Dragon's Gold: The Magic of Mindset

Control What You Can: Frank Bernstein on Humility, Faith, and the Strategy of True Freedom

• Justin Mills • Season 1 • Episode 51

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How does a top patent attorney, trained in high-stakes litigation, manage to build a career of excellence while making profound choices to prioritize family and faith?

Frank Bernstein joins Justin Mills to share his incredible journey—from surviving the academic pressure cooker of Caltech at age 16 to achieving partnership in a top firm in just five years. This episode is a masterclass in perseverance, humility, and the critical wisdom of knowing what you can (and cannot) control. 

Frank explains how a demanding job led him to deliberately restructure his life to better support his family and how his deepest mentors helped him develop the moral compass necessary to win both in the courtroom and in life.

Key Takeaways:

• The Power of Humility: Why recognizing your limitations is crucial for long-term success, especially among elite professionals.

• The Litigator’s Lesson: The pivotal advice Frank received: to "recognize what you can control, and what you can't control, and act accordingly".

• Choosing Family: How Frank made a significant career move to California to ensure he was not "useless" to his wife on the weekends.

• The Golden Rule: Why Frank believes the Golden Rule applies in 100% of life situations, serving as a powerful guide to finding common ground.

• The Next Quest: His inspiring plan to attend seminary once his professional career concludes.

What you will learn:

• How Frank managed the imposter syndrome of being ranked low among elite performers by embracing humility.

• The life-changing move to California designed specifically to reclaim time with his family.

• The power of introspection and following a moral compass, which Frank believes are essential for a grounded life.

• Why finding common ground is the best strategy in both personal and professional conflicts.

• The advice from a mentor that taught him the strategic advantage of discerning what is controllable versus uncontrollable.

Tools & Weapons:

• Wife & Family Support: Having a spouse who keeps you balanced and "has your back" is cited as the biggest weapon.

• Introspection: The ability to look inside and know yourself, which helps keep you grounded and understand others.

• Mindset of Control: The strategy to "recognize what you can control and what you can't control and act accordingly".

• The Bible & Golden Rule: Used as a moral compass and source of ethics; specifically, Jeremiah 29:11 ("I know the plans I have for you...") and Matthew 7:12 (the Golden Rule, which applies in 100% of situations)

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About Gold Dragon Investments:

At Gold Dragon Investments, our mission is to bring joy to others by helping them win the game of investing. Helping every client become the hero of their financial journey. We believe that wealth is a tool, but joy is the ultimate outcome.

Through meaningful partnerships, we strive to empower our investors to create freedom, and build lasting legacies of purpose, fulfillment, and wealth.

Join Us on the Adventure:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to another episode of Dragon's Gold, the magic of mindset. Today we have the pleasure of having Frank Bernstein, a prominent patent attorney for a large worldwide general practice firm With a substantial patent practice. Frank, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's good to be here. Thank you, my friend. was truly a pleasure to have you as well. And I'm excited to share your story and lessons learned along the way, as always with the intention to try and inspire. As I like to do, let's dive in. The origin story, where did it all begin for Frank? So I've kind of just gone along and I'll start kind of at the beginning. um I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic grade school and high school. That has some significance because one of my mentors was one of the priests uh at the high school. My family had some kind of tough times. I was having tough times and uh he really helped me through it. uh got into college, I got into Caltech, which is a really good technical science school. It's across the country from where I grew up. I grew up in Washington, DC and Caltech's in Southern California. I was 16 when I went away to college. I was an only child when I went away to college. And so I'm going to be with all these, all these people potentially sharing a room and having a roommate, which I had never done. And thankfully I avoided in, or avoided having to go through. But Being in a really good school, ah pretty much everybody there was first or second or third in their high school class. You get a group of 250 of those together. Somebody's going to be first, somebody's going to be last. And the key to getting through that is recognizing that even if you are 10th or 100th or 200th, you're among a pretty elite group of people. And that's okay. oh A lot of kids um couldn't deal with that. It's a foreign experience to them. And so there are a lot of people a lot smarter than me who didn't make it through. But I did. And I owe that in substantial measure to the, I'll call it the house I lived in. There were seven undergraduate houses on campus. They were kind of like dorms, but they were houses. And the people in that house, um were just, they looked out, we looked out for each other. One of my friends referred to it as being in the Fox Bowl together. And I got through Caltech as a kid, really, graduated when I was 20, because of that house environment. uh Got into law school, law school and business school, got my law degree and my MBA, met my best friend at law school. I still go back for family reunions, you know, 40 years later. I got kind of pulled into his family. The kids I used to balance on my knee are now in their 40s and 50s, ah which is kind of fun to think about. uh got an offer, I decided I wanted to go back to Washington DC, got an offer from a patent firm. uh Thought it was the first lawyer on either side of the family. So I thought, well, let me do this for a few years. Back then, Partnership Track was only five years. It's a lot longer now. And I thought, can put up with anything for five years. Let me make partner and then figure out what I wanted to do. But I really liked the work. I really liked and respected the people. I had some great mentors at the firm. And so I stuck it out and I was there for the start in 84. I had spent some time working on some litigation out here in the Bay Area, um actually spending the weekends out here. uh Small story behind that. We had two small kids. Our daughter was born in 91, our son in 93. So they were two, three years old, couple of years old. And I was... spending all this time on this litigation in California, flying out on a Sunday night, coming back on a Friday evening. And I was useless to my wife on the weekends. was like, flaked out on the couch, it was a long, long week. Even in my 30s, that was a challenging thing to do. And so her idea to stay out and come back every other weekend, spend a couple of days and be more help that way. Reason I go through that is that's what got me thinking it would be good to live in California. And the firm, my firm wanted to open an office in California. So I volunteered. And so our family moved out here in 97. And so I've been practicing here now for most of my, most of my career. And that's, you know, that's, there's various things that aren't particularly interesting about the work that I've done over the years. um But it's, I've done I've enjoyed the work. It's challenging. I help people get patents. the bad off to my right is uh a patented bat. I helped a friend get the patent on that. And that's some of the most fun I had as a patent attorney. I've been a baseball fan for a long time. So I actually met him. We were season ticket holders of the game. He found out I was a patent attorney, wanted me to help him. And so I did that. That's one of the more interesting things that I did. I worked on tons of different technologies, antennas, disk drives, uh solid state memories, uh various types of software, artificial intelligence, telecommunications stuff, networking, big wide range of stuff, uh even golf equipment. So a wide range of mechanical technologies. And so that was, you know, that's been pretty much, you know, pretty much the drill. What I haven't talked about, and this is, know, we've learned kind of the story. I've got to shop through and done, said some of the things. About the time, I think we got out to California or shortly thereafter, I looked back on what had happened. I was still, you know, just in my 40s, not that big a deal. uh But there was something about the things that had happened to me. I said I went to Caltech. That was the only US college I got into. uh I met my best friend in law school. was one of two law schools I got into. uh I got an offer from one patent law firm on graduation. That was a firm where I met my wife. And it was a firm that gave us the opportunity to come to California. ah One of the things we did soon after coming, moving out here, we joined a church, uh a church here in Palo Alto. pastors there have been real mentors and uh mentors for me and have guided me along my faith journey, is very important to me. ah And that's not, none of that I think is a coincidence. I look back on all of that. Each of those things sounds like a coincidence, but to me it's clearly a plan that God had for my life. And that's continuing to go on now. It never stops. So. Frank, I love that idea about that journey and how it never stops. And I think that so many of those steps that you took along the way to bring you to where you were, one of the things I considered the idea of aligned opportunity, right? Example, your company wanting to open a spot in California, you wanting to go to California and having to build a really such a boon to you for the quality of your life and the... life of your family to be able to be there and spend more time and be present with them. And then of course, from the company standpoint, it was a win for them as well. not just a happy employee, but a happy team member, And may I ask, did you, you had worked actively to become partner uh in that regard, Frank? uh How long did it actually take to... ascend in that track. It was a five year track. uh I basically, my attitude going in was I'm the employee as an associate, you're an employee, you're not an owner. The owners of the firm are the ones that give you the job. My job was to make money for them. And someday when I became a partner, uh associates would make money for me. And so uh I just had, I think I had. an attitude that resonated with the partner. So I ascended through the firm very straightforwardly and became a partner and consistent with the five-year track. I officially became a partner when I was 31, no was 30, but I actually was told I was a partner before I was 30. Hmm. That's, that's awesome to have, have a goal, have an intention. So even if you don't know where it's going to go after, like much, like you said, I can do anything for five years, right. I want to go. then, and to see the opportunities that arose that you never would have known about, The doors that opened along the way because of the choices that you made, because of the steps that you took moving forward and the things that came from that You made a comment about... being even 10th or 100th, but out of such an elite performer in that field of what they do, still levels leaps and bounds beyond the novice because of the time, effort, experience that they've put in. But there's something about that emotional resilience, the ability to recognize that you will not always be the best. And if you're used to something like that happening, and then you get that cold water shock to say, no, sweetheart, you are not the top dog here and you still have a lot yet to learn. Not everybody can deal with that kind of criticism or frustration or that emotional fight that comes through. You sticking through the resilience, you didn't have to be the smartest. You just had to be the one that kept showing up because eventually people will self-select and remove themselves very commonly. And competition gets very thin at the top. I have to say I think humility has something to do with it. Recognizing that you're not gonna be first in your class among a large group of people oh puts me in mind of, you see the picture of John Wayne behind me, the painting of John Wayne. uh John Wayne, the Duke said his successor in Hollywood was gonna be Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force said a line that my friends and I use a lot because it keeps you humble. uh A man's got to know his limitations. And so keeping that in mind, uh we can't do everything, we can't be everything. Not everybody's gonna love us, not everybody's gonna flock to us. But you have a sense of who you are and what you can do and have some confidence in that, hopefully not overconfidence, that just gets you through. So walk the line between confident and cocky as best as possible. Going at things in that fashion though with that confidence. And when you do recognize what a limitation might be, oftentimes you look at ways to solve problems. How do you bring together a team? How do you solve the issue? If you can't do it independently or what can you do? What steps can you take to solve that? And often times as we have stated, it's not alone. You do bring along people with you or that go along the journey that have brought you along with, we call it the fellowship. Who might you cite as mentors and individuals that have come along the path with you? Okay. Well, I mentioned a priest in high school who helped me through a lot of stuff, tough times in our family. uh I would say in college, I won't name any names, but if they watch this podcast, they know who they are. uh People I'm very close to, ah even now, who smacked me around when I needed it and were supportive throughout. um recognized that even as a really a young kid, usually go to college when you're 18, I was 16. I got elected to be one of the leaders in the house later in my time at school. Mentors in the law firm, there were some tremendous lawyers. I'm a rare patent attorney nowadays because I help people get patents, I help people enforce patents. So you do what's called patent prosecution, you do what's called patent litigation. I did both and I continued to do both and I had just some tremendous mentors. Some were patent prosecutors, some were patent litigators. uh One thing stands out in my mind, I have this weird ability to remember dates for reasons known only to God. um But my wife and I had gone to visit my dad and my stepmom in Denver and I was flying home and it was, we were flying home, it was January the 3rd, 1989, I was still an associate and I called in to talk to one of the partners I was working on a lawsuit with because I was going to trial later in the year just to see how things were going. And he wasn't officially my mentor before I made the phone call, but I guess they changed mentors yearly at the firm. So he became my mentor. And he said, uh recognize what you can control and what you can't control and act accordingly. um It's the serenity prayer, but it's also part of the 12-step prayer. um For a litigator to say that is huge because litigators want to control everything. You want to control the room, you want to control the witness. um But recognizing what you can control and what you can't uh is huge. It's a part of humility and it's just a part of getting through things. The comment about humility and earlier in that regard. Knowing what you can control and knowing what you what you know of a situation and then knowing enough to say that you don't know always with the intent to be honest both with others and with yourself and when you have the ability to look inside be introspective and continue to grow and it you become unstoppable. And I think about that idea of control. You talk about as a litigator wanting to have that and, learning from those types of individuals. It makes me just recognize that a lot of times some of the lessons that we learn are things that that help us to grow these items that we learn, they allow us to become stronger in what we do, but also times learning things what not to do, learning about habits and things that other people did that you didn't wanna emulate because it didn't get a desired result. Sometimes there's as much in learning as what not to do as there is in what to apply. is there. you used a word that I want to pick up on. You said you refer to introspection. And I would be remiss if I did not identify my dad as one of my mentors. And he taught me that word. He used it an awful lot. I don't like to use the word humble because it sounds almost a little arrogant, but it keeps you grounded. Introspection, looking inside, knowing yourself uh is kind of what keeps you grounded. and makes it a little easier to deal with people because understanding yourself, you can understand them. Absolutely. uh And when you understand yourself better, you can help others better. And at the end of it all, and it's this cycle that feeds itself when we all care for each other and care for ourselves, it feeds that loop. Frank, on the journey, it is not without trials and tribulations. We call it running the gauntlet. Are there moments along the way that jump out to you that were difficult to overcome? I think the college thing was probably the biggest hurdle to overcome because I really was a 16 and only child, first time away from home, having to survive in that environment. I didn't get mentored instantly. I had to get into the right house, which I did, another part of God's plan for my life. So that part was hard. And there were challenges late in my undergraduate career where You look at the exam and you're staring at it for several hours and you have no idea what that's up to look down, but you know you need that class in order to graduate. Those were, I think, some of the hardest things ah that I've gone through in life, pretty much. It started pretty early. I a pretty easy time with it for a really long time. I've been very blessed. Mmm. If you find the best in everything, you'll always smile. Frank, wanted to ask, you had cited that you were in college at the age of 16. How did that come about? Because that certainly sounds early. Um, well, I took a, I basically finished second, started the year in second grade and finished it in third grade. So I finished a year, a year earlier. Um, my birthday was the right time of the year to be younger than the other people. So, uh, I was, I was six, you know, so I was 16 when I graduated from college. Interestingly in that house that I mentioned, I was only the third youngest freshman. There were two others in that house. There were seven houses, right? Two of them were younger than I was, Wow. OK. I just imagine being in that age in a college environment and with all of the stimulation and distractions that would be evident, it would certainly take a significant amount of willpower, consistency, and discipline to show up every day and to handle your work, right? To get it done. And that it's a choice and that I think more than anything is it reflects back to the conversation you had made earlier about other people would leave, right? You just stuck it out. You were there. You made it because you didn't quit. Right. And I think that there's value in that. Something that uh is never fun to talk about, but oftentimes some of our strongest character building moments, we call this the darkest hour, a moment perhaps where you felt you were gonna throw in the towel or quit, but didn't. What might that have been for you and how did you overcome it? um It's been more than the last few years actually and there's a bit of a backstory. I mentioned we moved to California in 97, we bought the house we live in in 1998 and we're trying to figure out, know, thinking ahead, thinking towards retirement. uh My wife has an identical twin sister who lives with us. We have a son who has autism, he's pre-low functioning. that we're going to come a time when we were going to have to move somewhere to get help with stuff, assisted living. And living in the Bay Area and four of us figuring that was going to cost a large fortune to pay for. So what we decided to do instead was to remodel our existing house. It's a one story house, so no stairs or anything to climb. uh And we made it into the The place that we wanted it to be, we love where we are now. You've been to the house, you've seen some of the stuff. uh But thank you. ah But it was a lot more expensive than I thought it would be, we thought it would be. um I dipped into retirement more than I thought I would. um So the challenge of paying for this, you take out a home equity loan, not a home equity loan, but a mortgage on your house. which we paying off for a while. And so how do you get through all of that? Part of it is I work for a while longer. Instead of being on 60, I just turned 66. I'll probably work until I'm 70. Part of it is one of the things we added to our property was a separate structure, which has been kind of an income property for us that'll provide some funds. stressful and it's worrisome, uh but my family, uh our family believes that know that God will provide and God has and so that keeps lows for me anyway lows from getting too low you know that we know that that God is always with us and that never never leaves us. People sometimes ask how come God let bad things happen? Longer theological discussion but God I don't believe God lets bad things happen, but God is always with us. so recognizing that gives a lot of comfort and as I say, keeps the lows from being too low. Hmm. Having that level of support, finding something that can support you at your core on that, on, on a level like that is, is priceless. And, and faith is an incredibly powerful pillar of support. I love so much of what you said there and and one of the things I want to touch on is is that in in your faith journey and regardless of what anybody believes the idea behind it is just finding something that you believe in and oftentimes It's nice when it helps to support others right and the idea that you're you're sharing kindness love care right amongst others and to know that no matter what and forgive the term but whatever vehicle of faith whether it's Catholicism or Presbyterian or it's Church of Latter-day Saints or whatever whatever the the medium that you use for for sharing your faith and for caring for others. At the end of it, it all comes down to that same crux, right? It's the community, it's the joy, it's the caring, it's supporting one another. You get in those rooms full of people sharing love and faith. And I think that there's just something magic when you have that kind of joy and love together amongst many. Joy is big part of it. um Part of it, what I think has helped and something I think is missing from a tremendous number of people nowadays, because people aren't going to church anymore, they're going away from religion. And to me, one of the things that my faith represents is a moral compass, a set of ethics and principles and I don't think you come up with those things by yourself. You don't just kind of wander through life and develop those things. ah You need some source for that, whether it's Christianity, whether it's Judaism, whether it's Islam, whatever. It doesn't matter. uh But some kind of grounding that you can use as a compass to steer you through some hard things that you encounter. Try it for you to do the right thing. I agree completely and I love that. And the idea of source, right? Regardless of what name that you give, the idea behind recognizing that we're not alone. There's something bigger than all of us, right? That's a... Help, Erin, help. Frank, I'm always like super like cautious. I always try to be careful. Like I'm always afraid, little afraid. like, no, I'm afraid is the wrong word, but I'm always a little worried. Like I want to be careful about ruffling certain feathers, right? Like I try to make sure that I like keep things like there's no political in a day. Like there's certain things I just try to keep like everything. oh But I just think that there's so much power in faith. And again, regardless of what you believe in or who you believe in or just that idea of. uh that moral compass that you said, think that's such a powerful piece. And I think that that is a wonderful way uh that you just helped me to think about the idea of framing in regards to that. And so the idea of moral compass, I appreciate you sharing that. All right, Frank, Dragon's Gold, the accolades, the awards, the things that you may have acquired over time on your journey. And not all of it is material. Oftentimes there's mindsets. What would you share is Dragon's Gold on your journey? Good fortune to have parents who recognize the importance of education getting steered in the right direction for education, which led to a career that enables me to, that has enabled me to support our family. You know, having the family. One of the other things about when we moved to California, I mentioned our son has autism and he's pretty low functioning. He was sort of diagnosed with that. before we left for California, got, the diagnosis was confirmed when we got here. And we live in Santa Clara County. And at the time when he was gonna be in school, Santa Clara County had what's called the Office of Autism, uh the Autism, I'm sorry, the Autism Project. And it was 32 schools across the county with each one with eight students, a teacher and two aides. And... He had a regular classroom environment, uh which a lot of autistic kids don't get. Parents, you know, they put the kid in the mainstream class, sometimes off to the side with an aide. And it's not a regular social environment for that child. uh Our son had that regular of regular environment, which was good. Another blessing, another part of God's plan for us, if we hadn't gotten out here. uh We wouldn't have discovered that. oh that's a part of it. So the Dragon's Gold for me is just having a family that I treasure, we treasure each other, and being able to support us comfortably and fortunately, and then giving us the ability to spend time and talents and resources helping others. I love that my friend. I love that. So in regards to helping others and like all this passing the torch, the legacy and in this oftentimes is just in a lesson or in word. If there was a massive statue of Frank Bernstein and it could have a plaque that said anything you want, what would you want it to say? I have to have a statue? Ha ha ha ha. Thank I never really thought of it in those terms. I guess I would want it to say something like um he was a mentor and a friend and a good family member. Well, I would argue yes to all of those things, my friend, ah from personal experience. You're an amazing human, and it's my pleasure to know you. Thank you, my friend. Well, as I say, mutual admiration society, Justin. I love that. So what's next? What's the next quest for Frank Bernstein? um Believe it or not, going to seminary. ah Little old to be pastoring a church once I get out, done with that, but um it's something that I've had in the back of my mind for a number of years. I mentioned I like preaching. uh Part of what I like about it is it sends me to portions of the Bible that I don't otherwise, I might not otherwise read or read regularly. And I'm interested in continuing that without, you know, work and stuff around me to uh kind of get in the way. I do love that. I want to focus on what I love and I'm going to shift that work stuff, get it out of the way because it's just a nuisance. because seminary is an intense thing. I haven't taken an exam in 40 years. The notion of going through a class and doing all the work and doing a test and stuff with a workload on top of it, again, man's got to know his limitations. I can't do that. So I'll wait until work is done and then I'll embark on that next thing. on the can do oh justice to both. Frank, something we talk about tools and weapons, things, resources, books, anything that might have helped you along your way on your journey. Is there anything that you would cite? Can I list my wife at the top? And I don't say that facetiously. ah She has been a tremendously positive influence in my life, keeps me balanced. And she's just such a giving, loving person. That's been a real weapon, knowing that you have that kind of support. And we do that for each other. ah Somebody's giving one of us a hard time. There is no other side to that argument. Who is this person? Why are doing it? Somebody's got your back. That's the biggest part of that. I like to think we have each other's backs. The other part for me is the Bible, certain portions of the Bible that I think would be, know, people get on Christians for, you know, hypocrisy or various other things. I look at some of this stuff as aspirational because we're human, we're flawed, we're not going to do everything perfectly all the time. But having confidence that God has planned for us, there are a couple of a couple of quotes that I can mention. There's the two great commandments that you see throughout the Old and the New Testament. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And that's huge. And recognizing that God has a plan for us. Jeremiah 29, 11 says, I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for good and not for evil. And then we talk about the golden rule. um Various philosophies uh and faith throughout the years have had them, but it's the Gospel of Matthew chapter seven, verse 12. So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Golden rule, I used to think applied in 95 % of life situations and I was wrong, it applies in 100 % of them. And I mentioned this thing about introspection earlier. I think that thinking about how you'd want to be treated and knowing who you are just makes it easier to deal with, it gives you a different outlook on how you deal with people. One of the things that has concerned me and I pray a lot about without pointing fingers at anybody, a lot of people in our country are at each other's throats, around the world too. And to me, a lot of it comes from generalizing. You know one or two things about someone and therefore you think you know everything about them. And if you don't like those one or two things, you're not gonna like anything about that person. Way too complicated for that. We are way more complicated than that. No one no one or two things defines who we are I May believe in something that that you don't like or even you detest but then we have agreement on other things and one of the things I'd like to see happen is people Rather than pointing to the things they disagree with is trying to find common ground. I think that's so important and it's It's not as hard as you think it is if you just try it. It doesn't even take that much effort. It takes a little patience. um Recognize you're pursuing it. a little bit of patience. That's it. I think you're so right on that. I mean, you're sitting next to somebody, you'd probably disagree with them on 98 % of things. But you can find common ground pretty quickly. There are things that people feel passionate about and you can find that passion in even people you think might be your adversaries. One of my very dearest friends and I have antithetical views on a very, very, very fundamental issue that comes into faith and what have you. And if I'd let that, if we let that define our views of each other, we wouldn't be friends. Hmm. ah But we recognize that we're both people of goodwill, good intentions, and we share a lot of values. And so we're uh really good friends. We figured we were brothers separated from families early on, because we agree on so many things. But it's one of those things where you look for where you can agree and not for where you disagree. m It's a much happier way to live too. It is. Frank, I've got one more question I'd like to ask, and it is my favorite question to ask. If you could be any mythical creature, what would you be and why? Does it have to be mythical or can it be like science fiction? yeah, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Thousand percent yes. Captain Christopher Pike from Strange New Worlds. I'm a big Star Trek fan. He's my favorite uh Star Trek captain because he combines all of the stuff I've liked about the captains that have gone before him in earlier series. He gets along with people. He's resourceful. He's smart. He fights when he has to fight. And he understands people really well. uh I think Captain Pike would something pretty good to aspire to. I think it's awesome and I love it. Thank you, Frank, for sharing that. My friends, thank you for joining us once again on our quest to inspire, educate, and empower you to turn your dreams into reality, one mindset shift at a time. We'll see you next time.

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Justin Mills

Host
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Aaron Iler

Producer
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Frank Bernstein

Guest