From Missionary Skills to Legal Mastery | Adam Baugh

Adam Baugh, partner and co-owner at Withey Morris Baugh, shares how lessons from his LDS mission in Atlanta—speaking Spanish, living on a budget, learning empathy, and developing door-to-door communication skills—became the foundation for his career helping developers and business owners navigate City Hall, zoning, and land use approvals in Arizona. He recounts a childhood moving frequently with an Air Force father who later worked in city management, his surf/skate/punk-rock years in Southern California, and the winding path to law school internships that sparked his interest in zoning. Adam discusses building his firm through relationships, integrity, and customer service, learning from mistakes and occasional losses, managing public opposition and misinformation, defining leadership as service, and hoping to pass grit, entrepreneurship, and values to his five children.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

The things there are so many tools that I learned as a missionary that I use in my daily business that I I don't know if I could be where I am or do what I do without listening. How to talk to strangers, how to resolve concerns, how to make friends out of enemies, how to show empathy, how to be a good listener, how to ask follow-up questions, how to build relationships of trust, how to disarm somebody in a matter of just seconds.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Hey there, welcome back to Above and Beyond where Excellence Meets Elevation. I'm your host, Jan Simon, and this season we're raising the bar, diving into the passion, purpose, and defining moments of leaders who don't just aim high, they live there. Big ideas, real stories. Let's get into it. Today's guest is Adam Baugh, a partner at Withy Moore's Ba and one of Arizona's go-to voices in land use, zoning, and development. He's built a reputation as a problem solver who helps remove obstacles and bring complex projects to life. Beyond the courtroom and city halls, Adam is a deeply connected individual in the community and helps shape conversations around growth, leadership, and the future of Arizona. Adam's a family man, community builder. And today, welcome to the program.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Thank you. I appreciate it. Um there's a lot of really bad things you didn't know about, so I'm glad you I didn't. You didn't go pull like the public records research and find like my arrest. I may or may not have. Yes. That's the surprise at the end.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Yeah. I will I'll get into that down the road.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

I'm just saying there's I'm really glad that we didn't grow up with cell phones in our era because do you know how many bad things would have been caught on camera and then our parents would have seen it and we would not be able to go within a thousand feet of a school today?

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Absolutely. There's a there's a show, it's either on Hulu or Netflix, but I think it was like on History Channel or something previously, and it's got uh I almost said Alan Alda. Who's the fonts? What's his name? Henry Winkler. Henry Winkler. So he's the he's the host, and it's like it's like it's it's like stuff we used to do or the dangers we used to live under or something like that. And it talks about everything from jarts. Remember lawn darts, jarts.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Oh, yeah, throw them in the air, hopefully they land in the circle, yeah, maybe stab your neighbor.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Exactly. Talks about lawn darts, talks about I mean all sorts of stuff, but it's it's actually pretty good because you know, growing up when we did it.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

That it was like just you know, entertainment. Yeah, but I'm talking about like the things that like would really get you in trouble, and probably did, but like oh, they just lit you off the hook.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

I I can think of a couple times an unnamed friend and myself may or may not have used some explosive to blow parts of roads on.

unknown 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Mailboxes.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Oh, yeah. Baseball bats with mailboxes.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

We there were we we grew up near a bunch of orchards by our house, you know, grapefruit orchards. I know this isn't the podcast that you wanted to see. No, it's fine, it's totally good. It's good. We just pull up like the the Tacoma pickup truck back at well, it wasn't Tacoma because Tacoma wasn't around there. SR5. It was just called Tell Yoda Pickup. Or pre-runner. Yeah, yeah. And so we just roll up there, back the truck up, just full up, fill them up with a bunch of um grapefruits. We just drive around town that mail bus. One guy driving, you know, one guy leaning out the front window, two kids in the back of the truck. I mean, that would blow up across Go Gilbert today. Oh, or you know, any social media application back then. You're just trying to like, you're just trying to see it sounds terrible. This stuff happened.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

I well, I mean, I think about we used to do that, uh, and not grapefruits, because I was from Washington. We didn't have grapefruits up there, but we had soda cans or two two-liter bottles that did basically the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 4:04

Shake them up real big. Oh, yeah. In back of the truck. Okay, go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Yours are probably like blue ribbon, not soda cans.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Maybe. Paps. Paps blue ribbon, yes. Uh, or hams or something like that. Zima. I know he had Zimas. Oh my god, I totally forgot about Zimas. Yeah. I think it was Zimas, Boone's Farm, Bartles and James, beer. We had beer, we had white beer cans. It was it was generic beer. Yeah. And it just said beer. It was like a white can with black cans, actually. Yeah, white can with a black label, beer. Okay. It was on sale. No idea. All right. So tell me, for people who don't know Adam Baugh, tell me what your childhood looked like.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Well, I think you I think I just disclosed a lot of the negative parts about it. Um, you know what? I I I grew up, I was five of six kids. We my dad was in the Air Force, we moved around a lot. I was born in Alabama, moved to Virginia real quick. You know, my dad was working at the Pentagon, San Antonio, Guam. I lived in Guam for a couple years, then California, and but that was all before third grade. Wow. That was a lot. And so you kind of, you know, when you move every two years, your family are your friends. It's just in a lot of there's not a lot of kids living on Air Force bases. And so it wasn't like you just can make friends as quick and easy. So I grew up with Transformers and G.I. Joes and my siblings, that's basically who my friends were. And then you make a friend, and then you get they get a transfer, or you get a transfer, and so your friends are short. But um, I grew up in in basically Southern California for about third grade on, and uh I mean I we have an awesome family. You know, um my dad retired to the Air Force, became the assistant city manager the next day in in this brand new city called Merino Valley. It had just been recently incorporated, and my mom was a school teacher. And so as we grew up in Southern California, you know, we I I I I did all the things that kids do, you know, ri play the sports, ride your dirt bike, you know, and and get into some mischief trouble. Um I skated, I surfed, and I had a good time. But my dad would always have these grand openings because the city was a new city, everything was the first time, the first park, the first senior center, the first dog pound. And so as a kid, we kind of got dragged to these things because there were six kids. My mom would be taking somebody to some practice somewhere, and then my dad would like have us in tow with him while he had to go do like a ribbon cutting or whatever. And so I I saw a little bit of like the behind the scenes at City Hall.

SPEAKER_05 6:37

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

I was in my dad's office a lot, and I'd see you know, the police chief and the fire chief. I didn't know who those people were. I just it was a small town and he was in city management, and so I I saw those little things, and so it's kind of funny when as I grew up I go to college, go on a mission, go back to college, I get married, I and I go to law school down here, and my dad was like, Do you you ever thought about going to the JAG, be a being a lawyer in the Air Force? I was like, I just don't see it happening. I I know it was your experience, it wasn't bad for me, but I just I don't have a passion for it. But in a weird way, I I stumbled into this world of land use and zoning and development, and it's the other side of the coin of what my dad was doing. And so I don't I never foresaw it, it would it didn't drive me here, but I there's a lot of connections and it's uh it's an opportunity for me to kind of continue those conversations with my dad as an adult. He's always asking me what projects I'm working on, what what things I'm seeing, what neighbors hate you, kind of a thing. And it's it's almost like he's living through my adult experience because that was his uh he was on he that was his adult experience just on the other side of the table.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

You know, and so do you uh and I think you kind of answered this already, but but when you're dealing with whether it's dealing with situations or or different projects, do you guys sit down and talk about it and he says that gives you kind of his insight?

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah, I mean look he he I'm 46, he's eighty-three. Okay. Um, you know, I'm I was the younger end of the family. And so I think this is uh something that he we we connect over, right? Because while he was a city manager, he also was a school board member. Okay. So he knows what it's like to run a campaign. He knows what it's like to have like activists against a a project or an issue. And so when I tell him about some of the absurdities that I experience in my business, he knows about it, because he's seen it. Like he knows what the politics are like, he knows what city hall can be like, he he knows the pettiness of people, the fickleness of it. Yeah. And so he'll ask like, what am I working on? Because I think there's a weird part of him that's like I wants to live that experience a little bit, you know?

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Yeah, yeah. You said sports. Yeah. What sports did you play?

SPEAKER_00 8:47

I played soccer and tennis, and um I played tennis because my dad played tennis. Okay. And he would play with my other sisters, and I was the I would just go and then I collect all the balls. And so I played tennis, you know, with him and ended up being pretty decent. And uh me and my my buddy were doubles teammates, and we went all the way to like state championships through high school. Oh, nice. And um senior year, we went undefeated, but nobody I don't know anyone cool who plays tennis. Hey, Andre Agassiz.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

Yeah, I mean, it wasn't like I went around and told people, hey, I'm a tennis player, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

And then and then I stopped. I just stopped. Turns out I didn't it didn't really help me pick up chicks. Well, I my name's Adam and I play tennis. Just didn't really get me anywhere. So uh and I played a lot of soccer growing up, and then when I got my driver's license, um, spent a lot of time at the beach. We lived about 40 miles from the beach. Okay, and you know, probably like a distance of like here to maybe Glendale. Okay. But 40 miles in Southern California is like a day drive. Yeah, takes forever. And so, but um, we did Dom patrol, so we'd always leave super early in the morning, get down there right at the beginning, and then we'd try to leave the beach to get back home by one. Nice. And um, we'd drive down and try to sleep on the beach. We would watch, we'd go down to SWAT meet and buy all the surf and skate videos that had you know the some of our favorites, you know, surfers in there, and they'd always have like the punk rock music in the background, yeah, which got me really big into punk rock. So it's gonna surprise you. I can't see a punk rock. I know I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 10:16

I still love so when you say punk rock, you're talking like uh Simple Plan and No. Or are you talking like hardcore punk rock? No, not necessarily hardcore either Nirvana and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

No, that's grunge. I mean like minor threat, um Bad Religion, Lagwagon, uh Operation Ivy, this a lot of like local scene stuff that would they were the bands that were in the background of these surf and skate videos. Gotcha. So some of the bands from San Diego, from Orange County, from LA, these videos were where we watched and you'd hear the music in the background, and you just couldn't buy those CDs at Blockbuster Music or we called it Music Plus or the or Warehouse or Tower Records. Like you had to go to like an independent record shop and then write you'd have to you know send eight dollars and a pre-addressed line envelope to like such and such record label. And so that's what I did. I every Friday night I'd uh go to the punk rock shows and then Saturday morning we'd go skate and surf and then come back and just kind of do it all the time. And it's weird because I grew up and became like a real adult with a lot degree.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Yeah. But it wasn't where I was trending. I was gonna I was gonna say, were were you more of a uh point break type individual? Remember that movie?

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah, I love it's a great movie. Oh I love Johnny Utah. Yeah, it's a good show. That was you as a kid? Not really. No, I mean like I was always at the beach all the time and I was always skateboarding, but I wasn't like what's that? Did you have a mullet? No, dude, that's that's country people. Uh I probably had just you know, regular teenage hair, you know what I mean? I mean, look, I I my dream was to live in San Juan Capistrano. I always wanted to like grow up, become an adult, and move back down. That's down like down by San Clemeni. But um, when I was now I became more of an adult and went on a mission and had a higher priorities and understandings of my life after that point, you know, like you're I was kind of a punk, like jerk. I was kind of a prideful jerk. And I think C being as an arrogant. Oh, I was, and there's a part of me that still is. I mean, frankly, a lot of me still is. But uh, I mean I grew up fast when I was a missionary. And um, so when I came home, I had like different priorities.

SPEAKER_03 12:23

Where did you do your mission?

SPEAKER_00 12:24

So you don't get to choose where you go.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Uh you just go where the church tells you. They send you.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

And you know, I I left I graduated high school, went to Utah, was enrolled at BYU, and just felt like I needed to go do this. And so I I unenrolled, or I I guess I put my enrollment on pause and left school and um put in like an application that I wanted to be and got an invite to um Buckeye. Well, Buckhead, I think I say, uh, Atlanta, Georgia. Oh, wow, okay. And I'll tell you that I had they keep the special needs kids close to home. Yeah, it's seriously. Seriously. Well, I I had this impression that I was going to learn a foreign language, and and and I went just the impression, like to me, the way I I I feel, God's presence in my life, I really felt like I had a a spiritual like moment. And and I didn't tell anybody this, but I was like, I know I'm gonna speak Spanish. So in my mind, that's Costa Rica or Chile or whatever. Yeah. So they send you a letter, I open it up, I'm in Utah college, all my surfer friends are down in Southern California. I do like a long distance call, and they all go to my parents' house because they're gonna hear the news.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

So do you do you read it while I mean kind of like a reveal everybody at one time? So you didn't know at this point. They didn't know. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

I just open the envelope, I call my mom and dad, my buddies are down there, my friends in Utah who I just met at college are kind of around me, and I open up and it's like, you've been called to serve in Atlanta, Georgia.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

And I was like So disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Yeah. You could hear the depression in my voice, like, yeah, maybe I will just stay back at college, you know, but I put it down.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

So what and I'm sorry to cut you off, but looking back, was there was there something you had to learn in Atlanta, Georgia?

SPEAKER_00 14:41

I mean a hundred percent, but but the story didn't end there. I put it down, and my friends are like, Why didn't you choose someplace cool? Because I don't understand.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

Yeah, like you really you chose Atlanta, Georgia?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, like I all we knew about Atlanta, Georgia was Outcast. Oh the rap group, right?

SPEAKER_05 14:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

And so like, why Atlanta? And my sister comes back, she's like, You need to finish reading this. And so I'm like, Okay. So I literally, I mean, it's all it's a whole sheet, and I only read like one line, and she's like, Read it again. So I read it and it said, You've been called to serve in the Georgia Atlanta mission and teach the gospel in the language of Spanish. And I was like, What? Who speaks Spanish in Atlanta, Georgia? This is 1997. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, who who speaks Spanish in Georgia? I mean, I had a lot of misconceptions about what it was, but my mind it was reddecks or something. Yeah. And um so I I leave and I spent two years there, and the only time I spoke Spanish was on Wednesdays when I that was like my one day off where I would go to like get my groceries, do my laundry, do my shopping, set write letters, you know, go to the post office or whatever. But every day, uh all day long, I just spoke Spanish. And what I learned is, you know, that was the beginning of a migrant population moving out there, and they would live in pockets. Okay, this apartment complex, and then like 10 miles away, this apartment complex, and and they were for most of these people their first time there. And so when you ask the question, like what were there lessons you need to learn? Yeah, absolutely. I'm I I will say there's there's nothing that's been more foundational for my life than those two years between I was nine between 19 and 21. I learned how to live independent, live on a budget, live, be resourceful. I learned empathy, I learned service, I learned how to care, I learned I could see people's real struggles in real time that I had no appreciation for because like I said, I was just kind of a jerk before that time. And like people were coming to me as a 19-year-old boy, like with their big, big problems that I haven't lived this experience yet. I didn't and and they're trusting me to guide them through this stuff. And so when I came back home, you know, it's a two-year commitment, and I came back home, and you have to pay for it all yourself. I life the this year before and saved up most of my money and and um and paid for it. And uh, you know, you have you you don't you get companions but you don't know who you get. And you have them for like maybe a month or two, and then like they'll switch them up. Oh really? You might be sent to a different area with a different companion. And so you don't choose who you get to serve with, you don't choose where you go. Okay. And so within Atlanta, I might have lived in like seven or eight different places for like two or three months at a time with different people. And I can't say that these people who my companions were were not people, they weren't people who I would hang out normally ever. We didn't have common interests, but I got along with all of them and a great skill that I've learned to apply in my own life as an adult. The things there's so many tools that I learned as a missionary that I use in my daily business that I I don't know if I could be where I am or do what I do without those things. How to talk to strangers, how to resolve concerns, how to make friends out of enemies, how to show empathy, how to be a good listener, how to ask follow-up questions, how to build relationships of trust, how to disarm somebody in a matter of just seconds. And when you know what I do for a living, when you realize that I gotta go to neighbor meetings where people shout at me and screw me because of my projects, yeah, and I'm I'm selling them on a project.

SPEAKER_05 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

And I I gotta help them see why it makes sense. I mean, uh you and I have chatted about things. These are skills, they're they're soft skills, right? No one's taught me any of these things. I haven't read books. I am they're not something you teach in college, but these are skills that I learned knocking doors as a missionary in deep Baptist country, yeah, trying to sell religion.

SPEAKER_05 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

And and then when I came home, I sold pest control during the summer in between college, you know, breaks. Again, selling door-to-door sales, trying to sell people on pest control they didn't think they needed, and trying to earn money to pay for my next you know year of college. Those skill sets I learned on my mission now it translated into being a door-to-door salesman in two for two different summers, which translated into me convincing my wife that she should take a chance on this idiot. You know what I mean? Yeah, which translates into how I got my first job and convincing them to hire me when I didn't have experience to what I do for a living now, representing developers and and business owners as they you know navigate City Hall. All these skill sets I learn in this two-year period where I was like deeply consecrated in and sacrificing. And so people be like, Man, you you made a big sacrifice. You dropped out of school, you broke up with your girlfriend, you didn't party, you didn't do all the things you love doing, and you paid for it, and you went to a place you didn't really want to go to. But dude, I I don't know if I call it sacrifice at all. Like that moment set me up for my whole life. I love so you see me talking about it with joy and enthusiasm because there's there's been nothing better in my life than that moment. And that moment allowed parlayed into so many more important the the last day when I was leaving my mission, we have a mission present. He's a volunteer, and he's like, So what do you want to do when you grow up? I go, I think I'm gonna be a dentist. He's like, hmm, dentist, I don't I don't see that at all. And he goes, Why do you want to be a dentist? And I go, I honestly I don't really know. I just asked something, I just said an answer. Yeah, yeah. I've been to the dentist a few times, I think they make good money. And he's like, you know, you have you ever thought about being a lawyer? And I go, nah, not really, because those guys don't have a lot of ethics. And he's you know I'm a lawyer, right?

SPEAKER_03 20:07

No kidding.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

I think he pulls out a picture of some leaders in our church, and he goes, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. No funny. And so, you know, I ended up coming back home, finishing up, going to college, and I kept thinking about that final interview. And he's like, You should consider being a lawyer. And uh never once it entered my mind. And I think that conversation led me to looking into it and voila, you know, like 20 years I've been practicing law. I own the law firm that I started with as a as the grunt. Now I'm the owner of it. And like, what if I hadn't had that conversation at the end? Yeah. And I only had that conversation because I was there for two years. Like, all these things arrive out of that moment.

SPEAKER_03 20:43

Was was getting into land development as an attorney, was that just something you fell into out of school? Or was that a passion that you're like you had you know, project or something in school, and then you're like, oh, that's where I'm going.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

So, you mean you know what did you get your degree in?

SPEAKER_03 20:59

Uh fitness and sport management.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Very good. So are you doing I mean I'm looking at your body. Oh, come on, that's cute. But I mean, look, fitness and sports manager, you probably thought you were gonna be like a physical therapist or a trainer or like uh an agent or or something like that, a marketer for an MBA team. You know, uh very few people I know have careers in the degrees that they got, and even fewer have careers in in areas that they wanted to go to before they went to college.

SPEAKER_05 21:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

So I had finished my mission and I was back at college and I had to pay for school, so I started teaching English as a second language as for like at the local elementary schools. Oh wow. On my like, you know, when I had like in between classes, and then I started teaching citizenship classes in the evening and English classes to adults in the evenings, and I was probably working like 15, 20 hours a week for the school district teaching these these classes. And so seeing people battle so hard in Atlanta, Georgia as they are new to this country and then teaching these classes, I I really wanted to like help these people, and I decided it's gonna be an immigration attorney. And Arizona State had this pro bono program where you could go and volunteer down at the at the an immigration detention center in Florence. So I came down here, I visited, I saw it, I go, that would be a good experience to have. So I came to ACU in Arizona for that reason. I knew nobody in Arizona. My wife's from Huntington Beach, I'm from Riverside, we were gonna be in California. Arizona was a three-year kind of temporary stop for us. And um, for that first year of law school every Friday, for most almost every Friday, I would drive down to Eloy, which is you know about an hour's drive south of Tempe. I would go to this detention center, I would translate papers like asylum documents for people, and I'd come back home. And I at the end of the year I realized I'm not doing anything that's gonna help these people go forward. I'm just doing things, but they're not actually taking them to a spot where it's making a difference.

SPEAKER_05 22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

And then I I volunteered. I got a job as like a law clerk at an immigration law firm, but they were more like corporate migration for Motorola and Microsoft and GM. And they were moving very smart people like engineers across the globe. And so I was doing exceptional visas for these types of people. And that was the corporate side, but that wasn't fulfilling either. And I got an internship with the mayor of Phoenix from that time because I just needed some credit hours. And my intern with the mayor, one day, I'm just in the corner, basically getting some hours, but not allowed to say anything. Like just don't even open your mouth. Just stay quiet. Act like you're taking notes. And these guys come in and they are pitching this project for uh a cell phone tower on South Mountain. And South Mountain has tons of cell phone towers. Yeah. But that's actually a park. And at some point the city hippo passed a policy they weren't gonna allow any more cell phone towers. And so these people were pitching the mirror on why it made sense to add another cell phone tower. And I and by the time I left, I was convinced that we should have another cell phone tower on South Mountain. Yeah. And I was like, who are these people? What do they do? I've never seen, I'd never seen this before. And they spoke with such art and clarity, and they they were storytellers. And someone said that's a zoning attorney. And so I ended up, I was still in law school, so I took a zoning law class, and I can understand now like how zoning influences everything we have in the city, how streets are laid out, how businesses are are built, where um industry is coming from, where neighbors live. And I started um just trying to talk to anybody. I got a summer internship in Las Vegas with this big firm, and so Las Vegas is a good old boy kind of type of town. And I saw how this firm project got approved in Perump. And I know you know where Perump is because it's some of the best brothels in this in the country out there. That's exactly where that is. And I this had major opposition, it got approved, no problem at all. And after lunch, I'm like, how did that? I just think how did that happen?

SPEAKER_05 24:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Our guy knew the knew the county directors and it got done. Oh. And so when I came back, I saw how the art of it works, and then I saw now the relationship side of it. And I knew that I really wasn't particularly bright. I wasn't the smart one in my school. I just was likable and a grinder. And I think those two skill sets really matched up well with this area of law. I and so I would I tell people all the time, my I learned more how to be a zoning attorney selling pest control door-to-or for two years and selling religion essentially than I did anything I learned in law school because those those opportunities, those skill sets taught me how to like talk to strangers, how to convince people how to build relationships of trust, how to tell a story. And so when I came back from that summer, I started meeting every zoning lawyer in town. This is 2005, and sending letters and resumes before you know there was emails and stuff like that. And I this guy took me up on my offer to take him out to breakfast. I think he liked me enough, and I essentially just said, I'll work for free. And I don't think he'd ever heard anybody say it before. And I just said, I already have a full-time job. I'm working at this place. I'll I work there from 5 30 in the morning to 2 p.m. I'll come work for free in the afternoon. And a lot of these zoning meetings are at nighttime, like neighbor meetings and planning commission. And so he uh I don't think he thought I was being real and paying me like 25 bucks an hour, I think, because he probably felt bad.

SPEAKER_04 26:27

Felt like he needed to or something.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

So I would go do my real job and then I would go do this thing. And at some point, someone saw me after like three or four months of this, and they go, hey, they want to interview me. And they brought me in and they offered me a job, and I called the guy I was working with and I said, I have loved the last three months working with you. I've learned so much. This man over here has offered me a job. If you think that there's an opportunity for me to work with you down the road, I'll say no to the job and I'll continue this kind of partial arrangement with you. And if you think, hey Adam, you're a nice guy, but there's just not a place for you here, just let me know that too, and I'll just I'll take this opportunity. And this is the end of 06. And he goes, uh, give me 24 hours and I'll call you back. And he calls you back and he goes, you know, the next day he goes, when do you want to start? I go, tomorrow. He's like, let's have this is like this is December of 2026, 2006. And he goes, Yeah, we'll start January 1. So January 1, I literally talked my way into a job. And I didn't grow up around here, I didn't have connections around here, I didn't, I didn't know anybody. Yeah, but I just I believed, I was willing to bet on myself. And got a job and started doing good work, started learning to practice, brought in a couple small cases here and there, built brought in more, brought in more, and pretty soon it became evident like this guy's really not just putting a ton of hours in, but he's like rain making. And it was I didn't ever did any like intentional rainmaking. I just always try to be involved and serve, and then people appreciate that and then they come to you.

SPEAKER_05 28:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

And at some point became a partner, and then at some point they like realized we either can we either make him like an equity partner or we're gonna compete against this guy, and we like him, so why not just make it work out? And so flash forward, and it's I own the firm and me and my partner own it, and we've got you know, 15, 16 people at work with us, and it's a it is it feels good, you know. You just we just open our our our building and I'd love for you to come and see it. But yeah, when you see your name go up on the side of the the building, and I have four sides, so I made sure I had signage on all four sides. But when you see it come up on the building, like wow, if this is real, like this this happened. This this happened, but it didn't happen by coincidence, it didn't happen by luck, it happened like intentionally and also without with things sometimes out of my control.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

Yeah. Talk to me about I I hear obviously a ton of passion with regards to what you do and where you've come, and and I would I would almost say you've just defined what success is to you with your name on the side of the building. There's probably other layers to the success. But has have there been pitfalls? Have there been bumps along the way where you're like, I'm done with this. Yeah, I don't want to deal with people anymore.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

It's actually all gone perfect for me. So you sorry. I'm sorry, did you want is that a different podcast you want? No. Of course there are. There's no that that's a real that's real life. Like if it was just all roses, it does there's it's not real. That's like a TV show. Look, I I I'm successful because I've made a ton of mistakes. It's just I've learned how to grow from those mistakes, how to adapt from them. I told you about that summer I was in Las Vegas, interning there. I didn't tell you that at the end of the summer I didn't get a job offer. And the whole point of interning in Vegas is to get the job offer. I didn't get the job offer because I made a big mistake. Well, actually, I look at it, I think it was small, but at the time it was big for them. And I I I should have known better. I ended up like going to a function, meeting somebody who worked for a client of the firm, and I was just talking about like a project that we were working on through anything bad, but the whole point of lawyers is confidentiality. I didn't break any confidentiality, but it it's never a good thing when it gets back to like the people you're working at that your junior, your your summer intern was talking about a project that they're working on, and I didn't spill the beans or like that, but just being too casual on that, it was embarrassing. And I hear I thought I left my wife in Arizona and two kids, one of them who was just born to go to the summer clerkship, and I came home a loser. I didn't get a red rose, and I felt like such a doofus that I literally fumbled. It wasn't no other reason. And I had always been I've had always driven my own success. And that was the first time where like I my efforts not only didn't deliver the result, they like my my my efforts actually caused the lack of a result. You know, I've had a lot of those mistakes, but the good thing is I think people that I've been around with are forgiving. Yeah, they're and I think have been willing to kind of coach and mentor me. So those the all those things have kind of sharpened me, helped me get to where I'm at. I mean, I've also made mistakes thinking I could do things that weren't achievable. Sometimes it's hubris or ego, or it's like I can do this. Uh why why not me? And you know, like we've had some zoning cases that you and I have chatted about that I in hindsight I probably shouldn't have taken, probably weren't at the right time for that to go forward. Or maybe I just wasn't the right talent for that. But you you learn from it and you go, okay, so I'm gonna do it differently next time. Yeah, or maybe I could have done it, but like I didn't manage it properly. Just and there's also things like I've made mistakes raising my kids because sometimes I've been too focused on my business or probably neglectful in other ways. So my life is literally just full of mistakes and failures that I've learned from and somehow turned them into teachable moments. Try to do better the next time. Yeah, all the time. Look, and I will make more. I will I will oh I I will have more. Right now I'm serving in like a leadership con in my church, and I don't know why anybody thought that they should ask me to do it because I'm just not I myself don't see my I don't see myself as that person that it can lead like a congregation, but I have a servant's heart and I believe in Jesus that much that I'll just do it. And what I tell people is if you if you hold me up on a pedestal, you will be disappointed. I'm not pretending to be anything special. Yeah. I'm just the person that was willing to say yes when they came and asked for somebody to serve. And and I say that because I will fail you, inevitably. I know I will. Yeah. But if you can appreciate that about me and expect it, then you'll, I think, be ready to give me a second chance or give me a little bit of leeway or a little bit of grace. You know, and the same thing happens in my business. I had this tough case in Chandler, Arizona, um, last fall, last December. I I've known this 20 years. I never ever lose cases, ever. It's the first time I've lost in I could probably count like two or three times I've lost a case, and the other two times I lost, I've refiled them and got them approved. I don't think I'm gonna win this one. And I lost the case. I hate losing. It's not my money, but I hate losing more than I enjoy winning. And so that just I I fight so hard and I lost that one. Yeah. And I know I I know I knew I was gonna lose if I walked in the room. I told the client we shouldn't move forward the case, we don't have the votes, but he had insisted on it and wanted his day, and I even though I knew we weren't gonna win it. But I also can look back and I go, dude, I made some mistakes in that one. I didn't manage I didn't manage some expectations well. Some of the there was a lot of lies about the case. And I just figured that the in that instance um the truth would kind of be clear and that people wouldn't buy into the hysteria and like the fakeness and some of the the rumors and deceitfulness, but at the end of the day, the things that weren't true got more he attention and more headline than the than the actual truth of it.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

Isn't isn't that kind of really what happens these days? I mean I you I mean we could probably list multiple situations where that has happened where you know people don't want to know the facts, they want they want to be validating their feelings and their emotion.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Right, right. And so you could say that about my business, about me bringing bringing a new project. People will say, I mean, you've heard it, there's like people complain about a product is like ordering from a menu board at McDonald's. Like I'll take like a number one crime, number three traffic, super size me with property values, and throw in um throw in uh blow. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And and it's just like it's the emotion of it. But outside of my business, you could say the same thing about politics, yeah, about things that happen in the community, and and I think the failure is people don't do personal research, they don't, they don't not a lot of people do any of the lifting of background research or fact-finding. Yeah, they're they're reactionary to what is following in their social media feeds. And so if the only thing you're consuming are are the social media feeds, then you're not really seeking truth or maybe even obtaining truth. You're just you're just consuming what this algorithm is feeding you. And so in my business, as I as I as I tell a project, and and I guess for the listeners here, like at the end of the day, people hire me to get their projects approved at City Hall. Whether it's a business owner who wants to get his his pla his building built and permitted faster, or a developer who wants to get the zoning changed, you know, or you know, something that's a a small business owner who's stuck in the rigmarole of city hall bureaucracy. You know, people hire me to be their friend at City Hall. And and so I have to present facts. I can't I don't get the luxury of being dishonest or lying because I have a bar license and it's it's not worth risking. Right. But people who are opposing a project or don't like a project, there's no consequence for it. Exactly. They don't have to risk an ethics violation or complaint, or if I lie one time, I might win the case, but I will never be able to bring a another case to that city again because they'll know that guy is a liar. Yeah, it's not worth blowing up your reputation for a single win. But for the people who post online or react, maybe unfair or with a high degree of bias, there's no consequence for them to be that way. You know, and so that's that's the hard part, not just about my business industry, but just like where we are in America right now. You could say that about the hysteria over our water rates in the town and the meters or whatever, or about juvenile delinquency or kids riding their e-bikes. I mean, there's always something. And I feel like online people's worst form of character comes out. I don't see a lot of best behaviors. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And I don't think that's who those people are overall.

SPEAKER_03 37:27

I just think online that's who they are. Yeah, it's easy to hide behind the screen. Tell tell me from when you were a surfer kid in Southern California, watching your dad run through politics and manage the city through going on your mission, where you're at today, and all the process in between. How's leadership changed or your definition of leadership changed?

SPEAKER_00 37:50

That's a good question. I I I hmm my dad was a community leader. He was on the the he was the on the Optimist Club, he was on like the Kowanas Club. My dad was man of the year for the city at one point. I mean, and it wasn't because his role, he was a community volunteer all the time. So I saw like servant leadership from him 100%. And then in our church, he was always a leader. And and in our church, no one gets paid. There's no paid clergy anywhere. You're a like me, a lawyer by day, and then a bishop on the weekend. Or and then in a couple years, I could be like the nursery leader. We all just volunteer. So I saw you know a lot of leaders in my life. And as a kid, there were opportunities for me to be a leader. Um, in my church, in a young little young men's group, I was the president of the the small deacons, which are the 12 to 14-year-old boys. I was on the student council in high school. One of the days I missed in high school was the day they announced the results of the student body election because I ran and I was too scared to even be at school in case I lost. I called in the attendance office from home. Hey, by chance, you know the results of the thing. I found out I won. And I was on the captain of the tennis team, and one year um this spring break, our coach said everybody needs to play tennis every day. And when he come when it comes back, I'm gonna ask you if you played. Well, my my family went on a my dad got con into buying like a timeshare subscription, you know? Terrible mistake. You can never get out of it. Right. But at the time we thought we were balling hardcore, and so he upgraded his points and went from like Palm Springs, where he bought it into like converted it into like Acapulco or whatever. So we're down in Acapulco, and I didn't play any tennis for that whole week. So he came back and we're in the locker room dressing up for the first Monday of and everyone's talking about like, are you gonna did you play? No, I didn't play, nobody played. What are you gonna tell coach? I'm gonna tell him I played. So we get to the courts, and the coach lines us up, like the highest ranked player on the team down to the lowest ranked, and so you know, I was probably like number two or three. And and he starts at the bottom, did you play? And every kid said I played, they played, and they got to me. And I just said, I didn't play. And the kid after me said he played, so I was the only one who said he didn't play. And coach ripped me a new one. What do you mean? You're the he was Jamaican, so just think of it like in a Ross Safari type of voice, you know, and he was so disappointed that that I hadn't played as the tennis, as a captain of the tennis team, and the whole other team had played. How did you not play? But I knew nobody had played. We all talked about it in the locker room, but like my integrity and who I was as a person was way more important than than this role. And I just remember thinking, I will, I didn't wrap them up, I didn't say anything else, but like the one guy who showed leadership just got lit up. And I could never tell him. So those little things happen when I was a missionary as a chance to you know be a leader in those things. But I don't know if I consider myself a leader here locally. I just try to do good things, and you know, I I I have people at work for me, and I I think what kind of boss would I want to have? One who's kind and empathetic and and not like a taskmaster. I don't know if that's leadership or not, but I just the I've had good mentors and models to follow. And so maybe I just am a oppose her and I replicate it, but it works for me.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

Yeah, I don't know. Do you see? I mean you know what's it's funny because as you're speaking, I kind of feel the same way. Like people will come up to me and say, Hey, have you ever thought about and I'm like, No.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

You know what it is, Jan? No, it's it's that it's not that we see leadership in ourselves, but I think people see us willing to serve, willing to give our time. And a lot of people are selfish with their time, yeah. Or or they guard their priorities. And so they look at you and they go, you know, this is a person who gives beyond his self.

SPEAKER_05 42:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

And I think they identify those traits with with you know leaders. So I don't know if I consider myself a leader. I I consider you a leader. Uh I see you lead tremendously in the chamber organization. That's that's you your involvement is far greater than mine. I've been on that for you know 10 years or so. But so maybe we don't see in ourselves that other people identify.

SPEAKER_03 42:33

Well, thank you. I uh it's interesting. I had I had a a guest on the show recently, a little little bit ago, but recently, who said that he had a mentor at one point say to him, People like you, but do they respect you? Yeah. And that has been like living rent-free in my head just over and over and over again. And I'm like, dude, how do you know, right? I think about that. How do you know if people like you, but do they respect you? What is that? What's what what is the difference, anyways? I don't know why that just came out, but it's like something you said made me think of that. I'm like, God, it just it just eats at me.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Uh yeah, I don't know. And I think people that don't know me maybe don't respect me.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

But well, I think once they do get to know me, they they do.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

But well, and I think and you you said this regarding your law license. I'm the same way with my insurance license. It's my that's that's my life. I'm not going to do something just because you want to save a couple dollars, right? I'm gonna tell you what I believe is the right thing to do, and and unfortunately, fortunately, through 30 years of doing this, I've found a little bit of knowledge in the law with regards to how insurance works, you know. So, but it's that thing where there's been multiple situations where it's like, I would rather not write your business than write your business knowingly incorrect. So, but I I see that in you. So obviously you grew up around you know, your dad who was heavily involved, and you watched the servant ser servant leadership through the years and and that sort of thing. But is is there an impact that you hope to leave on your community or your family? Oh yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Look, like my mom didn't work growing up, but she was a teacher. She stopped teaching to raise kids. And then my youngest sister, I was number five, my daughter, my sister was number six, and we were done, or my mom was done. And when she went to kindergarten, it's when my mom said, I'm gonna go back and be a teacher. But like we you don't make a lot of money being in the Air Force, you know what I mean? Especially with six kids. My family did all kinds of stuff to make extra money. We used to throw yellow phone books on the driveways. Oh yeah. Yeah, like delivery phone books.

SPEAKER_03 44:47

Big you must have been huge in Southern California.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Exactly. Big phone books. Uh my mom would teach piano lessons and dance lessons out of home out of the home. Uh my dad would teach at the community colleges wherever he was stationed as like a side job in addition to whatever his Air Force job was. We always had to have side houses. As a kid, um, I remember drinking powdered milk as part of my cereal because we didn't we didn't have real milk. I've talked about that on this show. Is that a thing? Like people people don't even know what it's like to grow up.

SPEAKER_03 45:14

It's so funny because TJ Tillman, who was on this, he owns outcast donuts and and that. We had that exact same conversation. Really? I grew up on powdered milk. We did not, I don't remember ever having an actual gallon of milk or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

We we had it a lot, but like when when we didn't have it, and my parents so we had food storage. And my parents made us eat through our food storage.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

Okay, like to rotate it through. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

And but also we were I wouldn't say we're poor, but we we were lower end middle class. Does that make any sense? Oh yeah. So so powder milk. I mean, if I had a juice box, it was like treat time.

SPEAKER_03 45:49

You remember those little opening? I kid you not, a donut in my house was very few and far between. There was Dude, my mom made our donuts. Yeah. We didn't buy donuts. There were a couple times I remember my dad we didn't have any food at the house to make lunch. Yeah. And he'd come to the school with he'd Yeah, I'll take care of it, whatever. He'd show up and it always had a donut in the in the lunch bag. And it was wasn't like often, it was like you know, once, probably once a year.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Vienna sausage, did you eat those things? Red Devil ham. Yeah. Spam. My mom would have dehydrated. Macronian cheese.

unknown 46:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

You had crafted, you were luxury. I had store brand. I don't know if there was store brand back then, but they're probably like it's like we always had, and so like as a kid, uh, I never I never felt like I could ask my parents for things because I just knew like I could I I their economic situation was very visible for me to see and observe. So I was hustling all the time. I was I was I would go to Price Club, and I don't think that's a thing anymore, but I think Price Club's Costco and Price Club. Is that what it was?

SPEAKER_03 46:48

Yeah, they they joined, they merged, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Yeah, so I'd go to Price Club or Sam's Club. By the way, I I feel like my family was on a whole nother economic status the day we got a membership at like Sam's Club or Costco or whatever it was. But I'd buy like two boxes of blow pops and I'd just sell them for 25 cents a piece. And if I'd sold them all, I could make six dollars a box.

SPEAKER_05 47:07

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

And I'd sell I'd sell blow pops at school. I would I'd flyer, I'd take flyers to my whole neighborhood and I would uh offer to pull people's weeds for five bucks an hour. I was always hustling because I just needed I needed the money. I didn't feel like I could talk to ask my parents for that kind of stuff. Had to pay my own. I mean, I I'm not I don't want to create a an idea of like poverty by any means, no, but like it was more like I I was in tune to like what their means were and I wasn't gonna ask for those kind of things. So when I, you know, came home from my mission as in school, I started I started work, I I had to pay for my own college, so I, you know, did all the jobs, I did the summer pest control thing, and then when I was married, I would buy and sell cars on the side. I'd flip cars and I because I was in law school, I didn't have I couldn't have couldn't have a job, so I'd try to buy a car and flip it. And then I got my real estate license and started selling all my neighbors' houses because they were all losing their houses in the recession, and I was like short selling all of them. Wow. And I had and then I started like buying and selling liquor licenses. I mean, I always had a side hustle. So you asked, like, what's the lesson you're you're teaching? Like, first of all, like I am I I'm teaching I I've taught my kids how to like create a paddleboard business during COVID because people couldn't really go anywhere and they could just be with like a family. And so like we had two paddle boards, like, why don't we go put these up for rent? And then it was successful, and they bought 10 more, and then we were running a little enterprise for years. And so I've always tried to teach my kids like entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, even that I even though I'm the owner of the firm, I implement a lot of entrepreneurial ideas within it. I I changed a lot of our billing model, so it's not necessarily by the hour anymore, it's just flat rate. I'm willing to take chances on things, even if if it doesn't work out, and I lose money on the deal, it's okay because I'm gonna learn from it. And so I've always been teaching like resourcefulness, grit, entrepreneurial, like hard working. My kids haven't all I have five kids, three of them are adults, two are married, you know, the third one's a freshman of college. I I don't know. I know that they know these principles because I preach it at home, I talk about it, I demonstrate it, I live it, but not everybody's cut cut out for it, you know? And sometimes like, oh man, I wish I had someone teach me these things when I was younger. I would have taken off. Yeah. I'm I'm an entrepreneur in a lawyer's body. Does that make any sense?

SPEAKER_05 49:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

But like had I had had had I been pointed or directed that way in the beginning, I think I would have been, I would have had a totally different lift off. And so I'm teaching these things to my kids, but my kids, despite my best efforts, they are who they are. Yeah, they're not me.

SPEAKER_05 49:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

And I've really struggled to hold back off of like trying to compel them or force them to do these things that I I see myself now today. Yeah. But I think they they've grown up in a school situation where they're repeating what they see like like a drone or a robot. And at some point they'll have their sort of awakening and realize, why am I doing this? What am I doing this for?

SPEAKER_03 50:09

Right. So yeah, I I would agree with that 100%. I mean, I I think about myself, and it took me almost 25 years to get to the point where I thought, I mean, for years, I was like, I just do this myself, I'm gonna do this myself, I'm gonna do this myself. Never did, never thought I was prepared, never thought I knew what I was doing. Finally started the business for myself, and now I look back and think, had I done this in my twenties and had the energy I had back then, totally different ball game.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

I I I I there's this great show, and at this all time it's called like the corner office. You ever heard of it?

SPEAKER_03 50:43

Sounds familiar, but I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 50:44

He spells it K-O-E-R-N-E R. So it's like current. It's almost like Kerner Office. Okay. His last name's Kerner. And he just tells the story of he interviews people and he just has a conversation like this. How did you build what you've got? Your enterprise. And it's just entrepreneurial successes. And I listen to it and I go, and I'll like send it to my kid. Like, dude, you could totally do this. Yeah. And I'll even fund it. I will fund it. The money I think would be the most like biggest obstacle for them to no, it's not. They don't have the drive.

SPEAKER_03 51:12

That isn't that crazy. Because I think about that, I think the number of ideas I come up with that if I just had been wiser with my money in my early life, you know, now, I'm like, oh my God. You know, and then I look at some of the kids today and I just think they're okay punching the clock or or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

They will be. But and at 25 years, then they won't kind of like, I mean, you just said it yourself. At some point, you realize, what am I doing this for? I had this idea when I was in high school. You know how what it was like back in the day when it was commercial break, you had to walk up to TV, push a button to change the channel. And then, like, at one point, your parents had a TV with a remote, and you're like, what? This is life changing. Yeah. I don't have to leave the couch to change the channel. And then at some point I realized, remember when your your home phone went from cord to cordless? And the cordless phone could be anywhere. And then like the phone ring and you reach down, but you pick up the remote, and it's like, oh, where's the cordless phone? Yeah. I had this idea, I'm like, why don't we do one in this one in the Yes, make a phone that can control the TV, or vice versa.

SPEAKER_04 52:17

And it turns out it's called the iPhone. Exactly. I was just saying your iPhone can do that. Dude, I was thinking about this in 1993, bro. That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

And then it was like, why? And I was like, or like your everyone's got to watch. Like, because you remember the computer watches? Yeah. Literally you'd push like the calculator watch, but it had like tons of buttons on it. I had one of those. I'm like, man, what if I could like I wish I could like have this button I push and it controlled the remote of the TV. It turns out Apple Watch. I I mean, come on, Steve Jared. He were on the same page, just different generations. But like I have I have these ideas all the time. And it's the same way. When I drive by dirt, I look at dirt differently because of my business as a zoning and land use attorney. We build, we help, we help this town and the cities build their projects. Yeah. But I look at dirt, I don't look at what it is today. I look at what it what it should be or what it could become. And so the same mindset is with like businesses. I ha I have so many ideas from businesses, but I don't I can't run an 18-person law firm, serve my clients in the firm, and also create new businesses. I I would like to I'd like to empower people to create businesses and fund them. And then if they're successful, great enough, not no big deal. But I I am like trapped. It's weird because I love what I do. I I love what I do, and if I wasn't doing this, I don't think I'd be an attorney because it seems like a really miserable living. But because I have a passion for this, I love doing this. So I don't want to do a a different gig that takes me for this because I I truly enjoy this. But there's a part of my entrepreneurial side that like wants to go create. I I like to have I've created like a hospitality business and it's done really well. I've created liquor license brokerage business, but all those things take little time and the it was sort of like out of my desire to get my creative juices out, I we I went and did it. But I have other ideas, but I need someone else to do it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 54:12

And but people don't all have the same drive, and so people want to ride the coattails way too often.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

And also if it's not their idea, they're not they don't they're not into it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 54:21

Well i well what I've experienced in the past is people having great ideas, and you can you can sit and get really excited about the ideas, but there's no implementation, there's no drive to move forward, there's no okay, what's the next step? Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:37

Right? To to to to take that to the next level. You mentioned kids.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:42

What do you hope your kids say about you at the end of the day?

SPEAKER_00 54:46

I mean, um it's not what I hope they say, it's what I hope they don't say about me. I mean, I know. Like, cause now, like, you know, my I have daughters are like 21, 23, and 18. And so now they are kind of adults. And and now they're not embarrassed to tell the stories in front of me that like I don't think they're like we can't get in trouble anymore. Yeah, and so I'm like, oh, I cringe, you know, about some of the things. But I think they would say, look, um, despite you know, sometimes I was a difficult dad, I think they would say that I taught them first um to love God and Jesus, second to how to find a good partner. My wife and I have been married for 25 years. Oh wow. And uh it's been super easy.

SPEAKER_04 55:32

I think for her, it's I say for you, yeah, exactly. For her, she's like, I can't believe I'm doing this thing. She's like, she'll listen to this and she'll go, Who are you talking about? Easy, it's been way easy for me, brother. For her, it's been a struggle.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

You know, she's truly fantastic. But I mean, like, I think that they would say, like, my the importance of like finding a partner that's like equally yoked and and supportive. And I think they would talk about someone who is full of integrity and honesty and hard work, and those are the things that I hope they would say, and I hope they'll tell a lot of funny stories. I mean, I like being funny. I and I'm sure podcast listeners will listen to this and going, that guy's not funny at all, but I like uh I like telling jokes, I like being silly, and I think they'd say like dad was fun and he was energetic, and and he taught me how also some really important life lessons like integrity and showing up and being reliable, being accountable. And and I it not a lot of people are that way. Yeah, it's just it I don't know why, but but they're not, and like when you find someone who you can rely upon is trustworthy, is reliable and accountable, like keep them close because there's not many of those people. Yeah, and those by the way, that's who you are. Because and I think that's who I am, but and that's probably why we get along fine. I think we recognize those those traits are not easily taught or demonstrated. And there's a lot of like people clinging on, but they're not really like lifting up or they're not really like leading, you know, carrying forward. And so when when you you know exhibit those types of traits of personalities, then people identify it and they see it and they go, We need we need you, you know.

SPEAKER_05 57:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

And you have to be careful because also when you are that person, then sometimes people will will give you more because you did it and they'll give you more, and it's like you almost have to learn how to say no sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 57:16

Yeah. Which I'm still learning.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

That's a that's a that's a tough word.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

It's hard because you want a A, you you you want to serve, yeah. And B, I think you think I I'm capable of doing this, or I'm gonna feed people that can do this, right? And but you also have to realize what's the value of your time where your resources and like where do you want to lift yourself up? I there's a time where I probably won't be involved in the chamber. And I don't know when that will be, but only because now I'm like moving forward into like new opportunities or new spaces or new leadership connections, and so you you can't always say yes to all the things. Right. Like how like how do you value your time? If you the moment you start valuing your time in the in then you guard it differently. Like what what deserves your time?

SPEAKER_03 58:01

Yeah. Talk to me about with the Morris Bah. It's best law from the town. I say what do you guys do? Yeah. I mean, obviously I know, but what do you do? And then what makes you different than I was gonna say a name, but I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

Yeah, I don't please. I don't wanna I don't wanna dog on him. I just tell these right really great things about me. Then you then you see the other side of me just rips on people, freaking posers. Um no, so with emorse bah is a land use stoning law firm, and I we I I your your intro talk about me, you know, going to court. I'd like never been to court, so thank you for that. But no, I don't know how to do that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 58:34

I I envision you being in court. You you hold court very well when I've sat on the dais and listened to you. It's very polished. Yes, sometimes I have to laugh in the back of my head, try not to let it show on my face.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

I you've been really good about not texting me all the things that you probably want to make fun of me about saying, but like the only thing I know about courts is I've seen is something I've seen watching Perry Mason or you know, or like Matt Lock on TV. We don't go to courts. At the end of the day, I tell people uh if they want to understand what I do, I just simply say, I'm your friend at City Hall. If whatever you need at City Hall, I can get it done. Whether it's like meetings or connections or permit expediting or interpretation letters or rezoning or development agreements or introductions, that's what we do. And so, like my business is with Immore Spa, I feel like um obviously we do zoning and land use and timements. We have a real estate practice, we have a transactional practice, but at the end of the day, we're a customer service company. That's it. We're a customer service company in the realm of like leak law and development. But if if I don't deliver good customer service, I'm nothing. Like this firm doesn't exist, it doesn't thrive, it won't survive longer than me. The name with he was my partner Mike Withy, who doesn't work for us anymore. But you keep the name because the name represents a higher level of practice, it represents like an art. Jason Moore, some other business partner, is incredibly crafted, gifted, and he has a an art and a craft on how he speaks and how he presents. It's incredible. I wish I could be one-tenth of what his abilities are. And so, like that, this brand is is known, I think, and recognized for relate its relationships, its integrity, and its ability to find a way to a win through some really unpredictable, uncertain, and strenuous situations. And I think people hire us. We don't we don't do marketing, like I don't have I do zero marketing. I just answer the phone. I pick up the phone and then we decide if we want to take on that client or not. But the reason why we don't have to market is because I think the the brand is known for success and word gets around, people like, hey, you have this case in that city, you really need to hire this guy. And I think that's been borne out just over the the years of of doing this and doing it right. I mean, you and I met through the chamber, but we also get to connect through the planning commission on occasions, and so you've seen a lot of people presented cases sometimes with their own representation, but sometimes themselves or with representation. And and you know what a good one looks like, and you know what one doesn't.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:09

You're okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

Yeah, this is middle, middle of mid- I'm mid. Yeah, but well, I wouldn't go that far, but but I pride myself on being that person, and and I still need to come back and work on the next case. And so you have to be really mindful of like how you run a case, how you conduct yourself, how you present it, because there's another one around the corner. If people think you're a jerk, they're not gonna help you out. Yeah. And I think my I I don't think I'm particularly bright in my understanding of the law. I don't think there's so many smarter attorneys. I just think I'm uh likable and I I think I'm authentic and genuine, and people really connect with that. And the relationships I'm building today, I don't know when I'm gonna need them. But if they're not real today, you can't call on them later on. Right. And so you just have to treat the person who's the secretary or the low man at the counter the same way you would treat the director or the city manager because at some point they may be that in either in that city or somewhere else. And so, you know, building key relationships of trust today matters for 20 years or 10 years or five years down the road. You never know. And so you treat everybody that way because they'll remember how you made them feel and probably won't remember what you said or how smart you were, but remember like who you are as a person and then want to help you out. And a lot of my success is because people have helped me out. Yeah. So that's who with the more spa is. You know, we're we're a really good zoning land development law firm that builds the city. Everything from the retail shopping centers to your neighborhoods to your places of industry were zoned by somebody like us on on the chance that it would get approved and then it gets built, and voila, you now can live and shop and eat and work and play in your own town that you couldn't before.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:48

So when I can't see the mountain anymore, yeah. I come out.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

I'm also the guy who's ruining your neighborhoods. I'm raping your children, I'm pillaging your villages.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:58

Probably shouldn't say that. Yeah, sorry, that sounds terrible.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

But that's what they say about me, right? Oh I'm the one who's bringing the hookers and the drugs and the prostitutes. It's bad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:07

Someday I'm going to write a book. Yeah. What I really wanted to say.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

Did I ever send you my bingo card? Yes. Yes. There you go. Yes. Things said at public hearings.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:16

Oh, it's I I and and I get it. I mean, we could do a whole episode on that. But it's it's one of those things where sometimes I wish that I could remove myself from the position and put that person who's speaking in that position with the knowledge I have in my head and go, listen to what you're saying. There's some people that present very well and say things that make me stop and go, huh, okay, that makes sense. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

The crazier the neighbor on my hearing, the more comments I have that I'm gonna get it approved. Oh, yeah. When they go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, I know. Oh bingo, we won't be. It's coming, it's coming. When they come with a calm voice with rational thinking and reasoning, go, oh dang, this is a formidable neighbor. He's committed.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:03

I'm convinced of him. He is going to drive a wedge. Yeah. It I mean, and those happen, right? Where somebody steps up and they're like, Look, here's my credentials. I've been doing this for this long.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

Yeah. We we had this case, and you were on the planning commission that I don't think you'd remember it, but it was off of Wrecker Road and Pecos, where it dead ends right in front of Higley High School.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:23

The storage unit.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:24

Storage unit, right? Yeah. So neighbors come out in arms because they we gotta stop the storage unit. And we come to the hearing and they get up and they talk about how I mean, and they say with so much high degree of confidence that like, why would anybody doubt them? And they go, We all know that homeless people live in these storage facilities, and also drugs and prostitutes. Right. And rats. And rats. Oh yeah, and rats. And crime. And the crime's gonna leave and jump over the fence and come into my pool. Right. And then my kids are gonna be like seen in their bathing suit. And I go, Well, first of all, we don't have windows on the storage units. Right. We don't allow people to live there. You know who rent storage units? Like the small business who's outgrown his space and he's like putting his his supplies in that closet. Right. And the guy who put his Christmas decorations there and he's come back next year to pick them back up and do it again. Right. But I and I just remember like that case, you know, was one of the ones like they hit they hit like five, they almost got bingo. They got like they were real close.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:19

They were close. That's funny that you bring that one up because that is probably one of the main ones I think about when I when I just think. I and and God bless them, right? They don't want and it doesn't matter what's going back there. It doesn't matter there was a storage unit, it could be a house, it could be you know, and there are some times where we'll we'll approve things and then it gets built, and I go back later and go, Oh, that's not really what I thought it was gonna look like, you know. And not that I second guess it, because I really truly never on any of my cases, but we won't name those people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but they but but there's times where you think, okay, it's it's private property, yeah, right? Does it make sense for the community? Does it make sense in that spot? Are they trying to overbuild it? And a lot of times now it's that that piece of it, the overbuild where it's like, oh God, why you know we're just crushing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

Some of the some of the stuff that's fun to see is like American Furniture Warehouse. You know, when we did that one, a huge furniture store, they had like 70% of the market share in like Montana. And when we brought that to the city and they saw how much economic generation it is gonna create. This is gonna be their first store in Arizona. It was a farm filled beforehand. The economic generation was so incredibly impressive that the city said, bring in your permits now, even though you're not zoned, and we'll get you zoned in 90 days, but we'll we'll let you start your permits now because the the tax dollars were wagging the dot. But then I've also had a chance to be involved in like some really cool you know civic projects, like not everything is you know, big greedy developer ruining neighborhoods, you know, like it is uh helping a senior citizen community do a pickleball court. Oh, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:57

Was that yours? It was me too. Remember that one?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

How crazy people got that dude in this club versus the pickleball club?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:04

You know, all 55 plus people retired, have nothing better time but to write letters about each other.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:09

Do you know what sound that makes coming off the paddle? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh I mean You know when I'm walking in the morning, somebody has a pickleball court in our area and I can hear it. On the cold mornings, you can hear it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:22

Dink. Yeah.

unknown 1:07:22

Dink, dunk.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:24

But you know, like I've also done things like one of my favorite ones was a school called ASA Now or Jacob's Mission. They have a couple nonprofits in this building, and we took an old church and converted it into a facility for foster kids. Oh wow. And, you know, they needed some zoning. They had to get a special use, and my client raised the funds, donated it to them. They then got a loan for the balance. We got it approved. But everything needs zoning. And so I've had you know great successes with a lot of um behavioral health schools and clinics. And so, as much as for every like big, bad, greedy developer, there's always another really good story that unfortunately the bureaucracy of City Hall. Or requires somebody like me to help out.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:09

I think there's always gonna be the nimbies and there's always gonna be the person who, for whatever reason, believe they moved to the small town five years ago. And nobody should come after them. Nobody's coming after them.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

Nobody's gonna build in that lot that's been empty for You know, it's like when people are complaining about a project, I say, you know what's funny? When you moved in your home, you know what they were complaining about you? They're complaining that you were built the lot the small lot, and now you're complaining about the next guy because he's building a small lot. Yeah. I you can't, by the way, you you can't convince them.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:38

No, it's it is what it is. I mean, it's just it's the same reason that everybody who lives in an apartment is trash.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:45

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the the people who live in apartments deserve to die. That's kind of what I the impression I get by the time I bring a zoning case.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:51

God forbid that we've all probably lived in an apartment at one point in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:54

My goodness. I I'd never been around so many drug lords and prostitutes and and criminals in my entire life. Except for I when I live. I was one of the I was the I was the cartel leader for the two years I lived in an apartment project. Selling dumb dumb pops. Yeah, I was selling blow pops laced with uh fentanyl.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:12

That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:13

So your story's still being written. Story's still being written. Like, I don't know where the thing goes. Um 20 years of my practice, I feel like I got another 20 plus left.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:23

You be one of those old codger guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:25

Please don't. If I do, if I'm there and then we still know each other, I want you to take me out of like a farm and just shoot me like an old horse. Don't make it. Adam, it's time to put you down. Please. I don't want to honestly, I see those guys. Yeah, I won't know any names, but we don't you don't have the name names. You know what I'm talking about. Oh you're like, why are you still practicing? Like, did you not make enough money?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:45

Like, what is it? Of course they did.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:47

But I will say there's a part of that loves it. And so maybe I maybe I would be involved, but on a select types of cases or something with greater, you know, motivation.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:57

Well it's I think about with with the agency, with the insurance stuff, and I think about, you know, how many more years do I have left in the grind? But really, I enjoy the business. I mean, I enjoy what I do, I enjoy the process, I enjoy the relationships probably the most. So it's kind of like I and I can't ever see myself stopping. Not necessarily not stopping the business, but just it's like I gotta do something.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:20

If I was to do something like a second act of something, I think I would probably I'd love to get involved with helping people create businesses and like mentor and consult and guide them and like seed money them. That would be something I would really enjoy. Because I've been successful enough to myself where I don't need to participate financially in all those things, but helping people have like a head start into those spaces. When I started, I was an employee of a company. And when I became a partner, I was still an employee of a company just with a different title.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:52

It wasn't until I became like the owner could I do my ideas and be creative and nimble and test and figure out what works and what doesn't work, and then go back and look at go, yeah, that was a mistake, I shouldn't have done it that way. And and I so I apply a lot of those things in my business, and I I love to help other people kind of have those moments. And I was making a comfortable enough income that I could afford to test out ideas and pay in fee structures, and maybe they didn't pan out, but it's okay because I was making enough income to not it's not a big deal. But not everybody has that luxury, and I would love to sort of like give those chances to people. That would be, I think, probably like that's probably the future of me. Future me is like how do I give other people the chances to really take to to take a chance? And with like good bumper lanes, yeah. You know, a little bit of a fallback plan and a little bit of coaching, some mentorship, and and sort of like helping them launch. I just feel like if they see what if they can see what they're really capable of, maybe this is my mindset, but once once you see what you're capable of, how far can you really go? Yeah. I know not everybody's that way, but that's if you can find people like that, that's the people I like to get behind sport.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:00

For sure. Grandkids?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:02

Hopefully. Not yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:04

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:05

Next year.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:06

Well, I am Mormon, so like pop them out quick.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:10

Yeah, I mean, what do you have? Five kids? Five kids, yeah. My oldest. So if they each have five, you have twenty-five grandkids?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:17

I don't think so. I mean, I grew up with a family six, my wife grew up a family five. I don't know. I'd love to have lots of grandkids, but that I'm not I don't I don't call those shots.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:26

Do you're do you do you see, um I and we'll wrap up by I kind of starting to go long, but do you see in we'll say in the church, but in your community where the generation coming up now is less inclined to want to have kids? Are you seeing that?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:45

Good question. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the society and whole, right? You know, that's interesting. When when I got married, I thought I was gonna have a big family. My I knew this one kid named Bryce. He had 16 brothers and sisters.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:57

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:58

And I met him selling pest control. Yeah. And it seemed awesome to me, but maybe because I I moved so much, I didn't have I didn't have friends as often because we were moving so quick. Yeah. So I always always had to be around my siblings. But I'll tell you, like, after like three kids, I knew it wasn't enough, but I was done essentially. So we had four.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:21

Did you figure out what caused them? You're just a slow learner.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:24

Seriously, I didn't have cable television. And then Kim's like got to like four years after our fourth kid. She's like, I think there's I think there's another one in our family still. And so good enough. I mean, it turns out like Sawyer came and she's been she's been like I can't imagine not having her.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:39

Four years. You didn't see the writing on the wall that she just didn't want to go back to work yet?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:43

I was like, we already we already gave away all the baby stuff. Like we gotta buy a crib again. I already gave away everything. Um so like it's a lot, it's a lot to manage, but I can't I couldn't imagine any other way.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:54

So your oldest is 23. Married. Youngest is 11 tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:59

Okay. Tomorrow tomorrow. So look, uh like my family, I have an incredible family. I I really do. My wife is the kindest person. She's so kind, but she's really fun, she's a ton of energy, everybody likes her, everybody thinks she is their best friend.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:17

Except when you're destroying neighborhoods. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:20

No, even then, they're like, I hate Adam, but I really like your wife still. And she's girl. And so like my kids have seen an incredible mother and an incredible woman. There, she's an example. Like five has been the right amount for us. That's great. And I don't know if I could do it anymore, but like Kim is it does. Truthfully, Kim does it all. I just go to work and then I come home and I play dad for a couple hours. Like she is there all the time. And she was she's been a nurse for years, and at one point she just said, Why am I doing why am I working? Like, yeah, why are you working? And so she's been able to have the luxury of just raising you know our kids and it's all worked out. That's great. So I have I'm glad you get brought me on the show. I don't know if I helped your your viewership at all, but it was it's fun to just talk.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:01

Yeah, so I mean, I just enjoy these conversations and and getting to know you, getting to know things that I didn't know about you, I mean, it's great. I didn't know you were a brat kid on the skateboard.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:10

So look, uh there's a lot I I could tell you after you turn off thing, but you know, maybe why my nickname used to be Harley when I was in high school. No. Yeah. Or Black Thunder is a married man, but it's a different type of show before I could tell you that one.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:24

There you go. Well, hey, I greatly appreciate you coming on and taking the time and and uh spending it with me. I do have a uh a little gift for you. This everybody gets one of these, so you can drink milk out of it. Powder five.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:37

No, is this a shot glass?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:38

No, it's it's it's actually one of these glasses. Uh it says I went above and beyond, but it has your name on it, so you can put it on your desk and click change or yeah, maybe we'll put like a coke in it or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:48

Yeah, there you go. Coke and rum. Is that what it is? Coke and rum. Is that what people do? Rum and coke, yeah. Rum and coke, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:54

No, I'll just stick with the stick with the orange juice. Thanks, man. I wouldn't want you to go crazy. And a challenge coin for coming on.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:01

But yeah, I really appreciate it. So thank you. Thanks for having me on, my friend. And you know what? I'll just say like this is a friendship that's probably 10, 12 years. Yeah. So and I've always known I can rely upon you. Well, I appreciate it. And having somebody like that, there's not a lot of people that you can rely upon. I knew I I know that if I called you at 11 p.m. you'd answer my phone call and you'd come pick me up because my car is broken, or heaven forbid, bail me out of jail. Yeah. That's who you are as a person. And and I I just uh really appreciate your friendship.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:29

Well, thank you. Don't give away any more of our secrets. But no, I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:34

I'm Adam Ball, and I went above and beyond.