12 Days of Giving Day 8: Breaking Free from the Employee Mindset - A Former Attorney's Path to Meaningful Impact

What if your greatest professional crisis could become your most meaningful contribution? In Day 8 of our 12 Days of Giving series, former attorney Griffin Bridgers reveals how the isolation of the pandemic led him to a shocking realization: his one-on-one client work wasn't creating the impact he desperately wanted to make.

Through raw honesty, Griffin shares his powerful journey from unfulfilled attorney to passionate educator, discovering that his true calling wasn't in traditional practice – it was in empowering other professionals to serve their clients better. His story challenges the conventional wisdom about career success and reveals how embracing vulnerability and authenticity can lead to unprecedented professional fulfillment.

If you've ever felt trapped by golden handcuffs, questioned your professional impact, or dreamed of making a bigger difference in your field, Griffin's transformation will show you there's another way. His daily commitment to creating educational content (find his extensive library at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRaGK2J72zXDvLLcy2aPl-w) has not only changed his life but has helped countless other professionals enhance their practice.

This episode explores:

• How crisis can become a catalyst for positive change
• Why traditional measures of success might be holding you back
• The surprising power of teaching others in your field
• Practical steps to start making a broader impact today
• Overcoming imposter syndrome and perfectionism

Join us for an intimate conversation about finding purpose, making impact at scale, and the courage to reinvent your professional identity. Whether you're considering a career pivot or seeking to amplify your impact, Griffin's journey offers both inspiration and practical guidance for your own path forward.

Part of the '12 Days of Giving' series, where successful professionals share their stories of transformation and contribution to help others find their way."

As always we ask you to comment, DM, whatever it takes to have a conversation to help you take the next step in your journey, reach out on any platform!

Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram, Tiktok, Linkedin

DISCLOSURE: Awards and rankings by third parties are not indicative of future performance or client investment success. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All investment strategies carry profit/loss potential and cannot eliminate investment risks. Information discussed may not reflect current positions/recommendations. While believed accurate, Black Mammoth does not guarantee information accuracy. This broadcast is not a solicitation for securities transactions or personalized investment advice. Tax/estate planning information is general - consult professionals for specific situations. Full disclosures at www.blackmammoth.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to a Transformative Journey
• 5:09 The Shift from Law to Education
• 10:02 Building a Community of Support
• 15:03 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
• 20:00 Taking Action and Building Relationships

Transcript

Stoy Hall, CFP® (00:00.942)
Happy holidays, everyone. Another episode of 12 days of giving in today we get a former recovering attorney which is always fun to have on as well as using Griffin on our show before. So I'm not going to give him the intro that he deserves because guess what? It's on the other episode. So you go and check that out. Today, we're to go through a little bit of your story and how you help others and ultimately, why your shift will allow others to think about their shift as well.

further ado, why don't you dive right into what we're going to discuss.

Griffin Bridgers (00:33.879)
Okay, thank you, Stoy, and it's a pleasure to give back in this forum. And I think today the goal is sharing a broader story of how this exact setup kind of mirrors the way I like to now give back that I discovered best suits my strengths, my talents, and where I can make the greatest impact. So I think it was probably two weeks into the pandemic.

when we were in the, the throes of lots of people panicking about the future and in that process contemplating, okay, if the worst happens to me, are my affairs situated? What can we do? And one day I was out for a walk and I was very isolated at the time. I was home on my own.

not interacting with many clients and I was hit with this creeping sense of I'm just not doing a good enough job helping others that even in a one-on-one setting the estate planning job I was doing was incomplete and two that I just lacked the capacity as a force of one to really truly help all of those who needed help in this area where I so specialize and for years

years before this I had taught estate planning I was a gifted public speaker I had often thought of doing the direct-to-client seminar type of setup and ultimately concluded it just wasn't for me because really where

I subconsciously realized I had the greatest impact, but it hadn't quite crept into my conscious mind yet, was in educating other professionals, educating my peers as to how they can better from primarily a technical sense and possibly even from a human perspective, help clients on a broader scale.

Griffin Bridgers (02:36.363)
So it was with that, that at the time I was dealing with that existential crisis, I was also dealing with a potential career change from the practice of law to the wealth management side, which I thought might fix some of this. And I think I subconsciously realized as I dug into it and looked at the job itself and what it would entail that ultimately it wouldn't fix it.

One, because I'd be following me. Any of the problems I was running from would still exist. And two, while it might be different, it wouldn't necessarily be better.

that oftentimes we're chasing greener pastures. So it was probably July of 2020 where I decided, okay, when we come out of this, I want to double down on true thought leadership, being that expert who can provide not necessarily just to the end client, but to my peers who will then affect thousands of clients individually on their own, a better sense of what a state planning

means, what it entails, what the gaps are in technical analysis, and also for those who were in my position as trainees or associates, giving them the guidance that nobody else seemed to be giving them because it can be a lonely existence when you're an employee at a firm. It can be a lonely existence when you're a sole entrepreneur in your own practice and a lot of times we just lack the support.

to truly determine what we need. So I started every single day producing YouTube videos. The first was July 13th of 2020. Every day was designed to be five to 10 minutes of some snippet of planning that I thought could impact those who were peers of mine and did this type of work. And I just kept that up and

Griffin Bridgers (04:41.155)
Initially, I was marred by perfectionism, but I eventually realized that nobody is going to care about the first 250 of these or so. So that kind of was my own permission to throw caution to the wind and start putting myself out there. And now four years later, I'm in a position where I have seen the fruits of that grow. Now in that, think the goal is to get to one specific impact.

full story of giving and we're going to get to that in a minute. I think Stoi, what are your thoughts on that general path and how have you seen that in your own practice?

Stoy Hall, CFP® (05:25.09)
Yeah, it's a great question. I think a lot of us as entrepreneurs who are singularly helping, you know, one client, or one subset of clients starts to recognize like, I only can do so much. I only can do so many one on ones. And a lot of us are truly in this to help as many people as possible, right? Like one of my mottos is ridding the world of financial literacy. So that way everyone is somewhat has a basis of financial education, because this and as you know,

the money game is complex, it is a very complex beast, and not one person can master it. And so that's kind of along the lines of what I've started to do as well, of going, Okay, yes, I want to help my end client, I want to focus on them. But

in specifically our industry, the wealth management industry, I think we're doing things completely as backwards, and I want to be able to help that. And so that's why I have my podcast. That's why a lot of my speaking is generalization of of our industry and why I'm a huge proponent of

a modern family office and partnering in doing things with the likes of you because of that situation. Now, I believe your story, they don't need to hear my story right now are similar, but I think there's a lot of people out there who are going through that same exact thing right now. And they're recognizing, hey, I'm doing things differently. I think this is the better way to do it. How do I educate more people? And for you is going to other advisors and colleagues. For me, it's very

similar to do the same thing. And the thing from that, which we really don't know is how many more people is it actually reaching and helping than if me and you were trying to just grow our practice one on one. And that's the important part.

Griffin Bridgers (07:11.999)
Exactly. And I think in that vein, what I've had to realize too is we're so marred, especially as entrepreneurs by short-term thinking. think, you know, the whole economics of our current capital market is, yeah, build a business, rocket ship it, try to exit. It's never client focused and nobody ever takes that long view of where do I truly want to be five, 10, 15 years down the road? Even if you are successful in exit a business.

Or does that then leave you twiddling your thumbs bored thinking, okay, what's my next step? Maybe I become a serial entrepreneur or I go to the other extreme. So part of this for me too has been that long game of. Obviously I need to make a living at this. At what point does that monetization element come in? And that's separate from our discussion today. but I think with this idea that yes, I'm virtually here.

cranking out YouTube videos, impacting others. I started to get some positive feedback here and there. And obviously, you you see subscriber counts, you see view counts, you see those start to creep up and you kind of know from a finite perspective who's watching, but you never know those who casually follow in the background, who you may not recognize them as a subscriber. They may occasionally see your content.

but until you get feedback directly from them, you don't truly know. And I think it was really probably a year later, fall of 2021, I was on vacation with my family, still weighing this existential shift of a new career, a new job, and kind of exploring that. And I kind of had two contrasting stories and experiences that really forced me to...

take a longer term look at exactly what I was gonna do. One was, had a, now a peer, a mentee who was a law firm associate probably a year out of law school at the time and he reached out to me and just said, look, I love your stuff, it's really helped me out a lot and I've really been able to supplement my learning and even rely on it as a primary resource to fill gaps.

Griffin Bridgers (09:34.307)
And that really spoke to me because I saw myself in him of saying, okay, this was the impact I was seeking to have to begin with is basically every bit of content I produce is for me as an audience. What would I have wanted to hear 10, 15 years ago? So that's the frame from which I approached this. And all of a sudden I saw that mirrored back in somebody else and realized, okay,

It's now no longer just about impacting clients at scale. It's also about impacting the health of those who are there in that position to create that broader client impact because to do so, yeah, you have to come from a frame of confidence. You have to come from a frame of comfort with yourself, confidence in the knowledge you've gained and

That was something I struggled with a lot of the imposter syndrome as an attorney. And I'm you see the same in financial services, the classic adage of until you have gray hair, nobody is going to take you seriously. Well, I'm not exactly in a race to get gray hair, even though some have started to come in. So I wasn't willing to wait until my fifties or sixties to really see that economic success. But, you know, I saw that story and thought, okay, well, this is interesting. I'm really onto something here.

How can I better leverage this because I was comparing myself to a couple other areas out there one I wasn't the only person doing this. I wasn't the only person creating educational content You know, there's tons of other attorney services that do tons of other attorney I guess recognition Companies and others who kind of do this and I realized a split

in the feedback I started to get is that people felt like they didn't identify with that content because it was coming from people above them. It was coming from people who had reached the pinnacle and looking back didn't really remember the struggle or didn't recognize the new struggle of the time. And who

Griffin Bridgers (11:51.059)
it was just usually over their heads. It was often written for an audience of showing off and not necessarily an audience of those who want to learn and you want to give back. It was done to impress and not to educate. So with that, I kind of realized, okay, well, this is probably the path I want to take. And the problem for me has been letting some of that ego seep in and trying to come from that impressing a certain

I think that same week on vacation, I got a counterpoint that really helped this as well is, you know, I was looking at a job where a random recruiter had reached out to me and said, Hey, you know what? We love your content. You've come recommended by several people. Here's the position. Seemed really appealing. And it was for a firm that purported to serve entrepreneurs. So,

I viewed what I was doing as highly entrepreneurial and more so than my peers. And I thought it would be a great fit. But after going through a couple of interviews, I came back and said, you know what? the, company was threatened by your outside activities. And I was like, isn't this exactly what you want your employees to be doing? And when I realized that I was like, you know what? There's, there's tons of people out there who purport to serve entrepreneurs.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (13:07.995)
Right. Right.

Griffin Bridgers (13:17.175)
but they themselves don't want their employees to be entrepreneurs. They want them to be employees. And that really resonated with me as, from my time as a law firm associate, because I always ran into that conflicting goal that you're expected to be an entrepreneur, but you're also expected to be an employee. And the metrics that apply to you are often those of an employee and not an entrepreneur. So that was really where...

audience and content fit started to come into play where I said, okay, I kind of recognize that struggle. There's no good solution to it. And I feel spiteful and vengeful about it, but perhaps there's a better way to approach this. So now that brings us to three years later, you and I are talking and I'm sharing this in hopes that I'm no longer

one force out there. My goal is to create tons of griffins who want to be supported in their efforts to not only be a better server of clients, but also if they're so inclined to scale up to what I've done to go out and educate the broader planning world on what this means, how we could be doing things better, and how perhaps some sacred cows in the planning world need to be challenged.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (14:42.478)
And I love how you had mentioned, because we all go through this, whether it's imposter syndrome, what you want to call it, but even though like there's others out there doing what you're doing, right? And you recognize that how they say their voice, how they present it is different than how you do it. However, the information is the same, right? The facts are the same. They're facts. The laws the same, the rules are the same for us tax codes the same, like nothing's different.

Griffin Bridgers (15:03.829)
Exactly.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (15:08.67)
you speak upon like that feeling and what it took to, I guess get through that? Because there's people out there, including myself, sometimes are like, man, I see it, I see people in my industry posting the same thing over and over again, why would me posting it be any different, right? Why would me talking about it be any different than them? Can you talk through kind of how you battled that and came through that situation?

Griffin Bridgers (15:34.224)
It's great that you bring that up because even now I deal with a ton of regret

Looking back, I could have been doing this 10 years ago and I would be so much further ahead now than I am. And part of my goal was being able to say, okay, if you are in this position and want to be like me, you can start a lot earlier than you think. And I had the indicators back then to say, okay, yes, the tea leaves should be red to say, hey, I have the voice and the knowledge to go out and do this.

The problem I think for me was that the broader point you're trying to make has a subtext of virality. We're often hoping that we can have that one fresh idea, that new idea, that new planning strategy that all of sudden everybody sees and are like, wow, that's amazing. And I'm going to start following Griffin or Stoy or whoever, because they came up with something fresh that nobody else has.

And the more I got into this, the more I realized that one, there's nothing new under the sun. In the, especially in the estate planning world, there's tons of brilliant people out there. I was never going to compete with them in coming up with the next new thing. And in fact, those who try to come up with the next new thing are now on TikTok getting their clock cleaned by the reality of guess what? This just doesn't work.

but that brings up the other piece that those on TikTok are getting their clock cleaned by an audience that does technically know better. And what held me back for years and what helped influence a lot of my content was with everything I wrote or published or spoke on,

Griffin Bridgers (17:28.395)
I knew who my intended audience was, but as an attorney, I always think of worst case scenarios. I was always thinking of that one critic out there who is going to come back to me and say, this is technically unsound or you're wrong or what criticism can they come up with and how can I anticipate that? So if you've ever seen eight mile be rabbit, the final rap battles where he goes against pop a dock and anticipates everything he's going to say as an attack.

and takes away his power, that was kind of the same thing I was doing. That's really how I ended up having to deal with it, is saying, okay, I'm going to anticipate the worst case critic and really beat them at their own game. And whether or not that's been successful, all I can do is say I've had very few critics along the way, knock on wood. Those who have were obviously warranted and

did a really good job of mentoring me and saying, know what, there are some gaps in your knowledge and it's not so much that you're wrong, it's that you have a massive ego about areas where you're wrong and having that check has been valuable as well.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (18:42.798)
Yeah, and I believe when you're real, and you're trying to provide real advice or education in general, like that comes through, people aren't really going to judge that and attack you, you're not doing it to, you know, be the next million dollar or million view hit thing, you're really just doing it as a core to who you are. And I believe that type of content shows and people really just want to help, right, regardless of your right or wrong, like they'll want to reach out and just help because it's it's it's just realism.

overall. As we get to the end of this, and we ask in every episode, what is something from your story in this episode that someone can take today, while they're sitting at home during the holidays, and start to put action plans into place to take that next step in their journey wherever

Griffin Bridgers (19:31.905)
what they could, it depends on what they want to do, but you spoke to it, action. And we often confuse action with an action plan. One of the best quotes I ever heard, and I'm very bad at implementing it, because I overthink, and I think a lot of us overthink, because inherently sometimes we want to conserve energy and we don't want to take the wrong action. But I'll share another story probably about a year ago, my...

My daughter came to me and said, you know what? I want to be a writer. And I said, great, then just start writing every single day. even if it is terrible and you don't ever want it to see the light of day, start writing every day. So with this, think the best thing anybody can do if they want to one pursue the path I did, or to find some other idea on how to better serve clients at scale is just,

start acting, start experimenting and really create that fruit out there. And I think the problem is when we create for ourselves, it's fun. We're not worried about the judgment of it and what the quality is. When we start creating for others, yes, that's where some of the procrastination and fear and everything comes in. And I think as entrepreneurs, yeah, we're afraid of that because one, yeah, we don't want to be judged. And two, it's hard to see that long game.

You don't always get money in the door or see immediate impact from what you're doing and I forget who said it. I want to say he's probably a bad example. I think it was Robert Kobayashi who spoke to this but one nugget of wisdom I found valuable for him is that entrepreneurs look at what they're willing to do for free for a long time and really just double down on that knowing that

the money is going to come. So I think really the best thing you can do is taking action to either one, build that public record of your competence because it feeds a lot more than you might think and has a broader impact than you can assess or measure on a day-to-day basis because for every one or two people I know who subscribes to me, I know there's probably another five to 10 out there who are casual followers.

Griffin Bridgers (21:57.295)
It's hard to track that but I know it's going on in the background. It just it's not the immediate Piece that we usually see the other piece to it. Do is that obviously? relationships are key and the more relationships you can build and the higher the quality of them the better and It takes a certain amount of action to build that every day and it's really easy to get especially now working from home to get locked in your bubble

get into the work, get in that flow state and really hammer things home, but you're not always out then building relationships. So I think you have to be more intentional now about doing so. And I've used a variety of techniques, one being like office hours for my readers, for example, to try to build that community and strengthen the relationships I have. And I think the more you can test and experiment with that, the...

bigger the deferred rewards you're gonna see because in the financial world we're all about compounding but it's not just compounding investment returns it's compounding returns on anything you're doing today and I'm a firm believer that any action you take now will compound whether it's good or bad so it's just a matter of getting out of your seat and doing it

Stoy Hall, CFP® (23:16.286)
we'll end on that just do it. We ask and every episode is also comment and share and not because of the algorithm. We don't care about that. What we care about is because we want to help you. So reach out to Griffin, reach out to me our resources, DM us whatever you want to do to help you in this journey. We're here for advice for education, you name it. So Griffin, thank you for your time. Happy holidays, enjoy. And I look forward to our next time that we can get together.

Griffin Bridgers (23:43.117)
Thank you, Stoy, and thank you, everybody. Happy holidays.