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The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
I am more convinced than ever that nothing that traditional bar organizations are doing is going to move the needle on the sad stats on lawyer happiness ...
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Ep. 239 – The Pause Changes Everything
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The problem isn't always what happens—it's how you respond. Ben Glass shares why pausing, looking at the facts, and searching for opportunity can change everything. He also explains how books, coaches, and mastermind groups have helped reshape the way he thinks and grows.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
Finding Power In The Pause
SPEAKER_00Here's more from the renegade lawyer Ben Glass. The short version is that the space between Richard Covey's second habit, be proactive. The space between the stimulus, the bad thing that happens to you, and your response to it is where all of the magic is. It's the pause to say, is this really as bad as I think it is? No, my experience tells me that I've experienced this a lot before. Experienced things that seem like they were awful and they didn't turn out to be as awful as they were. So I choose to believe that this will not be as awful as it is.
Ask For Facts Before Beliefs
SPEAKER_00The habit that says, let me pause. Like, what are the facts here? Like we'll be in a meeting in the office and someone will make an assertion and I'll go, well, I'll ask the why or the what? Or how do you know? Sometimes their arguments fail because they don't have the facts. So what am I doing? I'm teaching people to pause and to go look for the facts of reality. All right. And then
Rewiring Growth Through Better Rooms
SPEAKER_00wiring yourself, like, where's the opportunity? Where's the opportunity here? This doesn't, again, I do believe people can change. The thing that has changed it most for me really is three things. A, reading in the literature, right? Of people who's of other lives, biographies of successful entrepreneurs, having coaches, having individual paid coaches for me, and then being in mastermind groups. Charlie mentioned the Titans group. He didn't tell you, it's like we sit there and we go, man, how do they let us in here, right? These people are really, really, really smart. And so it's that those are those are ways that you can change your own DNA, right? By being humble enough, I think, to put yourself in places where you're vulnerable and say, look, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. And that's really cool. That's really cool that I'm not the smartest one. So Charlie went into this just a little
Treat Virtual Events Like Deep Work
SPEAKER_00bit. I think for those of you who are online at home, look, the temptation is you got three screens open. You're kind of watching me a little bit. You're answering your email, and you might be watching, I don't know, the 700 shows that are going to tell us everything that everyone's going to say tonight during debate. And then tomorrow you'll watch the 700 shows to tell you what everybody said or didn't say in the debate. All right. The couple of events that I have attended this year virtual, I took that as a luxury. I don't have to do anything else. I don't have to look at any email. I don't have to talk to anybody. I've got a big lock on my door. I've marked down on the calendar. Ben is attending the XYZ event. And so I just took it as a gift to me, right? All I get to do today is concentrate on what the speaker is doing and make my notes. And I'll tell you in my session on Saturday, like how I organize coming away from the event. So I do think this
Use The Room To Move Faster
SPEAKER_00are now if you're in the room, I can see you. So I need energy from the room, be participants, right? If you've got ideas, we've got folks from big firms, little firms, folks that have been with us a long time, folks that are new. Like this is the place. I mean, this is a place to ask your questions. And if you've got a great idea, man, we have a stage for you to share your idea. And because, you know, shopping for other people's experiences, right? That's your that is leverage here. Like, how can we move faster than it took Ben Glass and and many of the folks who came with us in the earlier years? How can we move faster along this path than they than they did? There's a ton of wisdom in this room, and there's a just a ton of wisdom now in the experience of what of what we've been through.
Keep The Conversation Going
SPEAKER_00Like what you heard? Keep the conversation going. Explore the archive, listen to another episode, and subscribe for more conversations that challenge the ordinary.
