to my attention, I didn't feel I was worthy of just having calm completely.

Speaker 2 (00:15:56) - Yeah. And I see I, I, I just had a conversation with an attorney a couple of weeks ago that, um, I could tell pretty fast this wasn't gonna this wasn't going not only it wasn't going to work with her and I, she was never going to get what she said she wanted, right? Ever. Not with me. Not with any other coach, not with any other program. It wasn't going to happen because the problem was her and she was going to this strategy, this strategy, this strategy, this strategy. And her goal was completely outwardly goals. Right. It wasn't going to happen. And what's sad is even if she met that outward goal, it would be a total crap show. And I can't I can't help that. I can't help people who aren't ready to be open to okay my way. When it was breed away. Things didn't go well in my life. You know that muscling through that, I'm going to think it through. And we attorneys, we have such a we have such a problem because we're smart.

Speaker 2 (00:17:03) - Right. And we've been told how smart we are. I mean, I remember the first day of law school, somebody, some professor saying you're the elite. Then you might call the elite. You're the elite. Like who says that to somebody? But anyway. And so then we think we can. Every solution can be thought through, except that most of our problems are emotional problems. You can never fix an emotional problem with an intellectual solution that doesn't work. How is it working out for you trying to do that? And what's really funny is the, the we attorneys, you know, we don't like to think we're emotional. You know, we're we're robots. We're you know, it's beneath us. We don't make emotional arguments. You know, we're just such little snot sometimes. The people who I have seen say, I'm not emotional. I don't make emotional decisions. Absolutely. When you look at their behavior, they make the most emotional decisions, but we cover it up with logic. Yeah, it's a fascinating it is a fascinating dynamic.

Speaker 2 (00:18:10) - I think lawyers have I mean, I'm coming to really think I mean, this sounds awful, but that law school is doing us such a disservice by not having a total track on emotional intelligence, because we are literally being hired to come into people's lives in all kinds of different ways, be it business, bankruptcy, family, criminal, you know, personal injury, whatever the practice area. But we are coming into people's lives and we are supposed to be collaborating and creatively solving problems. Yet we have, like so much of our profession is. Their level of emotional intelligence is so below the bar of what I think is just average. You know, where it. I feel like we really are missing out on so much nuance in our ability to connect with our clients, with opposing parties, with courts, because of this lack of emotional intelligence and trying to teach it. I know we spend a lot of time in our office teaching emotional intelligence and really talking about it a lot. It doesn't always work.

Speaker 2 (00:19:25) - No. Well, to me, it's fixing your own crap. I mean, I know I took a little hiatus from practicing to write and create the happier attorney. And then when my son got licensed, we opened up this practice. And I don't practice a lot, but I had one case where I had to come in because it was last minute and it was a trial, and it was going to be too much for him to, you know, handle right away how I approach that case, given the internal work that I've done in the last six years. Was night and day different than how I would have seven eight years ago? How I approached opposing counsel who was just one of those. How I approached different things that happened at trial, opposing party. And I was so much calmer. My client was so much calmer. Oh yeah, it was a total night and day difference. And what was great was my client had some issues. And I was more direct with him. I treated him like a coaching client.

Speaker 2 (00:20:32) - Right. And what he does with that is up to him. But it was. It was nice. But you can't. I don't think you can, you know, do that with clients unless you're working on your own crap. You know, you say professors. Holy cow. We could sit here and I. I could go three hours on the scandals. I mean, like news, Google scandals at my law school. And those were the professors. They can't be teaching emotional intelligence when they're on the news with their literal drunken sex scandals. You know, losing bar exams because you're on a cruise with your mistress. Oh, I'm not kidding you. That is a chapter in my you can't make this shit up book. You can't. So maybe maybe the law professors, they don't teach us about emotional intelligence. Maybe we leave that to somebody else. I think it needs to be somewhere, though. It needs to come in to the curriculum. I mean, along with, you know, actually how to run a practice, the business of running a practice, you know, and helping people understand, like, how do you hire, how do you, you know, work with somebody to support them through a problem? How do you terminate if needed? You know, just all of the things like this idea that somehow we're all going into a big law firm.

Speaker 2 (00:21:59) - I mean, the stats just show that to be so far from the truth, right? And oh, and that it's okay if you don't. Number one, that doesn't make you a less attorney. And you also have a right to get paid, even if you're not in a big firm. There's there's an idea. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, don't you think that comes in to the whole money mindset of of what is happening with I mean, I know you've heard it because, I mean, you and I are almost the same age, I think, where when we went through law school, it was this whole, like, everyone should do, you know, this many hours of pro bono work? And I'm like. Um, okay. Well, could we at least, like, make sure we're all, like, getting paid? We're eating, we're paying our student loans. We're making sure our employees are eating and paying their student loans. And it's like, seriously? I mean, the numbers.

Speaker 2 (00:22:54) - I mean, I'm all for pro bono work, don't get me wrong. Like, I mean, if we can make it work and obviously as a firm, we can have policies around what works for us and what fits in who are our situation. But to try to guilt attorneys into like 100 hours a year of pro bono work, I'm like, yeah, and let's get real. So I was, I pro bono queen here in law school. I was the head of the domestic violence pro bono thing, which was a big deal at our law school. And, and, I mean, I, I did all of the things and I was quickly disillusioned. Disillusioned because I got, you know, even in law school, like. Okay, well, we're throwing a little, you know, we're throwing a crumb at this person that's not helping them, right? This person doesn't know what to do here. Telling him to go and fill this out. And okay, that's not helpful. So I'm a big believer in low bono.

Speaker 2 (00:23:53) - I think people have to have skin in the game. Yep. Have to have skin in the game. And I, I spent some time in a third world country as a kid in I mean poverty, the likes of which most people can't even imagine. Okay, so I do. I think I know what I'm talking about here. Even in the most remote village where there's no electricity, there's no running water. Relationships were reciprocal, right? It might not be an equal money value, but let me tell you, you know, nobody was coming to your house for dinner without bringing something, right? It might be, you know, a dead chicken. It might be, you know, some rice. But they were bringing you something, right? That's human nature. And if there's not some reciprocity, it it's a problem. So I'm a low bono person. Um. And do it or don't do it. Not. You know, I'm going to go to a I should be careful. Um, you know, the road to hell is paved with great intention, right? So I think it's important sometimes for us to step back and, you know, instead of giving ourselves a pat on the back and say, oh, I did all this pro bono this year or this, you know, awards, first of all, if you have to get don't even get me started on awards for pro bono and all that nonsense.

Speaker 2 (00:25:14) - But, but. Do it or don't. Exactly. Take a case from start to finish. But going to a clinic and, you know, in a different practice area and giving advice that you don't even know is right. No. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's pretty concerning. Pretty concerning. Anyway, that's my to $0.02. But absolutely, you know, it's I think it's important for us also to look at who's saying that. What position are they in. Because it's really easy to sit there and say you should when you're getting a paycheck every two weeks. Exactly. When you when you have nothing to lose. So and we don't even examine who's saying it. Yeah, I find it a fascinating thing. And I think it just almost encourages what I see to be some of the small law firm owners. I see a lot of self-sabotage in small law firm owners as far as their money goes and their finances. You know, like really just not having a good relationship with money and the whole idea of how can they.

Speaker 2 (00:26:26) - Own the money like and and just not turning it into something. It's not. I mean, I think of money as just almost a tool, you know, like but a lot of people, I think, get wrapped up in all kinds of things. Uh, well, I do a money workshop. Oh, and it's about your relationship with money because it's. And it's called it ain't about the money because it ain't about the money. And, you know, some of us come by this naturally. Some of you know, honestly, some of this, you know, is a lot of childhood stuff. But, yeah, the powers that be in the legal industry do not help. I mean, when you go to CLE after CLE after CLE and they're talking about, oh, if a client complains, refund their money. Pardon, pardon if I've done something wrong. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, and and maybe if it's a business decision. Maybe. But this automatic like are you paying my bills.

Speaker 2 (00:27:24) - Right. You know, unless they did something unethical or, you know, cost benefit, you know, I get it. But then again, you know why? Why is your client and happy but just this automatic, like you don't have a right to make money. The whole reasonable fee. I've been practicing since 1997. I could no more look at another attorney's statement and see if that was reasonable or not. Then I could fly, flap my arms and fly to the moon. Now, if somebody had something that was hourly that was crazy, like, you know. I build two hours to file a notice of appearance or, you know, something, you know, yeah, that's going to get my attention. And I'm going to be like, huh? Tell me about that. Okay. But this idea that you can judge somebody else and is that fee reasonable? I mean, and it's, it's it's so crazy. And the hourly billing is so insane. I remember when one of my first jobs, um, it probably was my first job.

Speaker 2 (00:28:29) - It was at Kmart, remember? Kmart. Oh, yeah. Okay. And this thing, it was dirty. It was even at 16, it felt degrading. You know what one of the worst parts of that job was, was the clocking in and clocking out. The look of this big machine made this big noise. It was so degrading. And I knew that at 16 and here we are, we have doctorate degrees, we do important things, and here we are literally clicking, clocking in and clocking out to get our little money. And I have attorneys going, oh, I don't know, flat fees I don't know. That's dangerous. Oh you can't do that. And family law telling us who've been doing it in family law for, you know, 15 plus years. Oh, oh okay. We'll explain how we're doing it. What we what we're doing is crazy. It's crazy. It's so wild how it is still so. It's so still not mainstream at all. And I mean, we haven't gotten our firm hasn't gotten to a full flat fee model.

Speaker 2 (00:29:31) - I mean, we are working on it and, you know, we're moving over and doing all the things, but people literally will be like, Elise, you realize this isn't going to work at all in family lore. So how how did how did attorneys attorneys have been a turning since well before Christ? Okay, guess when hourly came about? Pretty recently. Pretty freaking recently. Okay. 60, 70 years. So how was it that they charged before all of those thousands of years flat fees? This isn't you know, this isn't rocket science, y'all. This is how we buy everything every single day. Only attorneys are making it over. My job is so stupid. At least. Seriously, my job is so freaking stupid. It is teaching the simplest thing to attorneys. It's okay. You want to buy this calculator? How much do you want to buy? How much are you willing to pay for this calculator? This is what I teach attorneys. The reason that I make good money doing it is because we attorneys overcomplicate and overcomplicate and overcomplicate and overthink and overthink.

Speaker 2 (00:30:49) - Just tell me what you. You want to buy a for a dollar? You want to buy it for five. This is this is how simple it is, right? Well, then I look at the criminal law side because so many criminal attorneys use flat fees and have used them. And that's just been their model kind of forever. You know, and when people want to say, oh, it's impossible and family law and I'm thinking, do you know how many like court hearings, criminal attorneys go to those calendar calls status things like it is a constant. And how are we doing it if it's impossible, how are we all doing it and how have we done it for decades? I could I could sit here and give you a list and list and list I when I was up in Washington before you, I as far as I know, I was the only family law attorney in Washington doing flat fees, right. How did I do it? It's impossible. I'm doing it. I've done it.

Speaker 2 (00:31:39) - That's just fear. That's just. That's just the. I'd rather not try and fail rather than figure it out or admit. Put my ego aside and admit that maybe I, I need help. Yeah, which is reasonable, I think, to get the help and figure out, okay, what can I learn? Somebody said to me the other day and it really just struck me, we pay for consultants and coaches, and the whole reason to do that is to gain their 10,000 and 20,000 hours of expertise and be able to short circuit some of that learning and that failing that, we might do on our own, which would be perfectly normal to happen. But if we can short circuit some of it, great, more power to us. And for somebody to see what we don't see, we don't see our own blind spots. You know, we're sitting there walking around with, you know, toilet paper flowing out of our skirt and we don't see it. And so, yeah, a good coach, a good consultant is going to be like, hey, this is why you're this, this is what you're doing wrong, right? There's the toilet paper.

Speaker 2 (00:32:50) - Here's the toilet paper. But but you got to get your ego out of it. And and what I love is I'll see, you know, in the on the attorney and flat fee group, somebody or lawyers on the beach, somebody will say, oh, I tried flat fees and it was a disaster. Okay. So let me let me get this straight. You tried something that you've never done before where you have no instruction, you have no one showing you how to do it. And it didn't work. And so it doesn't work. Imagine translating that to any other skill. Oh, I tried to make bread today. I didn't look at a recipe. I've never made bread before. I didn't even watch a YouTube video, but I put some water and flour together. And it didn't work. No shit. Right. Exactly. When I think of it like learning, can you imagine learning calculus or, you know, mechanical engineering just being like, yeah, I decided I'm gonna just, like, go out there and, you know, whip up a car, right? It's going to I mean, it takes a little bit of practice.

Speaker 2 (00:33:53) - So you have to know the things, and it still takes practice to get a new skill. But again, you know, let's you got to get the ego out of it. Have you read or, you know, kind of looked into any of the sci Wakeman teachings, like reality based leadership or no ego? Um, she actually, I mean, when you talk about the ego piece, I think you would really enjoy some of her, her books. And I mean, she's, you know, a leader. What's the name? Her name is Sai Sai Wakeman Wakeman. And she has a book, Reality Based Leadership or No Ego. And I mean, the no Ego book is such a powerful read around the drama that's caused by ego and how much emotional waste occurs in businesses due to egos and due to, you know, ego related behaviors and how and it's literally just, um, it's kind of mind boggling to me how powerful it is. We're reading it as a firm. We're doing like a book club.

Speaker 2 (00:35:02) - And it's really interesting, you know, to see how how people react to different things. And, you know, a lot of times you'll have people be like, well, we obviously don't need this. We don't have this problem. And I'm thinking like, I'm like, I think I'm pretty. I've done a lot of work recently, the last six years. I think that, um. I've done very well on my ego, but just this morning at least I had to take my car into service and they gave me a loaner. And, you know, of course they give you a nice brand spanking new. Yeah, a beautiful loaner. You know, they're not stupid. No. And I'm driving this thing. I don't even like it, but I'm like, oh that's pretty. And oh that's 000 my ego's, you know, like, who am I trying to. And then if I can see where people go and you know, before you know it, you've just bought a $70,000 car and that is 100% ego that you back up with.

Speaker 2 (00:36:08) - Well, actually, I do need those side beeper things. It's a safety thing, you understand, in the massage seat. It's not an ego thing, it's a safety. And we do that every single day. All day long. Totally. I mean, I find though, this is I mean, this is one reason, I think when we moved out to the place we live where we're just surrounded by nature and just like, literally like if I have my choice of hopping on my phone and looking at social media or sitting in my hot tub and looking for eagles, I am in the hot tub looking for eagles every single time. Good. Because do you know what I mean? That whole just like, I don't know what it is, but almost got me started on social media. Yeah, the keep up with the Joneses mentality of everything. And I mean, it's something Doug and I are really digging into figuring out. Like, I mean, even in our travel, we're like, how can we only go see nature? Like, how can we make it where we're spending our time in places that are truly bringing us peace, you know, bringing down all stress and all things? I mean, I hate to say like I'm this anti city girl now, but a lot of times I'm, I just, I don't want to get caught up in I mean, we go to Seattle, you know, to spend the night.

Speaker 2 (00:37:33) - We might have things to do and it's immediately this, you know, I mean, you're in a parking lot in our car is, you know, $100,000 less than 100 cars around us. And I'm just like, whoa, we are. And it's kind of wild sometimes when you do this. And I bet you experience when you go, well, you know, I moved from downtown Seattle. You know, where my little house in West Seattle was, overlooking the water overlooking the port and the city and, and very much caught up in the stuff. And I just knew I needed I knew I needed out of that. Right. And I'm in this little town, a little blue collar town in Texas. Not even in, you know, cool. Austin. And it has I'm calmer. That's I am calmer. And then I spend I spent some time in Italy. I'm going back and right. And I do better in small and calm and quiet. And if I need fancy, I can go get fancy.

Speaker 2 (00:38:42) - That's fine. But when you. Nature is very healing. Oh, it's. I did not I truly did not realize at one I didn't realize how much healing that was needed. Like, let's be serious. I mean, right, I think until I went through 2022 and I think when my bookkeeper died in a plane crash that just like absolutely did me in, like I was just, you know, how kind of like you've kept everything a little bit below that surface and you're thinking you're, you know, handling it, you're compartmentalizing it all perfectly, and it's all good. Well, beautiful lies we tell ourselves that definitely bubbled over to a like, oh, okay. That wasn't great. And then you know how that goes once it starts overflowing. You've got, you know, because it wants to come out. So like once there's an opening it's like, oh, we're. Exactly. Count us in that trauma Olympics, though. Yeah. So it was it was kind of a time. But then having this year and making such a concerted effort in 2023 to literally be like, if it is not a peaceful thing, it's not happening.

Speaker 2 (00:39:55) - Like, I mean, just really toning it all down. And it was exceedingly eye opening to realize just how much I mean, just like you're talking about. I didn't even realize I needed to be calmer. Do you know what I and being around nature, it it also puts you in your place a little bit tiny the world and. Yeah. And you really realize, you know, what you thought was a big deal isn't. And life goes on and sometimes it doesn't. You know. Yeah. Being around I mean I didn't think I loved cows going to work and driving by cows almost every day. I don't know why. Don't ask me why, but it just brings me down. Seeing the stars when you can see stars at night, which is something a lot of people literally can't even do, right? Because of all the city lights. You okay? We're here for a little, a little bit. Life's going to go on. Do your best. But really, is this is this that big of a deal? You know, this client not hiring you or, you know, whatever, whatever, right.

Speaker 2 (00:41:11) - Whatever. And it's so many of those like, really? I mean, I said something to somebody the other day, I'm like, is this thing something you're going to even remember five years from now? I'm like, if not, can we just forget about it now rather than actually spending all this time you're about to go ruminate and Lord knows what. And I'm like, let's just let it go right now by oh, it's not even the time. It's the energy. It's the energy vampire of the ruminating and the taking it home with you and, you know, thinking about it, how much that night. And so that's what I do. Well, I love that. And how can people best reach you? Like if somebody wants to find you, they want to work with you. Either be it on the flat fees, the happier attorney, the money mindset work that just general coaching in mindset. How can somebody best reach you? So for flat fees happier attorney com okay or I'm on Facebook just private message me.

Speaker 2 (00:42:11) - Um and for the personal development uh, it's going to be breed along comm. That website is not up yet. Um, and it's just be pretty low income. So just private message me on Facebook. Um, or just Google. Just I'm pretty I'm pretty easy to to find, but and what I would say about the personal development is everybody has their crap. Everybody. Oh, yeah. And the more you're like, I don't want to do that, the more you need to do it. And my my life has just been. I cannot even tell you how my life has been transformed by one person who cared enough about me to say, what if you everything in your life is going to change? If you start being kind to yourself. If you don't, nothing will change. You don't have it because you don't feel worthy of having it. And I didn't understand what he was saying. Pretty, pretty smart guy who has done it. I didn't understand it all, but I trusted him enough to just go, okay, I don't know what that I don't even know what that meant.

Speaker 2 (00:43:29) - Because seriously, I'm like, you don't understand. I'm nice to myself, I get facials. Okay. That's how out of touch I was. I equated facials with being kind to myself, as I'm being a total ass to myself as I was flogging myself and talking to myself like just such shame based at the likes of which I would never speak to another human being right every day. And once I started that journey, then the floodgates opened and I wouldn't go back. I literally when I started this work, I was. If I am in a van down by the river. But I'm doing this work, so be it. So be it, I don't care. I feel the same way about this personal development. I would live in a van down by the river. I would be homeless every day and be who I am now and how I feel about myself now. Then go back to who I was. Six, seven, eight years ago. Now the good thing is the outside things happen along with it.

Speaker 2 (00:44:42) - I don't ever have to make that choice, but I would. It is. It's the best feeling in the world. It's the. It's the feeling. Here's what it is. At least all of the feelings that everybody's chasing. You know, when I make this money, I'll feel better. When I have this in savings. I'll feel better when I marry that person. I'll feel better when I divorce that person. I'll feel better when I am a size four. I'll feel that when I get to, you know, that trip off, all of the things that everybody chases all of the time. They're trying to get the feeling that I've got. But they don't know it. And you can't get the feeling out there with all of the stuff, right? That's not where it is. It's internal and the only way to get it internally. Is to do the work and feel the feelings. You don't want to feel, right? Oh yeah. I mean, feeling those feelings and getting through them.

Speaker 2 (00:45:39) - Well, and I think you hit such a nail on the head when you talk about the core wound part, you know, about feeling worthy and you know whether you feel lovable and you know those types of things and really accepting and understanding where that comes from. And then how can you almost like, retrain yourself, you know, and, and actually be able to create worthiness and love ability and you know, those things inside yourself? Yeah, that's that's it. I mean, that's in an absolute nutshell. And there are a lot of hurt and people out there. Well, and that's the part that just I feel like in our profession it's a higher number than normal. Like, and I don't know if people are just attracted to it to work out their shit or if something happens here or combination. But who acts like that? Well, it's so sad to me. The suicide. We see the drug and alcohol abuse we see. I mean, just. Really anger. Oh such anger. Such anger that we.

Speaker 2 (00:46:52) - That that and the the poor behavior. That we can get away with. I mean, this, this last trial opposing counsel. I mean, he went, you know, there's fair game. Have at it. Freaking have at it. Then there is intentionally trying to humiliate opposing party for the sake of humiliating the opposing party. Right. That has nothing to do with my client. That has to do with you and your insecurity and your shit. And who does that? Who does that? And we can get away with it because I'm just I'm just cross-examining. I'm just zealously advocating for my client. And and, you know, the judges don't do anything. The judges aren't like, hey, knock it off. Nobody does anything about it. So people get away with it, you know? And that tells me everything about that person, right? So yeah, we're pretty unhappy. I mean, I've had two suicide threats on calls when people are calling me about flat fees to learn about my program.

Speaker 2 (00:47:59) - Two suicide threats. Wow. Um, people are hurting. Oh, I think I really think they are. I mean, I just I see a lot of hurt out in our profession, and it truly just. It makes me sad. Like it really makes me sad. I mean, I saw something might have been this morning where somebody was saying that there was a CEO out in the world that literally turned down a remote work request from a mom whose baby was born, and they're in the NICU. And the CEO was like, no, you need to come to the office. And I was like, what? I'm like, where is basic humanity? I mean, the fact that this mom is actually thinking she's working while the child is in the NICU is kind of amazing to me. And I'm like, the thought that you'd be like, no, you can't work from home. You need to be in the office. That's like, what's the matter with people? Yeah, and it's not safe in our profession.

Speaker 2 (00:49:02) - It's not safe to to be vulnerable, to say, I'm really having a hard time. And again, you know, the road to hell is paved with good intention. And now we have these lawyer assistants programs. Would you feel safe going to one of those? I wouldn't I wouldn't feel safe saying, hey, I'm really, you know, having a hard time to the bar. You know, whether it's true or not, they certainly have earned a reputation for eating their young, you know, and and I have a client who has had some mental health issues. They are on her, like where I'm like, okay, has she done anything wrong? No. Right. You're just all up in her business saying she has to be on this drug and this drug and this drug. Oh, because the bar, the bar association should be dictating what drugs you're on. That's a problem for me. That's so. No, it's not safe to, you know, say. Yeah, it's I'm really struggling here.

Speaker 2 (00:49:59) - The reform that could happen in our profession is literally limitless in my mind. Absolutely limitless. And yeah, it's yeah, we could we could have a whole nother conversation about that. Okay. I really, really appreciate your time and being able to speak with you today. I mean, I just I feel like I could talk to you for hours. I. I could. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. And we will be. Thank you for your work. Oh, you know, thank you for. I think the more people, you know, start talking about the emperor not having clothes on. The safer it is for everybody to go in. You don't have any clothes on. And what we're doing ain't working, and this is nuts. Yeah, well, I think we have to. I mean, I just I think those of us that have been in this profession long, long. And I've watching it, I don't see a lot of evolution in the timeframe that I have been.

Speaker 2 (00:51:02) - And I think I've been practicing law since 1994. And I'm like, hello? Like, that's a while now. And, um, there's still some of the same struggles. And I'm like, I think it's worse. And that's a problem like that is, can you imagine if you had the same behavior you had in 1994, like, what a mess your life would be right now. Like, I think it's actually worse, actually, to evolve what I see is worse. I see behavior that is absolutely worse than when I started practicing. It's just kind of unbelievable. Well, I do really appreciate your time and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks so much. Bye bye.

Speaker 1 (00:51:47) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Mom podcast, a production of Maximum Lawyer Media. Be sure to subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. See you next time.