Sara Faubion Stipkovits on Chaos, Conflict, and Reading the Room | Hidden Foundations Ep. 8

In this episode of Hidden Foundations, Kendall sits down with Sara Faubion Stipkovits to explore how childhood chaos, hard work, and early responsibility shaped the way she reads people, negotiates conflict, and parents today. Sara shares how growing up with a prison guard mother, an unpredictable home environment, and the role of oldest-child caretaker trained her to de-escalate, stay calm under pressure, and understand what makes people tick.
The conversation moves from law school during a brutal job market to foreclosure court, insurance litigation, million-dollar mediations, emotional regulation, money lessons, breaking family cycles, and the cost of becoming different from where you came from. Sara also reflects on the teachers who gave her stability, especially Mrs. Cooksey, and why one steady adult can change the direction of a child’s life.

Chapters
00:00 Cold Open: Work Ethic, Conflict, and Reading the Room
00:45 Meet Sara Faubion Stipkovits
02:10 Finding Her Way Into Law
05:49 Why Hard Work Beat Being the Smartest
07:14 Growing Up With a Prison Guard Mother
09:21 De-Escalation, Empathy, and Reading People
13:09 Childhood Chaos Became a Skill Set
16:39 The Cost of Making It Out
20:01 Breaking Cycles and Choosing a Different Path
25:44 Giving Her Kids a “Boring” Childhood
30:03 Money Lessons and Teaching Kids Financial Awareness
34:47 Negotiating Million-Dollar Settlements
41:54 The Half-Million-Dollar Mediation Lesson
48:45 Fighting at Work, Peace at Home
52:08 Mrs. Cooksey and the Teacher Who Changed Everything


Hidden Foundations is a weekly podcast hosted by entrepreneur and investor Kendall Schoenrock, examining how family systems, early adversity, and childhood dynamics quietly shape high-performing adults. Each conversation uncovers the “invisible wiring” behind resilience, ambition, leadership, and grit — told through candid stories from entrepreneurs, athletes, creators, and leaders.

Guided by the thesis that strength is forged early at home, the show uses a consistent framework to explore emotional environments, money narratives, family roles, conflict patterns, and early challenges. Every episode delivers at least one practical, repeatable insight for parents, leaders, and anyone seeking to understand how greatness is built long before it’s visible.

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#HiddenFoundations #BreakingCycles #Leadership

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You never have to be the smartest person anywhere. You have to be the hardest working. Reading the room is key to practicing law. There are all kinds of lawyers that are terrible at it.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Did you find yourself walking on eggshells in order to keep the peace?

SPEAKER_01 0:13

There's a lot of diamonds in the rough out there that they just need one person to think that, you know, one person can make such a difference in somebody's life.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

How do you find the Goldilocks or the number? Is that intuition?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

My goal is for them to say that they had the most boring childhood ever.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

This is Hidden Foundations. A show about how family, childhood, and adversity shape leaders. Because before they became who they are, their foundation was already being formed. Kendall Schillenrock, thanks for joining us for another episode of the Hidden Foundations podcast. Today I'm joined with Sarah, Fabian, and Skip Stipkowitz. Stipkovitz. You say all the letters.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

All the letters.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here. Of course. So I met you, let's see, it was a business dinner a while back. Your husband and I were in a CEO group together, and you had the most amazing work stories. And I absolutely loved uh Hitler. War stories. Everybody loves more stories. If you had to describe to my mother what you do, how would you describe that?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah. So now what I do is I'm in-house insurance counsel. So I boss other lawyers around in very technical terms. I'm not licensed all over the country. I'm licensed in Kansas and Missouri, but I hire attorneys all over the state to represent our insureds. So then I monitor them, right? And I'm like, where are we at? What's happening? And like for and they do all the on-the-ground work of discovery depositions and stuff like that. I'm getting all the information back. And then I'm assessing the risk and setting the financial aspect from the insurance company at my end. And then when it becomes to either a trial or a mediation, tons and tons of cases are settled in mediation now. Then I, if it's a big, big claim, I show up and I help negotiate the settlements to uh an end in mediation all over the country.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

When you went in to study law, how did you how did you navigate to this specific area? And was that the deliberate decision?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Totally not deliberate at all. So I graduated law school in 2010. That is like the economic depression for lawyers. When I got out, like there are people that have graduated law school with me that have never practiced law. That's how bad it and so the the industry was, and that there just weren't any jobs. So I had been a paralegal all through undergrad, and I took a couple years off before I went to law school. And so I have a skill set of being grunt work, right? And I'm never opposed to doing work to get me from point A to point B to keep myself sustained. So as soon as I pass or as soon as I took the bar that summer, then I started working as a paralegal doing grunt work at a firm, right? Nobody's getting jobs. It's awful out there, right? I passed the bar in Missouri and then I've been at this firm for six weeks doing great grunt work. And they have somebody quit and they give me a position. There are people much higher in my class that did not get jobs, right? I am not at the top of the law school class, but I'm not opposed to grunt work and I got I wiggled my way in. Now, uh, they said, given that it's a Great Depression for lawyers, we're going to pay you peanuts. And by peanuts, I mean shocking peanuts. There, I did foreclosure work. I just needed a job, right? Like I wasn't like, this is my magic dream of what I want. No one wants to do foreclosures. I was all over the Kansas City metro area for five years evicting people all over. So like encountering crazy people in court. We've never even talked about war stories from foreclosure court, right? In eviction court. So I did that and I felt like I was going to be stuck in this practice area that I had ultimately zero interest in. Probably capable of doing it, not interested, right? So then I I um applied for a job at a plaintiff's firm doing like personal injury. This is not at all related to the first group, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

So then for the next five years, I do federal um cases where it's called mass torts. And so it's anything you've ever seen the commercial for, like transvaginal mesh, Soralto, uh 3M earplugs, what you see advertisements for. I did that for five years.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Exactly. That's a very specific area, but yes, same type of idea. And then I was so frustrated with the practice of law like these law firms. Being a woman attorney is a real struggle. Um, they don't want to pay you what you should be making. Male attorneys that are graduated the same year as you make lots more money. And I was just like, you know what? I can't, this is awful. I'm not even sure I can practice law anymore, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

And so now I'm at like year 10, right? And I just saw this job and it was like, have you handled high-level litigation, all this stuff? I apply, it's with this insurance company. Never did I think I was gonna end up working for an insurance company. Now, this is a very specific like niche insurance company. We only ensure rural electric co-ops. I have had the most fun and have like enjoyed being a lawyer for the last four years, as opposed to the first 10, right? This is super fun. Every day is interesting. We do like catastrophic injuries, there's employment claims, and then I handle like car accidents. So there has been no giant plan, master plan.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

It's just unfolded.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Yes. There's no plan. I mean, I'm just trying to find something that makes me not want to hurt myself practicing law, right? Because there are law firms are really challenging places to work, especially as a woman.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

So let's go back to when you were talking about the first gig and how you were selected. And so it was it was a really dark time in terms of finding a job. Right. And you were selected out of that pool, yeah, saying, I'm not the best in the class, but I still got tapped. Yeah. What was it about either what you were displaying, your work ethic? What made you stand apart that?

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I think it looks interesting for someone who has just uh graduated law school and has taken the I've sat for the bar, I've taken it, I'm waiting for the results and I'm hustling, right? That speaks to people. Like you're a hustler, you're gonna keep moving. I'm gonna, I'm like, I have to make money. I can't just sit around and wait for some magic job to like arrive, especially when there aren't any. I mean, like they just kept saying, like, this is a great depression for lawyers. And so I think that you never have to be the smartest person anywhere. You have to be the hardest working, right? And so I think that is what has been the key to anything and everything as my whole life, right? Like, I may not be the smartest, but I'm not opposed to hard work. And I'll work hard and I'll hustle and I'll do the grunt work, not opposed to grunt work to get where I need to go.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Where does that drive and work ethic come from? Can we back up to uh your childhood and kind of where how you were raised? And and because I know there's some there's some dysfunction that I wanted to touch on. Walk me through what dinner looked like when you were a daughter, when you were a child.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Okay. Well, I mean, like there wasn't a lot of sitting around and uh having dinner together. My mom was working, like everybody's like going in a million different directions, just in the sense that like she was working, she took a job, she retired from the Missouri Department of Corrections, she was a prison guard for 25 years. So, and there wasn't even a prison close to our hometown. And so she drove like over an hour each way to work for this job that was not the greatest job, but it had health benefits, and it was out in rural America, it's hard to find steady employment, right? And so that's what she had done. She was working all kinds of different shifts. She did 11 to 7, she did three to 11, like all these working shifts. So there wasn't really like a huge amount of sitting down and having dinner as a family kind of thing. They were there occasionally, but that wasn't it. We were mainly just kind of taking care of ourselves while she was working and stuff. And so I do think that in all of the dysfunction of my childhood and like family dynamics and things like that, the one thing is you get up and you go to work every day and you go. Even if everything at home is a mess and on a regular basis, it was, right? But you get up and you go to work. And everything else will sort itself out-ish, right? But you have to have that go to work kind of thing. And even like when you go back one more generation with my mom's dad, again, like even worse dysfunction, right? Get up and you go to work every day, right? And so, like oftentimes when you find dysfunctional families, perhaps they're people aren't working or they can't keep a job or all these other things. But my mom and my grandpa in that level of the family, like, no matter how awful or dysfunctional it was, you go to work. We don't take sick days. I mean, like, I don't take sick days now. Like that, I would say is one of the best gifts that they gave me is like you go to work. Like, doesn't matter what else is happening, you get your ass there and you go to work. So I think that that was really embedded early on. And I have two sisters, and one sister is also very much a worker. And then, you know, those babies of the family, they just are what they are. Yeah. Sure. But most everybody, even in all of this function, is hard workers.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Do you think that having a mother that's in a high conflict environment was imprinted on you in terms of the way that she brought conflict resolution to the home?

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Oh, yeah, I would think that that would be, yeah. I mean, because it as a part of their job and training and stuff, they did things where like prison guards don't have guns. They don't even have tasers, right? They have mace under worse circumstances, but they are people that are in a hot bed environment every day. And their job is to de-escalate situations. And she would come home and talk about training as to not only like uses of force kind of spectrum, what they talk about and how, and she understood those rules and like how you have to get to this level to be able to respond with force and things like that as a prison card. But we also discussed like how to de-escalate situations and how to deal with people that are, I mean, it's just an intense, high pressure kind of job for sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

It's such a powerful skill set to be able to take someone who's on tilt or escalate and pull them back.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Do you use that in in the courtroom now?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Well, you know, I don't think I until we talk about this, like, I mean, I'm I think a lot of things as we talk about it this morning is going to be interesting because I'd never thought of it in those terms, right? But like my job is to de-escalate situations. I think also like the triage situation of like quickly being able to assess everyone in the room's personalities and being able to read the room. Reading the room is key to practicing law. There are all kinds of lawyers that are terrible at it. And I don't know how they do what they do, but I think that that comes from, you know, both like my own dysfunctional background is like you need to assess the situation quickly, get a feel for everyone's personality and figure out how to come to some sort of resolution that entails some level of peace.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Do you think the ability to read someone's else, uh, the emotions in someone else is really a differentiator from a mediocre attorney to a great attorney I think I personally think it is because there's all kinds of lawyers, even ones that you're we would consider successful, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

High-level partners at firms that can't figure out how to read a room. Like But they know the law well. Sure, and they could write you a beautiful brief, but they can't negotiate anything and they can't figure out the lay of the land, not the real lay of the land, like what's driving this plaintiff, right? What is that, right? Is it because they're poor or like you don't have to get into some sort of like crazy background of whatever that person is, but being able to spot like what's making them tick, right? And when I'm in these mediations and we'll we'll do a couple of rounds with the mediator, right? And I'll say who's driving the bus and what do they want?

SPEAKER_03 11:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Right? Because sometimes it is a lawyer, but oftentimes it's the plaintiffs themselves, right? Like who's driving and what is it their ultimate goal, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Where does that empathy come from?

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Well, I think that like whenever you know that not everybody was, not everything's made of roses, right? Like, I mean, so when the there are a number of defense attorneys that think that every plaintiff is faking, exaggerating, or just trying to win the lottery, right? And I'll say to them on a regular basis, perhaps they're not hurt as bad as they say they are, but they are injured. And you're just not even like acknowledging that like we hit them with a car, right? Like we did hit them. Perhaps they are trying to, but I think it's human nature to try to get the most that you can out of any situation, right? And even if you are in some sort of like a poor background, you know that this is your moment too, right? Like these don't pop up every day that a commercial truck hits you, right? And so I think that like knowing how people again tick, right? What makes people tick? And so that doesn't mean that I'm gonna pay them the exorbitant amount of money that they want, right? But you can at least acknowledge that that what's what's what's behind what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

So let's go back and and drill into you you basically said the inconsistency of your mother's schedule.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Uh impacted the stability of the home. Right. And led to some dysfunction. Um, how was conflict addressed at the home? Was that it was it's very chaotic. It's a loud volume, lots of screaming.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Well, like lots of like keeping calm, keeping calm.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Explosion.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah. So like my job it felt like is to keep things as calm as could be. So again, reading the room, my sisters aren't gonna help with any of the stuff. So you're like when we were talking before we started the interview, like staying busy doing these things, right? I do that too, but I'm trying to keep calm, keep the peace, right? And so, like, I will do all kinds of things in the background. I'll make sure all the laundry is done and all the dishes are done and all these things so that when she does show up and she's been, you know, drove two hours to work and now, you know, worked in this job that's not pleasant, that she's not gonna freak out about there being dishes, right? So it's a similar situation in that.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Did you find yourself walking on eggshells in order to keep the peace for sure in in some of those different the pieces? Do you think that that is um where some of your empathy comes from because you're able to, you were training as a child to read mom's reaction if she had a bad day at work, right? Don't step on the landline, right, or get out of the way.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

I think that that I think it teaches you to read people. I think it teaches what to like, okay, she's gonna freak out about the dishes, but clearly it's just like anything. That's not really what the problem is. Deflection. Right. It's something else. So I think being able to know that that's about that that's how people work is also helpful, right? Like all of these things that were not the best situation as a kid are skill set. They're a skill set, and not everybody has it. So, like if you're raised in some perfect house, like how do you pick these skills up, right? Because you don't have them ingrained in you in the same sense of like this person's gonna lose their shit, right? And so you don't have that explosive like counter reaction to not being able to read the room, right? And so I don't know if if any amount of training could get you to the same spot as having experienced that volatility at a young age.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

And how did that impact the relationship you had with your sisters?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Well, I just think that I've uh attempted to take care of them because she was working a lot.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

You were the oldest. I'm the oldest. So you became caretaker. Very much so. And did you shield them from the emotional volatility?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

I think to some extent they were much more rambunctious than me. And so they brought on a lot more. I mean, I want to keep the peace and like stay under the radar, and they're they're much more um were as children and teenagers, much more to push a button, which I would never push a button.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Ever.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Does it like you would avoid at all costs?

SPEAKER_01 15:54

And they not. So we're just wired very different as people, right? So uh, like when she worked 11 to 7, she would lead at like nine o'clock in the evening. We would all, I would get them to bed, right? And then I would get them up and I would get them off to school and things like that. So very much like, but then I felt like I was raising them, but then they were still wild and I couldn't get them to like do what it. Why can't you just be a peacekeeper like me? Why can't you like try not to do this? And they just wouldn't do it. It's just not who they are, right? And um, a therapist at one point's like, You were trying you're a kid trying to raise children. That's a hard thing to do. And they didn't turn out how you had anticipated, but you were a kid trying to do it yourself, you know, and so that's a lot. Like I just wanted them to walk the line and they just couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Have you leaned into traditional talk therapy or traditional therapy?

SPEAKER_01 16:42

I did it right after I got out of law school for um a couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Specifically on a mental fitness journey, or was there what was your goal or objective in that?

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Well, whenever you so no one in my family, my sisters didn't graduate high school. My mom and dad did not graduate high school, my grandparents did not graduate high school. So I've taken all these steps to graduate high school, then go to undergrad, and then go to law school. And in some ways, they're they are happy for you, right? But then you get to the end of the road and you don't have very much in common with them anymore. And so I felt this huge conflict with I've made it and now I have nothing in common with the people that are supposed to be my number one support system.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

And so then I saw it out therapy to try to like work through what that feels like and how to how to kind of deal with that. It's really hard. And I don't think that people give, oh, you made it. Well, you lose kind of on your journey. It's it's a challenge because now you don't have anything in common with these folks.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

It's really difficult. And so I just felt like they couldn't understand, like I was at this job and it was awful and it was stressful, and like, well, why don't you quit? Well, I don't quit anything. I've never quit anything. Like, why would I quit? And so, like, they couldn't empathize with my even my plight. And so it just felt like a lot of conflict. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Did you find that was successful?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

I think it helped me realize that I was just gonna have to, I was on my own journey, and that to some extent you kind of have to let them go, right? Which is really hard because like when you grow up in this dysfunction, like you're like, I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna take care of everybody, but they would never do anything, they would never make good choices themselves. And so, like, no amount of me dragging them, I've been dragging them now for 20 years, right? And I can't get them to change, to change, right? To like make good choices, to try not to be dysfunctional. Breaking cycles is so hard because you have to realize that it's dysfunctional, and then you have to make an affirmative decision to not act like that and not make those decisions. Those are two extremely hard steps. When people are like, oh, this is just this, you know, the the reason it's a cycle and it's hard is because you can't break it, because you can't everybody you know is just like you.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Right? Nobody, nobody would say, like, oh, well, they're dysfunctional because they're just like you, because you hang out with people like you.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Right. And so when I jump into another sphere, then I'm difficult. I'm more difficult than normal because I'm always difficult, right? But now like I'm not dysfunctional. I'm making all these decisions to try not to be dysfunctional.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

And I don't mesh even more, like every step is a step further away from white, which is success, but you lose people.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

It seems as though you've made multiple very deliberate decisions along the way where it would have been very, very easy to follow the path that you and everyone else was on. Right. But you went another direction to a different outcome very deliberately. How did you identify those forks or those decisions? How did you let that unfold in such a way that would change the trajectory of your path so significantly?

SPEAKER_01 20:01

I think that that's, I mean, I think that everything was I don't like this. I don't like the way this feels. So as you start out like as a kid, this is dysfunctional, this is a mess. Okay, I can't act like that. So I have to completely change that. I mean, that's me. That's who I am. Nobody said, like, hey, Sarah, don't act like these fools, right? But um, and so you know, it's just deliberately, I never have to experience the dumb decision to learn from it, right? I've seen all kinds of dumb decisions. My sister had a baby at 15, right? My baby sister. I don't need to have a teenage pregnancy to know that that's not for me, right? And so, like, I think that it's a really weird way to go about things, but whatever I don't need to make the bad choice myself. I'm just trying to make the right choice over and over again. And oftentimes it's super uncomfortable because it's the opposite of what most anybody might choose. Like, I didn't date because my sister had a baby at 15, and all these people in my hometown have all these teenage pregnancies. So I just didn't date. I so I take these extreme measures. Like, not am I gonna like, I'm gonna make sure that I don't have a teenage pregnancy. I'm not gonna talk to a guy until I'm 20. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, just I these hard lines in my head that I had to kind of draw to make sure that I didn't slip down the slope of that.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

But it's all self-driven. It's not as if you you had a lot of input of from from your your mom or your parents that said, we've made these mistakes, don't follow.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

No.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

This was all you see and saying, I reject that. I'm gonna go a different way.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Yeah. Which is really weird because it's just me. Now, I think that along the way that there have been some amazing teachers in my hometown, right? I think education is huge. My house is dysfunctional, it's a mess, right? I go to school, it's very predictable, it's calm, it's the same expectations every day. So I've always found a lot of like comfort in school, right? And then I've encountered like some great. Teachers along the way. And not that they were fabulous teachers, but that they cared, right? And I think one of the things that you take away is the most important thing that you can learn, since I'm going from the idea that like I don't like this, and I'm trying to make like these huge shifts a different direction is when I became like kind of good friends with a high school teacher, right? When I was in high school and go into her house where it's nice and calm. And I think that one of the ways you break cycles of dysfunction is when you realize not everybody lives like they do at your house. And so you have to encounter somebody in some capacity that's kind or you know that you can you can be exposed to. Wow, this is this house is calm. Nobody's freaking out, nobody's freaking out about some bill that's due or the car's broken, or all these things that make life difficult when you're poor. And it's like, oh, this is just, this is nice. This is what I want, right? I want something that's calm and predictable, just like school, right? Um, and so I think that those experiences with a number of I three or four teachers in throughout my education in my hometown is like, wow, not everybody lives like me, you know, because you do get in groups and like everybody's just as dysfunctional as you. And so I did be brothers, big sisters through law school. And I felt like the only thing that I could teach my little was not everybody lives like you, right? And that's the biggest thing that anybody who's in some sort of cycle of dysfunction or poverty or things like that is not everybody lives like this, and that there's something else out there because you have to think there's something else besides this to start moving in a different direction.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

There's so much there. I'm sorry. No, no, so when you gave back and you established a relationship with uh a little, did you relive some of the the trauma from your childhood and and did you attempt to shield that or s or redirect that in in the the mentee?

SPEAKER_01 24:04

I think that you have from a mentee perspective, and I've had the same experience with my nieces and nephews who are now in their twenties, right? So like I went spent a lot of time in my hometown trying. I feel like they just need to know someone that gets out. And so, like, and they didn't, they didn't all get out, which is even the most important thing is like this is not normal, and this isn't the way you have to live your life, right? And so that's what I said to my mentee, right? And these things are super triggering. As I've gotten older, um, now my sister's grandchildren, right? I just can't even like be a part of it because I can't see it happen for a third generation. And so I've taken a big step back with my own nieces and nephews. I tried, you know, to such an effort, like, let's do this or think about this, and how are we gonna do this? And you know, like it didn't work, right? Which is really disheartening. So with their children, I'm like, I just I can't be a part of it because I can't watch it again. Like, because it's it is hard to break and I'm telling you, it's hard. It's so hard to break these cycles, but I could only put in like a 10 years and to move on. Like I just and I don't want my own children to ever experience that because you have to be careful, those things like jump out kind of and bite you when you don't see them coming. Right now they pop up. Yeah, because we have a neighbor a a set of neighbors further down and they're not doing the greatest job with their children and they make me crazy, right? And it's like, what are you doing? I'm gonna go down there and like knock on the door on a regular basis because they're at large and no one's making sure that they're taken care of and things like that. But it's super triggering. So from the mentee perspective back to the big brothers, big sisters, like I just felt like I just needed to show her that there were other ways to live your life, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

But you talked a little bit about your children. How are you changing the way that you raise your children as it compares to how you were raised? And what are some of your big objectives with stability or right?

SPEAKER_01 26:00

My goal is for them to say that they had the most boring childhood ever and that it was super stable, right? And I'm sure they're gonna bitch about that, right? Like we're never and we do do fun things, but I want their complaint to be that it was boring. And that by boring I mean predictable, sure, right? That's hugely important to me. Then another one that I think is a part of major cycles of dysfunction is inability to deal with emotions, which is really the root of a lot of problems of dysfunction. The only emotion that is comfortable is anger. It's the only comfortable emotion that I've seen in my own dysfunctional family. And so, like, even like as soon as the kids start talking and things like that, like, okay, you're you're throwing something. What do you feel? We're gonna identify the emotion, right? It's perfectly fine to feel that you can't throw something, right? So this is like everything, Kendall. I have to do it the completely opposite way that I did it myself. And there are moments where I'm like you have a very visceral reaction to something, right? And so you have to stop because you I'm like, you cannot answer this like your mom would answer this, right? And so I want there to be a huge dialogue about emotions and feelings because those things will help stabilize and regulate everything in your life if you can identify those things. I'm telling you, if you're a terrible parent and you just put on Daniel Tiger, your child will be okay. We watch, I watch it with my kids when they were smaller, and it would be like, oh, you can feel more than more than one emotion at a time, right? Because a lot of these things are rooted in the inability to process emotions because there's hitting, right? And there's anger and shouting, and all these things are like tamping down emotions, like don't feel anything, don't act like that, because you're gonna get this reaction from me. And so I think being able to emotionally regulate will help break cycles naturally, and being able to just say, like, I'm sad or I'm mad, and or I can be both at the same time, and just letting instead of don't feel that, right? Right. And so it's super deliberate for me and very I mean, I just have to be very specific about it.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

It seems to me that the environment in in which you're you're you were raised and in which the emotions were suppressed or not discussed in this chaotic schedule and lifestyle, which then led to massive explosions leads you to have a skill set that obviously plays well in the law field. Right. How do you create the tension or the skill set in your kids where they can learn some of those same skills that have paid off for you in terms of your career without the trauma or the chaos that you experienced at home?

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Well, I think it's talking about it, right? It's talking about um the emotions and being out you you can teach people how to read people, right? You can. And so that's emotional base, like what's making that person tick and things like that. And so we talk about that. And when I come back from mediations and stuff, we discuss like the dynamics of the people in the mediations and things like that. And I don't know what that does to a five and nine-year-old, because I was not raised like this. So I'm it is my own little science experiment to some extent, right? But we discuss it, and it's like this person was very angry and they weren't being reasonable, right? And so we can you can start planting those seeds about how to work through people and situations. And Caroline at five says really funny things. Like, I was like, this person was being a real asshole at the mediation. She's like, take me, I'll growl. I was like, well, okay, that's kind of the opposite of my emotional intelligence here. But growling could help. Sometimes you do have to growl at mediation, you know, but like, but we do discuss it. And so I'm super curious to see what this does for your kids when you're raised like this, because we discuss very specific claims and things like that. And we work through it. And it's like, well, why would you why would they ask for that much? Or why would you do it that way? And so I'm super curious to see how my science experiment ends up because I don't know. I don't nobody ever discussed these kinds of things with me.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Was finances or money ever discussed with you as a child?

SPEAKER_01 30:06

No, it's just a problem.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Just a problem.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

And then as that translates to, I mean, you're you're now negotiating, in essence, multi-million dollar settlements. Right. And multi-million dollar potential multi-million dollar payouts in order to resolve a conflict with an insurance client.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

And when you'd have those same discussions now with your kids, are you talking about the numbers so they understand that if there is uh a settlement that's a multi-million dollar payout, who pays what and where the money goes?

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Right, where it comes from and things like that. No, I think that like their financial awareness is gonna be so much better than mine because mine was only, I mean, like, I have a gazillion traumatic stories. But like my mom used to have like overdraft checks on a regular basis. So, like my financing thing, and I remember her saying, like, we're at the grocery store, and she'd be like, I don't have any money, but we're gonna float a check, right? And so, like, it's gonna take a few days for it to process, but we're gonna buy stuff now. So, like, I learned how to like float a check, which is not good financial uh things. But you know, like we try to talk about saving for college and then we talk about these big settlements and things like that. Like, what would you do with it? Would you invest it? How do you do these things? So, like again, like I don't know how this end how the end game works because no one ever discussed this with me as a child. You know, I mean, like I've had to figure it out. There's been bumps along the way. I'm still not good at like understanding like investments. I'm still not. I mean, I'm a smart person, but when you start talking about these stuff, someone I don't really understand it because no one in my family even has a 401k.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

I mean, they don't have any money. So when you don't have any, you're just surviving and you're not planning for any kind of you're not planning for next week. Like it's a day-to-day thing. Um, you know, we went on a Disney cruise and I gave them a budget, right? Like you have a hundred dollars.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

You gave your kids a budget.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

You have a hundred dollars that you can spend on random things in gift stores, right? Yeah, and so whenever we said that a couple of times, we're in different places on the cruise ship and stuff, and they would be like, You gave them a budget? I'm like, Well, yeah, and even though they can't math that great at this age, like, okay, I bought this. How much do I have left? Sure. Right. And so, like trying to do those kinds of things, I mean, I think it's helpful and um to just kind of understand that it's not because it they're living such a different life than me. It's it's such an extreme difference that I want them to understand money and that it's not just growing on trees, you know, and things like that. But so it feels weird to give a kid a budget, a five-year-old, but she had a hundred dollars to spend on the week cruise, and that's what you get. And when we're done, we're done. And so hopefully that will help. We'll see how it all works out. It's like, oh, like I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

So when you have a tough day at the office or you have a tough day at court, how do you regulate before you come home and interact with the kids?

SPEAKER_01 32:54

That can be more that can be a little bit more of a struggle, you know. Cause and I'll say, like, it's just been, it's been a rough day, you guys. I'm I just need everybody to tamp it down just a little bit today. Like it's been less than ideal. Because sometimes, like, I'll do one on the West Coast and then I'm like two hours late because I'm a dealing on, you know, I'm I'm fighting in Washington State, and uh, but I'm here via Zoom, right? But it just goes late and I'll show up and they're like, how to go? And I'm like, they didn't settle, you know. But we talk about it, like it's frustrating. And like I think that emotional regulation is just so key. But they know when it's been again, they're pretty good at reading people. I mean, they are, even though it's not a volatile situation. I think continuing discuss what the emotions are and being able to work through that and things, they know that I'm irritated or that I'm frustrated, or you know, like by the time we brush our teeth at night, and then they start wanting wrestling around, right? And I was like, you guys, now I'm tired. Okay. And instead of just yelling, as somebody in my family would have done, right? I'm like, you guys, every night when it's time to brush my teeth, I'm already tired. So like we can't wrestle because you're making me crazy.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Like you can't wrestle right now, and I'm having a bigger reaction to that because I'm tired, right? And so when they do that, like you can see them then have like some sort of meltdown. I'm like, this is how I feel too, right? This feeling of frustration and you're tired, I have that too. And when I remember when we talked about the toothbrush and then you guys wrestling with the toothbrushes, like you guys, like this is the we all feel it, right? And so I think that's key too, that there's not a second set of emotions for children versus adults, right? Yeah. And so, like, we feel these same things when you get frustrated that we don't answer the question the way you want it or things don't go your way, we all experience that, right? And so I think that that empathy that like we're all in the same boat and we all have the same emotions. I'm hoping that that translates long term. Again, this is my huge science experiment. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Right? Who knows? Who knows? Um, what are some of the the key negotiating skill sets that you've taken away? And did those come out of law school? Did they come out of the evictions, that conflict resolution, and your ability to stay focused under pressure?

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah, so I think that a lot of the like really nitty-gritty negotiation, like how to stay calm and how to like get from point A to point B, it's who you are, but then I think you can't learn it because I've gotten much better at it, right? So before this job, I didn't do any mediations. And now it's beginning of February, and I've done six mediations already. I did two last week, two big ones, right? Hell do one again on Monday. I'm going to P uh Pennsylvania next tomorrow for one. And so repetition is key when it comes to that and figuring out how plaintiffs negotiate based on location, because all over the country they do it differently, right? And so doing that, but knowing that like what it is you're trying to get to and how to get those numbers. So, like, I often invite our insured, we want our insured to be there. We like to call it like seeing how the sausage is made, right? We don't want to just come to a resolution and then be like, hey, I settled it for a million dollars and be like, what did you do? How did why did you pay that? And so then seeing us negotiate throughout the day is super helpful. And there are different ways to kind of go about it because oftentimes, like last week there was one, I'm negotiating, and I'm up to like $200,000 and they're at seven million dollars, right? And so I tell my insured and even my own lawyers that because everybody does it a little differently, right? And I was like, we're just going to ignore their numbers because my numbers are real, right? And then we don't care what their movement is because when we when the rubber meets the road, we'll see where that is. For right now, we're these are just you know normal things. And I always say, uh, my money is real money and it spends, and yours is monopoly money, right? Yours doesn't spend. Well, if you get your number from yourself.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

They're asking for a seven million dollar payout. Right. But if the insurance company only agrees to a quarter million dollar payout, right, the real money is a quarter million dollars, and my ask, whether it's seven or fifty, right, is in essence irrelevant.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

And like how does that land when you when you say that?

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Well, I mean, so that goes with messaging, right? From the from the mediator. So the mediator's key, but I tell them what I want them to say. I don't know what they say specifically. But I was like, okay, now with this point, you need to tell them that I'm never going to get to seven figures. You can we need to set expectations that we're never getting there. Because all of these things is just like uh mediation is like a trial. You have it's an emotional experience. It could be like the stages of grief, right? You have to let it go. I'm gonna get seven million dollars. Oh man, I'm only gonna get five. And their numbers coming down, right? And that's a grieving process for them not to get what it is they thought they were going to get at the beginning of the day.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Or they feel that they deserve.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Agreed. Yeah. It's all about expectations, right? Yes, you're very injured and we're going to get you a sum of money. We don't know what that looks like today. You need to finish your treatment, right? But somebody walks in the door and they have some injury and they're like, we're gonna get you a million dollars. They have no basis for that. And so they need to do a better job of managing their own client expectations, which would ultimately help them when we get to the end of the case, because I think a lot of plaintiffs leave mad at their own attorney, not just mad at me because I didn't pay them some exorbitant sum of money, but because they thought that they were going to get way more, which is based on their attorney, not me.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Do you think that they're the or how do you deal with irrational expectations? Because what I just heard there is that if I come in with an irrational expectation and it's not tempered by my own counsel, I mean, you're somewhat stuck with what you can do. Yeah. And if you don't, if you're millions of dollars apart and they're stuck in a rational, right, they're not gonna budge. Right. How does that resolve?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Well, sometimes those have to go to trial, you know. Oftentimes, though, I try to leave enough money on the table that it's hard to walk away from, right? It's not something that where you can just be like, because when they say these crazy numbers, I'm like, it's not hard to say no. Well, the same is true from their perspective, right? So I have to get the number high enough that it's painful to think about walking away. And I'll say, I'll leave it open for 14 days. It's a long time to think about what I would do with $500,000. Right. And so like there's a mental, there's a component and an emotional component to that. Like, what if I get zero? Because somebody's gonna tell them at some point you could get zero.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

If they go to trial, they could get zero.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

You could get zero.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

So it's kind of the prisoner's dilemma, right? Where you need to make you can you can make a deal and take half a million dollars. Right. Or you can go to trial with all of the extra burden and expense that goes into that. And emotional, like sitting there and or take a half a million dollar pay, even though they wanted seven.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

How do you find the Goldilocks or the number? Is that intuition?

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Is it I mean you can kind of see it. No, no, it's no, it's not formulaic by any means. I think that it's a it's a gut feeling, right? And like once you do a once you do an entire day of mediation, you know what number they want, right? Now, is it a number I can live with? Maybe not, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Um, but you can often see where there's signaling and where they want to land the claim. And um, because it is harder. There is no magic formula. So usually what you would be from my perspective as an insurance person is you can take your medical damages, let's say you had $100,000 in medical um cost associated with your injury. You use a multiplier. That's where your formulae comes in, right? So, as a general rule, you would say that three times the medical. That's just a multiplier that a number of attorneys would use, right? So that should be the ballpark. Now there are plaintiffs' attorneys that are going crazy now and not presenting any kind of medical number and only want to talk about pain and suffering and won't even provide the medical numbers. We're just gonna ask the jury for pain and suffering, which could be astronomical because juries are hugely emotionally charged.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

And so did is it as punitive or that did the jury see it as a punitive? Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Yeah. So we I do a lot of mock trials and we not a ton of our claim claims go to full regular trial, but we mock them and we'll do then three jury rooms and we watch them deliberate, right? Which is the craziest thing ever to watch these people after sitting through an entire, they sit through like four or five hours of basic synopsis of the case, right? They hear the most um compelling information of the case, and then we break them up and we ask them to deliberate, we videotape it, we watch it, right? Live. And even if no one's asked for punitive damages, they will always say this shit. Well, how are we going to punish them? They don't use the word punitive, but they want to say, like, how do you punish this company? How do you make them pay?

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Are there any examples of where you've been able to walk somebody back from a completely irrational position to uh a settlement in an elegant way that everyone was happy?

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Well, I don't think everybody would be happy. Uh kind of a you'll hear mediators say on a regular basis, it's a successful mediation if everybody leaves unhappy. I should feel like I've paid too much and they should pay like they should feel like they've taken too less, right? And so that makes sense that everybody should leave irritated. But I think it could be lowly irritated, you know, I mean these kind of things. So we I negotiated one in December, and um we got to the point after the midday, they're at six million and I'm at five million, right? So we're close. This is totally doable, right? And so um, but I have all these people in the room with me that are from my insured, and I never realized how different lawyers, different kinds of lawyers are different, right? So I said we should offer five and then we should leave. And they'll call tomorrow and they'll take it, right? And they panicked.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Who panicked?

SPEAKER_01 42:51

My own like in-house counsel from the insured.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

They wanted resolution.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

They want resolution and they don't care how much it costs. They're like, if we leave today and you do we don't settle this, it's a failure. I'm like, it'll settle. It just may take you know 24 or 48 hours. And they did not have the they just not have the bandwidth for the risk, right? They totally would have taken it. Now I know that because I do this almost every week, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:17

And so what did that cost them? What was the what was the final number? 5.5. So they split the difference.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

We split, we cut we yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

So your stance is that if they would have been a little bit more patient, they could have saved half a million dollars. And from their perspective, it was worth half a million dollars to be done. To be done. Yep. Um, I can see both sides of that.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

For sure. But I mean, so I'm telling them this is what I do. I might counsel in that state is like, they're gonna take it. You know what I mean? Like, there's no way they're not gonna take it. We didn't have a trial date, there's no pressure. I I tell people all the time, this is not sudden death. We could also do a second mediation, you know. But they just uh This is not the most polite way. They didn't have the guts to do it. Sure. I'm like, they're folding. I can't bel and I just walked away thinking, like, it's only half a million dollars. Right. Only. Only. Right. But if they just followed me, we would have. But they're happy as a clam, have the best things to say about me, right? Because I I got it resolved. Then I'm like, well, I could have got it resolved for 500,000 last. Right. Right. But it's just an interesting, again, what makes people tick. These people that they just don't have it in them to fight. Right. And so, like, since I do this all the time, and I feel like forever, I've been in fight mode, right? Forever. Like, I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

As that goes back to your childhood.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Yeah, I'm telling you that they'll take it. And they'll take it because it's not that much. And you know, like all these things that you know about people, they're gonna take it. Right. But they don't, they're just not there. And they haven't had that experience and they haven't had this type of mediation almost every week, kind of thing. I'm telling you, like they'll take it.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

I had a mentor tell me once the fear of loss is greater than the hope of gain.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

In this scenario, it would be the fear of loss that they're gonna lose a settlement.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Uh, you know, and and so it's worth it to them for the for the half a million dollars. Does that annoy you that they didn't listen? Is it the fact they didn't listen or that or that you could have saved them half a million dollars?

SPEAKER_01 45:15

I don't care about the half a million dollars, to be perfectly honest. I don't. Um, I just couldn't believe. So it ended up being like two general counsels, two people from risk management, and two engineers. There were a lot of people in this room.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

True.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Me, I'm a lawyer, that my own lawyer, and four other lawyers, right? Ultimately. And I just couldn't, I was, I mean, I'm years into this Kindle. And I couldn't believe that they were so weak about it. You know, like that they just didn't have the fight in them. I'm like, I just couldn't believe that they wouldn't fight. Like, and it wasn't a huge fight. And this is a normal mediation tactic, right? It's totally normal. So I'm calling everybody on the way back when I'm leaving the mediation and going to the airport to fly back. And I was just like, I guess we're just not all created the same. We're just not. Like some of us are made to fight, and some of us are made to settle quickly to be done, you know. Like it was just a really interesting day, especially with all those lawyers involved. Like, I it was just really it's how they're built, right? I mean, risk management is risk management. I mean, I'm I'm in risk management too, and I'm telling you, this will work.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Do you think that the uh reading the emotional state of the other parties uh feeds into your special skill set there? But and I guess my my question is a little bit deeper than that. Are you reading things like I think they're tired or they're hungry or right? I mean, uh, is it for all those things to they're so close we can use that to our advantage? Let's walk away now.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah, I mean, like, but I mean, so there's other ones where it was like another big injury, right? And these are old people that need in-home care, right? And I'm offering them millions of dollars. And their lawyers like, don't take it, right? And so from like the emotional and all this stuff, I couldn't believe that the plaintiff's lawyer got these old people, one who's in terrible health, right? So if he dies, the claim is worth zero, right? So now I feel terrible, but we're gonna race to the courthouse to see if you make it to the courthouse, right? I feel like you're getting bad advice from your attorney. I've offered a reasonable sum, right? That you clearly need, and you're playing chicken with me, right? So they clearly had the they have the fight instinct, right? Unlike my lawyers a couple weeks ago. But it's so interesting. And I heard the old guy say, I think I can make it to the trial. And I'm like, but if you don't, like this is not a claim that survives if you die.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Right. And it's not that this specific injury it was killing him, but he was in poor health anyway. And then I mean, I met him that day. I go and I meet people that are injured on a regular basis, right? I went to a on a different claim. I go into a mediation and they're drilling guys that don't speak English and they're missing pieces of legs, right? And so I go into this mediation, they start taking off clothes to show me their injuries. I mean, like, no day is the same. But I mean, what makes people tick is so crazy. I mean, they held out, I end up paying more, right? Really? I had to pay more because they would not, I couldn't, I just couldn't get it. I'm like, how am I gonna resolve this? Like, they won't be reasonable and they have all this risk. Like, if you die, it's zero. The number goes to zero from seven figures to zero. And he won, right? He won in the sense that I had to pay more and he lived, right?

SPEAKER_00 48:40

But that could have gone big, big risk to take.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Huge risk.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Yeah, huge. Where does your comfort in conflict come from?

SPEAKER_01 48:48

So I only want business conflict.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

I do not want personal conflict at all. Fred and I have been together 13, 14 years. We have never had a fight. We would not argue or fight or things like that. I have zero tolerance for personal conflict.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

And that's because of the childhood trauma.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

And you're like, okay, we're just cannot do it. So how do you do conflict resolution uh at home?

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Well, it has to be a very calm. We can disagree and things like that, but it's not going to be any kind of like volatile. No, it's not gonna be volatile. I can't do it. Now I do volatile at work all the time.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

All the time, right? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

It's just a different box. I think the children of any kind of childhood trauma are very good at putting things in boxes, right? And so, like, if it is professional, we will fight to death, right? And it can be explosive and it can be as ugly as you want it to be. Not my personal life at all. I just can't do it. I have zero tolerance for it. Like it, I think it's just very triggering as a child, right? So this feels very much like my home atmosphere and are just shut down. I just couldn't do it. Or I would think we were getting divorced. Like we couldn't have a fight because I'd be like, oh my God, it's over, right? I mean, like, I just I don't have those kind of like I really struggle with that.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Fred's also running a business. Yep. And so he's potentially on tilt or having bad days. Yeah. Are you attempting to read him to make sure that he doesn't bring any of that drama home to the kids? Right. And how do you, how do you help him navigate the stresses of his business?

SPEAKER_01 50:20

Yeah, no, I think, and no offense to everyone, uh, guys process emotions differently, right? I think he, Fred thinks I'm very nuts and fruity associated with the kids and the emotional, like wanting them to be emotionally regulated and all this stuff. I think he to some extent would think that it's a little crazy, right? Because that's not how he was raised either. Um, he was raised very differently than me, but still not emotionally intelligent, right? Um, so I mean, I think that Fred does a good job as another person of childhood issues boxing things up, right? But it does spill over. But I mean, we'll talk about like if Fred were to say something snippy to the kids or something, I'd say he's had a bad day and he's not mad at you, right? He's he is frustrated about something else, and you just kind of took the brunt of that, and that's not your fault, right? I think that as an adult telling a kid, even if something, and I'm just talking about like a snippy comment, right? You didn't do anything to deserve that comment and it's not really related to you. That's huge, yeah, right. Like to be able to identify to say for an adult to say you don't deserve that is huge as a kid, you know, and so like he'll apologize when we get, you know, like when he pulls himself back together or whatever, you know. But like we're all human, we've all have sniffy moments, right? You too. Remember last time you told me you hated this about something, like you were snippy too, like identifying that and feeding it back to them as an example of something they've done under duress, right, or irritation. I think that those things I'm hoping long term help regulate and aren't like traumatizing in the sense that like I'm taking it on by the the bull by the horns in the sense that you don't deserve it, you didn't do anything, and that's not how that's not how we should act, right? Like we know how we should act and that's not what we should do, right? And so, but nobody talked through those things like that with me as a kid.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

If you had to go back and have uh a conversation with the teachers that you indicated provided a lot of stability for you, yeah. What would you want to say to them?

SPEAKER_01 52:19

So I do keep up with them.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

You still talk to them. Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

So I I keep people, I get people and I keep them. Um, I still exchange Christmas cards with my third grade teacher, who I would say is like the pinnacle of my education or the start of it, right? So in the third grade, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer, and Mrs. Cooksie was my teacher that year. Um she needs legal advice, she calls me now, which is really cute. Um it's very different, right? Because like she was the You said don't settle. I know, right? Like, no, no, here's the name of a lawyer. I don't do that kind of work. Like, but so when I graduated in undergrad, I sent her a letter and I said, I felt like the third grade is a foundation of my education. And I think that it's important that teachers know the difference they make because I think that being a teacher is a grind, right? You don't feel like you've made a difference. Maybe you don't. I don't, I've never been a teacher, but I think that it is a grind. And so I sent her this very long letter explaining that I thought that she had helped change this directory of my life, right? And she went to my mom's house in this hometown and sat on her front door and cried. And she's like, and so now I think she just turned 80. She still substitutes teachers, she subs in her hometown. And she's like, I just want to be able to help one more person like I helped you, right? And so, like, I make it a point to tell people that have made a huge difference to me that they did make a difference, right? Because people don't do that. You don't say, like, I could tell you, like, oh, Mrs. Cooksie from third grade. But no, I mean, I talk to her, I text with her, she follows me on Facebook, she thinks she's like, You're doing such a great job with your kids, you know. And um, it's just I just keep people, you know, I just do.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

I think this is one of those opportunities where you know, I I would love for my kids to be able to have this a very similar type of connection with people outside of the home that steer them in in a trajectory in a way that a parent can't forecast or predict, but it's such a positive influence.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

Yeah, I mean, education is so huge, you know. And I mean, like the thing is like nothing magical happened in third grade, but I knew that she loved me, you know what I mean? And so, like, just like a stable calmness of her and things like that. And when I decided to be a lawyer, I had no idea what they did, Kendall. No idea. Come with this super blue-collar background. I knew they got to wear nice clothes and they were smart, and that's what I wanted, right? And I just kept working at it since third grade. It's really crazy. And I mean, she's like, Well, I didn't have that much to do with it. And I'm like, but you did. Like, I mean, that's when I decided, and that's why I felt like everything was just kind of shifted just a little, you know.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

What was the teacher's name?

SPEAKER_01 54:57

Uh, Mrs. Cooksie.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

Mrs. Cooksie. I love it. Thank you for that. Is there anything else that that uh you want to talk about in regards to talked about all kinds of random things here, yeah? Foundations. No?

SPEAKER_01 55:11

No, I think I just think that there's a lot of diamonds in the rough out there that they just need one person to think that you know, one person can make such a difference in somebody's life. And I don't think you know who that person is because not everybody is like me that reaches back out. Yeah, I think more people will affect different situations than they even realize. But for me, it's really important to show that gratitude about like, no, I think you made a huge difference. And thank you. You know, I think it's key. And it makes every because everybody just gets in this, you know, like, I'm just doing this, and what effect am I having? And so write a letter, write an email, tell somebody, you know, tell them how they helped change your life.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

I love it. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. Thank you for the conversation. Yeah. I think this is a perfect opportunity. So if uh let's take a moment here and in the comment section, if you have a teacher that has impacted your life, like Mrs. Cooksie, leave the teacher's name and let's talk about that. Thanks for coming on this journey with us. Thanks for watching this episode of the Hidden Foundations.