The Immigrant Lawyer, Héctor E. Quiroga, Sr - Partner at Quiroga Law Office

Hector Quiroga, an immigrant lawyer from Colombia, overcame numerous challenges to become a successful lawyer. Despite initial struggles with English and multiple LSAT failures, he persevered and founded the Quiroga Law Office. Hector emphasized the importance of immersion in learning English and facing personal challenges and childhood trauma. Hector also highlighted the significance of family support and the need for therapists to help address past traumas. Listen to his story and choose which action will help you get closer to your goal today!

Action Principles

Pick one to do this week:

1. Step outside your comfort zone. Immersing yourself in situations outside your usual routine can help you learn quickly. ACTION: Take a learning opportunity even if it's not something you'd usually do.

2. Don't be afraid to seek help. If you're seeing patterns of behavior that hold you back from success, therapy or a trained mentor could make a significant difference. ACTION: Research therapy or mentorships and schedule a session with someone who seems like a good fit.

3. View life as a test. If you continue to fail in a particular area, it's time to make changes to get different results. ACTION: Evaluate your actions and consider what you can do differently going forward.

4. Take a step. Focus on taking one step at a time to reach your goal. ACTION: Schedule time in your calendar to take the first step towards your goal.

Guest Resources

Learn more from Hector Quiroga, Sr. by following him on LinkedIn or visiting Quiroga Law Offices.

Suggested LinkedIn Learning Course

Making Big Goals Achievable

Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time magazine, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world. DaveCrenshaw.com

Transcript

Hector Quiroga: 0:00

I started studying on these things and learning about terms like supply and demand, things like that, like trying to push myself to expand my vocabulary, but it was difficult to explain it back home. I mean, I was my dad be like, I'm in a liberal arts program. Arts. What are you an artist now? Like you stop because I do not understand what I was doing.

Dave Crenshaw: 0:23

In this episode, you'll get to know Hector kidoga, the immigrant lawyer, and you'll hear how he overcame adversity as a Colombian immigrant, including failing the LSAT several times to build one of the fastest growing law firms in the United States. I'm Dave Crenshaw, and this is my success Show. Welcome back, friends, to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show. This is where I speak to some of the most successful people I've met in my life's journey. And I'm on a mission to find universal principles of success that will help both you and my family succeed. If it's your first time here and you're not familiar with me, I'm a best selling author. I speak around the world to Fortune 500 companies, and I've taught millions of people how to be successful through my online courses. And with this show, I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to create something lasting to help my family succeed, my three children, and I thought you'd enjoy learning along with them. And I seek to interview people who have achieved multi faceted success, so not just financial or career success, as wonderful as those things are, but they also have time for fun, and they spend time with those that they care about. And by the way, if you know someone who fits that description and you think would make a great guest, you can email your suggestion to guest at Dave crenshaw.com now as you listen to today's episode, please do one thing. Look for something you can do, an action you can take today or this week to make my guest success story a part of your success story. And today's guest, man has so many moments of wisdom and so much to offer. He's overcome a great deal, and I'm really inspired by him. Hector Quiroga is the CEO of Quiroga law office. PLLC, with over 14 years of experience in immigration law, he's dedicated much of his life to helping 1000s of immigrant families improve their quality of life. He also teaches law students at Gonzaga University. School of Law. Hector immigrated from Colombia to the United States in January of 2000 within nine years, he learned English and graduated from Gonzaga University with honors from undergraduate and law school programs. Then he became a business owner, a homeowner, a husband, a father, a writer, and like his clients, a United States citizen. Hector enjoys riding his motorcycle and spending time with his family. Hector, thank you so much for being here today.

Hector Quiroga: 3:03

Thank you for having me, Dave.

Dave Crenshaw: 3:04

You got a beautiful law office there with your dynamic red microphone. I love it. Where are you right now? Where is your office located?

Hector Quiroga: 3:13

I'm in Spokane, Washington. That's kind of headquarters,

Dave Crenshaw: 3:17

okay, not too far away from me. I'm in Salt Lake City, so just a state or two away. So I'm going to start the interview Hector, where I start with everyone, which is that age old question that we ask kids, which is, what did you want to be when you grew up? First of all, where did you grow up?

Hector Quiroga: 3:34

I was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia, and I always say that I was born to be a lawyer. I really love the law, since I can't remember, but my family, my dad, my mom are lawyers. My sisters are lawyers. My grandpa is a lawyer. The interesting piece is that everybody would always told me, Oh, you want to be a lawyer because your parents are lawyers. And that was not it at all. I really love the law. And in fact, there were points in my life where my parents told me you could try something else, do something different. I was like, No, this is really

Dave Crenshaw: 4:09

it. So they gave you that space to be able to choose something else, even though everyone around you was doing it. Yeah,

Hector Quiroga: 4:16

I think so. I mean, I think in Latino communities there is, there is there is an expectation that you're going to go to college, especially if you come from a professional family, that like you're going to go you can choose. You can be an architect, or you could be an engineer, you can be a doctor, you can be a lawyer. So I had choices within that box, right? But it was never even a question for me, what

Dave Crenshaw: 4:37

was life in Columbia like when you were growing up,

Hector Quiroga: 4:41

this is the 90s, right? I graduated high school in 99 and I come in January of 2000 so really, 80s, 90s. In Colombia, there was a lot of issues with drug traffic. There was a lot of issues with narcotics. There was a big war on drugs down there that that it was pretty rough. I remember people getting. Shot. I saw people getting shot next to me in the bus stop. I saw, you know, bombs. I remember the bombings. There was a huge bombing in 1993 and you can hear the bombs in the house. Remember, kind of like looking at my patents and kind of waking up, and they were like, No, nothing happened. And so that's kind of where I did by 99 things were getting a little better, but struggling. So in 1991 the Colombian constitution was redrawn, and my dad was actually in the Senate, so he was a senator, and there was part of reforming some of the Colombian laws. And in fact, this whole thing with extradition came a piece. And so what happened and it created is that it kind of created dangerous situations for my family. And yeah, in high school I grew up, and, you know, there's bodyguards, and there's all this kind of different this sense of danger very much around you, 100% and so it was very much a different way to look at the world. And even to this day, I still lock my doors, pull my windows up, that type of stuff, still very much in my being Okay, so

Dave Crenshaw: 6:06

let's talk about what led to you leaving Columbia and going to the United States. What happened that made you think that is what I need to do.

Hector Quiroga: 6:16

I was actually going to come and study English. I applied for a ESL class, English as a second language at the University of Texas in Austin, and I was going to come and do a semester, and then I was going to go back, and I felt like it was important for me to learn a second language before I would jump into law school. So typically, most Latin American countries, you graduate high school, and then you go straight into law school. It's a five or six year program. While here, you have to go on undergrad and then law school. So what happened is, while I was here, when I came to do my schooling, it was one of the things that things got very dangerous, and it was like I was told, please don't do whatever you can not to come back. So I didn't leave Columbia with idea of immigrating. I left Columbia with the idea of going to study and then come back and probably start a low career working kind of with my father.

Dave Crenshaw: 7:10

So did you go straight to Gonzaga for that, or was there an intermediate program that you were going to I

Hector Quiroga: 7:16

did ESL, and then I had six months to learn English. I went from banana Apple, what is the restroom to Hey, you got to go to college. And so my issue was, my parents are divorced, and so my mom was in the States, and I just kind of got a hold of her and said, Look, I was living with my father. So this is how going on. What do I do? And she says, Listen, I'm going to be passing by a city called Spokane, Washington. I'm going to be there for a couple of weeks with my spouse. Why don't you come over and we'll try to figure something out. Because I was also running out of money, so I had paid the international student tuition, and I just had to kind of head up. So I come to Spokane, and in those two weeks, I see that there is a free Spokane Community College English classes. And I'm really like, I need to really learn this. And I felt that as six months that I had done, I took the TOEFL exam and I didn't pass. I even very close to passing, just a few points away. So I said, No, I want to go here. So I start going to the community college. My mom eventually leaves, but because I'm hearing a free college education, I'm like, I want to stay here. So I did spoken Community College, finish English, transfer into their liberal arts, and then once I had an AA degree, then I went to Gonzaga as an undergrad. There's a question

Dave Crenshaw: 8:42

that I want to ask, and it's a little bit more of just my personal interest, but I think it's relevant to a lot of people who put themselves into a new country, they need to learn another language. What's a mindset of success that you learned to help you learn that language in a foreign situation?

Hector Quiroga: 9:00

The first thing I think I did right was I came in and I said, I want a complete immersion. I tried to not have too many friends who spoke Spanish. And I was really putting myself on listening to the radio, listening to TV, magazine, everything in English, English, English, English. And I was doing everything that I could to do that. And Spokane also kind of benefited me, because there was not a lot of diversity, so I was the only one who spoke Spanish. At some point, it felt like it, and so it really forced me to to learn

Dave Crenshaw: 9:38

Boy, that is so true. I think that's true with a lot of things where you have to put yourself in a position where you have no choice but to learn, no choice but to succeed. And I do think that the reason why people struggle sometimes with any new thing that they're learning is they're giving themselves a way out. They're giving themselves an opportunity to quit or to make things easier on themself. I always

Hector Quiroga: 9:59

show you. English as a first step to becoming a lawyer. And once I was sort of told, like, you can't come back. I'm like, Well, now I want to stop. And if I become a lawyer here, then I better master this thing. And so I look for those opportunities. I mean, I remember I had a little bit of cultural shock in University of Texas, you know, I was walking out and I seen all these, like, religious denominations. And so I come from a country where 90% plus, I mean, it's Christian Catholic. And so it was interesting because they were offering classes. And so I actually joined some of those classes, just because I wanted to learn the language. And I was beautiful to see different perspectives and different things I was just not exposed

Dave Crenshaw: 10:39

to. I'm already picking up one great theme, which is your hunger for learning and improvement. You put yourself into a variety of situations to learn, perhaps even in unusual ways, right? Your willingness to get yourself to be uncomfortable. I'm already seeing that as a little bit of a pattern,

Hector Quiroga: 10:59

yeah, I think so I think that getting out of that comfort zone, which I didn't think it like that at the time, it was just about like, hey, they're gonna talk to me about God. And I don't even know how to say God or angels or whatever, right? So I was seeing it from an English perspective, and I was just and he was free. So I needed that. Okay,

Dave Crenshaw: 11:19

so talk to me then about your college education. What was that like? Did you have any mentors who made an impact in your life when you were studying well,

Hector Quiroga: 11:29

speaking angels? I do think there's a few people in the in my career who have touched me in a lot of in very positive ways, and sometimes and sometimes people who just say to you, hey, I think you're doing a great thing. Don't stop. And that's all you need, or a smile, right? That person. So I had a friend, and I had to go, come be my mom, and I was out of money, and I said, Look, I need, like,$500 and he gave me the money. I said, pay me whenever you can. And I still remember to this day the grace, right? I was like, wow. So I come in and, you know, I go through the community college, I'm doing ESL, I meet who's going to become my wife, Casey, still kind of talking at the community college. And then finally, just kind of really, really get a relationship at Gonzaga when I graduate. But I felt like I made a discouragement fraternity very quickly. I think that even actually from Texas, they were like, you want to be a lawyer. Do you know how hard that is? Do you know how expensive that is? Do you know how long that takes? So it was interesting Dave, because he was like, Wait a minute. Like, all of my life to this point, everybody was saying, you gotta be a lawyer because your parents are a lawyer. And almost overnight, everybody around me was telling me, No, you want you don't even speak English. You can't even do this. Like PhDs at the at the university were

Dave Crenshaw: 12:50

saying. So they were actually discouraging, you.

Hector Quiroga: 12:53

They were like, Look, you you're too stressed, man, you're you're chill, like, this is gonna take decades. And I'm like, I have six months, because that's how much money I got. But I was like, no, no, no, I'll show you. I'll show you. There was a lot of ego here, right? Like, I'll show you. How can you make a decision about my life in 15 minutes? That's sort of kind of what happens. And so the first thing to to college goes, well, I need to go to law school. And then I go, Well, you don't do that here. You You have to go to an undergrad. And I was like, What do you mean? You got to pick up a career. And so I said, Well, why will get me the closest to law school? And you know, truthfully, I could have probably picked Spanish, which would have been the greatest cheat job ever. But they said, No, I like, let me do well, sure, political science, economics, that will really get you kind of like in a pre law sort of track. And so I picked that, and I started studying on these things and learning about terms like supply and demand, things like that, like try to push myself to expand my vocabulary, but it was difficult to explain it back home. I mean, I was gonna call my dad be like, I mean, I leave it on arts program, right? Arts, arts, what were you an artist? Now, like you stop because you would not understand what I was doing. So that's kind of how that go. And then I start kind of talking to Casey, and we both shared that in common, we both wanted to go to law school, and I picked on Zaga because I heard that if you go to the law school, if you go to the school, the university that has a law program, is easier to get linked to the law school. It's kind of what my understanding was. So I worked really hard to transfer to Gonzaga.

Dave Crenshaw: 14:36

So I've got a personal question here too. There was a moment, it was a very brief moment in college where I dipped my toes into law. I thought, Dave, this is right for me. So I took like a pre law class, and I failed miserably. It was so and the reason why was the amount of reading and research required is overwhelming, and I started. This podcast, Hector first looking for ways to help my kids learn principles of success. So what would you advise them, or anyone else who's going into a career where that much reading and research is required? How can they succeed in a situation like that?

Hector Quiroga: 15:18

There's couple of things, like the pre law program, I found it not to be that close to the law school at all. It was very different. And I don't it could have been my teacher. It could have been I don't understand how, but I felt that there was a significant difference. But once I did get to law school and just start learning about constitutional law and freedom of speech, the right to bear arms. So I do think that for those who want to be a lawyer, don't let pretty low scare you. Talk

Dave Crenshaw: 15:47

to me a little bit about I saw here that you spent some time as an intern with World Relief when you started attending Gonzaga. Talk to us just a little bit about what that internship is, or what that cause is about.

Hector Quiroga: 15:59

Right? So World Relief is a nonprofit, is a global nonprofit that helps refugees from different countries who are coming in, and they help the resettlement process like, you know, when you come here, those first weeks, those first months, what do you do? I felt that, since I had kind of done that, you know, what is those first months? How does this work? I could help. And obviously my Spanish skill would also be helpful to them. And so I got with them, and I started working with them, and helped quite a bit. And so it was a very nice internship. I learned a lot, and I started seeing the need for this type of cultural training and understanding different cultures and asking them to adapt to this culture. And there's so many things I can tell you I did that were so silly. I come from the Caribbean, basically. And coming to a place with snow, you do some things that you now, you look back and you go, like, why would you think that was the way to do it? But for example, I had to teach do not turn your stove as a healing source because it's a big fire hazard. And these are things that we don't think on daily days. We just we don't that's not what you do, but not when you're showing up on your place. And so this type of stuff was great for me, to humble me and to really just know that we have different perspectives or contexts or culture affect us usually, and

Dave Crenshaw: 17:21

I can tell that that's something that is a thread running through the work that you do, is that compassion for people who are coming from a different place to a new place, and sounds like part of it is because that's what you experienced, but also it's who you are and who you want to help. So let's talk then about how you first started going into law practice for yourself. What were those early days like?

Hector Quiroga: 17:45

Interesting, right? I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a lawyer. It was very difficult for me to get into the law school. I failed the LSAT every time I took it like six times. I was denied entrance or law school like seven times. And I keep trying. I keep trying. So Casey, my wife, she actually gets accepted, and I'm not. And so one of the things that that did for me was I see her studying, and this is a she's a smart cookie, man. I mean, she will study, take notes. Remember everything I saw her in my house, reading every book and supplemental and then the grades came out. I was like, Oh, she rocked it. I was like, I don't know if I even want to be able to keep my scholarship. Actually, I don't even know if I want to be able to stay in law school. That's how competitive was. And so what happens is, it is scare me. I was like, Okay, if this bride, front of the class, individual is struggling with a native English skill. I'm out of my league here. So once I was able to get in, I just went to town. I went to study. So I applied that same sort of concept of food immersion. I lived on crackers and water because I didn't want to work. They tell you you can work on law school. You can figure can figure it out. Like, at least the first year, I actually didn't. I just focus on the books and library, and I obsess over that because I want to be a lawyer. So this goes back to what happened to the early years. Is like, you know, and you're getting that degree, you know, you're like, Okay, you're a lawyer. And I'm like, now what I've been working so hard on this English and becoming a lawyer. Now, what find somebody to sue like it was never a question.

Dave Crenshaw: 19:33

Let's pause on that for a second. So are you saying that in the law school, they weren't doing anything to prepare you for the business side of things,

Hector Quiroga: 19:41

oh, of zero, absolutely nothing, nothing at all. I've heard that with other

Dave Crenshaw: 19:45

similar careers, like dentist doctors, they teach you how to be one, but they don't teach you how to make money or have a career as one. No,

Hector Quiroga: 19:53

nothing, nothing at all. There's no conversation about what the paralegal should do and what should the legal assist. And do this is stuff that I had to learn later and see Law School focuses so much on appellate work like, how do you appeal? And you go to the core and the rules of appeal and all of that, but the practice management, the day to day thing, is very much something that law schools should improve quite a bit. So

Dave Crenshaw: 20:17

you found a niche to work with. How did you discover that this was the group of people that you should work with and and make a career out of?

Hector Quiroga: 20:26

My wife graduates couple years ahead of me. I joined her. And so this is about 2009 This is a complete real estate collapse. Jobs are not the best, and I have to sit down for a minute. I thought, okay, how can I get a job as a lawyer, as an associate? And there he goes again. The discourse during fraternity, right? You cannot open a law firm. You have to have experience. Insurance is expensive. Oh, man. And here's a here's a big, bigger issue, and that is, once you get that degree, you're like, wait, I took the bar exam. The grades are not out, so you graduated before grades are out. You haven't taken the bar yet. You need to take the bar. And it's like, if you don't pass the bar, you have to retake it. But now you have no student loans, so you're really like, you had to get the job. There's a lot of pressure, but now there's no jobs because there's a meltdown. So it's like, what do I do? So I sat down, I start counting hours. I said, All right, if I spend my time trying to find a job, I would have to work in interviews and resumes and hunting down these law firms and do this, or I can use the same amount of time to open my own law firm. But then the discouragement fraternity comes back, and everybody's saying that you can't do that. You have to have experience. You do you? You don't know what you're doing. Insurance is expensive. What are you even going to do? And I'm like, I heard all of these again. I'm just going to open my own law firm, and so Casey opens the firm, and I'm like, head clerk, right? Because I'm still waiting for my bad results, I build my desk, and I study on my own desk for the bar, which is interesting, and I pass on my first try, and now I'm a licensed lawyer. But then it goes the question, what are we going to do? Well, what do we know in that moment on time is that there was a financial collapse and people were struggling, and that we also didn't have money to pay the student loans. So we had to come to the realization that we were bankrupt. We had to file for bankruptcy. Now what is interesting here is that, you know, student loan debt does not get discharged on bankruptcy. You can, but it's very difficult. So student loan debt is not so we became bankruptcy lawyers by by accident. We had to kind of learn it. So I never took a class on bankruptcy. She did. So she does here. Let me teach you what I know. And we learn on our own bankruptcy. We learn on our own bankruptcy to go and file for this. And I kind of became a bankruptcy lawyer the time sort of forced me, and I did this for about four years, five years and or niche was, we keep it civil. That was, or name tag, we keep it civil, right? We don't go into criminal law, we keep it civil. And that was way too wide. I didn't know it at a time, but it was like, you're like, doing everything. So it's called door lock law, whatever walks through that door you do, right, okay? And I was doing bankruptcies for $400 the entire thing, beginning to end, Video Credits. It was like, I was the cheapest one. I was like, advertising on Craigslist, and I was just doing this thing and but I was just struggling and struggling and struggling. Five years of struggle. I just couldn't seem to get this too long situation on their hand, I was just struggling. And I just, I was about to become a Spanish teacher. I was like, Look, I this is a lot isn't for me. When people told me, you have to work harder. I was like, okay, there is 168 hours in a week, and I'm working 167 I cannot work one more hour because there's sleep. That whole humbleness came back to me and be like, Well, why don't you work with an advisor? And I was like, well, that's something I haven't tried, but I'm about to become a Spanish teacher, so sure, I'll do that.

Dave Crenshaw: 24:26

So what does that mean? Work with an advisor, like a

Hector Quiroga: 24:28

coach, like somebody who can just really work with you, because obviously what I'm doing isn't working. And so I start working with them, and the first thing that comes up and go, Why are you so cheap? I mean, you're the cheapest, yeah, 400 bucks for all that. That's way crazy. Even back in in those years, it was just crazy and and you need to learn sales. And I'm like, Oh, I know how to sell. I got plenty of clients. And so we went through an exercise, and in that exercise. Is they set up this sort of like, they call it. It's like a Thunderdome, and it's dark, and you walk in there and these individual plays your worst client, and so I'm trying to sell him, trying to sell him, trying to sell him, and I just can't sell him. And later, the lesson that I learned was I wasn't following an agenda. I wasn't listening. I was just like begging, almost like, buy from me, buy from me, buy for me, hire me, hire me, hire me, hire me. And to tell that I was having sales, or I was being hired because I was the cheapest in town, not because I was any good at it. But then they say, like, you gotta raise your prices, man. I mean, so obvious, but I resisted this for a couple of years, right? I just resisted, resisted, and they were really hard on me on this, and they were like, but what is it? No, that's not it. Tell there's gotta be something hyper. You're not telling us something. So then I go, I was abused of a child. It just came out. I was abused as a child, and this was by another man. So it was like, it was very hard for Latino and Hispanic to even come to terms with this. And they were like, there it is. That is. What does that have to do with anything? This is back when I was like, you know, a very young boy. Why is this even a problem? Have you gone to therapy or that, I'm like, No. And I did tell my parents, and my parents told me at the time, was like, Don't let this affect you and don't ever talk about this again. That was the instruction. And so I was like, No, and you know, I told him about this story, what my parents said? I said, Yeah, you're showing things on the rug and you're not you need to go in and talk and so. And then there was something that they said to me that just really hit me hard. I was like, you know, you're being kind of a hypocrite, Hector, because you're complaining about your clients who you tell them not to do something, and then they go exactly and do what you told them not to do. This is in family law and all of that, right? Like, don't do that. And they exactly go do that. So you're here, hiring us, paying us a good amount of money, and then not doing what we tell you to do. That's exact same thing you're doing to your clients. And I was like, Okay, I'm going to therapy. So I came back to Spokane. I contacted a therapist. This wasn't necessarily a breakthrough or anything like that, but it got me talking about this subject, and it just opened up. And I tell you, once I started talking and finding myself worth, the sales just started to come. It was almost like the energy of being authentic, of not having this thing. It just is, again, describe it this light start coming through. And so it was a lot easier. So that was kind of the first thing, was trying to start that deep introspection of why I

Dave Crenshaw: 27:50

want to highlight that Hector, especially as someone who also has dealt with abuse from a parent, and what an impact that has on your career, and it has on your business, and the need to confront that. So thank you so much for sharing that, because that's so important for people to hear and sometimes they don't even recognize that they're perpetuating these patterns, that they're doing things at work that are getting themselves in trouble. They're not recognizing that there was something in the past, there was someone who influenced them, and as long as they continue to carry that trauma, it's not going to get better. So I really appreciate you saying that and sharing that with us. Yeah,

Hector Quiroga: 28:34

and it shows in so many ways. Give you a quick example, one of the things that's difficult for me was to delegate. I would not allow anybody to help me with my personal email, for example, or my email. I just wouldn't I had to do it was that a trust issue? It was a trust issue. But what is the trust issue coming from? And so I talked to them well through this process, and what it comes from is that my parents didn't really protect me in the way that I felt they should. They just told me, shower under the rock. They removed the thread, but that was it. There was no police report, there was no medical report, it was just, that's it. And so it was almost like you start seeing that you have trust problems. You can't trust individuals because they let you down. So why would you give anything? And it's chosen in serious ways, like, for example, the server thing I wasn't worth protecting. Therefore, I was just doing everything basically for free, cheap, cheap, cheap, that was my thing. So that's how that piece sort of came about to increasing authenticity and be able to talk with a lot of authority and inspiring that you could actually advocate for somebody else. And

Dave Crenshaw: 29:43

clearly, what we're talking about, it sounds very simple. It's like, oh, you go to therapist and then everything's solved. But that's very hard. That's a lot of personal work, introspection, I'm sure, talking with your wife, I mean, it's a lot of work to confront that and deal with it. It

Hector Quiroga: 29:59

was. Hard process, and I just never even thought it was a thing. It was like, you've never, I mean, I was successful, I went to law school, I study, I learned English. I Why? Why do I need to do this? And, wow, that really opened a lot of doors for me. Thank

Dave Crenshaw: 30:15

you for sharing that. Okay, so how did you start getting clients who actually paid what you were worth so that you didn't have to work yourself too hard and do everything cheaply.

Hector Quiroga: 30:28

So then, Dick, you said, Okay, the next thing is you gotta, you gotta pick up a niche. You can be everything to everybody. You have to really value your skills. And what is it that you have to do? And I fought that for another couple years because I was so afraid. I was so afraid that, you know, I cannot tell you how many times a family law case would come in or a probate would come in, and it would just be 5000 bucks and I could make payroll. So for me to go in and say, I no longer do this, I'm just only going to do one thing. Then I started looking at my life, and that's when I said, you know, I love this thing of being an immigrant, I had litigated. At that point, I had gone through litigation, but I didn't enjoy any other kind of law. I wanted to have a happy ending. And this is why I love sort of with immigration, I get to get somebody a war permit or a green card or a citizenship or it's nice. It feels good at the end of the case. Most law you won, you got attorneys fees, or you lost, or you're going to jail, or you're not going to jail, it's not a good situation. So I felt like this is something I want to do. I want to do good. I want to be able to do that. So that's why I picked immigration. But it took a period of time, and I remember it was the last$40,000 that I had that I actually call all my non immigration clients, and I said, I'm giving you your full retainer back. I'm already half on the case, but it doesn't matter. I'm giving you every single money you pay me back to you so you can go get a lawyer to help you. But it was very hard, because then is when I really told the world, the universe, God, I am here to be doing immigration, and you can almost track it. The minute those two things happen, the firm exploded. You just exploded.

Dave Crenshaw: 32:13

I love hearing that, because I've experienced that of the willingness to give up money for something that is wrong, and it's terrifying to do that, especially when you got these bills and you got to pay for student loans and everything like this is this isn't going to work out, but when you focus, when you choose, that's actually when the doors open. So it takes courage to take that step, and I'm so glad that you share how you were rewarded for doing that. You mentioned

Hector Quiroga: 32:43

something huge to me, and I think it's on our point is the focus part when you focus and so I focus on this, and then I this shows on my life again. And life has something very funny. Life will give you the test, and then it'll give you the lesson in school, we're giving the lesson, and then we get the test. But life is backwards. Life gives you the test, and if you don't pass the test, life will keep giving you the same test until you pass it. And this is why we see some of our friends and individuals are like, they keep making the same mistake and they don't see it. It's life giving them the same test. And so I was giving the test again, and the test was, Are you going to focus or no? And it was student loans. So now we're about $500,000 on student loan debt. When we graduated, we had about 280 and it had grown during the years because we were forbearances and delaying and the bankruptcy put this at a state for a while, and we just so now we're here, and I decided with my wife that we were going to pay them. We said we were going to make a decision, and we're going to pay the student loans to zero. We focus so much as a couple. I mean, we still coupons. We did everything we could understand. We're a family of seven. I had seven children. Okay, so I order kids with this. So Casey had two kids when I married her, and I raised them. They're my children now and then we have five together. So through all of these, I'm going through this, and I said, we're gonna pay the student loans. We were paying about $20,000 a month and leaving whatever we had for us to eat and pay or rent until we paid them off. We paid almost $500,000 and I tell you when that happened, I learned to save. I learned to live with very little, and so now it just felt like we had this cash flow to be able to invest back into the business and and grow it.

Dave Crenshaw: 34:45

You've talked to us about your wife and your children. What role have they played in your success? How do they influence the work that you do?

Hector Quiroga: 34:55

Right? Well, my wife massive, right? So in some of the decisions we made. So we decided she was going to play defense and I was going to play offense. So defense would be she would she would exit the firm, and she would focus on the on the house and the children and making sure that the house we were not going to lose or rent or anything like that. Basically, she took care of the poorest of the home, and I was out here to bring as much income as I could, and we divided this and conquer, really. And I'm very thankful to her, because it took a lot to say, Hey, I'm a lawyer, but I want to step out to do this. And this is what was important to us, was her family so very, very big, or faith help us through that. And I think that's it. And the kids really are your motivator, right? You really don't. I don't want them to struggle with student loans the way I did. I didn't want them to do not have a good example to follow, and so that's why I think it just makes you go at it right? And I do talk about this on my book, prove them wrong. There's a little bit of the difference. When I have my step children with us, they're now grown, but, you know, I raise them, one you have your biological child is like, this is it? I mean, this baby relies 100% and Hector. So Hector, better get his act together to make it happen. So I think family is just so great to motivate you and get you to the next level.

Dave Crenshaw: 36:17

You mentioned previously how you were working 167 hours out of 168 hour week. How has that changed? What are you doing now? In terms of balance?

Hector Quiroga: 36:28

So I work about 40 to 50 hours. This is what I like. I did anything less, I feel a little like I'm wasting my life. So I still have a full time, but it is very much control. I get to pick the things I'm really passionate and I like I pick the cases that I want to argue before the nine district or app course of Appeals, and I get to work many hours on those cases with a warning or billable hours, or any of that stuff. I get to just really enjoy what I'm doing. And another thing that I love is coaching my team, right? Well, 340 staff members that work for me, and I get to coach them and develop them and grow them and ask something I really love doing that's helped the growth of the firm. Let's

Dave Crenshaw: 37:11

talk about that coaching for just a second. So are you still practicing law, or are you mostly developing the business? Are you mostly managing the firm.

Hector Quiroga: 37:21

Out of those 40 hours, I would say 435. Are CEO developing the firm. Five are just the cases that I like to work on. So it's very little practice at this point. It's more growing and and it's great, because now I can have an impact on my community, right? It's just very difficult when you're struggling financially. You need a platform to able to say, hey, help immigrants, right? Like you're underwater. Help immigrants. Help immigrants. You can't do it, but when you have a platform, then you can really impact, I love

Dave Crenshaw: 37:51

it. And for those who work with immigrants, because that's a big part of any society, is new people are coming in. They might be coming from a different background, a different culture, and we're working with them. What would you want people to know if they have a co worker who is an immigrant, what should they know about that experience so that they can help that person succeed? I think

Hector Quiroga: 38:18

immigrants get, especially in political times get a bad rap right, like they don't really come to help. I think most immigrants, most of us, really want to contribute, or we see the line of opportunity because we want to make those opportunities count. We want to apply ourselves. So I think that sometimes that, hey, you can do this, that you know, it was 10 people told me you won't be a lawyer, or you can't open your law for your own law firm to that one person says, You know what? I think you got that i You're the tiger. I think you could actually do it. If anybody can do it, it's you actually, that would just leave your spirit in such a way that it was, oh, somebody sees it, the encouragement

Dave Crenshaw: 38:56

of that, yes, yes. And what about if they're struggling with the language, they're struggling with culture, how could we help? Americans

Hector Quiroga: 39:06

are very great on this. I think they feel your accent and they say, hey, they try to slow down, or they try to initiate better. That happens, but I think sometimes it's just patience. I one thing that I think does tend to happen is that if you have an accent, some individuals equate that to a low IQ, or maybe somebody who's not that smart, and so that's difficult, but you do get used to it. And these are encouragement and really full immersion is really what is that I really believe on this. It's like they just have to apply yourself, put it yourself on all sorts of different situations, and you dominate it at some point.

Dave Crenshaw: 39:40

Last question I want to ask you, and then we'll wrap this up. You're teaching now, also at Gonzaga as well. I find that as an educator, I find that I learn the most when I'm teaching. So what are some things that you have learned at. As a professor, as a teacher, that perhaps you wouldn't have learned any other way.

Hector Quiroga: 40:05

So we're doing practice management. So when Zach was one of the law schools that said, Hey, we gotta show them something, and they cool up on me, because my firm has been Inc 5000 This is the fifth year that we achieve that growth rates of 238% plus a year, what is Hector doing? And so it was great because I was able to ask them, they're younger than me, hey, and they'll tell you that, hey, you know this AI thing here, they still help you with that. And you know this, like website over here, they'll help you with that. And so they it's almost like a feedback loop of new ideas that are coming that I just probably would have missed, and it really helped me a lot on that. I always say that I'm paid to grade exams because everything else is just so great. It's just so great to learn from them. That's

Dave Crenshaw: 40:52

wonderful, too, that you're correcting something that was missing before in your education. You're showing them actually how to build a business, which is so important to learn the business side of things, no matter what career it is that you're pursuing. Just talk to us briefly about the book, and where can I find it

Hector Quiroga: 41:08

right? So Amazon. Prove them wrong. That's the name of the book, and it is just gives you that of using that discouragement fraternity in your life, the individuals that told you know the doubt, to feel that power inside of you, to go like, I'll show you. I'll show you, and then it helps you get forward. And that's what really inspired me to be like, you can't get into law school. Let me get in. You can't really speak English. Oh, I'll show you. Instead of letting it get me down, you kind of lift your spirit. And so the book talks about that, and it does talk about, you know, my relationship with Casey, and how we came as a couple to play offense and defense, and kind of how all that went, and the things that I found out about looking inside to apply to the business world. Is there

Dave Crenshaw: 41:58

wonderful, and I can definitely tell that you're passionate about everything that you talk about in that and that you live, what you teach, which I deeply respect. So Hector at the end of every one of these episodes, we do a little summary, because for me, it's very important to take action, and I believe that it's wonderful to learn things, but more important is that you do something about it. So what I'm going to do is, for the listener, I'm going to suggest three different actions that they can take today or this week to make your success story a part of their success story. So I'm going to suggest three, and then, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to suggest one as well after that, sound good. Sound good. Okay, the first lesson comes from the beginning, but we've seen it throughout your life and your career. Make yourself uncomfortable, immerse yourself, put yourself in a situation where you can learn things. And you did that. You immersed yourself in English. You took advantage of any opportunity to learn in any way that you could. And I think a lot of people, they're afraid of the discomfort. And I would encourage you to say, what's a way that you can put yourself in a situation where you have to learn something that you need? I think that's a great principle. The second one, I want to highlight a phrase and your story really is a great endorsement for one of my books, the focus business, and one of that I talk about in there is how the business is the reflection of the leader. It's the business, it's the reflection of you. And you saw things in your business that were a mirror being reflected back at you. The reason for that was because there was past trauma that you had not yet worked through. So I would ask anyone who's listening to this that where they see a pattern being reflected back to them to consider therapy, to consider going to an advisor to get help with it. And then that leads back to my the last principle. And you said something great. I want to repeat it. School gives you the lesson and then the test, but life gives you the test and then the lesson. And then you said, if you don't pass that test, it keeps giving it to you over and over. And I would invite someone listening to this to consider, what does it seem like there's something that life keeps throwing at me over and over and over and I don't seem to get it right. Well, if you don't seem to get it right, the next time you get that test, do the different thing. Do whatever it is that you haven't been doing before, and test it out and see if you don't pass that test. I loved that principle. And what's an action that you would suggest someone can take today or this week?

Hector Quiroga: 44:47

I think one thing is it's one step at a time. The first action is a step. I think it's very much a very vulnerability thing, right? Take a step. It's just an action because it can be so overwhelming, right? You just look. At it, and call it English law school, law firms, or whatever your life is going and we just give up, like lost too much, just one step at a time and then another step of time. So whatever actions you decide, or those three or something that might you hear here or somewhere else, just do it, and then pretty soon you get into the habit of moving forward. And that's you'll be running before you know it

Dave Crenshaw: 45:21

so true. Put that action on your calendar and commit to it and do it Hector. It's been a real pleasure to get to know you today. I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us. I had had a great time. I'm sure everyone else listening has had that as well.

Hector Quiroga: 45:36

Thank you for having me, and I'm a fan. Follow you all over LinkedIn and all the content you put your book or focus is really, really good.

Dave Crenshaw: 45:44

Ella, thank you. And if people want to continue to learn more from you and follow you, what's the best place to go to to make that connection? I

Hector Quiroga: 45:52

am at Quiroga, law office.com that is q, U, I, R, O, G, a law office.com and we have a lot of social media there. Wonderful.

Dave Crenshaw: 46:00

And also check out the book prove them wrong. Thank you Hector, and thank you everyone for listening. Remember, it's not just about the knowledge that you gained or what you heard. It's about the action that you take. So do one thing today, and you'll make Hector's success story a part of your success story. Thanks for listening.

Darci Crenshaw: 46:23

You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show, hosted by my dad, Dave Crenshaw, and produced by invaluable incorporated research and assistant production by Victoria Bidez, Sound Editing by Nikic Wright, voiceover by me Darci Crenshaw, and the music is by Ryan Brady via Pon five licensing, please subscribe to the Dave Crenshaw success show on Apple podcasts Spotify, wherever you like to get your podcast. If you have a suggestion for someone my dad might like to interview, please send it to guests at Dave crenshaw.com and please don't forget to leave us a five star review. See you next time you.