You Didn’t Build a Business—You Bought Yourself a Job

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🚨 If your law firm shuts down when you take a vacation, you haven’t built a business—you’ve built a job. In this episode, Brett Trembly joins Danny Decker to unpack the mindset shift that took him from burnout to building a firm that runs without him. They explore how hustle culture traps lawyers into glorifying overwork, why “doing it all” is a path to nowhere, and what it really takes to create a law firm that grows beyond the founder. This is your wake-up call.

📌 Key Takeaways:

• Why most “solo firms” aren’t real businesses.
• How hustle culture is silently wrecking your health (and practice).
• What to build first if you want your firm to run without you.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The only, the only like true solo and even this is
dangerous is think about the hotdog stand.
Like there's a guy usuallycould be a girl right has a car
and buys a little hot dog standwith a hitch, drives a little
hot dog stand to a corner wherethere's a lot of people, right,
that's a business decision,where you take your little hot
dog stand, you buy the hot dogs,you buy the buns, you buy the

(00:22):
ketchup, you buy the propane orwhatever.
You're cooking the hot dogs.
You buy the buns, you buy theketchup, you buy the propane or
whatever.
You're cooking the hot dogs.
But like it's all you, mostpeople aren't like well, let me
hire someone to run my hot dogstand and then let me go get
four or five and put them ondifferent corners Because
they're just like they're.
They have a hustle mentalityand a lot of people, you know,
have that like.
You know, get like like the thehustle, hustle.

(00:46):
I forget what Damon John callsit, but but for a while it was
like this.
You know you were gonna bragabout how miserable you were and
brag about how much you wereworking and like that's, that's
that's just leaves you in such apoor place mentally at least,
it did for me.
Not everybody's the same.
But when I start to say likewell, not everybody's the same,
people like, oh yeah, that's notme, that's not me, most people

(01:07):
it is, though there's very fewof us who can just, you know,
not know where of like yearslater it's piled up and it's
really, really bad for you andit's negative.
So then one of two thingshappen either you realize it and

(01:33):
you're like, okay, I'm going togive up on my dreams and I'm
going to resign to just not nothaving a goal other than have my
one assistant and like that'swhat my, my law firm is going to
look like forever.
You know, do I know?
Do I know some people that havelaw firms and it's like one

(01:53):
assistant and they have enoughbusiness over the years where
they're fine, sure, but likewhen you leave town or you go do
something, the work stops, thebusiness stops, the money stops,
like it's not.
It's not a real business.
Like you, you just boughtyourself a job and hopefully
your job pays the bills, but youknow it shuts down without you.

(02:13):
And what's just really nice isgetting to the point where
things happen without youbecause you put people in,
systems in place and you havebuilt a real business which has
marketing, sales and gets workdone without you having to have
your hands in every little partof the business.
Yeah, thanks for listening totoday's preview from this week's
episode.
If you had any thoughts on it,please leave us a review.

(02:36):
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We'll see you tomorrow.