121 - Imposter Syndrome & High-Profile Cases

My guest today is Senior Partner at Moore Barlow and Head of Major Trauma.

In 2021, Trevor became the first black senior Partner of a top 100 UK law firm and is a social mobility champion and Founder of the Be The Ladder Awards and the Be the Ladder Foundation, which promotes social mobility, educational equality and community upliftment.

Moore Barlow was established in 2020 following a merger between legacy firms Barlow Robbins and Moore Blatch, the firms collectively have a history spanning 200 years.

Moore Barlow is now a full-service regional law firm based in South East England and has over 450 employees across six offices.

Last week, Trevor celebrated 40 years in law.

So today, we’re covering what Trevor has learned over these 40 Years, Including Dealing with Imposter Syndrome & High-Profile Cases.

To find out about Trevor's Be The Ladder Award click here: https://www.betheladderawards.com/categories

And the foundation website is here: https://www.moorebarlow.com/about-us/charities/be-the-ladder/

About Dan:
Dan provides law firm owners and partners with leadership and management skills that have been proven to dramatically increase their profits while reducing their workload. Over the last five years, Dan’s clients have grown their revenues from 15% to 392% in one year while more than halving their workload.

To find out about Dan's availability and programs, click here: https://www.danwarburton.com/

Proudly edited with finesse by Mike at Making Digital Real ✨

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to the Law Firm Owners Podcast. I am your host, Dan Warburton. If you are a law firm equity member, partner, CEO or MD who wants to increase your profits while reducing your workload, then you are in the right place. It's the skills that I needed to become a leader. Yeah. I'm so happy that I've met you in my life. You've spoken about the revenue increase. It went from like 70,000 to nearly half a million. What percentage increase is that? It's over 400% in that range. You know, our monetary returns have been insane. And what we have made in extra profit, as compared to what we spent on you, is incomparable. You've just trebled the firm's profits in one year. Yeah. Are you getting what I'm saying? After working with Dan for a few months, my income is up, my happiness is up. This has changed my whole life. Welcome to the Law Firm Owners Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Warburton. And here I've got Trevor Sterling. So Trevor is a senior partner at Moore Barlow and head of major trauma. In 2021, Trevor became the first black senior partner of a top 100 UK law firm and is a social mobility champion and a founder of the Be The Ladder Awards and the Be The Ladder Foundation, which promotes social mobility, educational equality and community upliftment. Moore Barlow was established in 2020 following a merger between legacy firms Barlow Robbins and Moore Blatch. The firms collectively have a history spanning 200 years. Moore Barlow is now a full service regional law firm based in Southeast England and has over 450 employees across six offices. Last week, Trevor celebrated 40 years in law. And so today, what we're covering are what Trevor has learned over the 40 years he's been in law, including dealing with imposter syndrome and high profile cases. Trevor, it's brilliant to have you here. It's an absolute pleasure to join you. Thank you for having me. You know, we've got all sorts of law firm owners that dial in, many of them from time to time sending me messages saying, oh, you know, enjoy listening to your shows and getting great insights. And I know that this conversation with you is going to be insightful for somebody that's been in law for over 40 years. When you say imposter syndrome, do you find that that's something that holds law firm lawyers back from becoming promoted and working well as partners and really getting to the higher ranks? Yeah, I think it still does. I mean, I think a lot of people suffer from it, just that a lot of people are better at hiding it. And I think those that suffer it, like I certainly did, I found it far more difficult to hide it. So I think I wore it nearer to the surface and partly because I'm from a very different background. So sort of when I was starting out, there weren't many people like me. And so I felt quite exposed anyway. And I always felt that because I was different, if I didn't achieve at a high level, that would stand out more. And people might have a reason for my not doing as well because I was so different. So it's more pronounced, I think, if you're from ethnic communities or from a smaller group. Yeah. And it's something which you learn to manage. I don't think it ever fully goes away, but you learn to manage it. Okay. Give the listener an experience. For somebody that's not quite sure what imposter syndrome is, what was your experience with that? Like, how did you experience it? And what was it that then led you to discovering it? So I suppose it starts with school. So my parents are of Jamaican background. They came from Jamaica in the late 1950s. So I was the first generation born here in the 1960s. And, you know, schooling wasn't great for me. A lot of challenges and issues, both from a socioeconomic point of view, but also from a race point of view. So the result of that is I left school having not achieved much at all academically. And if you enter the legal profession, there's a lot of people that have achieved well academically. So you find yourself amongst people who you perceive as being, you know, much sharper, much brighter, because they went to a place you didn't go, i.e. university. And we also know that going to university is often not enough. It has to be the right type of university. So the legal profession is probably one of the worst, or best, whichever way you want to put it, at making that distinction. And so your starting point is, if you don't have parents in particular that can give you that know-how to navigate through both the educational system, but also, you know, the workplace, you're kind of on your own. You're trying to learn from people around you that are often very, very different from you. And you're learning on your feet. And you're alongside people that have, you know, gone through this academically advantaged process. And therefore you start feeling that you're not quite at the same level. And that's where imposter syndrome kicks in, is that even when you achieve things, you still look at yourself and say, well, I'm still not quite as good as that person. You know, you don't have the same confidence. And that lack of confidence, even though you're starting to achieve, is really the imposter syndrome. You don't believe somehow you deserve to be there. So even if you achieve great success, you might still think, well, you know, have I been lucky? Do I deserve to be here? Am I good enough? It's something which you've really got to manage. Yeah, yeah. As you speak, I've found that imposter syndrome actually can be something that some of us just happen to fall into for certain circumstances. So when I was three years old, my mum came out of the shop, gave something to my brother who was one year younger. I got really jealous and angry with him. So to get my revenge, I bit his ear. My father saw this, runs over and says, no, no, no, you mustn't do that. He's your brother. You must love your brother. And he said this quite sternly in the middle of the street. My brother's now getting even more attention from my mum. I've got people looking at me, you know, being spoken at by my dad. And in that moment, what I got was that I was thinking, I'm just not good enough. Nobody wants me. But it then took me eight years of advanced leadership and management training to really discover what's going on with me. Not having confidence to get up on stage, not being able to hold eye contact, you know, not raising my hand, not jumping up at the opportunities that were in front of me. And then it took this years of self-development and inner reflection to discover that was a story I had of myself that then gave me this, what you call imposter syndrome. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, sometimes it's something as small as being maybe the third of three siblings. Yeah. So it could be something as small as that, or it could be something as big as somebody like myself from a, you know, an ethnic community, but finding myself immersed in a very sort of middle-class profession. Yeah. All sorts of causes of it. Yeah. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's an okay thing if you identify it and then learn how to manage it. So if as a child you're told you're brilliant, you're brilliant, you're brilliant, and you have this self-belief, then when you go into work, you're going to believe you're brilliant. Yeah. If you're told or it's implied you're not brilliant, you know, you're useless, you're this or that, then even when you achieve success, you kind of think, well, that was probably just luck. The next time around, I won't be as lucky. So it really is about managing. It's a mindset thing. And I think sometimes actually coaching can help with it. But certainly life experiences is incredibly helpful. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. How did you develop the awareness to know that perhaps in another way of saying it, you're in your own way? So I suppose there are two ways. I mean, I started work at 16, 17, without much in the way of qualifications. So the first thing I did was I started reading a lot more. I developed a passion for law. And then I started studying through CILEX. And I started chipping away at the exams and passing them. I started thinking, well, actually, maybe I am clever enough. And then the second thing is once I started working, I was running cases and actually doing well. But then I went on to run some of the country's biggest and highest profile cases. And so when you've got those kind of credentials behind you, suddenly you think, hang on a minute, maybe I'm not the problem. Maybe it's other people's perception of me that's the problem. And the imposter syndrome starts to go away. But there's still things that, you know, if I walk into a room, I'm still slightly introverted and all those things. But actually, I don't mind. You know, I celebrate my difference rather than complain about it. Yeah. Yeah. The way you're speaking is of somebody who's become very self-aware and able to not judge yourself and see such patterns as bad or wrong. They're just thought patterns. That's all they are, right? Yeah. I mean, I have this sort of analogy which I give. You know, you take your car into the petrol station and there's those pumps. And one of it says, you know, this is the good stuff, the good fuel. And the other one says this is only suitable for certain vehicles. And it might be a bit cheaper, so it's the easier one to go for in some ways. But actually, I always say, well, I'm going to go for the better quality fuel. And better quality fuel are those positive things. You take the positive. So if something goes wrong, then I look for the positives in it. That becomes my positive fuel. That then impacts on my mindset. And you can start seeing that it becomes perceived as confidence. It's not that at all. It's just me managing my imposter syndrome and having more self-belief. Yeah. Yeah, fabulous. What advice would you give to, say, perhaps somebody who's recently become a partner and doesn't seem to be able to have the influence that they want to have over the older partners that they work with, and they worry about putting their hand up or giving their opinion in meetings and really standing for what they see is the way forward to grow the firm? That's such a brilliant question because, you know, I became a partner at 28. And so I was that person when everybody around me was much older. So I would certainly choose what it is I was going to speak on. In other words, I didn't waste words. If you just speak excessively, then you're just a speaker. You know, you're just a talker. So I'd be very considered. I'd choose my points very carefully, and I'd deliver them in a way which was very considered. So I learned to articulate in a different way. I learned to make sure that I knew my subject matter, and therefore those that were listening to me would be hearing the sounds of considered sense rather than me just trying to impress people because I'm now a partner and I feel I've got to speak. So patience and being considered, but also be mindful of the way you speak. And that's really important. So I don't speak at volume. I speak, you know, with a certain tone, and you'll find that if you speak at the right tone, it actually draws people in to listen to you. So the pace at which you speak and the tone, the level at which you speak. So there are speaking tips and skills to get people to listen, but there's nothing better than knowing your subject matter and being selective about what you speak about. Then you'll get that respect, and people will start listening to you a lot more. Yeah, great. It's interesting what you said about impressing. Like if you find yourself trying to speak to impress and be liked, win people over, then your content behind your words has no influencing power. And you get this experience of you keep trying, you keep trying to be heard, but somehow you never heard. The breakthrough came from me was when I finally realized, oh, I'm invented, I'm not good enough, and nobody wants me. It doesn't exist. It's not true. I don't need to be that anymore. And I gave up needing to be liked, needing to fit in, needing to impress. And then I was able to just, as you say, speak only at those points where it was optimum to do so, and to do so without extra waffle and everything else added on top. And then I did actually notice people in conversations, they'd stop speaking to hear me speak then. Because before that, that didn't happen. And you also recognize that not everybody's good listeners. And so there may be someone in the room, actually, they just want to talk. And so they'll talk over you. And so when somebody talks over me, I'll pause. And then I will just start again from where I was, which is my way of enforcing the point that what I've got to say is of value. Don't just talk over it. It won't go away. And I'll carry on. And just that pause and then carrying on, send the message to the room that actually it was interrupted. So there were those kind of things that I think really help with confidence. But above all, communicate because you've got something to communicate. And, you know, when I was a very young partner, I was very, very selective about when I spoke. But I also knew that as a partner, it was important that I did speak. And one of the things that comes from speaking is not everybody will agree with you. But that's a good thing. It's a good thing that when we are diverse in our thinking. So don't take it personally when somebody disagrees with you and then go quiet. You just got to be able to say, OK, well, that's a valid point you've made. And I'm going to reinforce the point that I've made and be confident about your viewpoint. Yeah. One of the communication skills you pointed out there is when somebody gives a point of view, however you feel about it, annoyed, frustrated, to breathe through that fight or flight experience and then ensure that you leave that person that has just spoken feeling acknowledged and heard before you say anything else. Yeah. Because if you go straight back and attack back, then you just end up in a, you know, a flip-flop between two people. And it's just so not businesslike at all. I will often say, and I think I might have said it at the start of this actually, I'll acknowledge a good point. So, you know, that's a really good point. Another way of looking at it might be. And so actually you're not disarming that person, but you're actually saying this different viewpoint is not us going to war. Yeah. It's just me having a different viewpoint. And it keeps you nice and calm. Yeah. Brilliant. Have you done any kind of communication training, leadership, management, speaker training of any sort? No, I mean, not specifically so. I mean, most of what I know I've learned over having been a partner from the age of 28 and made so many mistakes. But I've also done a lot of media and, you know, I was on Newsnight just meeting Jeremy Paxman in the studio. So if you can survive Jeremy Paxman, then you start to understand that actually communicating is a skill of itself. And you develop a skill. So I read up on it and make sure I understand, you know, using power words and things like that. And if I'm given a speech, how you deal with speaking in front of 500 or a thousand people, as opposed to 10 or 20, it's much harder actually to speak to a much smaller audience than it is for me anyway, a much bigger audience becomes more personal. And, you know, you're more self-conscious. So all of those things you really learn from experience. Yeah. I can tell that you've really, yeah, you've really built extraordinary experience. You know, I can hear all the different mentors, trainers, leaders speaking to me and hearing them say, oh yeah, that's acknowledging and agreeing before responding. Like that's what I recognize you're doing there, you know? And things like that. It's just not natural. It's not taught anywhere. You know, because we, we go through life where we're bullied, we don't fit in, you know, we start a new school or we've got to move away. And then we're the weird kid that's just moved into town. And all of this just ends up with layers and layers of imposter syndrome. They're built up. And then we spend the rest of our lives making sure that we survive the world where we're the imposter, which means fighting back, being right, making sure we're heard, you know, what advice would you give to somebody who is one of these partners and they really want to make the difference. They really want to take the firm to new heights, you know, but they're not being heard. They're not being given the chance. So what I tend to do is, I feel there are two key points. How I've developed some of my skills around, you know, Oratory skills is actually to watch people do it. So, you know, I love looking at people giving speeches on YouTube. For example, I used to watch, you know, Bill Clinton, how he would speak and his hand movements and, and Tony Blair and Barack Obama, you know, and you just see the different things and the impacts and the influences that they could have on an audience, whether it be to silence an audience or to make an audience laugh. My son is a singer and, you know, by singing what he can do with his lyrics and his music, he can change the mood of the room. And that's very much the same when we're talking, whether it be in a small meeting or not, you can change the mood of the room depending on your tone, the words you use and all of those things. So I would say, look, look, you know, look and listen to other people that have been, that have been in that position and speaking irrespective of the size of the audience. The second thing to remember about meetings is more of what happens in a meeting is what happens before and after it. So you, you might start your point in the meeting, but then follow it up afterwards. You can then have a smaller group where you're talking or create, have a sub meeting where it's smaller and you're more comfortable. So even if it hasn't gone your way in that moment, think about how you can still make your point by, by actually doing it in a different forum. I have discussing before meetings, say, Hey, look, I read this paper and I thought your paper was interesting. There's a couple of points I wanted to make a bit later on. I just thought I'd, you know, flag that up now and see what your thoughts were. And then when I make it in the meeting, that person's already clear in the way for me because they've already flagged up. They're not filling out. Nice. Like that. Yeah. And it's the same after the meeting where, you know, somebody may have felt a bit bruised. You just say, Hey, you know, although I said X, I have to tell you when I read that paper, it was an excellent paper. You know, you made some really other really good points. Maybe we could have a catch up next week, you know? So, and then you're keeping the conversation going. So it's not just the meeting, the three parts, the pre meeting, the during the meeting, the post meeting. Yeah. It's only one part of the meeting itself. Yeah. Really, really great insights. The other thing I'd add as well is sometimes when we struggle to influence a group to follow our ideas or to be able to, you know, have them implement our ideas is because actually we're unclear on what they want out of their role in the business or the firm. And I find it's really helpful to take the time to get to know each and every one that you have these meetings with and find out why are you in this law firm? What would you love to succeed at? And to actually be somebody that stands for them to succeed at what matters to them. And if they get that you're on their side, when you're then in that meeting, there isn't this conflict or competition with you because people know that you're on their side as well. It is such a good point because, you know, people are at work and they're looking to climb the ladder. So they, a lot of people are focusing on what's next for them. They're trying to climb the ladder. They're not focusing on the person behind them. And very few people, if any, have the skill to climb and at the same time, pull someone up behind, you know, in a way, if you're going to be the type of person that's going to help other people, you pause your climb and then you help pull the person up and then you carry on climbing, you know, there's a sequence to it. So by actually knowing that you're going to help this person climb the ladder, then as they climb, what they should do is pause and help you climb the ladder. It's only when you get right to the top of the ladder that you've got no more climbing to do that your actual focus should be then simply pulling people up on the ladder. And so we know where they are on the ladder and how you can help them climb. They should reciprocate. They should help you by being the ladder. That's the whole concept. And that's all around know-how and all the other skills. I now spend a lot of my time pulling people up the ladder. I'm doing it right now. We're doing it right now because it will help upskill other people. And by doing that, those people with imposter syndrome, many of whom will look like me, will hopefully go away and feel now empowered. So they start climbing the ladder and then the process begins all over again. Yeah, I love it. I can tell that the way you do business is very much with a collaborative approach, which has been key for you to succeed to the level that you have now, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, through my career, it's been about you're building a team. And my team might see me as the lead of the team. So I'm slightly higher up the ladder. But they know I'm reaching down to them. And therefore, what you get from them is commitment and loyalty. But what they're also going to do is to teach down as well. So now you've got, as you scale up, you've got a group that all understand the philosophy. They're all helping to share the message. They're not just self-obsessed or self-focused. They see the team as the unit, and everybody shares in success. You celebrate successes, and you support each other if you're in difficulty. But you work to a philosophy, which I don't own because I'm the lead of the team. We all own it. It's a shared philosophy. So the question is, what is your philosophy as a team, as a firm, as a business? What's the philosophy of the business? Because that's the message that you're going to hopefully cascade through your business. Yeah, nice. How would you say a team leader can get their team to follow a certain philosophy? So the very basic thing is remember that just the fact that you're the team leader doesn't mean that everybody has to respect you. You have to earn that respect. So I think I earn the respect by living by my values. I don't ask anybody to do anything I wouldn't do myself. And I make sure that everybody has a say in terms of what my philosophy might be. What do you think about that? So everybody feels that they buy into it because they feel that they're part of it. So it's really important that you have buy-in by including people rather than dictating to them. If you dictate to them, then they'll only do it because you're telling them to do it. But guess what? When somebody else comes along and offers them another position, they will be happy to move because they don't have that same loyalty to you because you are telling them rather than actually making them feel valued in terms of their own feedback and creating that philosophy, which is why I say it's not my philosophy. We create a team philosophy. Everybody buys into it. And then you get a really good team spirit. And you have to be collective both in terms of success and in terms of failure. And then you've got a really strong team. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. One of the things I've noticed has worked my clients when it comes to billing targets is to have the individual work out how many hours they're at work, what kind of they've, you know, what work they've got on their plate and then how much of that could be billable work a day and then collaboratively come to an agreement on their billing targets. And I found the ideal number is actually five a day. If you can get everybody billing five hours a day, you're decently profitable, but you're also not a slave driver either because you're in the office eight hours a day. How, how would you say is the best way to get people to agree and hit billing targets as such? Yeah. I mean, you've got, I think five hours, I think you're absolutely right. You know, some firms go with what is seven hours billable, but actually they're not acknowledging the non-billable and the other bits are going on today. So that already starts the day with the people feeling that what they're going to do is not really going to be achievable or they've got to really work long hours. So they're not feeling valued for their non-billable work. So a sensible amount, I think is, is crucial. But the other thing is you have to recognize that there are some people you set them five hours and they'll do eight. There are others that will only do three, but in doing three, the two hours they are short actually are valuable hours because what they're doing is upskilling other members of the team. Yeah. So whilst they're not billing for those two hours, they have helped others to bill more. So you have to tap into people's strengths. Not everybody is going to be prolific in billing and that's fine. Others are better at upskilling others in terms of all the other skill sets that we need or business developers and they're going to bring the work in. So whilst you might have a team philosophy, you've also got to individualize that across the team. Yeah. But wouldn't you say that those that are consistently not hitting, say five hours a day, there needs to be a conversation with how are they using their time without blame or making wrong to see if their position, their targets can be reset for them because they are actually taking on other responsibilities? Because surely if that's never addressed and you've got this policy of everybody hits five hours, but then somebody never does, those that are putting in the effort aren't going to feel respected or acknowledged for their efforts, right? Absolutely. You have to have clear objectives, which starts before you actually undertake the objective. So if I'm sitting down and I'm saying to you, five hours is perfectly reasonable, but then I'm only doing two hours. There's got to be a reason. You're entitled to ask me the question. And if I can explain that there's value in why that's less, then of course there's value in it. But if there isn't value in it, then that's an issue around underperformance. So this isn't about going soft. It's about being clear in terms of what objectives you're setting and recognizing that you have to individualize those objectives. Yeah. Yeah. So the strengths of the team as a whole. So, you know, if somebody said, well, you know, it's because I'm doing all of this non-billable stuff, but it's not actually a benefit to the team, then that's going off in the right direction. So you've always got to have these touch points and these resets and making sure that everybody's working to the collective objective, but also you've done it in consultation with them. You've said, what do you think is reasonable? You know, so then that's about being reasonable or fair, but you know, we've got to be very clear the difference between individualizing performance and underperformance. They are two different things. Yeah. Great. I mean, brilliant insight there. That brings me to the classic distinction, listening, that only when there's listening, only when there's really being in the world of each team member, finding out what they want to succeed at and what challenges do they have. Can you individualize those targets and create a role for each person to be able to give their position the best? Absolutely. If you're clear on what your objective is, you know, so we want to deliver an excellent service. We obviously want to be profitable in a sustainable way, but we want clients to enjoy their experience, you know? So those are the objectives that we have. And now that's got to cascade down as part of the cultural piece, which is included in the performance piece. If you just say, look, here are your numbers, then you're going to lose some of those other elements about making sure the client enjoys the experience because everybody's working to those numbers. So you have to be very clear on what the overall objective is, which goes beyond financials. But if you get it right, you will get the financials, but you'll also create this wonderful culture or team spirit where everybody's pulling together for this collective objective. Yeah. Nice. Wouldn't you agree though, that sometimes actually the culture is the driver to the performance and the profitability? Yeah, absolutely. If people that are happy, if they enjoy what they do and if they believe in the objective, so, and they believe it's deliverable. So if somebody asked me to spend the rest of my days, you know, driving F1 cars is a bad example, but I'm not into cars. Well, kind of, but I'm not into F1 cars. So that's, I don't have that intrinsic motivation. Yeah. When people are intrinsically motivated, there's something that is within. So we're working to a purpose, then they're going to deliver the best work. Why? Not because they're missing making money for the business, but because they're satisfying their purpose. So you have to understand what individuals purposes are. We, we didn't become lawyers to become buildable hours or six minute units. That's not why we became lawyers. I became a lawyer because I want to make a difference. So given the environment where I can make a difference, I will work incredibly hard. And guess what? That will also involve and include financial performance. So I'm a very purpose driven person. I believe in intrinsic motivation being met by, you know, fairness and rewards and a great environment. And all of that great creates a great culture. Yeah. I love it. This making a difference, you know, is, is clearly something that lights you up and is really at the center of the energy, the commitment that you've had to be able to get to your level of success, that it's, it's really not been so much about the money. It's been about making this difference. I mean, it's gone to the point where you've even got the, be the ladder foundation. You know, it just shows that you're really are about making a difference. But I heard this thing the other day and it was about, um, this chap who set himself an objective to make a hundred million by the time he was 40. And he would, everywhere he went with a notebook, you know, he, this was a really determined effort he made. And by the time he got to 40, he made it, but then he didn't feel at all fulfilled. He'd achieved this objective, but didn't feel fulfilled. So he set himself another objective to donate 100 million pounds to good causes. He was far more satisfied when he was helping others and making donations than he was when he was trying to make the money. Yeah. And that's a really good example of how purpose is actually what most of us have. And it's what will satisfy us. A lot of people only realize that when they realize that actually them having money still hasn't satisfied them. And which is why I so believe in giving back and helping others because that's where I get my satisfaction. I don't need to have X pounds to know that that's where I get my satisfaction where by making a difference by helping other people. Yeah. Brilliant. Fantastic. I, I very much resonate with everything you've said there. I, as I often say to friends and family, I'm only interested in earning money if it's a byproduct of making a real lasting difference in other people's lives. Exactly. Because how can you go to bed at night with your own thoughts, knowing that you're just taking or, you know, just ruining people's health or, you know, taking away people's freedom to make that money that you earn. I mean, how can that be fulfilling? It never can. It must be about making an impact. Well, I think, I think so. But we also know that, you know, you've only got to look at certain leaders in the world that have all the money in the world. But actually it's not really about making a difference about exercising power. Yeah. And, and that, you know, some people are like that. They are, what they're attracted to is the power and being able to then share what is their ideology. And that makes them feel, you know, important. Hmm. So there are different types of people. I just, I'm the complete opposite. Somebody like that is not going to be invited around mine for dinner anytime soon. But we see that in, in, in political spaces a lot. I don't want to get too much into that, but I think you can think of one or two characters. Yeah. Yeah. That's the point. Well, Trevor, I must say I've, I've absolutely loved hosting you on the show today. And look, you are welcome at my dinner table with your family anytime, you know, absolute pleasure. Absolute pleasure. Can I just say, if anybody wants to find out a bit more about Be The Ladder, they can go to the BeTheLadderAwards.com. That'd be wonderful. Nominate somebody who's been your ladder and be the ladder for others. Fantastic. Yes. Make sure that you sent me a link to that and I'll include it in the show notes so that people can find out more about that. Well, it's been a pleasure. Absolute pleasure. Thanks so much. I look forward to staying in touch and meeting when the time is right. Thank you for listening to the Law Firm Owners Podcast with me, your host, Dan Warburton. If you found this useful, then join my Law Firm Owners Club, which already has over 850 members. It's free to join. And as a member, you'll get my very best episodes, exclusive content, free training, tickets to events I'm speaking at, and the opportunity to network and learn from other highly successful law firm owners. If you'd like to join this for free, find out about working with me, or contact me, then click the link in the episode description.