Three Mentor Lessons that Changed My Law Career - #33

When I sat down beside business titan Bobby Martin at a New York restaurant in 2005, I never imagined it would mark the beginning of a mentorship that would alter my law leadership career.

In the years that followed, Bobby taught me many lessons.  Three, in particular, stand out:
1. "Never milk the mouse"
2. "When the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box"
3. "Can't never could"
 
This is a short podcast but long on career value. I return to these often. 

Thank you Bobby.

Enjoy!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

We're talking about something that's super fun to me, and that is three quick, hard-hitting, really practical anecdotes that my mentor shared with me. Well, hello and welcome to the Jay Sterling News Show, where we share the secrets and the strategies of how we are building a rapidly growing law practice. Over the past nine years we have grown from zero attorneys to 25 and doing over $15 million in revenue. My purpose here is to document what's working and what's not working in our practice, with hopes that you can take that and you can recontextualize that in your practice and shorten your success curve. In today's show we're talking about something that's super fun to me, and that is three quick, hard-hitting, really practical anecdotes that my mentor shared with me. First, let me give you some context. My mentor that I'm talking about his name is Bobby Martin. Bobby Martin is an incredibly accomplished business person and I got the privilege of meeting him way back in 2006, and he was introduced to me by a buddy who invited my wife and I to New York to go to this banquet. So we met up at this restaurant that evening and I got to sit next to this guy. Bobby Martin, in the course of understanding who I was sitting next to understood that Bobby led Walmart from zero to 30 plus billion dollars in its international endeavors. So he had been personally recruited by Sam Walton to join the Walmart team and advanced over the years and ended up leading Walmart International. He was on tap to become the CEO of Walmart, didn't get that and moved on to some other roles After that. Most recently, bobby was currently the chairman of the Gap but was also the interim CEO of the Gap.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Bobby is incredible. Not only has his business accomplishments been out of this world extraordinary, but who he is as a person just dwarfs even those accomplishments his integrity, his leadership capacities, abilities, his connection, ability to connect with others and inspire and lead teams. So I was able to meet him and I remember sitting there that evening and what felt like two or three hours just soaking up his wisdom, asking him questions, trying to understand really kind of what made him tick and he was so generous with sharing with me. And that eventually led to a relationship, a mental relationship, where I would go down to see him in Arkansas every six to nine months or so. I was able to build a mental relationship with him, bobby, and over the years he shared with me untold number of lessons and taught me so much. But three of them, in his folksy way, his down to earth, real, practical way, have stood out to me that I want to share with you, that these lessons have completely transformed my law career, how I see things, how I do things in the law and the business context.

Speaker 1: 2:49

So the first one that Bobby shared with me is never milk the mouse. I was sharing with him a story, a recent story at that time, where a vendor had essentially defrauded us out of $70,000. And to me that was a lot of money at least half a year's worth of profits and we lost it all in one fell swoop and this vendor took advantage of us and I remember asking him questions around, just feeling discouraged, around being tough like Bobby, I just maybe I'm not tough enough. What's it like? I mean to be tough in business and tough in negotiations and tough at how you deal with things? And I remember him sharing with me Jeff, it's always a good thing to be tough. That certainly is a component of success. But if you want to have a real success it starts with relationships and helping the other guy win, and if you feel like you have to get the last bit of everything and, to be tough, you are milking the mouse and you are not helping your opponent or your partner that you're trying to negotiate with to win. And that boy, that just stuck with me and what I learned is that in every relationship going forward, every negotiation, I want to help the other guy win. Never milk that mouse, never try to get the very last drop out of that, because that relationship will be harmed and it won't be as fruitful as it could have been had you help the other person succeed along with your success. And so I could think Bobby shared with me came out of one of my visits where probably the sixth or seventh time I had gone down to see him and my confidence as a business person was growing.

Speaker 1: 4:29

We were really enjoying a lot of success and I remember talking through my leadership team with him and I remember talking about one of my partners in particular and having a real to my shame and embarrassment and looking back, a real arrogant and rightful attitude around this partner not doing everything I felt he should be doing or whatever the case was. And Bobby said Jeff, I've really see your confidence growing and that's really good. But I also want to remind you that. Remember at the end of the game the king and the pawn go back in the same box and if you're having to push people over and step on people on your quote way up, you're going to meet these same people on your way down and it won't be rewarding, it won't be fulfilling. The most rewarding relationships are when you can bring people with you and you're not doing that, you're rushing the judgment, you're snappy on how you're immediately making a decision around someone's motives and it's hurting your relationships. And remember that the king and the pawn at the end of the game go back in the same box.

Speaker 1: 5:39

So the third lesson that Bobby shared with me came from one of my visits where he invited me into his home and I remember sitting at his desk and there was a little plaque on his desk that said can't, never could. I remember asking him about that and he's like, yeah, I've had that on my desk pretty much my whole career, because there is always a way. And that same night I was sharing with him how one of our businesses had failed and out of that failure we kept a small portion of that team, so we had a team of about 18. The business concept we had was selling leads for homeowners that needed their windows, their roughing and their siding replaced, and this was back in 2008. And the crash happened that year and our business crashed right along with that because people weren't doing as much work on their home anymore and so that we had to dissolve that business. But I remember taking the marketing team and keeping them and starting a new business that today have grown from those original four to over 50 people on that digital marketing team Rocket Clicks and I remember Bobby pointing me back to that story.

Speaker 1: 6:50

So, jeff, remember the failure, how discouraged and upset you were following that big, monumental financial loss. Well, you found a way, coming out of that business and you created with your team something that has been far more profitable and enduring over time than that original business and can't, never could. And he shared with me example after example in his career where the odds were stacked against them and the way they thought something would work was not the way that it would work that it ended up working out. It was something totally different. So, having an open mind to a new way to get there and a whole new solution, because there is always a way. So I hope you find value in those three lessons of never milk the mouse. Remember at the end of the game, the king of the pond, go back in the same box. And can't, never could. There is always a way.