January 25, 2024 • 51 mins
Reach out to John here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/protectingpatientrights/
Or send him an email at jfisherlawyer@gmail.com
Learn about John's Mastermind Experience: https://www.mastermindexperience.com/jointheexperience
Check out John's books: https://ultimateinjurylaw.com/
Other mentions in this episode:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmorganesq/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethprice/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamumansky/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-smith-0bb6ba/
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Owning a business is a challenge. Knowing how to keep innovating in your business is an even bigger one. Join restaurant owner, motivational speaker, and innovation expert Sara Frasca each week as she guides fellow business owners in taking the next step to level up their business. If you've ever pondered hiring a business coach but want a sample first, come along for the adventure!
Send us a message to join the show for free business guidance: https://pointnortheast.com/contact-us/
Sara Frasca is the founder and owner of Trasca & Co Eatery in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, an experienced and engaging motivational speaker, and the CEO of global business coaching firm Point NorthEast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
You're listening to level up your business, the
podcast where we talk tohardworking business owners and
leaders and help them solve realissues in real time. I'm your
host, Sarah Frasca restaurantowner, keynote speaker and
business coach. I've spent mycareer not only in corporate
(00:20):
America, but also as anentrepreneur, carrying on my
family's legacy through myrestaurant. Now a business coach
and consultant. I'm helpingother businesses to use creative
problem solving and innovativethinking to drive lasting
change. Stay tuned to hear someinspiring guidance that will
(00:40):
help you to level up yourbusiness. Yeah.
Oh, it's a gorgeous location.
It'sso amazing. Well, good morning,
John. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for joining us. Youand I are both in West Palm
Beach today and in a little bitof different locations, but
together on the podcast. Sowelcome to the level up your
(01:02):
business podcast. Thank you.
Appreciate it. Yeah, lookingforward to the interview and the
next couple of days. Meto truly, and it's a little bit
warmer for you tell, tell ustell all the listeners kind of
where you hail from.
You know, I I'm from upstate NewYork, it's very cold, there's
(01:22):
lots of snow, it's freezing. Sothis is a great sort of escape
for for me, and really great.
We're here as part of themastermind. You're here as part
of a mastermind. And we'rereally looking forward to the
next day and a half. It'sgreat. Well, thanks for coming
all the way from the NorthCountry. You probably remember,
I'm from Minnesota, so I cancommiserate with all of the kind
(01:43):
of January winter temps. Happyto be here in the sunshine. So
thanks again for the invite.
Well, I wanted to have you ontoday. I mean, you have such a
unique kind of stance in theindustry, you've done so many
amazing things. But first, willyou go backwards a little bit
just to kind of explain to folkswhere you've come from? Why did
(02:06):
you decide to become anattorney? Why did you build this
career in this path? And tell usa little about that? Well, Mark
Twain once said that there's thetwo most important days of your
life are the day you're born.
And the day you find out thereason that you were born the
purpose of your life, basically.
And this goes back to when I wasjust a lawyer. I was I didn't
(02:28):
really know what to do. And ayoung 30 year old black male
came into my office, he hadsustained a traumatic brain
injury in a bus wreck. No lawyerwanted his case, there's a
multitude of reasons for it. Isaid, fine. I don't know
anything about personal injurylaw, but I'll try to, I'll try
to help you out. I startedgetting into it. And I would say
(02:51):
within just a matter of days, ifnot less than that. I realized
this is what I was meant to dowith the rest of my life. I
absolutely loved it. And my wifewould be like, you're so
obsessed with this stuff. Youknow, every time we go to a
park, you're reading and you'restudying. And it's like, yeah,
exactly that this is what I lovedoing. I love representing I
(03:12):
have a passion for the rights ofthe disabled. It's not about
money for me, and it never hasbeen. And so really, that is the
purpose of our firm. And soabout 11 years ago, I was
invited to my first mastermind,no lawyers, it was at
Infusionsoft in Chandler,Arizona, and the chief
(03:33):
executives of Infusionsoft hadthis meeting with business
owners from all around theworld. And I have to tell you,
Sarah, my mind was just I justcouldn't believe the things that
I was exposed to business ownersfrom South Africa, from
Australia, from United Kingdomeverywhere, who are sharing
(03:54):
their story and helping me runmy small law firm in upstate New
York. And I thought, this is themost amazing thing I've ever
experienced. So two and a halfdays of that, I come back to New
York, and my wife says, I'm soexcited. I'm telling her all
about it. And my wife says slowdown. How much did this cost?
Me? Like, it doesn't matter? Andso she said, No, no, no, how
(04:16):
much? I told her $10,000. Andshe goes, Are you kidding me? We
could have had a vacation forthat amount of money. We could
have done all this stuff. I saiddoesn't matter. Those were the
three best days of myprofessional life. So Sarah,
what I did is I started lookingaround and at a lawyer
masterminds and they existedback then in 2013. I didn't like
(04:39):
what I saw, like it was soexpensive, like $25,000 a year
and all this other stuff. And Ijust kind of felt like what if
we built a mastermind thatwasn't based on money or profit,
and we did it solely for theview of sort of leveraging the
wisdom of others, maybe making alittle bit of money. When I
(05:00):
turned out Sarah, none of thosethings actually worked out
because I do leverage the wisdomof other people. That's really
important. We lose money onevery mastermind so that I'm a
terrible businessman. What Ifound out Sarah was that
watching younger attorneysthrive in their law firms has
got his what his made thisworthwhile. And just recently,
(05:22):
lawyer posted a video on socialmedia that he was just he broke
away from his law firm. He'sstarting his own firm. He's got
like 10 clients. And he thankedour our mastermind for helping
make this happen. That is thereason why we do this when Ryan
McCain has $100 million verdictlast about a year ago. That's
(05:43):
why we do this to help. MichaelSmith, your partner, he was at a
Chicago mastermind looks at uswith us in 2017. And Ryan
Mateen, who's a lawyer fromConnecticut went to that
mastermind. And he said thatMichael Smith changed the way
that he thought about thepractice of law, he's no longer
thinking of it as a lawyer, he'sthinking as a business person.
(06:06):
And that, that gave him sort ofthe business foundation, to the
sort of the the inspiration todevelop a business rather than
just a law firm. And be and heneeded that business. Because if
you're spending 200, or$300,000, on a single case, you
better have a good foundation,or you're going to be honest.
And so that led to his success,and he attributes that to
(06:30):
Michael Smith, your partner, andMichael has just been
invaluable. I mean, it's we heand I met by accident, and it
was one of the best things thatever happened to me.
Wow, I need to actually that'sso funny to hear you say that
Michael has been just a key tomy life as well. I mean, I think
that's why we do what we do isto help people and to give them,
(06:51):
you know, better chance ofsuccess, not only in their
business, but also in theirlife. You know, John, I just I
have always been appreciative ofthe effort that you put in to
help others. And I would say,you know, I think of it as kind
of an investment, right? I mean,the money you put in, and don't
always get back is kind of aninvestment in the futures of
(07:15):
others, you know, and hopefully,you glean some insight as well.
But I just want to thank you,honestly, on behalf of the
people who care, I mean,Michael, and I care about people
getting the life they deserve. Imean, it's like, so many
business owners, it's like a oneway street, right? Like, I'm
giving all this money and allthis energy, and all this time
(07:37):
and all this passion, andnothing comes back. I mean, what
a what a disaster, it shouldyield the benefit that people
want. And the law industry, Ithink, has really yielded a lot
of benefit from you helpingpeople to run it like a
business.
Well, thank you for saying that.
But I can tell you, I've had somany conversations over the
years with Michael Smith. I'venever gotten a bill for any of
that. I mean, he just helps me.
(07:59):
And he says, Hey, I don't knowthe person for you, but I can
advise you. So we're in amastermind in Chicago. This is
probably about seven or eightyears ago, and I get a call
during the meeting at amastermind. And it's from one of
my friends who's a lawyer inupstate New York, and he said,
I've got a problem, my partnerand I, it looks like we might
(08:20):
break up. It's going to be atotal mess. Do you know anyone
who can help me? I said, I'vegot no idea. So I walk into the
next room. And there's HarlandSchillinger. there and I said,
Harland. Do you know anyone whocan help with a partnership
issues like this? He goes, Iknow the perfect person, Michael
Smith. So I just took theinformation I gave it to my
friend didn't hear anything forsix months. And then six months
(08:43):
later, my friend said, John, Ihave to tell you, Michael Smith
was the best thing that couldhave happened. He met with us he
flew into New York, he went overeverything. We couldn't resolve
it, but we did. We broke apartbut we're still friends. We work
everything out all the details.
And what a resource that is foranybody to have someone like you
or Michael. And I tell you,Sarah, I hear from Craig
(09:06):
Goldfarb all the time. We likeSarah Frasca. It's amazing. And
she has laid sort of the coreEOS principles for our firm and,
you know, and he attributes alot of his success to his work
with you. And so I think really,the whole concept of the
mastermind is to be aroundpeople who are higher achievers
than you are. Ideally you wouldbe the I wouldn't be the dumbest
(09:29):
person in the room surrounded bymuch brighter people were
willing to do anything to guideyou not only on the day of the
mastermind, but after themastermind, because I think no
one's taught businessfoundations fundamentals, no one
we're not taught any of thatstuff. But we're expected to
know it. None of us really doknow that. Focusing on the
(09:52):
business fundamentals is socritical and that's marketing
and managing a law firm. andleveraging the knowledge of
people who've already done it,who've made all the mistakes.
That's the best advice I couldhave for a young or old
attorney.
Yeah, it's funny, you talked alittle bit about your passion.
(10:12):
And I would say one of mypersonal passions, is teaching
business owners and businessleaders how to, you know, kind
of upset the applecart, how tothink differently, how to find
new ways of navigating eitherservicing their clients or
serving their team or, you know,breaking into the industry in a
(10:33):
new way. I call it positivedisruption. And so my next
question, I'm just kind ofcurious, are you still doing
what you did in Arizona allthose years ago? Like, are you
looking at other industries? Areyou looking to find and glean
insight from other placesall the time, all the time? I
wasn't really reading otherbusinesses like Amazon and Jeff
Bezos, when Jeff Bezos startedAmazon, people didn't even know
(10:57):
what the internet was. I mean,that was just a crazy concept.
Here's a guy who had a highpaying investment job in New
York City, his future wasbright, he was married,
everything looked great. He waslike, I think they're around 30
years old. And people were like,wait a minute, you're gonna move
to Seattle, Washington, youdon't know anyone there. And you
(11:18):
know why he moved to Seattle,Washington, that do you know
that he moved there? Becauseback at that time, if you you
didn't have to charge sales taxor collect sales tax, if you
didn't have an office, or aphysical location in the state
where you're selling goods? SoWashington's a small city,
(11:38):
figured if I'm in a small state,I'm not going to have to collect
sales tax on anything that Isell outside of the state of
Washington. That's why he movedthere. Wow. Yeah. You know, it
was really a thing is, and butbut you know, it was really a
crazy idea, but he didn't. Andthat's what we think, in the
mastermind, to inspire people todo things that are outside their
(11:58):
comfort zone, things that arecrazy, our law firm changed our
name, from my name to the NewYork injury and malpractice law
firm PC. And just yesterday, Iwas thinking, we wanted to
expand our practice to medicalmalpractice outside of New York
State. Because we currently dothat I practice in Alabama and a
few other states. And so I thinkmaybe we should change that make
(12:20):
a firm that's called America'smedical malpractice, law firm
PC, most people Sarah wouldlaugh at that and say, well,
that's ridiculous, why not justJoe Smith PC, I don't like the
idea of using my name, I wouldmuch rather brand it and use
that not just for the Internetpurposes. But also, because it's
(12:40):
an asset that at the end of mycareer, I could sell something
that has my name, I just don'tview that the same that it would
be an asset that I could sell.
Because if I'm not there, itdoesn't have that much value. So
the idea is to take myselfoutside the business as much as
I can. But Sarah, one of thething that Craig Goldfarb taught
(13:02):
me a long time ago, and it's avaluable lesson is that not
everyone's meant to be a CEO.
Not everyone wants to be a CEO.
And that's perfectly okay. Youhave what you want to do with
your life. And for me, if youtold me, I couldn't go to do
trials, I couldn't do clientmeetings, I couldn't do
(13:23):
depositions. And I just had tosit in an office and look at
graphs and charts all day, Iwould be I quit. That's, I'm
done with that. I don't want todo that. So you're different
like that. He wants to be theclassic CEO. And I'm more
somewhere in between, because Ilike I like handling cases,
stuff like that. So I'm notgonna give that up. And you
(13:45):
know, grace is one of the fewpeople I've met who says, that's
totally fine. You don't have tobe like me. I really appreciate
that. Because each one of us hasour own unique skills. And in
Strategic Coach, we call thisyour unique ability. And unique
ability means what do you dothat you're passionate about
that you do better than anythingelse, because most of us spend
(14:05):
5% of our day in our uniqueability, we're doing all the
other stuff that we hate. Thegoal is to basically take what
we hate, delegate it out, andfocus an 80 to 85% of our day,
doing the stuff that we areuniquely skilled at doing. And
everyone has that there's thingsthat each worker has that if
(14:25):
they really thought about it,they do better than anyone else
in the world. And that's whereyou need to spend your time.
Yeah. Well, what you describedis kind of back to the beginning
where I said it, it better be atwo way street, right? You're
spending your life thisprecious, precious, fleeting
moment of time that we get ashumans and if you're not having
(14:46):
benefits, and I I don't pretendto know what everybody's you
know, that desired benefits areit could be, they want balance.
They want money they want, youknow, security. I mean for
everyone, it's different. Whenyou can find that sweet spot
when you can find a businessthat gives back to you. And you
can be in that 85% moment whereyou're doing the thing that your
(15:10):
heart beats for, right? You'repassionate. I mean, it's like
this whole new energy, come withexcitement and exuberance, and
you're ready to go when you'rethinking and you're, it's, it's,
it's a shame that people don'trecognize how few of us are not
having that on a daily basis. Imean, you think about the energy
(15:31):
drain in just the corporateworld, just business. I mean,
it's so sad that someone wouldbe slogging it through every
day, I mean, find, as a businessowner, find the purpose that you
have, find the things that makeyou happy and are making you
challenged and excited. Andagain, for some folks, that is
(15:53):
coming up with ideas, networkingin their community, being the
CEO of their business. But forsome of us, it's being an
artist, that I mean, I loveserving. So having direct
contact with the people that I'mserving is very, very much in my
interest. And I know it is foryou as well. So I love all
(16:13):
that. And you know, so I reallythink is as important as
business fundamentals are andknowing your numbers, which are
critical. I agree with all ofthat. I also think it's a very
shallow life, if all we'refocused on is, is how much money
do we make? That's a reallyshallow existence. So that the
purpose of our law firm, and ittook a while to come to this is
(16:33):
really simple stopping medicalinjustice. I spent three days
figuring that out with our team.
And I just kept saying, why dowe do this? Why do we do that?
And, and it boiled down to onesimple thing, stopping medical
injustice, it's not make as muchmoney as possible. Because I
don't think that inspiresanyone, and anyone on your team,
if they seem to think thatthey're solely working to make
(16:55):
as much money for your law firmas possible. They're not too
inspired. But if they know thatwe are serving a purpose, a
higher purpose than simplymaking money. I can tell you,
Sarah, I never one of the Forte,we only have four core values of
our law firm. One of them is wenever agree to confidential
settlements. And some peoplewill say to me, that's not a
core value. I'm like, well, itis for us. And I can tell you,
(17:17):
it's amazing. Because in theworld of medical malpractice,
I'm not aware of any other lawfirm that that has that value,
they all agree to confidentialsettlements we never do,
including now. And they'll sayto us, that's I'll go to a
client, I went to see anOrthodox Jewish woman in
Brooklyn once and she and Italked, she was interviewing law
(17:40):
firms, I spent about an hour inher living room. And then
finally I said to her, I justwant you to know, if you hire
us, we never agree toconfidential settlements,
because our job is not simply tocompensate you, but to improve
the quality of medical care forothers in the future. And if we
agree to confidentiality, that'snot going to happen. And holy
cow, like she and I had notconnected at all. And she goes,
(18:04):
Wow, that's exactly how I feelabout it as well. So she hired
us, in fact, her case is goingto mediation in February. The
reality is, the core values. Andthis is something I learned,
they don't only guide theconduct of your team, but you
can use them. It's almost like amarketing tool. They hear your
values. And if they are valuedriven people, they will be
(18:28):
inspired by your values. Andit's a really cool thing that
you think, Oh, this is only goodfor our team. But no, it's much
more broader than that. It canactually be promotional. How
many law firms, you know, inmedical malpractice that never
agree to confidentialsettlements, other than our law
firm. I don't know of any in thecountry.
(18:49):
I Yeah.
Anyway, I think working on thepurpose, values and mission of
our law firm has been central towhat we do, the mission of our
firm is to have 1000 referringattorneys by October 19 of 2026.
We currently have 599. And we'reworking at it every day. And
(19:10):
when we get a new one, we strikethe gong and we keep moving. So
you know that?
Like that? Yeah. Yes. Oh, John,that's great. And again, I, I
really commend you for havingcrystallized your values. And
your mission, it it will almostact like a magnet, right?
Drawing in people that have thesame values that believe in the
(19:32):
same things. And it's not to saythat those that don't agree or
don't believe in it, or bad byany stretch, but everybody gets
to kind of come up with theirown story and their own values.
But it will, you know, really,really crystallized and make
this such a uniquely wonderfulplace for your people to serve
people who appreciate I mean,it's like, in the five languages
(19:54):
of love, it's like you'vefigured out what your clients
need to be loved and yourpeople, you know it Like you've
figured out the formula.
Well, you know what, Bill Biggs,we hear the word culture thrown
around all the time. And I kindof feel like, well, it's so
nebulous. What does that mean.
And Bill Biggs defined it reallywell, which is, it's basically
having a core a set of beliefswhere everyone is aligned around
(20:16):
the same beliefs, and then ourfirm. If you don't have a
passion for the rights of thedisabled, you're not going to
work out at our firm, it's thebottom line, I don't care how
skilled you are. But if you arepassionate about the rights of
the disabled, that you can getthrough hard days, you can
accomplish anything. And when wewere starting out our firm, this
is now 11 years ago, the firstcouple of years were hard. We
(20:39):
lost money the first year, thesecond year, we were basically
just breaking even. And peoplewere like, Hey, do you think
that will make it and I said, ifit takes every last penny I
have, we're gonna make it. I'mcommitted, I hope you're with
me, because we're going all theway on this thing. They need to
know from the leaders howcommitted you are to your
beliefs. And I say there is noplan B on our law firm, there's
(21:00):
no no escape option or anythinglike that. We're going I'm going
all in. And if we lose the nextthree cases, we're just going to
keep going. Your team needs tohear that they need inspiration,
I believe Jeff Bezos does thisan annual letter to the
shareholders. But Sarah, youknow what's really cool about
that letter, it's not justreciting revenue, and here's
what we're doing blah, blah,blah, he uses his as an
(21:22):
opportunity to inspire andmotivate the, I think, a half a
million employees that he nowhas, that's what he uses it for,
because he doesn't really carewhat the numbers of Amazon are,
they want to be inspired around,thinking long term, being frugal
acting like it's day one, beingcreative, coming up with ideas,
and he inspires all of his teammembers to think that way.
(21:46):
Because everyone's got to do itcan't just be the head of the
organization. So I really, youknow, I've never invested in
Amazon, but I do takeinspiration from from the way
they conduct the business. So areally cool thing in this
mastermind, Sarah, is thehomework was that each, each
member of our mastermind inFlorida has to come up with
(22:06):
their annual letter to theshareholders, what you achieved
last year, and what you hope toachieve those crazy dreams for
the upcoming year. And I can'ttell you how amazed I am by
these, there's 20 of them, Ishare them with you, just by
what not only what people haveaccomplished, but just the big
like one of the I think I canshare this one of them didn't
(22:29):
focus on his law firm at all. Hesaid, I want each team member to
share their dreams, what theirgoals are for the upcoming year.
And that is such a cool thing tofocus not on you and your
revenue. But on each individualteam member. It's great.
It's really lovely. And, youknow, I think a good leader in
(22:51):
my opinion, will recognize thatnot all of the ideas has to come
from them or from the top. Butif they can empower the whole
pyramid of people to think toact like owners to have that
passion drive what they do, Imean, financially increase the
chances of success and thechampions of finding positive
(23:14):
disruption, finding new ways.
And, and I love the idea thatyou're actually asking the
members of the mastermind todistill it, it's, you know, it's
easy sometimes to pretend thatyou have it or or to even come
up with it in the moment. Butwhen you have the homework, to
distill it to be succinct to be,you know, actually able to
(23:35):
communicate it clearly. I thinkthat was an amazing exercise for
you to have the team go through.
And I was also really impressedwith a lot of the the balance of
the human side of the business.
Well, you know what I tell everymastermind, don't, don't come
here with your achievements.
Don't come here with your BS.
(23:57):
Come here with your problems,your challenges, let us help you
because it doesn't matter thatpeople are impressed by what
you've achieved. Let us let uswork on helping you. And we had
in in a Maui mastermind, JohnMorgan of Morgan and Morgan
came, spoke with us for abouttwo hours, and was so honest and
candid about the issues andchallenges that his firm faced.
(24:19):
And we're all sitting therelike, wait a minute, he's got
900 lawyers. This is like theplaintiff's firm in the country.
And here he is sharing like allof his issues and problems. We
didn't know that he had the sameproblems that we do, but but we
all do share the same problems.
And I think ultimately, and Ifall back to this all the time,
Bill big says it the best. Youhave to love, love your team,
(24:40):
but demand excellence. And Ithink that it's really
important. So when we work withpeople, not just that they're
highly skilled, they come towork, they're honest, but we
like working with them, that welove working with them, but also
we need to demand excellence. Soif we see things that are not
being done correctly, we can'tjust let that slide because then
(25:01):
we're accepting mediocrity, wehave to be brutally candid with
them and say, hey, you know,there's a problem here. This is
not what why did this happen?
And demand excellence. And I'vehad people come to me and say,
We want to continue workinghere. We'd love it here. No, we
love the whole team. And I'm sosorry, that the work has not
(25:23):
been up to our standards, wehave to part ways in a very
compassionate way. We i i don'tsee enough of in our industry,
we have to be compassionate andloving with everyone we work
with.
Yeah, no, that's great. Well,okay, tell me a little about the
future, John. I mean, where areyou headed? Next? What are your
(25:43):
aspirations? I mean, maybe evenshare a little bit about your
own shareholder? Letter? Whatwhat's coming up? Yeah, well,
this was a year like we are asmall law firm. We have an
incredible team, we have fivepeople, and I'll share some
little inside football with you.
Our firm is almost entirelyJehovah's Witnesses. There are
we have a five person intaketeam, we've got to we've got a
(26:05):
phenomenal litigation paralegalin Knoxville, Tennessee, we have
people like all over the place,basically working for our firm,
amazing people who I love.
They're just great people. Buthere's the problem in New York
State Medical Malpractice, webasically have done a great job
with that. But it's because oflimitations on legal fees in New
(26:27):
York state. For med mal. It'svery limited. Some of our cases
are just 10%. So our goal overthe next three years, is to
expand to non medicalmalpractice, catastrophic injury
including truck wrecks, trainwrecks, I just handled, worked
with a firm in Virginia and atruck wreck worked out great.
But the reality is, we want toexpand our practice. So this
(26:48):
year, I gave myself the greatestgift maybe I've ever given
myself, which is a full timeintegrator for our firm, that
chief operating officer who hasan experience of 20 years as a
principal at a large public highschool. And the guy has
phenomenal organizationalskills. And basically, Sara, the
(27:09):
whole goal of this is get allthe stuff that I've been talking
about and just get it done. Idon't want a year from now, I
don't want to be talking aboutthis stuff anymore. I just want
it done. We're expanding to NewYork City, I've been talking
about that for years, I justneed to get it done, I need to
get it off my plate. So we hiredit's a big expense. But we hired
the integrator, he starts onMarch 4, and I'm really looking
(27:30):
forward, it's a gift I need tojust make. And because I am
working on cases, it's hard toget all this other stuff done.
But that is something that I'mreally looking at in the next
we've set our goals on a threeyear timeframe. So we are
looking at three years havinggenerating more than 50% of our
revenue on non medicalmalpractice, which is
(27:51):
essentially constructionaccidents.
That's great. And I'm glad thatyou saw that, again, I'll use
the term investment becauseyou're investing in the future
by bringing on someone that canhelp you get things done. And
the cost or the you know, eventhe onboarding takes a lot of
(28:12):
time to bring someone new in.
But that investment, I think,you know, can not only kind of
help you grow, but hopefully ithelps you get some time back so
that you can do the things thatyou are the best at you can work
on that 85%. Right,exactly. It really is. A really
good book this year that I readis called buyback, your time by
Dan Martell. And it's basicallyabout looking at the different
(28:34):
things that you do throughoutthe course of the day and
thinking are those things thatyou really love you're
passionate about. And if not,you should be delegating them.
And you've got to be ruthless indelegating tasks. And it doesn't
necessarily have to be a fulltime employee. It could be
anything. So our firm delegates,basically everything. We don't
(28:54):
do appeals, we don't do probatework, we, our team doesn't
retrieve medical records, wedon't do lien resolution. So all
this stuff that we're not verygood at, we just give to other
people who are phenomenal at it.
And that's a great gift. Becausewe're able to get a better,
better outcome for our clientsyet we're not doing the work.
(29:17):
And we can still charge for thetime of these other people in
probate appeals lien resolution.
So we have a great team rightnow, here's the only thing we
really I've always been veryadamant about is intake that we
do it in house, I'm notcomfortable outsourcing that to
a third party company. I thinkthat the compassion has to come
in house that the people have toshow that we care. And if so,
(29:40):
it's not a case if somebody'sdied or suffered a horrible
injury, take as much time withthat person as they want.
Because that's the worstexperience they've had in their
life. And that I don't view thatas trying to monetize every
call. I just view it as showingcompassionate and that is Part
of the values that we have forpeople, but it's nice when you
(30:01):
represent people that you reallyrespect and like, but if you
record if you represent peopleor work with people that you
don't like, it's really hard.
Yeah, I think that empathy ishard when someone doesn't
understand the full impact. So Ithink it's great that you, you
(30:21):
know, have paid such carefulattention to that intake.
Really, really great. Okay, thisis a tough question, but maybe
you can think about it for asecond and answer it. What's
keeping you up at night rightnow? Like, what are the, like,
things that are worried aboutchallenged with? And, you know,
(30:42):
just, I guess, I guess thequestion would be what's keeping
you up at night? Youknow, it's interesting, Sara,
because there's so much that isnot legal related. And by that I
don't necessarily mean businessrelated. And this is something
that you find out inmasterminds, we have very high
achieving people who have made alot of money have great
businesses, but they havepersonal issues. And that is
(31:03):
something that we all need tofocus on. So I can share with
you, Sarah, I've jogged everysingle day for 1009 days. And
over that course of time, I'vedone the equivalent of 87
marathons. And so this issomething I've really put at the
center of my life, health,fitness and nutrition. It's
(31:24):
really important to me, and sothere are, I call this
streaking. So a streak is whereyou deal with something very
little every single day, and youjust keep after it every day.
And so I've learned this fromsomeone who came to our
mastermind named Jeff Downes,who wrote a book called
streaking. And it's amazing howwhen you when you do little
(31:45):
activities everyday how theresults compound over time, and
develop into things that arereally amazing. So I've done a
monthly print newsletter for ourlaw firm called lawyer alert.
It's just for lawyers. It'sabout marketing, managing a
firm, it's gone out every monthsince December of 2010. It's the
best marketing X asset that wehave. Craig Goldfarb has had a
(32:06):
lunch with a referral partner,or a prospective referral
partner every week, since Ithink 2002. So it's doing these
little activities every singleday, week or month, that add up
to amazing things.
That's fantastic. Okay, on thestreaking, I haven't read the
(32:27):
book, so I'll have to try totell me about the jogging did
you start out with a smallamount and then make it bigger
over time? Nope, orstreakiness to make it super,
laughably easy to do. So thestroke is I'm going to jog at
least one mile every day. If Idid it more than that, I
wouldn't be able to keep it upover time. So tomorrow is
(32:48):
actually the biggest challenge.
I'll be on it like five in themorning, I'll be out jogging
around downtown West Palm Beach,and people will think I'm crazy.
No one will even be up at thathour. But it's just like, hey,
if I don't get up at 5am, I'mnot gonna be able to keep the
streak alive. So when I saystreak, you'll do anything to
keep the streak alive. It's an astreak doesn't have to be daily,
(33:10):
it could be weekly, monthly, youname it, sir. But I documented I
share it. And we just keep afterit every day. And anyone could
use that for their business aswell.
Yeah, I mean, I would say, youknow, the interesting thing
about that is, you know, I, in alot of the teaching that I do, I
use the principle of Kaizen,it's the small, incremental
(33:33):
improvements over time willequal great change, but it's
breaking it down into a smallbite sized and manageable
components. So whatever you'reworking on, whether it's your
health, personally, whether it'syour business, whether it's, I
think a lot of folks expect, youknow, either like a light
switch, or silver bullet, orthey want some magic potion. And
(33:56):
what I have found is that it allcomes down to discipline,
dedication, it really and truly,if you can do it on a, you know,
small bits over time. I thinkthere's more, and I should
probably do a study on this onthe statistics, but I think
there's a better chance ofachieving, because you put the
(34:19):
muscle in place, you'vepracticed the patterned behavior
over time, which allows you tohave that long term success
versus just, oh, we're gonna dosomething overnight, and then
expect massive results. It'll goback to the same way. In my
view.
Absolutely. So Jerry Seinfeld,when he started his career as a
comedian, his streak was that hewould write at least one joke
(34:43):
every single day. And he's beendoing that for I think, like 15
or 20 years. And all of theseshrinks over time. You might
think, well, that's not thathard. That's easy to write one
joke a day. But if you do thatevery day, and here's the key
word, at least, you can do morethan that if you want. So this
more running, I jog five miles.
But my streak is at least onemile. So if I wanted to do a
(35:03):
mile, I could just leave it atthat. But a lot of times, I'll
feel like doing more. And herein Florida, it's gorgeous. So I
just jog a little bit more. Butthe reality is, when you streak,
you will do anything to keep thestreak alive. And it's good to
be in a group of strangers,because then you encourage and
inspire others. And the resultsbecome amazing. Oh, and by the
way, listeners would like mybook that just came out. It's
(35:28):
called win today. And it isabout the power of daily simple
activities. If anyone would likea free signed copy, I'm gonna
give you both my cell and mypersonal email. If they text me
or email me, I'll put it in themail. Jay Fisher fish er
lawyer@gmail.com. Or my cell is518-265-9131. they text me email
(35:50):
me, I'll mail them a signed copyof the book. And well,
well, you can confirm if I gotit right. But we'll put it into
the show notes as well, John?
Yes. Okay, perfect. That is sogenerous. And so gracious of
you, I think. Thank you forthat. And on behalf of the
(36:13):
listeners and viewers, thankyou. You know, I was going to
tell you, Michael Smith also didthe streaking, and I don't think
he called it that. But he setout in his business. And what he
says, and I think you'llappreciate this, the sun will
not set where we won't get backto you. So if we have a client
or we have someone that's askinga question or needs help, we
(36:35):
will not let the day pass, evenif it's on the weekend. And so
one of the things I think aboutthat is like, you know,
sometimes you're on the couch,
and it's like, Oh, it's 1 (36:45):
30pm, or whatever, I just put the kids
to bed or whatever. And it's soexhausting. And you're like, oh
my gosh, I can't imagine havinga business conversation. But if
you keep up that discipline, itgets easier over time. And the
added benefit is the and I'mgoing to use it as like a
marketing or even a core value.
We have become this team ofpeople who do not let our
(37:10):
clients down because we have weare on it. For them, we are
their first call because theyknow we are on the other end of
will help. So I don't know ifthat's considered streaking,
you'll have to tell me butone of the things that is so
invaluable of you, Michael, andyour company is I think every
lawyer should have a strategicadvisor when they make important
(37:33):
decisions about their law firm.
And most of us just say, wow,you know, we'll just see how it
goes. Well, that's not reallygood plan. It's great to have
somebody who like yourself orMichael, who can guide people
through these decisions and say,slow down. Do you think hiring
that person is really the bestmove in this situation? Or
(37:55):
merging with this other lawfirm? Will that dilute your core
values? Really hard? Butimportant questions. And I think
having strategic advisors likeyou, and Michael is just so
invaluable, and more lawyersshould do it? Well,
thanks, John. I mean, even ifit's a friend that they can
bounce things off of, I mean, Ifound when I was opening my
(38:16):
business, my restaurantbusiness, it's lonely at the
top, I mean, your employees arenot your friends, you cannot
talk to them, like you would,you know, a partner or another
business leader, and it's notappropriate to so when I was
opening my restaurant, you know,I would tap into the knowledge
of a lot of the folks from myGeneral Mills days, who were my
(38:37):
friends, my colleagues, they hadgood business knowledge. When
you have a business, in myopinion, it's it's imperative
that the owner or the top of thepyramid, the leaders are finding
that place to ask the dumbquestions up, right, like the
what do I do? What should I doin this case? So you know, how
should I? What have you seenother people try and obviously
(39:01):
I'm very biased as a pro towardscoaching because I've made my
career you know, that's and I'm,but every professional athletes,
you know, people that have madetheir careers acting, I mean,
everyone has a coach, if youwant to achieve, you know, the
next level, perfect your craftcontinue developing. And so
(39:21):
again, I appreciate that you'vesaid that.
Like, every day at 845 in themorning, I have a nutrition
coach who calls me and Idocument every day what I eat,
wow, I think and my exercise,and he reviews it. And then at
845 Every morning, he'll give mecomments. He didn't he and I
just spoke minutes ago, andhe'll say, wait a minute, John,
(39:42):
you're going a little bit heavyon the carbs this week, slow
down with that. And it's like,Okay, gotcha. Great. It's a
powerful thing where you're youhave an accountability partner,
not just professionally but alsopersonally, who's, who's
watching over things and makingsure you're doing what you say
you're going to do.
(40:04):
That's amazing. And what anincredible again, gift you used
the term gift that you gaveyourself to allow. I mean,
investing in your health andyour future. I mean, what better
investment than having someonehelp you from the outside
looking in on your nutrition,your health, those sorts of
things? Gosh, I have tolook, we don't have our health.
We don't have anything, right.
(40:26):
It's so important. Yeah. And Ithink that so many lawyers
neglect that. They'll say, Well,I'm focused on the business, and
all this or then then they getdivorced, they get out of shape.
And it's like, wait a minute,none of this stuff matters. If
our kids hate us, and ourspouses don't like us, that
stinks. You know, I think whatCraig has shared is that he's
(40:47):
had 12 vacations with his wifelast year 2023. And I was like,
that is amazing that because allof our spouses and our kids, all
they want from us is not ourmoney, but our time. And when we
give them our time, we give themthe most valuable asset that we
have. And so you know, when Iwhen I talked about building
(41:08):
relationships with kids, I don'ttalk about giving them stuff I
talk about just going to be withthem spending a weekend with
them, spending the weekend withmy wife with her as she's my
wife was always against ourmastermind. She's like, This is
crazy. You lose so much moneyevery time you do this. Why are
you doing this? Our firm'sbookkeeper hates the
masterminds. And I say to Lee, Isaid least why don't you just
(41:30):
come. And so she came aboutthree years ago, and she's like,
this is the best thing I've everseen. It's amazing, you should
never stop doing this. And soyou have to come to a mastermind
to see what it's like. And onceyou do, it's like holy cow. All
these elite people from acrossthe country are becoming your
friend and they're willing to doanything to help you. That's,
(41:52):
that's more valuable thananything. And that's the power.
You've built one, two, and Iwould say, you know, I come into
these events with a little bitof skepticism. Because sometimes
I find that business owners,they want to beat their chests
and talk about all theiraccomplishments. But your
mastermind is filled with peoplewho genuinely care about each
(42:17):
other, who have no ego, theyleave their you know, I mean,
that's a rule you've given them,they have to leave their ego,
whatever level it is, you know,outside and come prepared to
help each other. And I mean,the, it's actually a little bit
emotional to think about, youknow, what I've seen in your
masterminds, and the dramatic,dramatic difference in the
(42:41):
character of the people andtheir intentions to help each
other and it's on the businessfront, it might be on a personal
front, it might be anything thatsomeone is thinking about or
suffering from. So it's all inthe character of what you have
built. So again, kudos to you.
Well, thankyou. Jerry Spence, of the
travelers college once said, Themost powerful person in the
(43:02):
courtroom is the person who'smost vulnerable. And when you
start a mastermind, and youshare your vulnerability, your
weaknesses, your fears, it'srather than, Oh, this is a great
year for us, we made a ton ofmoney, everything's wonderful.
No, I frankly, nobody wants tohear that. What they want to
hear is that you're just likethem that you have problems, you
(43:22):
have challenges, because we alldo. And so when we start with
with and we have breakthroughs,every mastermind where people
will share not just person notjust professional, but personal.
Like a death in the family, thedeath of a little child in their
daughter died, you know, 10 daysago or something like that. It's
(43:42):
like holy cow. You know, whenpeople are crying in a
mastermind. That's realvulnerability. And to me, that's
real power, because that personis bonding and building
credibility with everyone. Andthat's what I feel not just with
a mastermind, but is a triallawyer, that we take the most
the worst thing about our caseand just share it with the jury
(44:02):
as soon as we possibly can saymy client. When he died, they
did an autopsy. And they foundout he had he had cocaine
throughout his body. I've gottenno excuse for that. I know. And
I had no idea why that how thathappened. And I'm during the
course of this trial, I'm notgoing to explain any of it. And
if you think we should go homeright now, then that's fine.
(44:23):
Let's go home. And they'll goback. Wait a minute, go rescue
when you that. When you do that.
They'll be like, wait a minute,he's a passenger in this
vehicle. What does that have towitness cocaine have to do with
that? I'm like, Well, I mean,that's for you to decide. And so
they start rallying to yourdefense. And if somebody attacks
you and says, You're a jerk, Ihate you, then the other people,
(44:45):
they see the vulnerability thatyou have, and they'll rally
around you say, no, no, you'renot a jerk. You were just
sharing something and weappreciate that. So I really do
think vulnerability is soimportant in life and our
weaknesses and fears that wehave. And that was share that
with our spouse this year shareSarah, I wrote a love letter to
(45:08):
my wife and to my mother aroundthe New Year. And as a Christmas
present, I wanted them to have Iput photographs, I had our
graphic designer, like make itall out. Because I think if I
die today, I want them to knowhow much I love them. That's so
important to me. And I don'tthink a lot of us take that time
to share like that with thepeople who we really love. And
(45:28):
so I think, you know, and that'swhere I mean, what a great thing
in our mastermind. When, youknow, Bill, the law man, you
Matzke, we'll just say he, heends every conversation with me,
I love you. And I'm like, I loveyou too. And that's a really
cool thing. Because men too, arenot like that.
Oh, great. It is. And I mean,just knowing law, man, he means
(45:50):
it. And I know you mean it too.
You know, it's, it can be aplatonic love that can be a love
between business folks. And it'sjust a beautiful, beautiful
thing. So again, a lot of creditto you for opening your heart,
opening your mind opening yourdoors, you know, wherever you
have these masterminds to likeminded people who are
comfortable enough withthemselves competent enough to
(46:12):
be vulnerable, and who want tohelp and serve others. So I'm
excited today and tomorrow aregoing to be fantastic. I really
am honored that you included me.
Oh,we you know, the response has
been amazing. People are just soexcited to have you with us. And
so am I and I really appreciateeverything that you've done in
(46:32):
the past, but also, today andtomorrow. So it's just great
having you with us. And I knoweveryone really appreciates
there's amazing group of people.
And Sarah The one thing is, whenyou say to somebody you love
them, it can't be BS, it can'tbe just like, I love my clients.
No, no, no, no, no, no, Itotally agree. Throw this stuff
around. It's got to be real andgenuine. But I feel like I mean,
(46:56):
while man was at our firstmastermind in 2015, in Chicago,
and since that time, you know,he and I have have built more
than just a businessrelationship of friendship and,
and so it is genuine when weshare that stuff. And I think
that the people in ourmastermind, like, we went to
Cuba, so in the Dutch Caribbean,which is right off the coast of
(47:16):
Venezuela. And when we're goingthere, I get a call like a week
beforehand. And Seth price who'sbeen to every mastermind, he
goes, he had said to me, I justcan't make this one. I've got
all this work, I can't do it.
And then a week beforehand, hegoes, I'm coming anywhere, I
don't care. I'm canceling all myappointments. And now I get on
our Facebook page, and the lawman and Bill you Mansky. He
(47:37):
said, If sets come in, I'mcoming to like, okay, so, you
know, that's the kind of factthat they just come and they
support each other. It's, it'sfantastic.
It's a camaraderie that isunparalleled. And so, you know,
again, looking forward to beingpart of it yet again. So with
(47:59):
that, I guess maybe I'll closewith you know, John, how can
folks get in touch with you orwhat is the best route I know
we'll put your cell and youremail, right in our show notes.
Maybe a website for themastermind, perhaps so they can
find out more information? Sure,mastermind. experience.com is
the website. If you have anyinformation you can call my cell
you can email me. Our next oneafter West Palm Beach is in
(48:21):
Boston on April 12. It reallygorgeous site. We're doing it
back to back with Craig goldenForbes seven figure attorney. So
he does it on a Thursday at thesame spot. And then the Friday
we do it. So his is April 11.
Ours is April 12. Thursday andFriday. His event is fantastic.
I think it's an amazing two dayevent for people. And then on
(48:45):
Saturday, July 6, we're going tobe in Sicily, the mastermind and
the one thing I can share aboutthat is we do a lot of fun
stuff. We're going to be at awinery, we're gonna tour mount
the the I'm losing the name ofthe mount the mountain the
volcano in in. What's that?
Is it Mount Etna? Yeah,so we'll be in Siracusa. And
(49:06):
then we're going to do a trip toTerra Mina. We'll look at Mount
at now we'll do a tour of awinery. And then I think we're
also doing a trip to Malta whichis visible from Sicily. So we do
incredible things withincredible people. If anyone is
interested to learn more, justemail me call me go to
(49:29):
mastermind experience.com. Andwe'd be more than happy to share
more. Oh, and by the way, I dohave a law firm books called the
power of a system and the lawfirm of your dreams. If anyone
would like a free signed copy,email me, I'll get you signed
copies of the books to you. Alsomy new book called win today
happy to share a free signedcopy of that as well.
(49:53):
We'll put all the books also inthe show notes and remind folks
that they can get a copy fromyou I again just Thank you for
being willing to share that.
I've read the first two. So I'lllook forward to getting the
third one and reading.
So you'll have it tomorrow. So,okay,
good. Good. Well, John, thankyou again for spending some time
(50:16):
with us. Really appreciate youbeing on the podcast and helping
others. I am proud to know youso just from a human
perspective, thank you for Oh,yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank
you, Michael, is an amazingMichael Smith is an amazing
person. And so, you know,oftentimes when he says, You got
(50:37):
to know someone like he did forme with you, He's not wrong. And
it's just been an honor to getto know you. So, thank you. I
shall see you later. Thank youagain for being a part of this
and helping other businessleaders.
Sounds great. Thank you, sir.
Appreciate it. Thank you forwhat you're doing right.
Talk to you soon. Thanks so muchfor tuning into this episode of
(51:01):
level up your business with me,Sara Frasca. If you have a
problem in your business that'skeeping you up at night. Please
join us in a future episode sowe can help get you unstuck.
Just clicking the link in theshow notes and send us a
message. Please remember, stayinnovative friends.
You're listening to level up your business, the
podcast where we talk tohardworking business owners and
leaders and help them solve realissues in real time. I'm your
host, Sarah Frasca restaurantowner, keynote speaker and
business coach. I've spent mycareer not only in corporate
(00:20):
America, but also as anentrepreneur, carrying on my
family's legacy through myrestaurant. Now a business coach
and consultant. I'm helpingother businesses to use creative
problem solving and innovativethinking to drive lasting
change. Stay tuned to hear someinspiring guidance that will
(00:40):
help you to level up yourbusiness. Yeah.
Oh, it's a gorgeous location.
It'sso amazing. Well, good morning,
John. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for joining us. Youand I are both in West Palm
Beach today and in a little bitof different locations, but
together on the podcast. Sowelcome to the level up your
(01:02):
business podcast. Thank you.
Appreciate it. Yeah, lookingforward to the interview and the
next couple of days. Meto truly, and it's a little bit
warmer for you tell, tell ustell all the listeners kind of
where you hail from.
You know, I I'm from upstate NewYork, it's very cold, there's
(01:22):
lots of snow, it's freezing. Sothis is a great sort of escape
for for me, and really great.
We're here as part of themastermind. You're here as part
of a mastermind. And we'rereally looking forward to the
next day and a half. It'sgreat. Well, thanks for coming
all the way from the NorthCountry. You probably remember,
I'm from Minnesota, so I cancommiserate with all of the kind
(01:43):
of January winter temps. Happyto be here in the sunshine. So
thanks again for the invite.
Well, I wanted to have you ontoday. I mean, you have such a
unique kind of stance in theindustry, you've done so many
amazing things. But first, willyou go backwards a little bit
just to kind of explain to folkswhere you've come from? Why did
(02:06):
you decide to become anattorney? Why did you build this
career in this path? And tell usa little about that? Well, Mark
Twain once said that there's thetwo most important days of your
life are the day you're born.
And the day you find out thereason that you were born the
purpose of your life, basically.
And this goes back to when I wasjust a lawyer. I was I didn't
(02:28):
really know what to do. And ayoung 30 year old black male
came into my office, he hadsustained a traumatic brain
injury in a bus wreck. No lawyerwanted his case, there's a
multitude of reasons for it. Isaid, fine. I don't know
anything about personal injurylaw, but I'll try to, I'll try
to help you out. I startedgetting into it. And I would say
(02:51):
within just a matter of days, ifnot less than that. I realized
this is what I was meant to dowith the rest of my life. I
absolutely loved it. And my wifewould be like, you're so
obsessed with this stuff. Youknow, every time we go to a
park, you're reading and you'restudying. And it's like, yeah,
exactly that this is what I lovedoing. I love representing I
(03:12):
have a passion for the rights ofthe disabled. It's not about
money for me, and it never hasbeen. And so really, that is the
purpose of our firm. And soabout 11 years ago, I was
invited to my first mastermind,no lawyers, it was at
Infusionsoft in Chandler,Arizona, and the chief
(03:33):
executives of Infusionsoft hadthis meeting with business
owners from all around theworld. And I have to tell you,
Sarah, my mind was just I justcouldn't believe the things that
I was exposed to business ownersfrom South Africa, from
Australia, from United Kingdomeverywhere, who are sharing
(03:54):
their story and helping me runmy small law firm in upstate New
York. And I thought, this is themost amazing thing I've ever
experienced. So two and a halfdays of that, I come back to New
York, and my wife says, I'm soexcited. I'm telling her all
about it. And my wife says slowdown. How much did this cost?
Me? Like, it doesn't matter? Andso she said, No, no, no, how
(04:16):
much? I told her $10,000. Andshe goes, Are you kidding me? We
could have had a vacation forthat amount of money. We could
have done all this stuff. I saiddoesn't matter. Those were the
three best days of myprofessional life. So Sarah,
what I did is I started lookingaround and at a lawyer
masterminds and they existedback then in 2013. I didn't like
(04:39):
what I saw, like it was soexpensive, like $25,000 a year
and all this other stuff. And Ijust kind of felt like what if
we built a mastermind thatwasn't based on money or profit,
and we did it solely for theview of sort of leveraging the
wisdom of others, maybe making alittle bit of money. When I
(05:00):
turned out Sarah, none of thosethings actually worked out
because I do leverage the wisdomof other people. That's really
important. We lose money onevery mastermind so that I'm a
terrible businessman. What Ifound out Sarah was that
watching younger attorneysthrive in their law firms has
got his what his made thisworthwhile. And just recently,
(05:22):
lawyer posted a video on socialmedia that he was just he broke
away from his law firm. He'sstarting his own firm. He's got
like 10 clients. And he thankedour our mastermind for helping
make this happen. That is thereason why we do this when Ryan
McCain has $100 million verdictlast about a year ago. That's
(05:43):
why we do this to help. MichaelSmith, your partner, he was at a
Chicago mastermind looks at uswith us in 2017. And Ryan
Mateen, who's a lawyer fromConnecticut went to that
mastermind. And he said thatMichael Smith changed the way
that he thought about thepractice of law, he's no longer
thinking of it as a lawyer, he'sthinking as a business person.
(06:06):
And that, that gave him sort ofthe business foundation, to the
sort of the the inspiration todevelop a business rather than
just a law firm. And be and heneeded that business. Because if
you're spending 200, or$300,000, on a single case, you
better have a good foundation,or you're going to be honest.
And so that led to his success,and he attributes that to
(06:30):
Michael Smith, your partner, andMichael has just been
invaluable. I mean, it's we heand I met by accident, and it
was one of the best things thatever happened to me.
Wow, I need to actually that'sso funny to hear you say that
Michael has been just a key tomy life as well. I mean, I think
that's why we do what we do isto help people and to give them,
(06:51):
you know, better chance ofsuccess, not only in their
business, but also in theirlife. You know, John, I just I
have always been appreciative ofthe effort that you put in to
help others. And I would say,you know, I think of it as kind
of an investment, right? I mean,the money you put in, and don't
always get back is kind of aninvestment in the futures of
(07:15):
others, you know, and hopefully,you glean some insight as well.
But I just want to thank you,honestly, on behalf of the
people who care, I mean,Michael, and I care about people
getting the life they deserve. Imean, it's like, so many
business owners, it's like a oneway street, right? Like, I'm
giving all this money and allthis energy, and all this time
(07:37):
and all this passion, andnothing comes back. I mean, what
a what a disaster, it shouldyield the benefit that people
want. And the law industry, Ithink, has really yielded a lot
of benefit from you helpingpeople to run it like a
business.
Well, thank you for saying that.
But I can tell you, I've had somany conversations over the
years with Michael Smith. I'venever gotten a bill for any of
that. I mean, he just helps me.
(07:59):
And he says, Hey, I don't knowthe person for you, but I can
advise you. So we're in amastermind in Chicago. This is
probably about seven or eightyears ago, and I get a call
during the meeting at amastermind. And it's from one of
my friends who's a lawyer inupstate New York, and he said,
I've got a problem, my partnerand I, it looks like we might
(08:20):
break up. It's going to be atotal mess. Do you know anyone
who can help me? I said, I'vegot no idea. So I walk into the
next room. And there's HarlandSchillinger. there and I said,
Harland. Do you know anyone whocan help with a partnership
issues like this? He goes, Iknow the perfect person, Michael
Smith. So I just took theinformation I gave it to my
friend didn't hear anything forsix months. And then six months
(08:43):
later, my friend said, John, Ihave to tell you, Michael Smith
was the best thing that couldhave happened. He met with us he
flew into New York, he went overeverything. We couldn't resolve
it, but we did. We broke apartbut we're still friends. We work
everything out all the details.
And what a resource that is foranybody to have someone like you
or Michael. And I tell you,Sarah, I hear from Craig
(09:06):
Goldfarb all the time. We likeSarah Frasca. It's amazing. And
she has laid sort of the coreEOS principles for our firm and,
you know, and he attributes alot of his success to his work
with you. And so I think really,the whole concept of the
mastermind is to be aroundpeople who are higher achievers
than you are. Ideally you wouldbe the I wouldn't be the dumbest
(09:29):
person in the room surrounded bymuch brighter people were
willing to do anything to guideyou not only on the day of the
mastermind, but after themastermind, because I think no
one's taught businessfoundations fundamentals, no one
we're not taught any of thatstuff. But we're expected to
know it. None of us really doknow that. Focusing on the
(09:52):
business fundamentals is socritical and that's marketing
and managing a law firm. andleveraging the knowledge of
people who've already done it,who've made all the mistakes.
That's the best advice I couldhave for a young or old
attorney.
Yeah, it's funny, you talked alittle bit about your passion.
(10:12):
And I would say one of mypersonal passions, is teaching
business owners and businessleaders how to, you know, kind
of upset the applecart, how tothink differently, how to find
new ways of navigating eitherservicing their clients or
serving their team or, you know,breaking into the industry in a
(10:33):
new way. I call it positivedisruption. And so my next
question, I'm just kind ofcurious, are you still doing
what you did in Arizona allthose years ago? Like, are you
looking at other industries? Areyou looking to find and glean
insight from other placesall the time, all the time? I
wasn't really reading otherbusinesses like Amazon and Jeff
Bezos, when Jeff Bezos startedAmazon, people didn't even know
(10:57):
what the internet was. I mean,that was just a crazy concept.
Here's a guy who had a highpaying investment job in New
York City, his future wasbright, he was married,
everything looked great. He waslike, I think they're around 30
years old. And people were like,wait a minute, you're gonna move
to Seattle, Washington, youdon't know anyone there. And you
(11:18):
know why he moved to Seattle,Washington, that do you know
that he moved there? Becauseback at that time, if you you
didn't have to charge sales taxor collect sales tax, if you
didn't have an office, or aphysical location in the state
where you're selling goods? SoWashington's a small city,
(11:38):
figured if I'm in a small state,I'm not going to have to collect
sales tax on anything that Isell outside of the state of
Washington. That's why he movedthere. Wow. Yeah. You know, it
was really a thing is, and butbut you know, it was really a
crazy idea, but he didn't. Andthat's what we think, in the
mastermind, to inspire people todo things that are outside their
(11:58):
comfort zone, things that arecrazy, our law firm changed our
name, from my name to the NewYork injury and malpractice law
firm PC. And just yesterday, Iwas thinking, we wanted to
expand our practice to medicalmalpractice outside of New York
State. Because we currently dothat I practice in Alabama and a
few other states. And so I thinkmaybe we should change that make
(12:20):
a firm that's called America'smedical malpractice, law firm
PC, most people Sarah wouldlaugh at that and say, well,
that's ridiculous, why not justJoe Smith PC, I don't like the
idea of using my name, I wouldmuch rather brand it and use
that not just for the Internetpurposes. But also, because it's
(12:40):
an asset that at the end of mycareer, I could sell something
that has my name, I just don'tview that the same that it would
be an asset that I could sell.
Because if I'm not there, itdoesn't have that much value. So
the idea is to take myselfoutside the business as much as
I can. But Sarah, one of thething that Craig Goldfarb taught
(13:02):
me a long time ago, and it's avaluable lesson is that not
everyone's meant to be a CEO.
Not everyone wants to be a CEO.
And that's perfectly okay. Youhave what you want to do with
your life. And for me, if youtold me, I couldn't go to do
trials, I couldn't do clientmeetings, I couldn't do
(13:23):
depositions. And I just had tosit in an office and look at
graphs and charts all day, Iwould be I quit. That's, I'm
done with that. I don't want todo that. So you're different
like that. He wants to be theclassic CEO. And I'm more
somewhere in between, because Ilike I like handling cases,
stuff like that. So I'm notgonna give that up. And you
(13:45):
know, grace is one of the fewpeople I've met who says, that's
totally fine. You don't have tobe like me. I really appreciate
that. Because each one of us hasour own unique skills. And in
Strategic Coach, we call thisyour unique ability. And unique
ability means what do you dothat you're passionate about
that you do better than anythingelse, because most of us spend
(14:05):
5% of our day in our uniqueability, we're doing all the
other stuff that we hate. Thegoal is to basically take what
we hate, delegate it out, andfocus an 80 to 85% of our day,
doing the stuff that we areuniquely skilled at doing. And
everyone has that there's thingsthat each worker has that if
(14:25):
they really thought about it,they do better than anyone else
in the world. And that's whereyou need to spend your time.
Yeah. Well, what you describedis kind of back to the beginning
where I said it, it better be atwo way street, right? You're
spending your life thisprecious, precious, fleeting
moment of time that we get ashumans and if you're not having
(14:46):
benefits, and I I don't pretendto know what everybody's you
know, that desired benefits areit could be, they want balance.
They want money they want, youknow, security. I mean for
everyone, it's different. Whenyou can find that sweet spot
when you can find a businessthat gives back to you. And you
can be in that 85% moment whereyou're doing the thing that your
(15:10):
heart beats for, right? You'repassionate. I mean, it's like
this whole new energy, come withexcitement and exuberance, and
you're ready to go when you'rethinking and you're, it's, it's,
it's a shame that people don'trecognize how few of us are not
having that on a daily basis. Imean, you think about the energy
(15:31):
drain in just the corporateworld, just business. I mean,
it's so sad that someone wouldbe slogging it through every
day, I mean, find, as a businessowner, find the purpose that you
have, find the things that makeyou happy and are making you
challenged and excited. Andagain, for some folks, that is
(15:53):
coming up with ideas, networkingin their community, being the
CEO of their business. But forsome of us, it's being an
artist, that I mean, I loveserving. So having direct
contact with the people that I'mserving is very, very much in my
interest. And I know it is foryou as well. So I love all
(16:13):
that. And you know, so I reallythink is as important as
business fundamentals are andknowing your numbers, which are
critical. I agree with all ofthat. I also think it's a very
shallow life, if all we'refocused on is, is how much money
do we make? That's a reallyshallow existence. So that the
purpose of our law firm, and ittook a while to come to this is
(16:33):
really simple stopping medicalinjustice. I spent three days
figuring that out with our team.
And I just kept saying, why dowe do this? Why do we do that?
And, and it boiled down to onesimple thing, stopping medical
injustice, it's not make as muchmoney as possible. Because I
don't think that inspiresanyone, and anyone on your team,
if they seem to think thatthey're solely working to make
(16:55):
as much money for your law firmas possible. They're not too
inspired. But if they know thatwe are serving a purpose, a
higher purpose than simplymaking money. I can tell you,
Sarah, I never one of the Forte,we only have four core values of
our law firm. One of them is wenever agree to confidential
settlements. And some peoplewill say to me, that's not a
core value. I'm like, well, itis for us. And I can tell you,
(17:17):
it's amazing. Because in theworld of medical malpractice,
I'm not aware of any other lawfirm that that has that value,
they all agree to confidentialsettlements we never do,
including now. And they'll sayto us, that's I'll go to a
client, I went to see anOrthodox Jewish woman in
Brooklyn once and she and Italked, she was interviewing law
(17:40):
firms, I spent about an hour inher living room. And then
finally I said to her, I justwant you to know, if you hire
us, we never agree toconfidential settlements,
because our job is not simply tocompensate you, but to improve
the quality of medical care forothers in the future. And if we
agree to confidentiality, that'snot going to happen. And holy
cow, like she and I had notconnected at all. And she goes,
(18:04):
Wow, that's exactly how I feelabout it as well. So she hired
us, in fact, her case is goingto mediation in February. The
reality is, the core values. Andthis is something I learned,
they don't only guide theconduct of your team, but you
can use them. It's almost like amarketing tool. They hear your
values. And if they are valuedriven people, they will be
(18:28):
inspired by your values. Andit's a really cool thing that
you think, Oh, this is only goodfor our team. But no, it's much
more broader than that. It canactually be promotional. How
many law firms, you know, inmedical malpractice that never
agree to confidentialsettlements, other than our law
firm. I don't know of any in thecountry.
(18:49):
I Yeah.
Anyway, I think working on thepurpose, values and mission of
our law firm has been central towhat we do, the mission of our
firm is to have 1000 referringattorneys by October 19 of 2026.
We currently have 599. And we'reworking at it every day. And
(19:10):
when we get a new one, we strikethe gong and we keep moving. So
you know that?
Like that? Yeah. Yes. Oh, John,that's great. And again, I, I
really commend you for havingcrystallized your values. And
your mission, it it will almostact like a magnet, right?
Drawing in people that have thesame values that believe in the
(19:32):
same things. And it's not to saythat those that don't agree or
don't believe in it, or bad byany stretch, but everybody gets
to kind of come up with theirown story and their own values.
But it will, you know, really,really crystallized and make
this such a uniquely wonderfulplace for your people to serve
people who appreciate I mean,it's like, in the five languages
(19:54):
of love, it's like you'vefigured out what your clients
need to be loved and yourpeople, you know it Like you've
figured out the formula.
Well, you know what, Bill Biggs,we hear the word culture thrown
around all the time. And I kindof feel like, well, it's so
nebulous. What does that mean.
And Bill Biggs defined it reallywell, which is, it's basically
having a core a set of beliefswhere everyone is aligned around
(20:16):
the same beliefs, and then ourfirm. If you don't have a
passion for the rights of thedisabled, you're not going to
work out at our firm, it's thebottom line, I don't care how
skilled you are. But if you arepassionate about the rights of
the disabled, that you can getthrough hard days, you can
accomplish anything. And when wewere starting out our firm, this
is now 11 years ago, the firstcouple of years were hard. We
(20:39):
lost money the first year, thesecond year, we were basically
just breaking even. And peoplewere like, Hey, do you think
that will make it and I said, ifit takes every last penny I
have, we're gonna make it. I'mcommitted, I hope you're with
me, because we're going all theway on this thing. They need to
know from the leaders howcommitted you are to your
beliefs. And I say there is noplan B on our law firm, there's
(21:00):
no no escape option or anythinglike that. We're going I'm going
all in. And if we lose the nextthree cases, we're just going to
keep going. Your team needs tohear that they need inspiration,
I believe Jeff Bezos does thisan annual letter to the
shareholders. But Sarah, youknow what's really cool about
that letter, it's not justreciting revenue, and here's
what we're doing blah, blah,blah, he uses his as an
(21:22):
opportunity to inspire andmotivate the, I think, a half a
million employees that he nowhas, that's what he uses it for,
because he doesn't really carewhat the numbers of Amazon are,
they want to be inspired around,thinking long term, being frugal
acting like it's day one, beingcreative, coming up with ideas,
and he inspires all of his teammembers to think that way.
(21:46):
Because everyone's got to do itcan't just be the head of the
organization. So I really, youknow, I've never invested in
Amazon, but I do takeinspiration from from the way
they conduct the business. So areally cool thing in this
mastermind, Sarah, is thehomework was that each, each
member of our mastermind inFlorida has to come up with
(22:06):
their annual letter to theshareholders, what you achieved
last year, and what you hope toachieve those crazy dreams for
the upcoming year. And I can'ttell you how amazed I am by
these, there's 20 of them, Ishare them with you, just by
what not only what people haveaccomplished, but just the big
like one of the I think I canshare this one of them didn't
(22:29):
focus on his law firm at all. Hesaid, I want each team member to
share their dreams, what theirgoals are for the upcoming year.
And that is such a cool thing tofocus not on you and your
revenue. But on each individualteam member. It's great.
It's really lovely. And, youknow, I think a good leader in
(22:51):
my opinion, will recognize thatnot all of the ideas has to come
from them or from the top. Butif they can empower the whole
pyramid of people to think toact like owners to have that
passion drive what they do, Imean, financially increase the
chances of success and thechampions of finding positive
(23:14):
disruption, finding new ways.
And, and I love the idea thatyou're actually asking the
members of the mastermind todistill it, it's, you know, it's
easy sometimes to pretend thatyou have it or or to even come
up with it in the moment. Butwhen you have the homework, to
distill it to be succinct to be,you know, actually able to
(23:35):
communicate it clearly. I thinkthat was an amazing exercise for
you to have the team go through.
And I was also really impressedwith a lot of the the balance of
the human side of the business.
Well, you know what I tell everymastermind, don't, don't come
here with your achievements.
Don't come here with your BS.
(23:57):
Come here with your problems,your challenges, let us help you
because it doesn't matter thatpeople are impressed by what
you've achieved. Let us let uswork on helping you. And we had
in in a Maui mastermind, JohnMorgan of Morgan and Morgan
came, spoke with us for abouttwo hours, and was so honest and
candid about the issues andchallenges that his firm faced.
(24:19):
And we're all sitting therelike, wait a minute, he's got
900 lawyers. This is like theplaintiff's firm in the country.
And here he is sharing like allof his issues and problems. We
didn't know that he had the sameproblems that we do, but but we
all do share the same problems.
And I think ultimately, and Ifall back to this all the time,
Bill big says it the best. Youhave to love, love your team,
(24:40):
but demand excellence. And Ithink that it's really
important. So when we work withpeople, not just that they're
highly skilled, they come towork, they're honest, but we
like working with them, that welove working with them, but also
we need to demand excellence. Soif we see things that are not
being done correctly, we can'tjust let that slide because then
(25:01):
we're accepting mediocrity, wehave to be brutally candid with
them and say, hey, you know,there's a problem here. This is
not what why did this happen?
And demand excellence. And I'vehad people come to me and say,
We want to continue workinghere. We'd love it here. No, we
love the whole team. And I'm sosorry, that the work has not
(25:23):
been up to our standards, wehave to part ways in a very
compassionate way. We i i don'tsee enough of in our industry,
we have to be compassionate andloving with everyone we work
with.
Yeah, no, that's great. Well,okay, tell me a little about the
future, John. I mean, where areyou headed? Next? What are your
(25:43):
aspirations? I mean, maybe evenshare a little bit about your
own shareholder? Letter? Whatwhat's coming up? Yeah, well,
this was a year like we are asmall law firm. We have an
incredible team, we have fivepeople, and I'll share some
little inside football with you.
Our firm is almost entirelyJehovah's Witnesses. There are
we have a five person intaketeam, we've got to we've got a
(26:05):
phenomenal litigation paralegalin Knoxville, Tennessee, we have
people like all over the place,basically working for our firm,
amazing people who I love.
They're just great people. Buthere's the problem in New York
State Medical Malpractice, webasically have done a great job
with that. But it's because oflimitations on legal fees in New
(26:27):
York state. For med mal. It'svery limited. Some of our cases
are just 10%. So our goal overthe next three years, is to
expand to non medicalmalpractice, catastrophic injury
including truck wrecks, trainwrecks, I just handled, worked
with a firm in Virginia and atruck wreck worked out great.
But the reality is, we want toexpand our practice. So this
(26:48):
year, I gave myself the greatestgift maybe I've ever given
myself, which is a full timeintegrator for our firm, that
chief operating officer who hasan experience of 20 years as a
principal at a large public highschool. And the guy has
phenomenal organizationalskills. And basically, Sara, the
(27:09):
whole goal of this is get allthe stuff that I've been talking
about and just get it done. Idon't want a year from now, I
don't want to be talking aboutthis stuff anymore. I just want
it done. We're expanding to NewYork City, I've been talking
about that for years, I justneed to get it done, I need to
get it off my plate. So we hiredit's a big expense. But we hired
the integrator, he starts onMarch 4, and I'm really looking
(27:30):
forward, it's a gift I need tojust make. And because I am
working on cases, it's hard toget all this other stuff done.
But that is something that I'mreally looking at in the next
we've set our goals on a threeyear timeframe. So we are
looking at three years havinggenerating more than 50% of our
revenue on non medicalmalpractice, which is
(27:51):
essentially constructionaccidents.
That's great. And I'm glad thatyou saw that, again, I'll use
the term investment becauseyou're investing in the future
by bringing on someone that canhelp you get things done. And
the cost or the you know, eventhe onboarding takes a lot of
(28:12):
time to bring someone new in.
But that investment, I think,you know, can not only kind of
help you grow, but hopefully ithelps you get some time back so
that you can do the things thatyou are the best at you can work
on that 85%. Right,exactly. It really is. A really
good book this year that I readis called buyback, your time by
Dan Martell. And it's basicallyabout looking at the different
(28:34):
things that you do throughoutthe course of the day and
thinking are those things thatyou really love you're
passionate about. And if not,you should be delegating them.
And you've got to be ruthless indelegating tasks. And it doesn't
necessarily have to be a fulltime employee. It could be
anything. So our firm delegates,basically everything. We don't
(28:54):
do appeals, we don't do probatework, we, our team doesn't
retrieve medical records, wedon't do lien resolution. So all
this stuff that we're not verygood at, we just give to other
people who are phenomenal at it.
And that's a great gift. Becausewe're able to get a better,
better outcome for our clientsyet we're not doing the work.
(29:17):
And we can still charge for thetime of these other people in
probate appeals lien resolution.
So we have a great team rightnow, here's the only thing we
really I've always been veryadamant about is intake that we
do it in house, I'm notcomfortable outsourcing that to
a third party company. I thinkthat the compassion has to come
in house that the people have toshow that we care. And if so,
(29:40):
it's not a case if somebody'sdied or suffered a horrible
injury, take as much time withthat person as they want.
Because that's the worstexperience they've had in their
life. And that I don't view thatas trying to monetize every
call. I just view it as showingcompassionate and that is Part
of the values that we have forpeople, but it's nice when you
(30:01):
represent people that you reallyrespect and like, but if you
record if you represent peopleor work with people that you
don't like, it's really hard.
Yeah, I think that empathy ishard when someone doesn't
understand the full impact. So Ithink it's great that you, you
(30:21):
know, have paid such carefulattention to that intake.
Really, really great. Okay, thisis a tough question, but maybe
you can think about it for asecond and answer it. What's
keeping you up at night rightnow? Like, what are the, like,
things that are worried aboutchallenged with? And, you know,
(30:42):
just, I guess, I guess thequestion would be what's keeping
you up at night? Youknow, it's interesting, Sara,
because there's so much that isnot legal related. And by that I
don't necessarily mean businessrelated. And this is something
that you find out inmasterminds, we have very high
achieving people who have made alot of money have great
businesses, but they havepersonal issues. And that is
(31:03):
something that we all need tofocus on. So I can share with
you, Sarah, I've jogged everysingle day for 1009 days. And
over that course of time, I'vedone the equivalent of 87
marathons. And so this issomething I've really put at the
center of my life, health,fitness and nutrition. It's
(31:24):
really important to me, and sothere are, I call this
streaking. So a streak is whereyou deal with something very
little every single day, and youjust keep after it every day.
And so I've learned this fromsomeone who came to our
mastermind named Jeff Downes,who wrote a book called
streaking. And it's amazing howwhen you when you do little
(31:45):
activities everyday how theresults compound over time, and
develop into things that arereally amazing. So I've done a
monthly print newsletter for ourlaw firm called lawyer alert.
It's just for lawyers. It'sabout marketing, managing a
firm, it's gone out every monthsince December of 2010. It's the
best marketing X asset that wehave. Craig Goldfarb has had a
(32:06):
lunch with a referral partner,or a prospective referral
partner every week, since Ithink 2002. So it's doing these
little activities every singleday, week or month, that add up
to amazing things.
That's fantastic. Okay, on thestreaking, I haven't read the
(32:27):
book, so I'll have to try totell me about the jogging did
you start out with a smallamount and then make it bigger
over time? Nope, orstreakiness to make it super,
laughably easy to do. So thestroke is I'm going to jog at
least one mile every day. If Idid it more than that, I
wouldn't be able to keep it upover time. So tomorrow is
(32:48):
actually the biggest challenge.
I'll be on it like five in themorning, I'll be out jogging
around downtown West Palm Beach,and people will think I'm crazy.
No one will even be up at thathour. But it's just like, hey,
if I don't get up at 5am, I'mnot gonna be able to keep the
streak alive. So when I saystreak, you'll do anything to
keep the streak alive. It's an astreak doesn't have to be daily,
(33:10):
it could be weekly, monthly, youname it, sir. But I documented I
share it. And we just keep afterit every day. And anyone could
use that for their business aswell.
Yeah, I mean, I would say, youknow, the interesting thing
about that is, you know, I, in alot of the teaching that I do, I
use the principle of Kaizen,it's the small, incremental
(33:33):
improvements over time willequal great change, but it's
breaking it down into a smallbite sized and manageable
components. So whatever you'reworking on, whether it's your
health, personally, whether it'syour business, whether it's, I
think a lot of folks expect, youknow, either like a light
switch, or silver bullet, orthey want some magic potion. And
(33:56):
what I have found is that it allcomes down to discipline,
dedication, it really and truly,if you can do it on a, you know,
small bits over time. I thinkthere's more, and I should
probably do a study on this onthe statistics, but I think
there's a better chance ofachieving, because you put the
(34:19):
muscle in place, you'vepracticed the patterned behavior
over time, which allows you tohave that long term success
versus just, oh, we're gonna dosomething overnight, and then
expect massive results. It'll goback to the same way. In my
view.
Absolutely. So Jerry Seinfeld,when he started his career as a
comedian, his streak was that hewould write at least one joke
(34:43):
every single day. And he's beendoing that for I think, like 15
or 20 years. And all of theseshrinks over time. You might
think, well, that's not thathard. That's easy to write one
joke a day. But if you do thatevery day, and here's the key
word, at least, you can do morethan that if you want. So this
more running, I jog five miles.
But my streak is at least onemile. So if I wanted to do a
(35:03):
mile, I could just leave it atthat. But a lot of times, I'll
feel like doing more. And herein Florida, it's gorgeous. So I
just jog a little bit more. Butthe reality is, when you streak,
you will do anything to keep thestreak alive. And it's good to
be in a group of strangers,because then you encourage and
inspire others. And the resultsbecome amazing. Oh, and by the
way, listeners would like mybook that just came out. It's
(35:28):
called win today. And it isabout the power of daily simple
activities. If anyone would likea free signed copy, I'm gonna
give you both my cell and mypersonal email. If they text me
or email me, I'll put it in themail. Jay Fisher fish er
lawyer@gmail.com. Or my cell is518-265-9131. they text me email
(35:50):
me, I'll mail them a signed copyof the book. And well,
well, you can confirm if I gotit right. But we'll put it into
the show notes as well, John?
Yes. Okay, perfect. That is sogenerous. And so gracious of
you, I think. Thank you forthat. And on behalf of the
(36:13):
listeners and viewers, thankyou. You know, I was going to
tell you, Michael Smith also didthe streaking, and I don't think
he called it that. But he setout in his business. And what he
says, and I think you'llappreciate this, the sun will
not set where we won't get backto you. So if we have a client
or we have someone that's askinga question or needs help, we
(36:35):
will not let the day pass, evenif it's on the weekend. And so
one of the things I think aboutthat is like, you know,
sometimes you're on the couch,
and it's like, Oh, it's 1 (36:45):
30pm, or whatever, I just put the kids
to bed or whatever. And it's soexhausting. And you're like, oh
my gosh, I can't imagine havinga business conversation. But if
you keep up that discipline, itgets easier over time. And the
added benefit is the and I'mgoing to use it as like a
marketing or even a core value.
We have become this team ofpeople who do not let our
(37:10):
clients down because we have weare on it. For them, we are
their first call because theyknow we are on the other end of
will help. So I don't know ifthat's considered streaking,
you'll have to tell me butone of the things that is so
invaluable of you, Michael, andyour company is I think every
lawyer should have a strategicadvisor when they make important
(37:33):
decisions about their law firm.
And most of us just say, wow,you know, we'll just see how it
goes. Well, that's not reallygood plan. It's great to have
somebody who like yourself orMichael, who can guide people
through these decisions and say,slow down. Do you think hiring
that person is really the bestmove in this situation? Or
(37:55):
merging with this other lawfirm? Will that dilute your core
values? Really hard? Butimportant questions. And I think
having strategic advisors likeyou, and Michael is just so
invaluable, and more lawyersshould do it? Well,
thanks, John. I mean, even ifit's a friend that they can
bounce things off of, I mean, Ifound when I was opening my
(38:16):
business, my restaurantbusiness, it's lonely at the
top, I mean, your employees arenot your friends, you cannot
talk to them, like you would,you know, a partner or another
business leader, and it's notappropriate to so when I was
opening my restaurant, you know,I would tap into the knowledge
of a lot of the folks from myGeneral Mills days, who were my
(38:37):
friends, my colleagues, they hadgood business knowledge. When
you have a business, in myopinion, it's it's imperative
that the owner or the top of thepyramid, the leaders are finding
that place to ask the dumbquestions up, right, like the
what do I do? What should I doin this case? So you know, how
should I? What have you seenother people try and obviously
(39:01):
I'm very biased as a pro towardscoaching because I've made my
career you know, that's and I'm,but every professional athletes,
you know, people that have madetheir careers acting, I mean,
everyone has a coach, if youwant to achieve, you know, the
next level, perfect your craftcontinue developing. And so
(39:21):
again, I appreciate that you'vesaid that.
Like, every day at 845 in themorning, I have a nutrition
coach who calls me and Idocument every day what I eat,
wow, I think and my exercise,and he reviews it. And then at
845 Every morning, he'll give mecomments. He didn't he and I
just spoke minutes ago, andhe'll say, wait a minute, John,
(39:42):
you're going a little bit heavyon the carbs this week, slow
down with that. And it's like,Okay, gotcha. Great. It's a
powerful thing where you're youhave an accountability partner,
not just professionally but alsopersonally, who's, who's
watching over things and makingsure you're doing what you say
you're going to do.
(40:04):
That's amazing. And what anincredible again, gift you used
the term gift that you gaveyourself to allow. I mean,
investing in your health andyour future. I mean, what better
investment than having someonehelp you from the outside
looking in on your nutrition,your health, those sorts of
things? Gosh, I have tolook, we don't have our health.
We don't have anything, right.
(40:26):
It's so important. Yeah. And Ithink that so many lawyers
neglect that. They'll say, Well,I'm focused on the business, and
all this or then then they getdivorced, they get out of shape.
And it's like, wait a minute,none of this stuff matters. If
our kids hate us, and ourspouses don't like us, that
stinks. You know, I think whatCraig has shared is that he's
(40:47):
had 12 vacations with his wifelast year 2023. And I was like,
that is amazing that because allof our spouses and our kids, all
they want from us is not ourmoney, but our time. And when we
give them our time, we give themthe most valuable asset that we
have. And so you know, when Iwhen I talked about building
(41:08):
relationships with kids, I don'ttalk about giving them stuff I
talk about just going to be withthem spending a weekend with
them, spending the weekend withmy wife with her as she's my
wife was always against ourmastermind. She's like, This is
crazy. You lose so much moneyevery time you do this. Why are
you doing this? Our firm'sbookkeeper hates the
masterminds. And I say to Lee, Isaid least why don't you just
(41:30):
come. And so she came aboutthree years ago, and she's like,
this is the best thing I've everseen. It's amazing, you should
never stop doing this. And soyou have to come to a mastermind
to see what it's like. And onceyou do, it's like holy cow. All
these elite people from acrossthe country are becoming your
friend and they're willing to doanything to help you. That's,
(41:52):
that's more valuable thananything. And that's the power.
You've built one, two, and Iwould say, you know, I come into
these events with a little bitof skepticism. Because sometimes
I find that business owners,they want to beat their chests
and talk about all theiraccomplishments. But your
mastermind is filled with peoplewho genuinely care about each
(42:17):
other, who have no ego, theyleave their you know, I mean,
that's a rule you've given them,they have to leave their ego,
whatever level it is, you know,outside and come prepared to
help each other. And I mean,the, it's actually a little bit
emotional to think about, youknow, what I've seen in your
masterminds, and the dramatic,dramatic difference in the
(42:41):
character of the people andtheir intentions to help each
other and it's on the businessfront, it might be on a personal
front, it might be anything thatsomeone is thinking about or
suffering from. So it's all inthe character of what you have
built. So again, kudos to you.
Well, thankyou. Jerry Spence, of the
travelers college once said, Themost powerful person in the
(43:02):
courtroom is the person who'smost vulnerable. And when you
start a mastermind, and youshare your vulnerability, your
weaknesses, your fears, it'srather than, Oh, this is a great
year for us, we made a ton ofmoney, everything's wonderful.
No, I frankly, nobody wants tohear that. What they want to
hear is that you're just likethem that you have problems, you
(43:22):
have challenges, because we alldo. And so when we start with
with and we have breakthroughs,every mastermind where people
will share not just person notjust professional, but personal.
Like a death in the family, thedeath of a little child in their
daughter died, you know, 10 daysago or something like that. It's
(43:42):
like holy cow. You know, whenpeople are crying in a
mastermind. That's realvulnerability. And to me, that's
real power, because that personis bonding and building
credibility with everyone. Andthat's what I feel not just with
a mastermind, but is a triallawyer, that we take the most
the worst thing about our caseand just share it with the jury
(44:02):
as soon as we possibly can saymy client. When he died, they
did an autopsy. And they foundout he had he had cocaine
throughout his body. I've gottenno excuse for that. I know. And
I had no idea why that how thathappened. And I'm during the
course of this trial, I'm notgoing to explain any of it. And
if you think we should go homeright now, then that's fine.
(44:23):
Let's go home. And they'll goback. Wait a minute, go rescue
when you that. When you do that.
They'll be like, wait a minute,he's a passenger in this
vehicle. What does that have towitness cocaine have to do with
that? I'm like, Well, I mean,that's for you to decide. And so
they start rallying to yourdefense. And if somebody attacks
you and says, You're a jerk, Ihate you, then the other people,
(44:45):
they see the vulnerability thatyou have, and they'll rally
around you say, no, no, you'renot a jerk. You were just
sharing something and weappreciate that. So I really do
think vulnerability is soimportant in life and our
weaknesses and fears that wehave. And that was share that
with our spouse this year shareSarah, I wrote a love letter to
(45:08):
my wife and to my mother aroundthe New Year. And as a Christmas
present, I wanted them to have Iput photographs, I had our
graphic designer, like make itall out. Because I think if I
die today, I want them to knowhow much I love them. That's so
important to me. And I don'tthink a lot of us take that time
to share like that with thepeople who we really love. And
(45:28):
so I think, you know, and that'swhere I mean, what a great thing
in our mastermind. When, youknow, Bill, the law man, you
Matzke, we'll just say he, heends every conversation with me,
I love you. And I'm like, I loveyou too. And that's a really
cool thing. Because men too, arenot like that.
Oh, great. It is. And I mean,just knowing law, man, he means
(45:50):
it. And I know you mean it too.
You know, it's, it can be aplatonic love that can be a love
between business folks. And it'sjust a beautiful, beautiful
thing. So again, a lot of creditto you for opening your heart,
opening your mind opening yourdoors, you know, wherever you
have these masterminds to likeminded people who are
comfortable enough withthemselves competent enough to
(46:12):
be vulnerable, and who want tohelp and serve others. So I'm
excited today and tomorrow aregoing to be fantastic. I really
am honored that you included me.
Oh,we you know, the response has
been amazing. People are just soexcited to have you with us. And
so am I and I really appreciateeverything that you've done in
(46:32):
the past, but also, today andtomorrow. So it's just great
having you with us. And I knoweveryone really appreciates
there's amazing group of people.
And Sarah The one thing is, whenyou say to somebody you love
them, it can't be BS, it can'tbe just like, I love my clients.
No, no, no, no, no, no, Itotally agree. Throw this stuff
around. It's got to be real andgenuine. But I feel like I mean,
(46:56):
while man was at our firstmastermind in 2015, in Chicago,
and since that time, you know,he and I have have built more
than just a businessrelationship of friendship and,
and so it is genuine when weshare that stuff. And I think
that the people in ourmastermind, like, we went to
Cuba, so in the Dutch Caribbean,which is right off the coast of
(47:16):
Venezuela. And when we're goingthere, I get a call like a week
beforehand. And Seth price who'sbeen to every mastermind, he
goes, he had said to me, I justcan't make this one. I've got
all this work, I can't do it.
And then a week beforehand, hegoes, I'm coming anywhere, I
don't care. I'm canceling all myappointments. And now I get on
our Facebook page, and the lawman and Bill you Mansky. He
(47:37):
said, If sets come in, I'mcoming to like, okay, so, you
know, that's the kind of factthat they just come and they
support each other. It's, it'sfantastic.
It's a camaraderie that isunparalleled. And so, you know,
again, looking forward to beingpart of it yet again. So with
(47:59):
that, I guess maybe I'll closewith you know, John, how can
folks get in touch with you orwhat is the best route I know
we'll put your cell and youremail, right in our show notes.
Maybe a website for themastermind, perhaps so they can
find out more information? Sure,mastermind. experience.com is
the website. If you have anyinformation you can call my cell
you can email me. Our next oneafter West Palm Beach is in
(48:21):
Boston on April 12. It reallygorgeous site. We're doing it
back to back with Craig goldenForbes seven figure attorney. So
he does it on a Thursday at thesame spot. And then the Friday
we do it. So his is April 11.
Ours is April 12. Thursday andFriday. His event is fantastic.
I think it's an amazing two dayevent for people. And then on
(48:45):
Saturday, July 6, we're going tobe in Sicily, the mastermind and
the one thing I can share aboutthat is we do a lot of fun
stuff. We're going to be at awinery, we're gonna tour mount
the the I'm losing the name ofthe mount the mountain the
volcano in in. What's that?
Is it Mount Etna? Yeah,so we'll be in Siracusa. And
(49:06):
then we're going to do a trip toTerra Mina. We'll look at Mount
at now we'll do a tour of awinery. And then I think we're
also doing a trip to Malta whichis visible from Sicily. So we do
incredible things withincredible people. If anyone is
interested to learn more, justemail me call me go to
(49:29):
mastermind experience.com. Andwe'd be more than happy to share
more. Oh, and by the way, I dohave a law firm books called the
power of a system and the lawfirm of your dreams. If anyone
would like a free signed copy,email me, I'll get you signed
copies of the books to you. Alsomy new book called win today
happy to share a free signedcopy of that as well.
(49:53):
We'll put all the books also inthe show notes and remind folks
that they can get a copy fromyou I again just Thank you for
being willing to share that.
I've read the first two. So I'lllook forward to getting the
third one and reading.
So you'll have it tomorrow. So,okay,
good. Good. Well, John, thankyou again for spending some time
(50:16):
with us. Really appreciate youbeing on the podcast and helping
others. I am proud to know youso just from a human
perspective, thank you for Oh,yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank
you, Michael, is an amazingMichael Smith is an amazing
person. And so, you know,oftentimes when he says, You got
(50:37):
to know someone like he did forme with you, He's not wrong. And
it's just been an honor to getto know you. So, thank you. I
shall see you later. Thank youagain for being a part of this
and helping other businessleaders.
Sounds great. Thank you, sir.
Appreciate it. Thank you forwhat you're doing right.
Talk to you soon. Thanks so muchfor tuning into this episode of
(51:01):
level up your business with me,Sara Frasca. If you have a
problem in your business that'skeeping you up at night. Please
join us in a future episode sowe can help get you unstuck.
Just clicking the link in theshow notes and send us a
message. Please remember, stayinnovative friends.
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