Life Beyond the Briefs
At Life Beyond the Briefs we help lawyers like you become less busy, make more money, and spend more time doing what they want instead of what they have to. Brian brings you guests from all walks of life are living a life of their own design and are ready to share actionable tips for how you can begin to live your own dream life.
Life Beyond the Briefs
Squeeze Every Ounce Out of Life: Permission to Design Your Legal Career
What if you could transform your law practice by first transforming how you view yourself? In this electrifying keynote from the Great Legal Marketing Summit, renowned mindset coach Lee Milteer challenges lawyers to see themselves as the heroes they truly are.
"You've got to decide that you're going to squeeze every ounce of juice out of this life," Milteer declares, setting the stage for a profound exploration of how our internal beliefs shape our external reality. Drawing from her fascinating personal journey—including being mistakenly detained as a spy in Israel where a lawyer became her hero—Milteer delivers practical wisdom for attorneys seeking more fulfillment and success.
The presentation dives deep into the difference between fixed and growth mindsets, revealing how the way we talk to ourselves literally programs our future. Milteer offers powerful techniques like writing goals in past, present, and future tense simultaneously to trick your brain into believing success has already happened. She introduces the concept of five essential "currencies" we must manage wisely: mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial energy.
Most importantly, Milteer positions lawyers as "alchemists" and "warriors" capable of transforming both their own lives and their clients'. She demolishes the myth that we need permission to pursue our dreams, urging listeners to stop accepting the "crumbs of life" when they deserve the whole loaf. Through specific morning rituals, daily affirmations, and strategic visualization practices, she provides a roadmap for reclaiming personal power.
Whether you're struggling with burnout, seeking greater profitability, or simply wanting to fall back in love with your practice, this episode delivers the mindset shifts needed to design a legal career that energizes rather than depletes you. Ready to transform your relationship with your work? Listen now, then join us at the upcoming Great Legal Marketing Summit this October 23-25. Get your tickets today at glmsummit.com.
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Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia. He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field. This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.
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Here's the thing You've got to decide that I'm going to squeeze every ounce of juice out of this life. I am not going to go through life just living life with no passion and excitement. I'm actually going to give myself permission to say no to what I don't like and yes to what I do want.
Speaker 2:Hello, my friends, and welcome into another episode of Life Beyond the Briefs, the number one podcast for lawyers choosing to live lives of their own design and build practices they actually like showing up to. On Monday, I'm in a little bit of an interview recording lull right now as we get ready to roll out a new season of interviews. We're also preparing pretty intensely for the Great Legal Marketing Summit, which is going to happen this October 23rd through the 25th, and as part of that preparation, I'm going back through my notes from the 2024 summit and I took a ton of notes during Lee Miltier's keynote speech on the hero's journey, and so I wanted to share that speech with you today if you were not at the 2024 event. Now, lee Miltier is not a lawyer, she's not in the legal space at all. She's an internationally known businesswoman and entrepreneur and mindset coach, and there's a lot of mindset in here. And you may say, like what does this have to do with running my law firm? Well, nothing and absolutely everything. What she said just in the introduction clip that I clipped for this episode, I think it's really what we are teaching more than anything else at Great Legal Marketing is that you can have permission, even as a lawyer, to live your life with passion and excitement and say no to the things that you don't want and yes to the things that you do.
Speaker 2:So this is a long episode. You may need to chop it up into two listens. If your commute is shorter, you may need to put it on 2x speed, but it is worth the full hour in 8, 9, 10 minutes, and so I did want to share it with you today. If you want to hear messages like this, and if you're a lawyer for whom this resonates and you want more like this, you need to come and see us in DC, the Great Legal Marketing Summit this October 23rd through the 25th. You can get your tickets at glmsummitcom, and I think there's a couple of ads interspersed throughout this episode that'll drive you back there GLMSummitcom. And now on with the show.
Speaker 1:I'm very pleased to be here. I'm very, very fond of lawyers, which I will share with you why I did grow up in a crazy environment, but let's see if I can get my things going here. I saw this recently and I was so impressed by this. I choose to see the world as a friendly and full of charming people. Now, you don't see this kind of advertising very often, do you? And remember in life that whatever we put forth in life is ricocheted back to us. I'm sure you've noticed in life that if you're in a good mood and you're happy and you're finding the good in other people, that they warm up to you and they like you, and then you have those people that are very difficult in your life and then you can feel yourself returning that. So everything that Ben has done has been extraordinary. I do speak at a lot of conventions for attorneys around the world and I have to say that Ben has always been my hero of the person who has been the greatest influence on giving you permission to have a great life, follow your passion, be a great example in life. So thank you so much, ben. We so appreciate it. All right, so I have any lawyers in here who are divorce lawyers? I can't see you, but any divorce lawyers? Okay, I saw this the other day. I wanted a little humor in life. If it doesn't bring you income, inspiration or orgasms, it doesn't belong in your life. Can you use this? Anyway, I just saw this and burst out laughing. I thought this would be a little fun. All right, so I'm going to tell you a little something about myself.
Speaker 1:Before I became a professional speaker, I was a professional photographer and I got to travel all over the world doing landscape photography and on one particular trip I got arrested as a spy in Tel Aviv, israel, and this was a very shocking experience. I had left Virginia Beach, virginia, I had flown to Egypt and I had spent a little time in Egypt and then from Egypt, I went to Africa and I spent three or four weeks in Africa doing landscape photography. My business was creating stock photos for magazines, and so then I get to Israel and when I get there it was really late at night and I was a little hippie chick at the time, very young, and I'd been doing photography for a long time. And as soon as they, you know, got to the passport thing and they realized that I was a photographer. They immediately removed me from the land and took me back in the back and interrogated me, because apparently there was an alert that there was a blonde woman photographer who was a spy and I kind of fit that bill, and so my passport was completely full of you know all these places I had been and I don't mind telling you that had to be one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had in my life, because we've all heard of you know people abroad and you all heard of you know people abroad and you know different countries and you know getting representation. So because you're lawyers, I'll make it very clear I wasn't actually arrested, even though they said that to me. I was actually detained officially, but three days in jail with all the you know lovely things that went with that were terrifying, and it is because the American uh consult, uh sent their lawyer over. He actually really saved me, if you know what I mean. He got me out of jail, uh, he got me, you know, free for this situation, and so I was incredibly grateful for something like that.
Speaker 1:I also have a lot of lawyer attorney friends and my own lawyer has been very helpful for me and one of the reasons I have titled this the Hero's Journey, because these people have been my heroes. Can you imagine what it would have been without you know? Help in that situation. But my lawyer. I got slandered by this woman and I wanted to sue her. I'd never sued anybody and after a while he interviewed me and he said well, you know, lee, we have a couple of rules that we like to follow. We don't like to engage with fights with batshit, crazy people that your person you want to sue is, and we don't want to mess with people who have endless pockets. So we recommend you don't sue her, just unengage. So in my life I've had these great people in my life who have told me the truth, kept me out of trouble, and when I was in high school I wanted to be a trial lawyer briefly, but that didn't happen for me, and so I just want you to know how much I deeply appreciate you and that for the most part, if you watch our advertising and sitcoms in the world, think about how much they make fun of lawyers and the lawyer put down thing.
Speaker 1:You've all noticed that. I'm sure you can feel it on some level and it's very important that you understand that, the way that you feel about yourself and your self-image and the permission that you give yourself to do whatever you need to do is so important. And you are the heroes. Look at what you do in the world and, as Ben was just talking about, that you not only you're business owners and entrepreneurs and you're not only hiring people and giving people, you know, permission to have a great life and educate their kids. You are actually helping people get out of trouble. You're giving them good advice, but you don't look in the mirror and think I'm a hero. Do you ever think that you're a hero? Probably never think like that. So your mindset about yourself, whether you realize it or not, has actually been a little polluted, whether you know it or not. You know we have all kinds of like salespeople also experience that. You know the media makes fun of them.
Speaker 1:So I'm just going to tell you a little bit about, as Ben was talking about, growing up. It was actually Chucky Tuck, virginia, which was an Indian name, and so my name is Lee L-E-E, and when I was born, my parents being rancher farmers far back as we can remember wanted a boy, and the reason they want boys is because, obviously, on a farm and ranch. You want boots on the ground, you want critical thinking, you want help. And so my dad started realizing, when I was four or five years old, that he might have an asset that he hadn't realized. And I wanted cowboy hats and cowboy boots and red wagons, and I wanted ponies and BB guns and all those kind of things, and so my father started actually training me to be an asset in his world, and so first he taught me to basically drive a tractor and he then taught me to drive a stick shift and a truck. He taught me to shoot and protect myself, then taught me to drive a stick shift and a truck. He taught me to shoot and protect myself. He taught me to really have critical thinking.
Speaker 1:When we would come home from school every day, my father would say, okay, what'd you learn today? And at dinner we would talk about that. And then he would do this most incredible thing that changed my life a lot, and that was he would say okay, here on the on the ranch, we're having this particular problem. What would you do about that? And, of course, most of my little brother and I had no clue what to do about that, but he started training us to look for options and opportunities, and he literally ingrained in me the importance of having critical thinking at such a young age. And so, by the time I was 12 years old, I had my first business. I had 37 people working for me. Now, granted, it was out on the farm, it was doing outside work with 37 people.
Speaker 1:My nickname that summer was One More Row, and the reason it was One More Row is because all I had power to do when taking these people from one field to the next field is actually give them rest and water. But if they sat down it was forever to get them back up again, so I would war carotid. I was faster than them. I learned to motivate it at 12 years old. I learned how people thought and I would always say, just before we finish the end of the row, okay, let's just do one more, and then we'll go rest and, as you can imagine having this kind of a background teaching a child to be very, very smart, pay attention to life, listen to the intuition and all that kind of stuff that by the time I got to the high school, this was going to be a challenge, because in school, of course, they're teaching you all kinds of stuff, but I had learned some terms like monetize and leverage, and so I'd raise my hand in class and say well, this is great that you're teaching me this, but how do I monetize this, how do I leverage this, how do I use this information?
Speaker 1:When I become an adult, I want to be an entrepreneur, and so the school was quite befuddled with this because, as you well know, most teachers aren't very entrepreneurial, and this actually scared them to the point that they had a big meeting about Lee Miltier in school, and the principal, the vice principal, the guidance counselors and all my teachers got together and they said what are we going to do with this girl? And they came up with a great solution they made me an assistant to the library, a librarian, and so I got to work in the library. And within a week of working in the library, this wonderful man came to our school very tiny little school. He was retiring, he was a business owner and he had all these books and he donated them to the library and I got to be the grunt worker who got to label them, put them all away. And so there were three books in this big pack that were Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, psycho-cybernetics by Dr Maxwell Maltz and the Magic of Believing by Claude Bristol, and I read those at 16 years old.
Speaker 1:Now, this completely changed my life, because, as this farmer's daughter out in the middle of nowhere, I had no idea how I was going to make it in the world, what I was going to do. I didn't fit in with most of the other kids who, just you know, went along with everything. I was the disruptor, I was the rebel, and so reading these books gave me this incredible passion for that. If you have this desire and have you will to just take action on it, that the universe will actually start to reward you with these amazing things that can happen. And so in my life, what I've realized is that, again, everything that we see and everything that we do is actually we're judging it, we're labeling it a lot, and since we're self-fulfilling prophecies, one of the things we have to do is start realizing that, whatever we speak, we're actually spelling words into the world. We are prophesizing what our future is going to be, how we're going to feel about things, what our health is going to be.
Speaker 1:You know, how many people do you see on a regular basis, every single day talk about how bad the economy is and how bad our country is and how bad this is and how bad that is. It doesn't really benefit them, but they like to jump on this bandwagon of seeing everything in this negative way, which, of course, as entrepreneurs, know that if you have this negative view of life, you completely blind yourself to these amazing opportunities that can happen for you, and so what I learned to do from these books is just sort of take my own destiny into my own hands, and so that's really what I want to talk about today. Just a little picture of me. When I was a kid, I always was the first to raise my hand to let's try this, let's do this, didn't ask for permission.
Speaker 1:I do believe that there's no change in our life without literally disruption, and one of the great things that all of you have done is you have disrupted your routine enough to get here to hang out with other smart people, the speakers here and all the available energy. That's going to happen, to happen. I believe in history that in the years come that it's going to be very clear before COVID reality and after COVID reality. How many would you agree with that? Yes, because, you know, we suffered through $150 billion worth of advertising by the media of. You know, disrupt ourselves, follow their rules, their agenda, do what they want to do, close down, give up, and you know, basically, entrepreneurs had to, just you know, suffer through this.
Speaker 1:And so what we want to do now is realize that, whether we understand it or not, we got dinged in some way, and the thing that got dinged the worst in our reality is customer service. And how often are we joking about? There used to be customer service. People used to care about other people. They used to, you know, want to know what was going on, and now it's this culture of we don't have to have a room service anymore, we can give you bags with plastic utensils and that kind of thing. Customer service has completely fallen by the wayside. Because of this situation, one of the things each one of you can do is literally become so memorable by actually looking at your own customer service with absolutely brand new eyes and ask yourself what can I actually do that will make my firm, me and everyone in there, stand out so much from everybody else because of this extraordinary caring, attention and customer service that we're going to do for people. Does that make sense? So you know, that's one of those areas that you can immediately get a lot of traction in very soon just by that.
Speaker 1:So change is a door that can only be opened from the inside. Ben just said something about. You know, if we try to change other people which most of us do, naturally is that there's nothing but resistance, and what we have to do is we literally have to be the leaders of and be the example which everybody knows this, but it's hard to do sometimes Be the example of calm, neutral. There's always a solution. If there's a problem, there's always a solution. It's just a time for us to find that solution. So we have to be excited about change instead of dreading change. Let's face it Every ending welcomes a new beginning. We're actually entering such a new era of our life. We cannot go back to yesterday because we were literally different people. Then we have to wake up from any kind of autopilot that we're on our cruise control and what we've been doing, and look at it not from the eyes that you used to look at your business and you used to look at your clients and how you marketed, but literally from the perspective of this new generation that's coming.
Speaker 1:I listen to a lot of futurists and one of the things they're talking about our future is called the sci-fi future, and that is because there's going to be so many new inventions and so much change in our life, and you've got to ask yourself, as you're scanning the landscape of your future, how the heck can I get ahead of this? What is it I can do? That's going to make me stand out, and you are the leaders. You're truly the leaders, and you've got to expect a lot from yourself. We cannot fall into the civilian society accepted detrimental habits and behaviors, and I'm a little distressed sometimes at what's going on in the world, where people are crossing the street and they've got their phone in front of them. They're not looking right or left. They don't seem to have survival skills. They don't even seem to have protective skills for themselves. They're not using any intuition. In fact, ben and I were talking about this yesterday and he was telling me that now they're starting to paint, stop on the roads because people aren't looking up. They're actually looking down so much.
Speaker 1:So again, it's a matter of what is it you're going to be able to do to deal with the change that's coming? How do you get ahead of it? And there are many facets of you. Your mothers, your fathers, your sisters, your brothers, your leaders, your lawyers, your all kinds of you know things that you do in your life and parts of ourselves are very shiny, and that's great. We pay a lot of attention to good habits, we eat good, we do all these good things. And then parts of ourselves are like that diamond has become very dull, and yet we don't like to look at those things. But the areas that your diamond has become dull, it's the areas that are screaming at you to pay attention, and usually there are hidden money opportunities in what you're avoiding. Like you know, ai is a reality, whether we want it or not, no matter what the naysayers are going to talk about it. It is part of our world. How do you get ahead of that? How do you move past any fears you have about that kind of information? If you can face where you're not good at something, then you can actually make huge inroads in your future.
Speaker 1:So what I want to talk about now is super important. You've got to reclaim this life currency, your time and energy, and how many of you have read Ben's book on time? Anybody, yes, everybody. By the way, you shouldn't just read it yourself. This is a book that you literally should make sure that your staff gets, and you talk about the information, because time is so precious, but let me tell you what is even more precious than time your energy if does anybody study quantum physics, because now everything is energetic and your energy, how you're using your energy and the five main energies that you have to pay a lot of attention to is.
Speaker 1:The first is mental who and what is getting in your head every single day? Who are you allowing in your head and what are you focused in on? And, literally, what kind of permission are you giving the media social media, maybe negative people around you to influence you and poison you about your ideas and your desire to get ahead in the future? Your physical energy it's the same thing. If you're not taking care, you know guarding your mental energy and guarding your physical energy like we're all traveling right now, so we're eating stuff we wouldn't normally eat at home just because of convenience and things like that, and every once in a while that's fine, but if you think about what you put in your body, it's your fuel, and if you don't have energy, you don't have creativity.
Speaker 1:If you don't have creativity, you miss those opportunities that could be literally right in front of you that you haven't taken advantage of. And emotional, you know the world has become very emotional, and so you've got to ask yourself in my emotional energy, how am I controlling that? One of the best ways you control it is to see the world as a neutral and that you don't have to have an opinion on everything. You don't have to get entangled in other people's opinions, you don't have to convince, you know, civilians in the world about how you think about things. But if you allow yourself to get all emotional about things you have no control over, then it is wasting. You're leaking all of this creative energy to become inventors and creators and the architects of how you want to create your future.
Speaker 1:And then there's your spiritual energy, which most people don't talk about a lot, but I do believe there's definitely an infinite intelligence that's a lot smarter than all of us and that you know we have to. You know, take advantage of that and tap into that from time to time. And your spiritual life, whatever it may be, you know, has this thing called intuition. And you know, in the past maybe intuition hasn't been taken so seriously, but I am incredibly intuitive, and I claim this because growing up on this ranch farm by the way, when you grow up on a ranch farm, it's like these are entrepreneurs on steroids, because ranchers and farmers have to be like scientists to deal with all the you know, the fertilizer and things that goes into the ground. They have to deal with animals, they have to deal with business, they have to deal with the weather, and so they're being challenged at all times about. You know how to deal with these things. They're always moving.
Speaker 1:You got to have something that gives you solace, that makes you feel solid, that no matter what storm you are facing, no matter what enemy is facing you, that you have this connection of that part of you. And then, of course, there's your financial energy. I know there's a lot of you that are financial planners here and things like that, but you know, are you using all these currencies every single day? So I call it the five currencies you pay attention to daily, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially, because those are the currency that is either going to make you or break you, and these energies belong to you and they are entirely under your control. And so, sometimes, your energies.
Speaker 1:You have to say no to people. You have to turn down opportunities that are not aligned with where you want to go in the future. Turn down opportunities that are not aligned with where you want to go in the future. You have to have the belief system that your intuition is working, because it is working if you allow it to work. And yet in our world today, you know we have our left brain, like what you do every day is super left brain. So there's got to be things that you're doing on a regular basis that actually help you use your energy in positive ways, that you listen to your intuition.
Speaker 1:For example, you all hire people. Well, you know, resumes are like a joke because there's a lot of fiction in resumes. Right, there's a lot of information that you know. We don't know if it's actually true or not, but if you're tired and you haven't used your currency properly and you're sitting in front of someone and they're interviewing them, if you're depleted, you can't actually pick up and read people, you can't pick up the signals of, you should be not trusting this person. And so if you get this little nagging feeling and uncomfortable of I don't think it's right for us pause. Don't hire them, because you've all hired people. I can guarantee you that your intuition told you not to hire, but you were exhausted, you were tired. You needed somebody two weeks ago. You wanted just to put them in the position and hope they work out. Is that true? Yes, so what I'm asking you to do is pause sometimes before you make decisions. Don't just make left brain decisions, because intuition is also it's just tapping into the energy field. Now, you all read people. You're excellent at reading people, and so also just add that intuitive part in there, because I promise you, if you do that, you will find your decisions are much more profitable.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about next a big problem in our world today that is called fixed mindset versus growth mindset, and a lot of people have a lot of fixed mindset, and I'm going to talk about some of the things. And the fixed mindset is they give up easily. They believe this is the picture of the world, no matter what you say. It's very hard for them to adapt to that. And the growth mindset is that we can learn anything we want and we're willing to do it. I'm going to give you some clearer information about this. So here's some example Fixed mindset versus growth mindset.
Speaker 1:Society thinks that success is making a lot of money, college degrees, a nice house and car prestige career. Of course that's nice. We love that. However, what success actually is is what Ben teaches. It is great health, a life that you love, pursuing those habits, loving your family, having people that love and respect you, being excited to wake up in the morning and actually not just schlepping through life, not just suffering through life, because look around you, most people are literally suffering through life. They don't give themselves permission to actually have a good time. So fixed mindset you can take pictures of this if you like.
Speaker 1:Fixed mindset inner and outer self-talk sounds like this I just can't catch a break. I don't have what it takes. I'm not good enough. I cannot change who I am. I don't see the point in trying if I might fail. I'm not a natural, so why try? I need to protect my image. It's too hard to learn at my age. You hear this and nobody ever corrects these people. But they are with their mouth and every word has a vibration to it. They are spewing into the vibrational frequency of the world a death knell for themselves. They are predicting their own downfall. They're predicting problems to come to them. They're inviting a terrible life.
Speaker 1:So here's growth mind self. Every challenge is a chance to grow and learn. I can develop any skill with effort. Even the best of people were once beginners. I believe that every failure is literally a learning opportunity. With enough practice I can get better. I can be inspired by other examples to keep myself improving daily. It's never too late to learn something. I give myself permission not to be good at things. That is a growth mindset.
Speaker 1:And when you can determine, when you're hiring people, if they have fixed mindsets or growth mindsets, it will make a big difference on the profit center of how much they can help you. Because, literally, folks, what you want is you want team people who are coming into your business, not just, you know, being a liability and they get just a salary. You want people who are scanning the landscaping, seeing ways to help your firm, help all of you grow, help the situation. If you're not having meetings every week or at least on a regular basis with people and saying to them and I do this regularly, I own a publishing company is I have my meetings and I say to my people look, I want you to come to our meetings with a suggestion on how to save money, how to save time, how to create better relationships with our clients, how to make the experience with our clients, you know, a better relationship. I want you, the people on the front, doing things that I'm not doing, interacting with people. I want you observing and coming back and making suggestions. Now, I don't take all the suggestions, but I certainly take a lot of them, and what I've done is I've got them to buy in and we're not.
Speaker 1:You know the old saying it used to be. You know, treat all of them like they were owners. We're not going to treat them all like they're owners, because they can be owners if they want to, but you do want to create a culture where, literally, they're not just there and doing their work, that they're literally thinking about how to make the entire experience of working with you and your firm more valuable. So this is a really true statement. The world can only see us as we see ourselves. So your self image, your view of life, so it's. You've got to upgrade your self image. You've got to recapture your natural powers on how to create prosperity, because most people, to be honest, only change their outer world instead of changing their inner world and not realizing it's the inner world that is creating the outer world.
Speaker 1:So here's your real competition. It's not other people, it's your procrastination and denying it. It is your ego. When you won't change and learn, it is your pride and that you can't forgive other people and move on. It is your insecurities that, on a daily basis, will betray you. It is your unhealthy diet. It is your lack of knowledge in certain situations. It is your lack of discipline in a certain situation or your bad habits. It is your dependency on others to do things that maybe you could do better. Your low vibrational frequency, your self-doubt, is your competition. It's not another law firm. Does that make sense? Because basically, you're proving yourself when you are helping people. So let's give yourself permission to change from what we are and let's take a leap of faith into what we want to be. You've got to make the jump are. Let's take a leap of faith into what we want to be. You got to make the jump.
Speaker 1:When I am, I told you I was a professional photographer. After, by the way, that is incident where they, you know, arrested me and all that good stuff. They ruined all of my film and they broke all my cameras and I had been on the road for four months just about, and when I came back I was completely out of business because I had nothing to sell and I had. You know, it was a very, you know, bitter experience to have spent all this time and energy, you know, doing something and then I come up completely flat with nothing and I don't have the ability to now go back to Europe and to make these pictures. And so I think the universe always tells us, sometimes it gives us hints, and the hints come from other people. So if you're getting information from other people about how good you are at a certain thing, but you haven't really taken it seriously.
Speaker 1:And so I went into commercial real estate for a while and I was in commercial real estate for a while, and I was in commercial real estate for a while. I didn't really like commercial real estate very much, but I ended up giving speeches, and I was, you know, I was working on getting clients, so I'd go around and give speeches on things and people would give me this feedback. It's like you should be a professional speaker. I thought they were delirious, I thought that was hilarious and I didn't pay too much of attention to it. And then after a while I started realizing well, you know, if enough people have made this suggestion to me, especially if you hear it over three times, it's like reading a book and someone three people in a row tell you about reading a book, you realize you might actually need to read that book. And so I thought, well, I think I'm going to check this professional speaking stuff out. And so I taught at the university in non-credited courses and then, because I had a real estate background, I went out and actually sold some real estate courses and they hired me and everything. And I decided well, I think I'm going in the professional speaking business. So here's my entire prep to go in the professional speaking.
Speaker 1:I went to a printer, I had new cards made. It said Lee Meltier, professional speaking, I'm in business. Literally I just leaped across the fear line, the fear. I just leaped to this. The worst thing that can happen is I'm going to fail. I'll do something else. Right, I didn't ask for permission, I didn't ask for a certification, I didn't ask for squat. I went out there and proved that I could actually share information with people.
Speaker 1:Same thing happened about being an author. Um, people started saying well, you know, you're the speaker now you know, have you written any books? And I said nope, I could hardly get a book report done in school, but I can't imagine writing. A publisher actually took me to lunch one day and he said I think there's a book in you. I thought, you know, I think you're crazy. However, I started to realize, and my publishers said writing's not hard. You transcribe your speaking, get a good editor and you got a book. So we had our first book out, the first of 17, I might add. And it really is this thing of. The only thing that was holding me back was my only low self-esteem of I'm not worthy, what do I know? Why would anyone want to read my book? So, instead of waiting for someone to certify me, waiting for someone to give me permission, I simply just tried it. The worst thing that can happen and I really believe this if you view everything in life as an experiment, it takes the sting out of things. In other words, well, I'm going to experiment being a little speaker, I'm going to experiment writing a book, and then just watch how the universe responds to that.
Speaker 1:Because your natural inclination, your own intuition of things you want to do. So where are you? You personally have the secret want to do, so where are you? You personally have the secret desire to do something. Maybe it's play golf, maybe it's write a book, maybe it's sing, I don't know. Everybody has little things they want to do, and what you've got to do is stop denying yourself that aspect, that that makes your life so much fuller Again. If you can conquer being a lawyer, you pretty much should be able to conquer almost anything. You're trained for being good at things. So take that leap of faith, because that is actually your success. So what I want to get to today really is the hero's journey. You are heroes. You just don't recognize your heroes. Upgrade the way that you see yourself, because if you cannot envision yourself doing what you want to do, you won't be able to do it. Because if you read things like Think and Grow Rich and the Magic of Believing and all those kind of books, those books clearly tell you that you can create magic in your life by simply activating your own dreams and desires and whatever it is that you want. So what I'd like for you to do is stretch yourself a little bit today. I know it's a little hot in here. It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon, it's actually 6 pm something for me. I'm from the East Coast and I had to have a little caffeine, like everybody else right now.
Speaker 1:But we are in a culture of superheroes. So first, whatever labels I use, I give you permission to make your own labels. Okay, because people make too much of labels. But we live in a world where we are surrounded by superheroes. You know there's Superwoman and Superman and you know a lot of this power came from. You know these people came from other planets or they got bit by a spider or other ridiculous things that became, you know, superheroes. But here's the thing you've got to decide that I'm going to squeeze every ounce of juice out of this life. I am NOT going to go through life just living life with no passion and excitement. I'm actually going to give myself permission to say no to what I don't like and yes to what I do want.
Speaker 1:And so I wanted to figure out how to do mindset in a way that people haven't heard before, because a lot of people think mindset's not important and Ben certainly did a great introduction for me on how important mindset is and the average people just don't realize that if your mind isn't fixed on it, if you're not focused in on it, you're not going to be able to manifest it. But, like most people, we do have a superpower. You just sometimes aren't giving yourself credit about it. And remember superhumans yield big things. They're not just for the benefit of the hero, but for all the people that you influence, and that will be all the people who work for you your own family, your clients and you've really got to give yourself permission to up your game. So we want to add to a prosperity repertoire, and all of us are familiar with archetypes and their superpower. And the future is really your future is going to determine on a new version of yourself. So why not give yourself an exciting, fun version?
Speaker 1:Activate within yourself your own power. That will enliven your creativity ahead of the challenges that society is going to face. The reality that is happening. And it doesn't mean it's bad. It just means we literally have to activate that information. Mean it's bad, it just means we literally have to activate that information. I underlined it activate, because words have vibration and words can either excite you, terrify you, make you feel good. But if you actually took the time to say to yourself that I'm going to use this activation. I'm going to give myself permission for this.
Speaker 1:So the first thing I wanted to talk about was an alchemist. I'm sure you're all familiar with alchemists and in history, if you study history and I'm a big history buff alchemists were always known for mixing metals to turn into gold. Right, they were known for this mixing metals. Well, they also are known for that. As an alchemist, you are using a combination of science and magic. But here's the truth about alchemists Alchemists are transformers. They're transformers of literally energy in yourself and other people, and so, as an alchemist, they are a seeker of solutions. So you're saying to yourself how is an alchemist going to help me? Well, if you wish to write or be brilliant or actually activate new parts of yourself that hasn't been activated yet and the brain scientists actually say that when you use archetypes, that you energize brain sites in your brain of new possibilities and new potentials, so transforming yourself in energy, being open-minded and curious, like how do people do these things? Decision-making, they're visionaries, they're genius.
Speaker 1:None of you get up in the morning and look in the mirror and go, wow, I'm a genius today. You just don't do it because it has been bred out of us since children that we have to ask for permission. You don't have to ask anyone for permission. We have to lose that. You really want to be claiming the king and the queen within you to design the destiny and the life that you want. You want to die on your deathbed knowing that you did everything you wanted to do, that you didn't leave stone unturned, you didn't sacrifice yourself. You did what you wanted to do, that you didn't leave stone unturned, you didn't sacrifice yourself. You did what you wanted to do. You can be an inventor, an artist, innovators, architect of your future, because everything is literally in quantum physics.
Speaker 1:Vibrational energy and thoughts are magnets in the invisible world. So, alchemy, what you think you become, what you feel you attract, what you imagine you create. How many of you visualize in the morning? Can I say I can't see? Hardly anybody. Nobody raises their hand. Okay, good, now I can see. Okay, for fun.
Speaker 1:How many of you have sexual fantasies? This is the joke. I get Only this one. Well, we all know sexual fantasies. When you fantasize like people actually perked up right there, thank you. Sexual fantasies, you know your body responds yes. So our thoughts affect us. So if you want a better life, if you want to break out of the mold that you were programmed to be and actually really live this life with juice and fun, you've got to like what you think you become.
Speaker 1:We are self-fulfilling prophecies If we think at a certain age we're supposed to get old and fat and sedentary. That's what happens to you. If you think, if you tell yourself every day, like every morning of my life, I tell myself I'm getting younger and younger every day. I am healthier and healthier every day. Those kind of things.
Speaker 1:Now, some of you would probably think that's silly. But what am I? What is my brain feeding the chemistry in my body? How many of you have gone to a high school reunion or a college reunion lately? Scary, right, it's terrifying, because you know, one of the first things they're talking about is how old we are. I'm like no, no, no, no. Do you really want to, with your words, with your words, predict your future? You want your cells in your body to hear that you're old? No, you don't want that.
Speaker 1:What you feel, you attract, feeling has energy to it. What you imagine you create. Every time I leap to a new place, I spend a great deal of time not getting the outside world to approve of it, but my inside to approve of it by visualizing exactly what I want, because it's my imagination. There is no limit. What I can imagine, I can actually create that, so, being an alchemist. So if you're feeling very unresourceful, what if you said to yourself well, let me think of this as an alchemist would think of it, because you certainly think to yourself well, I'm a lawyer, I can think of it. You know how would a lawyer think about this, particularly if you're in a trial with another lawyer.
Speaker 1:So here's the alchemist focus, concentration, the ability to block out distractions and concentration on what's important. Of course you do that already, but give yourself permission, the ability to be deliberate on what you choose to focus in You're all very good at that the ability to direct your thoughts and emotions on only that that you want. You see, the subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between an imaginary event and the real thing, and you can imagine something and then be shocked at what reality creates in front of you, because you've simply asked your brain to tune in to a certain frequency where you see that. So all of you have decided you want a certain car. You know it might be, I don't know. Let's just for fun, say, a red Corvette, and all of a sudden you decide you want a red Corvette. And then have you ever noticed? Oh my gosh, there's so many red Corvettes everywhere Because you've trained your brain to look for it. So an alchemist focus. The next thing I want you to think about is samurai, or zen warrior.
Speaker 1:My biggest client since 2007 is the Japanese. Japanese publishers have published everything. I've done 100 programs. I've written all of my books. They hire me to come to Japan to speak. I do certification programs in Japan and I guess you all might be thinking can I speak Japanese? So I'm going to show you my Japanese Ready Sushi. That's it, one word. They have these fabulous things called translators, and so, even though you'd think, well, how could someone ever, you know, have this huge career and make all this money in Japan and you can only say sushi, it's because they are only looking at what I'm offering. They don't care, they're willing to pay for the translators. So when I'm in Japan working one of the things my last time I was in there in 2019, I did the certification program and I had about 100 people and at the end of my program, many of those people brought me little gifts because the Japanese are very gracious people and I got all these samurai gifts and I was confused by that and finally they explained to me that I had very samurai energy, that I went for what I want.
Speaker 1:So I actually studied samurai a lot and you may or may not know this, but samurais are definitely trained to kill you. They are trained for war. They are very fierce warriors. However, they do everything on earth not to fight. They will negotiate, they will convince. They are very powerful people. So there are going to be times you're going to have to pull out your warrior and as lawyers, you really better work on having that samurai energy, because you can read people when people are confident and they know their stuff and they believe they're going to win. They visualize winning, they can taste it, they believe they're going to win. They are fierce competitors.
Speaker 1:Or you could be the Zen warrior, you know, whereas you're just neutral. But they're disciplined, they're dedicated, they're the architects of power, readiness, implementation. You have that in you. They're resilient, they're skilled at the art of neutrality, non-emotional, driven decision makers. Boy, when you get into hot spots, you really want to pull out that part of you that Zen warrior part of you, and they're passionate adventurers. By the way, folks, I claim myself as an adventurer in life. I love adventure because everything is an experiment. I want to have fun, I want to live this life and I'm shocked at how the world has become so closed and stays in their little comfort zone. We're living literally folks in a world of comfort addiction. Comfort addiction, that is, that they will give up their rights just to have comfort, to fit in. But who has ever really made a mark on earth or ever been a great leader? Who was just going along with the program? So bring these samurai warriors out Now.
Speaker 1:Confidence I want you to honor your commitment to yourself and others. The minute I realize I cannot honor my commitment, I renegotiate, borrow it. Behave as if, if you are doing something and you start to just really trust your intuition, trust that you know I can learn this model, others, what you want to become. I definitely studied other speakers. I've studied writers. I've studied those people now and anything I want to do, I realize there are people out there who can teach me to do it. I don't have to go out there alone. There's, you know, bin glass.
Speaker 1:Envision yourself succeeding If you're not waking up every blessed morning and laying in bed for another couple of minutes and envisioning three things that you want, you're cheating yourself. Your brain is a computer and it responds to what you decide are your priorities. So you have got to really just say there's certain things I want. Maybe you want to lose some weight. So stop telling your body you're fat, because you're a self-fulfilling prophecy. Body goes oh we're fat, let's eat more, you'll lose. Have no control. Visualize yourself making the money you want. Visualize yourself taking your family or your friends or wherever you want to go on earth and having adventures.
Speaker 1:But really stop just accepting the crumbs of life. That's what people do, instead of going for the whole loaf. My greatest mentor said to me once never accept crumbs, take the loaf, you deserve it. My father taught me to believe and he said this many times. He said we don't raise princesses here, we raise warriors, and that never be average. There's a million people who are average. Millions of people are average. If the whole mass of the world is going in one way, never go in that direction. Go in the other direction. Be contrarian if necessary, but absolutely fulfill your own destiny and believe in your own abilities and find solutions. But my mentor saying to me you're accepting crumbs, really got to me because it was true, I was accepting crumbs and so that's what I asked you to do. Don't, don't get the crumbs. Take the low.
Speaker 1:The discipline, it's the power that allows you to stick to the commitments and you respect yourself. And when you respect yourself, your body language and your energy feel shows it. People don't mess with people who respect themselves. It's the bridge between goals and accomplishment and it's discipline is the executive gap between most people. It creates resiliency, courage and personal power.
Speaker 1:Powerful wizards is the next one I want you to think about. As an architect, how many of you are familiar with Dan Kennedy? Most everybody. I'm positive. Yes, I'm a good friend of Dan, have been for many years and we've done a lot of programs and things together and you know Dan says be the wizard but beware of the wizard. Remember he says that all the time Be the wizard but beware of the wizard.
Speaker 1:Wizard are influencers. Be the wizard but beware of the wizard. Wizard are influencers. So you want to be the wizard, whether it's with AI or with new things. You're going to adapt in life. They project energy. They're visionaries of the future. They cultivate universal wisdom and creativity. They create unlimited prosperity and they reject society. Influence Wizard have visions. One of my favorite sayings is fly to the future and we build our planes while we fly. In other words, once you decide you want to do something, you don't have to wait. Just start the action. That is the secret that most people don't seem. The action that is the secret that most people don't seem. They talk about it and talk about it and never, never, never, never, never.
Speaker 1:Tell other people your plans. Two things happen bad if you tell your plans to other people. One, they can talk you out of it. They can I call it poison error. They will give you a comment about how someone else did that and it didn't work. They pollute your thoughts. But here's even the more important thing you must remember when you use your mouth with words to tell another human being what you're going to do, that should be very private. You actually lose force in your body. You lose your power, because you have used your power to share it with other people. It's a very strong metaphysical process, but I'm just sharing with you real quick. Keep your plans to yourself. Don't tell people what you're going to do. Show them with your actions. Does that make sense? Yes or no? Yes makes sense, great, okay.
Speaker 1:Instincts, deliberately listening for the inner wisdom in your inner world, the power of intuition, the gut feelings. I use something called the head-heart-gut check. I have my left brain, which actually analyzes things. I can be very analytical. What would be the positive, what would be the negative doing this new thing? Then I use the heart check, because that's also a brain in a sense of is it moral, is it right, is it the right thing to do? How will I feel about it? And then, of course, the gut. The gut senses absolute fear. It senses danger. It's the thing that keeps you alive, and our world has lost the instinct to survive. They are not using survival instincts.
Speaker 1:When I was growing up, my father would you know, take me out, you know, and we'd go somewhere. And the first thing he would say is where's the exit if something's going wrong? He trained me to walk into a building knowing instantly where the exit was. I had horses and I rode all over the place and he always said to me if you take your horse and you go and I rode like 25 miles away from home, because when I grew up. They didn't really care where you were. As long as you showed up that night, I mean, you were fine. You say if you're going to go somewhere and you go one way, don't come back that same way, because someone could try to grab you, and that actually happened to me.
Speaker 1:So it's a matter of are you using instincts? And it's just in, literally in the last hundred years, that says that humans used instinct to know the difference between you know good people and bad people, and now we're so overloaded with social media and and other people's expectations and how we're supposed to do this and do that that we have forgotten this power that we have within us to literally know right from wrong, and we should do this and it would be good for us. So your instincts are important. So I like the word manifesting you can use when creating. It really doesn't make any difference. But if you really want to be a creator in life, which I am, I believe that life is an adventure. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to do what I want.
Speaker 1:You got to stay positive, because you cannot come up with solutions from a negative mindset, just like when you're in a bad mood. You should not make decisions in an unresourceful mood, because you're not going to get a good decision. It'll come from fear. You want to talk. When you're telling yourself things, you want to believe it's already happened. Because if you've ever read, think and Grow Rich, you know whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe he can achieve or she can achieve. And it's very important.
Speaker 1:And don't spend time thinking or talking about what you don't want. You are bringing it to you. Meditate every day on what you want, visualize it, see it, smell it, feel it, hear it. Remember we're going to fly into the future. We're going to create our plane as we fly. If it's real in your brain, it can become real physically. So, um, I do a lot of research, brain research. I'm not going to get all talk this time of day on all the technical of that, but I want to share with you something I've learned that I've never seen taught anywhere else. That works like a dream. You might want to take notes on this, because I only have a short time left. Our subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between the past and the future and the present. It absolutely cannot take a do tell the difference. So I want you to literally create this new life, whatever it is that you want, by writing this out.
Speaker 1:As long as I remember don't think it's hokey, it actually works. As long as I can remember, my firm and I have earned X number of dollars a year. I have weighed X number of pounds. My relationship says blah, blah. As long as I can remember, because the brain is going to process this information of things that you're attempting to learn and bring into your life, as it's already happened, which is a very important thing Present I am now easily earning. You figure the number out, I easily weigh and all those things you just said. And in the future I will always earn, let's say, you know, a million dollars a year. I will always weigh X number of dollars. So you have tricked your brain into. Your brain thinks in pictures. When you say words, it creates pictures. So if you start thinking I've always been this successful, I am now this successful and I will always be this successful the confidence that you will have, you tricked your brain into buying the program. Does that make sense? Yes, great, it's phenomenal.
Speaker 1:The next thing I want you to do and Dan Kennedy and I have long conversations about this want you to do, and Dan Kennedy and I have long conversations about this is before you go to bed at night. You all have a lamp next to your bed. Everybody has a lamp next to the bed. I want you to put a little sticky note next to the lamp switch and on that sticky note you were to give your subconscious mind directions of what you want your subconscious mind to work on all night, of what you want your subconscious mind to work on all night. So he and I talk about, we joke about it. Like I'm going to write a speech. I need certain things. So I write on the little sticky note give me information about this particular topic.
Speaker 1:The next morning I wake up, my day gets started. By the way, I get up at 4 every morning because I had to do the horses on the ranch. I got into that habit. Between 4 am and 9 am. It is goal for me. I do all my spiritual work, I do my journaling, I do my praying, my meditation, my visualization Nobody's bothering me and I write all my books between 5 am and 9 am and then my work starts. But my brain is so trained every daggone day that I'm up it for this ritual of writing. That's how I have 17 books because you just do it, it becomes a habit.
Speaker 1:But if you actually just start giving your brain something that you want, suddenly you think of oh yeah, there's a quote that I could really use in this book, or there's a person I've met recently that would be a great interview your brain floods you because it has all night to marinate on that particular thing, on how you can be better. And so if you do this, whether it's you know, I have a decision to make. So I'm going to ask my subconscious mind because your subconscious mind is literally going to look through all the files that you've ever experienced in your life, since you've been born, of your five senses, to find information to help you solve that situation, information to help you solve that situation. And I also want you to start telling your subconscious disruptors and here are the disruptors and they're not hokey, because I've heard people say they're hokey and I always laugh and I go well, I can show you my bank account and you can decide if it works or not, but I win no matter what. This is a very good affirmation for lawyers I win no matter what.
Speaker 1:Now it's just telling yourself that, no matter what happens. Even if you actually lose at something, you're going to learn something, but you have a better attitude about it Because let's think it as entrepreneurs guess what? We're going to try a lot of things that don't work. It just means next, that's all it means. It doesn't mean you failed at anything, it just means you learned. That doesn't work, let's do something else.
Speaker 1:The next one is everything always works out for me. Everything always works out for me. I use this a lot at airports. Okay, because you know it's very challenging at airports. But versus the, why does this happen to me? Why do I always get the flights that are canceled? The poor me, the victimization that you do to yourself? And, again, society has taught us to be victims. In our culture today, victims are frighteningly approved of, and I grew up in an area that you could not be a victim. You have to perform. So everything always works out for me one way or the other. And the next one is which has been very good for me?
Speaker 1:Success always comes to me. I have always used it because success does come for me. And it also comes to you, because if you're in a state of mind that you're receptive and that you're open and that people can feel you and they like you. Success is going to come to you and replace a bunch of the BS that you've been saying to yourself. Catch yourself with this. I also want to remind you that one of the greatest frequencies on earth to attract prosperity is gratitude. Be grateful for what you have, who you are, what you've experienced in life, because what you focus on always multiplies. You know what you sow, you reap. Have gratitude for what you already have have, because energy goes where focus goes. Whatever you focus in is what you're going to achieve. And also, at the beginning of your day, you get to decide every single morning what is my day going to be like? And see, most people are reactors to life. They let life happen and then they react to it instead of having these clear intentions about your today. So, design your day. Claim your personal power.
Speaker 1:Ask these four questions what do I want to be today, really? What do I want to be First thing in the morning? What do I want to be? What do I want to feel today? Mainly what we want to feel is excited and happy and prosperous and things are going our way. What do I want to feel today? Mainly what we want to feel is excited and happy and prosperous and things are going our way. What do I want to give today? How can I be a contribution into the world? Because I'm a big believer in what you sow, you're going to reap. So you've got to be a giver. And the last one is what do I want to receive today? And one of the things you want to receive is love and appreciation that you're valued, you're paid, you're. You know that people recognize the contribution that you are creating in life. So you're setting this tone for the day.
Speaker 1:If you just experiment with this for 21 days, don't take my word for it. Be a scientist, mold and shape what I've talked about and check it out for yourself. Albert Einstein said never give up on what you really want to do. The person with the big dreams is much more powerful than anyone with all the facts, because the facts will act. You can. You don't have to follow the facts I'm not talking about in your career, but I mean in what people believe. We have inherent powers as human beings that we were never told as children, because primarily, the only way they control everybody through school, government, religion. Everything is controlled. We are indoctrinated in believing certain things, but most of the time we're led to believe we're victims to society, we're victims of reality. I'm telling you you're not a victim, you're the victor, you're the alchemist, you're the magician. You're actually the warrior.
Speaker 1:You've got to go for what you want, and fear has two meanings. It actually has three. Fantasize experiencing appearing real. Forget everything and run I love that one, that's funny and face everything and rise. The choice is yours. We're always going to have fear.
Speaker 1:I've been on stage for well over 20 years. I felt fear before I got up here. I felt nervous because I always feel nervous. Thank you very much for that. I feel nervous because if you don't feel nervous before you go to trial or you're getting ready to prepare or deal with things, that means that you don't have the excitement. You want to feel a little nervous and I'd like to say, before my presentation is over today, that I had some great secret to share with you.
Speaker 1:There are no secrets. Consistency over intensity, progress over perfection and fundamentals over fads is really the secret. Over and over again, you already have those down pat and literally the past is a locked door. No matter how much you might regret things, stop regretting anything. You learn something from it. Your point in the future is your imagination, and you can create anything you want. Your point of power is always in the present. Stay in the present. You've got to claim your inner authority. You don't have to give your authority, your inner authority. You don't have to give your authority away from anyone. You don't have to ask permission. If you want to do something in life, do it, and today is the day that you open up the chapter of your life that you want. So, with that said, we're going to have a beautiful rest of the time together. Thank you for listening to me. It's been an honor to be here. Thank you.
