Christina Scalera is a lawyer and serial entrepreneur. They call her "The Queen of Black Friday."
Christina has several incredible businesses under her belt, including an award-winning Shopify store. She founded and ran a successful intellectual property law firm in Georgia and Colorado. She created and co-hosted a brilliant podcast ("The Creative Empire Podcast") and now helps lawyers turn their services into products at ChristinaScalera.com.
The secret underbelly of her "overnight" success, though, is that she tried (and failed) several times to build her dream life. Standing in her way was crippling credit card debt ($78,982, if I'm not mistaken), self-doubt, anxiety, depression, and trouble with grocery shopping (among other things).
She also has ADHD. This is her story.
Learn More About Christina Scalera
Two Quotes from Christina Scalera
"If you want to have a successful life or business, you have to automate everything."
"ADHD medication broke the pattern of me feeling like I was a piece of crap. It broke the cycle and the pattern."
Resources Christina Scalera Mentions in this Episode
JDHD | For Lawyers with ADHD
Christina Scalera is a lawyer and serial entrepreneur. They call her "The Queen of Black Friday."
Christina has several incredible businesses under her belt, including an award-winning Shopify store. She founded and ran a successful intellectual property law firm in Georgia and Colorado. She created and co-hosted a brilliant podcast ("The Creative Empire Podcast") and now helps lawyers turn their services into products at ChristinaScalera.com.
The secret underbelly of her "overnight" success, though, is that she tried (and failed) several times to build her dream life. Standing in her way was crippling credit card debt ($78,982, if I'm not mistaken), self-doubt, anxiety, depression, and trouble with grocery shopping (among other things).
She also has ADHD. This is her story.
Learn More About Christina Scalera
Two Quotes from Christina Scalera
"If you want to have a successful life or business, you have to automate everything."
"ADHD medication broke the pattern of me feeling like I was a piece of crap. It broke the cycle and the pattern."
Resources Christina Scalera Mentions in this Episode
JDHD | For Lawyers with ADHD
Marshall Lichty:
Two weeks in a row. Are you serious? Hey! Thank you for being here. I'm glad to be here. We're at two weeks in a row. It's awesome. And a couple of things are really standing out to me. First of all, it's that some habits that I've really been laser-focused on are really starting to pay off. It has been a really important part of my life to focus on riding my bike every single day for at least 30 minutes a day, to meditate, and to get at least seven and a half hours of sleep at night. Now, there are some other ones in there and the first two I've done really, really well on. It has been really important and it feels really great. And so I think that's part of why I'm back and part of why I'm energized and part of why things feel like I've got new energy.
Marshall Lichty:
But I'll tell you, I have clients that are sharing their struggles with me. They have struggles that we all expect: billing and timekeeping and processing their email. I have clients with real struggles in project planning and project management and priority management. Studying for law students. I even have a client whose real catalyst for an amazing day is making sure that she takes a shower in the morning. And so we've been working on habits to ensure that it's really easy for her to remember to take shower in the morning. ADHD does come with some of these things that make it struggle, but it also comes with amazing superpowers. It comes with creativity and grit and energy and entrepreneurship, and today's guest shows every single one of those things. She's a content marketing guru. She's possibly the world's first equine photography contract Ninja, which seems like couldn't be a thing, but listen up.
Marshall Lichty:
It's a thing. She's the host of a now-shuttered, world-famous podcast, a late-diagnosed ADHD woman lawyer with ADHD and wanderlust and a record of being a many-time internet entrepreneur. She's an all-around kind and thoughtful and insightful and generous guest. We had a great conversation both before I hit record and after, and this episode, I'm really proud of it. It's chock full of tips about ADHD, tips on marketing and content creation, and the unending drive to create beautiful things. I am Marshall Lichty. She is Christina Scalera, and this is JDHD, a podcast for lawyers with ADHD. Listen up.
Marshall Lichty:
So Christina Scalera. Hi, how are you?
Christina Scalera:
Hi, I'm good. Marshall.
Marshall Lichty:
Great. Yeah, I'm awesome. It's great to have you aboard. It's so great to be here. You are in Colorado right now. You're a lawyer from Georgia. You have ADHD. What the hell? What's going on? What's your story?
Christina Scalera:
Oh, man. Well, the story from the beginning is I picked up and moved everything I owned about 30 times in my first 30 years of life. Part of that was me doing that. And then part of that was, my dad was in the army. He was an army ranger and then in sales. So just a life conducive to moving. And I think I got used to it. I finally settled down for a little bit in Atlanta to go to law school and kind of create what I thought was going to be a life there. And then a couple of years ago, I came out to Colorado on a ski trip. And what started out as a temporary thing turned into, we just never left. So I've been going back and forth to Atlanta over the last few years, but I think I'm more seriously considering permanently moving here and dropping my Atlanta ties.
Marshall Lichty:
Amazing. So you went to Emory for law school, graduated, started practicing in Atlanta... Law firm life? Or what did that look like?
Christina Scalera:
No, I got a job working in house at a private company right out of law school.
Marshall Lichty:
Right out of school?
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. As a trademark counsel. So it was something that I'd worked on during internships and different jobs I'd had in law school. I worked all on trademarks, all prosecution work. And I got recruited because of that unique background into this private company. So that's where I took the job right out of law school. Worked at a firm, you know, clerked... did the summer clerkship thing at a firm in Atlanta, Thompson Hine, for one year. But it was a lot of insurance defense work and things that I wasn't as interested in.
Christina Scalera:
And I just really love trademarks, which has lent itself very well to what I do today. I have two companies. I have my law firm, which does very limited work with just a handful of clients. I really am a partner to their businesses. They're all small female-owned. Well, I shouldn't say they're all female-owned. I do have two men who are clients. It's not like I'm actively recruiting just women, but that's just how it has kind of happened. I think with my branding and my voice and everything. But yeah, so those are my clients. Now I do primarily trademark prosecution work for them, monitoring, maintenance. And then some other things that are just really unique to the fields that they're in.
Marshall Lichty:
I want to talk about very briefly that practice. So the law firm is a Georgia law firm based in Georgia? Your mailing address is in Georgia. But as you say, you're not there. How does it work to be running a legal business out of Georgia when you live in Colorado?
Christina Scalera:
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, that's why I'm actively seeking licensure here in Colorado. But everything I do for my clients is legally based on federal law. So trademarks, copyrights... no one has ever come to me with an issue that wasn't based in some kind of federal law. So from what I understand and you know, I'm sure someone listening to this podcast will shout me out and correct me. I would love to be corrected in a nice kind, gentle way. But from what I understand, as long as you're doing federal work that involves trademarks and copyrights and things like that it doesn't really matter where you're licensed. You just have to be licensed at the highest court of your state. So of course I am in Georgia, I'm licensed in every possible way there. And then that's what I'm doing as I work to move here more permanently is also establish that license here and get licensed in every applicable place while I'm in Colorado.
Christina Scalera:
The other thing is my clients are all over the place. I mean, by the time this comes out, it's probably 2020. We're recording in 2019, but it's just unrealistic to limit someone's... I mean, I would have more conflicts of interest if I worked with local clients than I do in the work that I do with online marketers and course creators who are online selling throughout the world. They're located all over the place and we're always dealing with national internet laws. If we have to talk about something that's beyond the scope of their trademarks or their copyrights or we're dealing with something that has to relate to FTC disclosures for influencers. So that obviously is not localized in any way that I'm aware of. At least in a more restrictive way than what the FTC does, which is pretty restrictive already.
Marshall Lichty:
So, your marketing is nationwide. The website is gorgeous. It's beautiful. It has an aesthetic that is very, you know... you. You've just curated an imprint on the digital world that is very beautiful. It's curated, it's clean, it evokes a lot of emotion that explains why people feel comfortable when they come to you. And I think for someone who doesn't market a law practice, you've built this neat spot for people to find you and actually get legal services from you. So I love that part. And I assume that you use a bunch of digital technology to have Skype or Zoom meetings and, you know, you're all automated and you probably have some virtual reception and you probably do a bunch of other things to make that run.
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. I try to have that physical connection with my clients. About a third of them are actually in Georgia. So I've probably had lunch or, you know, gotten to meet them at some point at some event. And then the other ones, I was usually friends with them first and their businesses just really took off. And so I'm fortunate to know them personally. And then I try to do little physical things to make it more "offline:" sending gifts, sending cards, that kind of thing. Because I think that matters and it's just a nice touch to add, especially when you have something that's so digital and so online and can be done from anywhere like trademark work.
Marshall Lichty:
Yeah, I agree. Well, and, and what I think is interesting about the way that you've built your empire is it's built on some pillars that are pretty obvious, right? So there's that design and beauty and creativity piece, but there's also a marketing piece that you know, even though you're not actively marketing your law firm there are elements of marketing. There are elements of the client experience and elements of parts that you are very clearly curating, but let's talk about some of the other imprints that you've made in the world. I love hearing about The Contract Shop, and then your other business. And I assume this is actually related to The Contract Shop, but you've also now kind of started what I would call it a coaching opportunity for folks?
Christina Scalera:
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Let me explain this. Cause this could get really confusing.
Marshall Lichty:
Let's start with The Contract Shop. Tell me, are you the robot that is taking everyone's job?
Christina Scalera:
No, not at all. I feel like I'm making lawyers' jobs easier actually. So basically what I saw in the marketplace a couple of years ago, I was working with a friend. She's a very famous horse photographer. "Equine photography," if you will. But she's a really famous horse photographer. Her work has been on the cover of every major horse magazine. If you can believe this exists, it does. I'm a horse person. So, you know, I grew up with these magazines. It was just like a dream to have her as a friend and work with her. And she basically at the beginning of her career, like everybody starting a business, had limited resources and she was just like, "Hey, we're friends. You're working on contracts for people. Can I just get like a copy of the stuff that you're working on? Because I'll fill it out. You know, maybe you can look at it, do a once over, but I don't really want to pay $4,000 or $5,000 to get a custom contract that has to get changed and blah, blah, blah,"
Marshall Lichty:
"I don't want to go find a lawyer. I don't know where to start..."
Christina Scalera:
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. She's a photographer. Interestingly enough, she was working at a hedge fund as her full-time job and she left that to go do the photography thing full time. So she was the inspiration for the shop. And the reason for that is because around this time, she was getting up and coming in her industry and she had cultivated an email list of about 30,000 people that wanted to do what she was doing with horse photography. And she wondered, "Hey, could I sell this to them?" And I thought, "Hmm, I don't know about that. That seems like a bad situation. You don't really know what you're talking about there." But I thought, "What if I could create an equine photography contract template for all these equine photographers out there to work with their clients?"
Christina Scalera:
Especially because I'm a horse person. I get what it's like to work around horses. I know that there are 48 states that have these special liability clauses around equine participation and everything. So I was really in a unique situation to help her out. So that's what I did. I created that template. And then just, you know, if things aren't easy, maybe you shouldn't pursue it? Because at the time I was trying to pursue an alternative path as a yoga teacher. So I left my in-house job and I was trying to do this thing as a private yoga teacher. I met a friend, her name is Kelly Newsome George. She lives in France now. She's amazing. She's got a great story. She was featured on Bloomberg Law a while ago, but basically, she was a corporate attorney that turned her interest into becoming a private yoga teacher in DC.
Christina Scalera:
And she did it really successfully. And I thought, "well, if she can do that, maybe I can do it in Atlanta." Like maybe we could do a franchise thing or whatever. So that's how I left. I was also having a lot of health challenges at the time, like really bad ones, getting hospitalized, things like that. It all basically came down to like overwork and stress and all that fun stuff. And so I was like, okay, great. Well, I don't handle moderation very well. So I'll just go to the other extreme of being a lawyer and become a yoga teacher, found Kelly, started that whole thing, but everything was really hard. I thought the yoga community was like this open, welcoming community. They turned out to be a bunch of jerks and it was like, every door was slammed in my face.
Christina Scalera:
It was really, really hard. And so around this time is when I met Kirsty, my friend and the equine photographer. And she had this idea and I created these templates. Then I was like, well, you know if she wants to sell them to her audience, I should probably have an online store to do that. And that's when I created the online store. And then very shortly after that, talk about the opposite of this brief yoga thing I had, every door was opened. There was a new society that was created for creatives called The Rising Tide Society. It was brand new at the time. Two of my really good friends, well they're now good friends... I was nobody and they didn't know me at all at the time. They ran that and I met them at a conference and very warily asked them if I could start a podcast for them, even though I'd never started a podcast, I didn't know the first thing about it.
Christina Scalera:
They had this society of 70,000 people and they were like, "who are you?" But they were super kind. And they were like, well, you know, "we're not going to let you just like help us start a podcast when you have no idea what that entails. We don't either, but we're doing this webinar series. So could you teach people contracts and working in trademarks and with licensing contracts and things like that?" Client contracts are kind of a walk in the park. So they're all about a relationship with a client. They're not really, they don't have these like intense provisions and you know, you don't have to make sure everything's like, as, I don't wanna say like as tight, but like you, you just don't have to, like, I was so nervous and stressed out writing and working on licensing agreements.
Christina Scalera:
Client contracts for me are something that's really fun and it is all about establishing boundaries and expectations of each other. And so I had a lot of fun writing these things. And so they were like, well, can you present this? And like talk to basically these super beginner, creative business owners. They don't know anything about legal stuff other than the parking ticket they got last week. Can you teach them about contracts? So I did a presentation there and I did the world's worst sales pitch. And that weekend sold about $3,500 worth of product. I was like, yeah. Wow. Okay. So this one, the only thing that I've been trying for the last two years that hasn't worked at all, it does work. You just have to have an audience. And so from there, I started building this contract template shop, and about a year and a half into it, I rebranded renamed myself, The Contract Shop.
Christina Scalera:
And we came out with other templates, obviously, not just horse photographers. We came up with templates for... I was also really into calligraphy at the time. So I came up with a calligrapher's template. That's one of our best sellers. I came out with all kinds of different photography templates, all kinds of different graphic and web design. Because I'd also gotten into a little bit of that as I was trying to do the yoga thing. That was like starting my own blog and learning how to create graphics for my site. And I actually did a few graphic design projects and they were not pretty and I feel so bad for the people. I mean, they paid me like a pittance, but still, I feel bad for everything. But yeah, it gave me the insight I needed to create those contract templates for these service providers in a unique way.
Christina Scalera:
Because like before my friend had approached me, I was just like, "Oh, legal zoom exists. Like, what am I going to add to the marketplace?" You guys don't need this. But I've been four years and going strong. There really is a need for somebody who actually understands these creative niches and can talk to them like where they're at. Which I think is the biggest problem that most lawyers have is like, they want to appear professional or smart or whatever it might be. And they really talk over the people that they're trying to attract. I mean, if you're working on getting like corporate clients and you know, you're working at like a boutique or a mid-level or large law firm and that's your person, well sure like have the fancy site have like the fancy legal jargon and the terms and everything. But like honestly the more I can create the language to sell my products and services that are at a fourth-grade level or lower closer I can get to that. Yep. Way more salespeople that are interested in working with me
Marshall Lichty:
That doesn't shock me in the slightest. So you have a productized business. Do you also have services? Do you offer services to these folks or are you literally just handing them templates? Can they sign up for a course and have you walk them through how they might customize these or anything like that? Or is it literally just "You give me dollars, I give you a template. Thank you for doing business."
Christina Scalera:
Yeah, no. We definitely know exactly who our customer is. And like I said, they're very beginner typically, or they've never paid attention to this stuff and they're very intimidated by it. So all that is included with their template purchase because we know that if we're just giving them the template and we're not actually giving them, it's not even teaching them so much, it's just giving them permission on how to use it. Like, "this is what you do. Just fill in the blanks and copy and paste it into this platform. And this is the platform I use." I'm just giving them that little tiny handholding experience. We've actually called them our "hold my hand guides." That really helps them through the process and to make that purchasing decision because they know that the support doesn't just end. I read "Perennial Seller" by Ryan Holliday a few years ago. And that was where I really switched from focusing on marketing to focusing on the customer and their experience. Everything he talks about in that book is true. If you want to sell more services, products, whatever, just read that book and as hard and as painful as it is to turn your focus away from the shiny Facebook ads and the great video marketing that's being pushed your way. Just, none of that matters if you can't make your customers and your clients happy.
Marshall Lichty:
Yeah. And that applies to lawyers, you say?
Christina Scalera:
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing is I, I have more work than I know what to do with my law firm. I just refer it out to a friend who started a similar business and she's technically a competitor and I refer her a ton of business. Because it's just like I know what I want and I have these nice boundaries around that. And I just know that like I like working with the clients that I like. One is best friends with Tony Robbins. She's so cool. And I love working with her and I would rather just spend more time working with her than finding new clients or marketing myself more. And just, I guess, doing more of what works instead of trying new things and throwing spaghetti at the wall.
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. To go back. Do I have services in The Contract Shop? No, because the person who's buying my contract templates is not anywhere near... I have never had success offering customized contract templates services where there's a little buffer page where it's like, "You're now leaving this and going to the IP law website." I've never had success with that. And it's because I think what a lot of people don't understand, especially people that don't have a marketing mind, is the people that are buying my $455 contract templates are not the same people that want to work with me as a lawyer and pay $350 an hour. There's just no crossover there where I thought there might be some like up-leveling to that experience. There's none. So I don't have any services there.
Christina Scalera:
We get asked occasionally and you know, I just say, "Hey, here are my prices. Here's what I do. You know, I only work with this many clients. I have one spot open in February." No response. Every time. The one service I have been asked for, and that you kind of alluded... I'm starting like a third business that is consulting for digital product creators, like putting your service into a product because a lot of people don't know how to do that. They don't do it well, they don't get sales. They focus on the wrong things. We do twice a year sales that are just killer. We're known in the creative industry. Three of my friends call me the "Queen of Black Friday" because we just do this killer Black Friday sale.
Christina Scalera:
This year, it was a six-figure sale again. It's just crazy. So most people are not selling digital products like that. Most people don't understand how to turn their service into a digital product. So that's the third businesses I'm starting and I'm just kind of testing the waters to see if that's something that people want. Because sometimes you think that people want something. Then they don't. I tried to start a business a while ago called "Ruckus," and it was all about how attorneys can market their business like me and have these personal relationships and partnerships with clients and have this great income and all this stuff and built funnels and get on Instagram and use Pinterest. I even went on Lawyerist and I did an episode about Pinterest because that was a really big driver of traffic for us, right? Nothing. I tried to sell so many different things, had a really engaged audience, and it just didn't take. So, I mean, I know where to cut my losses and, you know, I spent a lot of time creating really great products and possibly services for those people and just nobody was interested. So I was like, you know what? Ruckus is dead. I'm not doing that anymore.
Marshall Lichty:
You are describing a world that many lawyers don't have the audacity to think about. And that is, you describe your law firm as one where you intentionally call your clients, you pick the best ones, you have clean boundaries with what you're willing to do and what you're not. You have clean and close relationships with competitors and you have the freedom to build other things to augment your life and your creativity.
Marshall Lichty:
I want to turn our attention to ADHD because I have some theories about what it is in you that does some of these things. I don't want to be too presumptuous, but we know a lot about people with ADHD. And the thing about this podcast is we talk a lot about the strengths. Before we talk about those strengths and how ADHD has impacted your life as a professional and as a person, could you talk about what your life was like before you were diagnosed as someone with ADHD?
Christina Scalera:
Yeah, so I didn't get diagnosed until this year. And it took about eight months in therapy. So I started seeing a therapist at the end of last year, 2018, because I really thought I had depression. I just overwhelmed by everything. I couldn't get out of bed in the morning. Opening my email was the most anxiety-inducing event every single day to the point where I just wouldn't be in email. And if you run your own business that's... no can do. So, a tip for anybody out there who also suffers from this kind of anxiety. Sometimes it's good and bad, but I use Airmail. I can just click on the inbox I want to see. So for a while last year, all I was doing was going into my law firm inbox so that I could work with my clients.
Christina Scalera:
And if customers had questions, issues, complaints, I was ignoring that. So yeah, I, I knew something was wrong and I knew I had seasonal affective disorder and it's actually been way better moving out to Colorado. I think it's just a lot sunnier here than Atlanta in the winters. So that being said, I just wanted to get help and figure out what was going on, because if it was depression, obviously there are things that you can do to that do for that help, that help that, you know. I hired a personal trainer. I was trying to do a lot of exercise and eat better and hopefully, that would also help. And when I wasn't making much improvement, I finally was like, you know, what do you think is going my re my therapist, her name is Retu. So I said, "Retu, what do you think is going on?" And she's like, we're not really supposed to tell you like what you're supposed to do and dah, dah, dah. But like, I, I want you to go see this psychiatrist and get an evaluation because I am 110% sure you have ADHD. And I was like, what?
Marshall Lichty:
Yeah. That's where I want to go. Is that the first moment that it had entered the lexicon for you?
Christina Scalera:
Oh yeah. Yeah. I was like, there's no way, like, I can't get out of bed in the morning. I don't have endless energy. I'm not hyperactive. And she says, "Well, here's all the things that I've been noticing." And she just listed off this list. Part of this conversation was, I'm on my medication. But still, I walked in every single day to every therapy session I have with her every week. And I would carry like a canteen of coffee. And she asked me that day, right before she told me she thinks I have ADHD, she asked "How many of those do you drink it?" I was usually two or three at least. And she says, "So, you drink like a liter of coffee every day?" I was like, "Yeah, I guess so?" I have a big percolator and I'd make one and a half of those a day and drink it. Then this conversation happened. So I forgot that was like a big part of that day. But yeah, so I just was kind of blindsided.
Marshall Lichty:
Tell me some of those details to the extent you're willing to share. What are some of the things that she had observed in you that she had been watching that sounded to her like ADHD? Drinking a ton of coffee, of course. But we all do that.
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. Okay. So here is the biggest thing that I think tipped her off. I was telling her how hard it is for me to go grocery shopping. And I actually enjoy grocery shopping. I will go to the grocery store and I will race around to the point where sometimes I have knocked into people's carts and I just had this anxiety that I was going to forget something. And I'm like, "why do I care so much?" Like, it's just, it's just groceries. Like you forget something, go back. Where I'm at in Colorado, you can't order it online or anything. It's very rural. So that was out of the question. So anyway, that was a big tip-off to her because I have this anxiety about collecting everything that I need for this grocery trip to the point where it's affecting me and my interactions with other people. She thinks that if I just had like a neuro-typical brain, you just go to the grocery store, you have your lists, you're not anxious about something you're going to forget from the list.
Christina Scalera:
That's right in front of you, you tend to remember where things are in your store. Whereas I'm like going all over the store, like back and forth, back and forth. And so that was like one of the things that she noticed in my daily life that was kind of a tip-off. I'm trying to think of like other things that she noticed. There were a lot of things that, as far as the overwhelm goes, that had to do with ADHD. Basically, I was stuck in this cycle of feeling overwhelmed, so I wouldn't do anything. And then, because I didn't do anything, I felt overwhelmed and I fell more behind. So then I would do even less. And then I would, you know, it just was this horrible cycle that kept continuing and, you know, my, my sales were starting to plummet. Obviously, my anxiety was through the roof. Everything was not going well. And when it started to affect like my daily functioning, my life, my business, that's when she was like, "This is really serious. Like we do need to do something about it." So that tipped her off. And I think it was just a lot of stories that I had told her along the way about things that I did or didn't do in law school.
Marshall Lichty:
So I want to talk about some of those too because there's some interesting stuff in there before we get to law school. Tell me just a little bit. My supposition is that you are not a hyperactive ADHD type, so I suspect that your diagnosis was, was not...
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. From what I understand, there's like, as far as we know right now, it's always changing, but there's like seven types of ADHD.
Marshall Lichty:
Yes. Yeah. We'll spend some energy on this probably elsewhere, like kind of how you categorize ADHD. What I really want to get to is what did it look like for you as someone who is creative and intelligent and ADHD isn't something that shows up just after law school.
Christina Scalera:
Yeah, no, it was a lot of misbehavior, which I think went undetected because I was a girl. And also because I moved every year and a half, so how could anybody know me well enough when I'm coming into their classroom halfway through the year and, you know, leaving and then going to someone else's classroom and possibly leaving their classroom in the middle of the year. I got really, really, really good grades in high school and college. So I think that also helped to disguise it. I took almost entirely all essay classes in college and even in law school to the extent that I could. And I think that also helped disguise it because I was able to... I'm a really good writer. And so I was able to either mask it with good writing or, you know, pull something off at the 10th hour, you know, huge procrastinator.
Christina Scalera:
So I was never writing anything on time. I was such a schmoozer. I would go to every office hours and like suck up to every TA ever. And like, just even in law school, I did that too. And I mean, I'm not like proud of that. I totally did it. Because I wanted the good grades and I knew that was how I could do it. People are people and they would give me a better grade if I was nice and interested and it helped me learn and they had interesting things to say, so it wasn't all like a waste... But yeah, I totally did that. And I think that was another tip-off is that when I got to law school and had all these great grades, I went to law school and everything's just tanking. Terrible GPA, terrible ability to study. I was going to Anthropology and shopping for four hours the day before a test that I hadn't even studied for. So I have no idea how I even passed. All of those final exams that you have for every class in law school. I got great grades on my essays again. So when I could, I took essay-based classes. So yeah, I think that's a lot of how it, it was like disguised and I just didn't notice it.
Marshall Lichty:
When you were diagnosed... tell me just a little bit about what your journey has looked like since then. So you went from a sense of overwhelm, something that looked and felt like depression and anxiety, despite being, by all outward appearances, a very successful, intelligent entrepreneur with a whole bunch of clever business interests and an insatiable desire to create and to help and to do a bunch of other stuff. You're kind of a mess. Yeah. Did the diagnosis change anything for you?
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. Well, I mean, whether it's good or not, I like it, I chose to go on medication. That changed everything. That broke the pattern of me feeling like I was a piece of crap and getting overwhelmed and then not doing anything and getting more overwhelmed because I wasn't doing anything. So it broke that cycle and it pattern-interrupted in a way that I was able to get back to life as I knew it before. Anybody that starts a business that you're really passionate about, you know what I'm talking about when I say you have this huge initial adrenaline rush and it just lasts for months and months and months. It's not actually adrenaline, but you know what I mean? It's just this zeal and you can't get it out of your head. You can't not do it.
Christina Scalera:
Maybe you guys have experienced it with something else, like a hobby or, you know, a lot of people get into yoga for the first time. And then suddenly, you know, within three months, they're booking every retreat and yoga teacher training. I see that a lot. So it's just like when you get into something new, you have this zeal and I had lost that for my business. It was tanking. I felt overwhelmed. Getting on medication and then obviously I've continued therapy every week and that's really helpful. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, talk therapy medication that's, what's worked for me to change and pattern interrupt and keep myself on this moving trajectory that feels much better. I have a lot less anxiety in my life. I wouldn't say it's totally gone. All the overwhelm is gone.
Christina Scalera:
I feel really secure where I'm at with my business, where I did not before. Our profits are much, much, much better than they ever have been since I went on medication. And I like, I mean, I have to be reminded to take it. Like I go to therapy every week and Retu says, "Did you take your medication this week?" I'm like, Oh, "I did the day after I saw you..." So it's not even like I'm taking it every day. I just, I try to, but you know, I try to create a habit around it where I'm taking it with my thyroid medicine in the morning, but it's on and off. But just even that sporadic medication has been really helpful.
Marshall Lichty:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We talk about resources, education, learning about ADHD, and what it looks like, but then we talk about tools. And obviously, medication can be a tool, and therapy and coaching and things like that. What else works for you when it comes to productivity, for example? Are there any things that you've done to build scaffolding around what might otherwise, yeah. Tell me a little bit.
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. So if you want to have a successful life or business, you have to automate everything. So I automate how I get paid, where that money goes, I automate client processes. For a while, when I was in Atlanta, I was automating all the cleaning, the water delivery, everything that I had previously been "Oh, we're out of water!" And then we'd wait two weeks and I'd go to Home Depot and refill the water. So, you know, just taking those few minutes to sign up for a water delivery service and have that automated and then, you know, automating the payments, like everything that you possibly can is a huge help. And the other thing I started to do, and this was kind of like self-medication before I even was diagnosed was I lose everything. I lose everything, no matter how important something is, I will lose it. And so I just started putting things where they're supposed to go right that minute, even if I was late, which I'm always late and that's also gotten better since I was medicated.
Marshall Lichty:
There's a place for everything. You found everything found a home and you were diligent about putting it there.
Christina Scalera:
And even if I was going to be late to get to somewhere, if it meant that I put my keys back where they were supposed to go or an important paper in the file it's supposed to be in, I would do that. I don't know what you would call it, like setting yourself up for success in that way is really critical. Because if you, if you don't do that, then your life is just a mess and you get to that place where you're just like, "Oh, I'm such a piece of, you know... I can't do anything right." And that's where I was at. So yeah, creating habits, automating, making sure things happen, just set yourself up for success in that way is really helpful.
Christina Scalera:
I was also a chronic overspender, like a shopaholic in law school and throughout my adult life. And that's obviously really, really bad for your finances. So one of the things that I did was I, because of all this, I opened up a bunch of different credit cards and I linked them to things that I only use infrequently. I created auto pays, destroyed the credit cards that I didn't use. I don't know, maybe the financial experts out there will be like, "Oh, you should just get rid of your cards." But I wanted to keep my open lines of credit, keep my credit good. And then just automated everything. So basically, you know, I buy Starbucks maybe like twice a month and I have it as an auto-reload from these cards so that they stay active. But I've consciously made it so that I cannot access them. So just kind of again, setting yourself up for success in like even crazy ways. Like I think that makes me a little crazy, but that's okay. I'm okay sharing that.
Marshall Lichty:
I mean, I was just going to talk about, you know, the scaffolding and building some barriers to your impulses, which I really like. I mean, there are tools that you can use if you have a problem sitting at your desk and you should be working on a brief or a trademark application, and instead you're shopping for Christmas things on Black Friday or contracts on Black Friday. You know, shutting off your internet is a thing that you can do. You can literally turn your computer into airplane mode, turn it into a brick, and just type. Or other types of scaffolding.
Christina Scalera:
Or set time limits. Time limits were really helpful for me when I first started blogging for my site because I would spend seven hours on a blog post. Easily. And so when I started or newsletters or weekly newsletters or whatever. So when I started setting myself up with a 20-minute time limit, and if you really are not good at this, just fill your computer up, go to Starbucks, work, and then your computer is going to die at some point. Those are helpful things to do, just to make sure that you're not spending seven hours doing something that could only take, you know, it only needs to take me 20 minutes.
Marshall Lichty:
There are a bunch of ideas like that. I love the idea of blocking out times when you make yourself available to be contacted. Right? So one of the things that you talked about with The Contract Shop and your relationships with your clients, the law firm is sort of these boundaries. And one of the boundaries that I really like setting with clients is saying something like "you matter to me, and I want to make sure that I am here for you. The way that I am here for you is to be here for you every single day between two and three. And if you have a question or an issue, you come and you talk to me between two and three every single day, I will be here for you. You can book in through this scheduling software and it'll ask you what we're going to talk about and we will pound it out."
Marshall Lichty:
It'll give me a little bit of time beforehand to get an idea about, about it, do some research if I need to, and then we're going to knock that out and it's going to be fast and easy for you. It's going to be fast and easy for me, and I'm not going to get pulled out of the work that I'm doing on your actual thing all day, every day by clients who just have sort of a smattering of questions. So there are tools like that that I really love to incorporate into people's lives because we can't help ourselves. That impulsivity and distractability are such critical pieces of that. That needs to be controlled in order to bring that creativity out, right. If you're just reacting all of the time and it's just a fire all the time, you're putting out the latest one, you never have time and space and margin to actually go create something or make something beautiful or make something additive. And so I love that.
Christina Scalera:
Yeah, absolutely. I actually give my clients more access to me and it has cut down on their communications substantially. So two of my clients prefer Slack. And so I've just jumped into their Slack communications and their entire teams can ask me questions and they are absolutely thrilled with it because they just can ask me anything any time. I can answer anything at any time. There's not like this, "Let's schedule a call on Tuesday. Oh, Tuesday. Won't work for me. Schedule it on Wednesday. Oh, okay. Well, I'm only available..." There is no back and forth. It's just immediate. They don't have to explain anything. Their entire team can ask the question. So I am always completely abreast of everything that's going on. I don't have to get background from them because I'm seeing what's going on in their general. I'm seeing what products are launching and they can just drop links right there.
Christina Scalera:
We have a record of it in Slack the entire time. They know that Slack is about as secure as email. So, I do have them sign basically a waiver that says they understand that this is still protected by attorney-client privilege, but that it's still Slack. So who knows how safe it is. So like the really serious stuff, that's not where they're putting it. You know, the questions about like, "Hey, is this disclosure okay on my sales page?" Sure. Drop the link, I'll check it out. Sales pages are public. Anyway. So you know, that's the kind of stuff that I'm in there all the time. And actually, I would say that every single one of my clients, since they're business owners themselves, they actually usually take Thursday to Monday or Friday to Monday off. Or at least that's the time that they're using to work on their own business. So they don't even contact me those days. It's usually just Monday through Thursday, which is fine.
Marshall Lichty:
How do you keep yourself from being in Slack all day, every day, and just waiting for that next ping or dopamine hit or question or thing to respond to?
Christina Scalera:
Easy. I just quit it. I just quit the application. Nobody's expecting... I tell all of them, "This is my phone number. You can contact me if it's an emergency, but you know, obviously, if you're contacting me a lot here, no one has ever abused this." I say, "if you text me or call me all the time on my phone, I'm not going to run off the ski slopes at three o'clock on a Tuesday to go take your phone call anymore because I know it's not an emergency." No one has ever abused that. But I have had the occasional text from these clients who say, "Hey, SOS. Can you get in Slack right now?" Or, "Can you get on the phone right now?" Which is fine. That's exactly what they should be texting me about.
Christina Scalera:
I would say like giving them more access to me and me being more of a partner in their business than just a, Hey, we're coming out with a new program. "Do we need a new trademark email every once in a while?" Yeah. Like that, that, that doesn't work for me. And that doesn't really work for them either. The other thing is that because they're small business owners and a lot of them have had this amazing success, but they started out as things like copywriters and photographers. They didn't go to law school. They don't know anything about issue spotting. They don't even know what issue spotting is or that it is a thing. So they don't even know when they're having an issue with something. And so just me being in Slack, constantly with them, seeing what they're up to, seeing what they're about to post on social media, et cetera. One of them has over a million followers on Instagram. Another has, I don't know, 40,000 or 50,000. These are people that have big followings and are very visible. And so for me to be able to just see everything that they're doing constantly is really helpful.
Marshall Lichty:
I can feel that intimacy being a really critical part of a good, healthy relationship. And I suspect it's born a little bit of your in-house experience, right? Right out of school, you're an in-house lawyer. You're there to help the business, help people succeed on their goals and your support obviously.
Christina Scalera:
I didn't think about it like that, but probably...
Marshall Lichty:
I think being in a spot where you can anticipate those needs and form a meaningful relationship just gives you more information, more data, more useful stuff. And I think there's a tension there with how close you can be and how open you can be and, as an ADHD lawyer, maintain the margin you need to think about their problem or work on their thing or whatever. It sounds like you've struck a really interesting balance that probably provides some extraordinary service, both in terms of being there and being responsive and understanding their business, but also delivering on the goods, which I think is, is spectacular.
Marshall Lichty:
At the risk that we're going to be here for three days, I want to ask two quick questions about content creation, because one thing that I believe about lawyers and about their businesses is that they need to be a lot better about sharing their brilliance with the masses. That's a thing that you do. You're a marketing mind. You've had a podcast, a very successful one indeed. You've had a variety of marketing endeavors. One thing that I want you to talk about, if you would you, at one point talked about creating blog posts in groups of three. Tell me about why you would write blog posts in groups of three and how that helped you create content that was useful for a variety of people.
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. Well, I mean people, whether you're ADHD or not, you just have a limited time limited attention span. And so I like to just create things in groups of three or even four. And I learned this from a variety of different mentors, but basically, people have the same objections to making a purchase or even booking a service or engaging your services. They have a problem with making that decision, especially when there's a lot of money on the line. And so for you to create content that helps move them closer to that goal, which is they get the support that they need as their goal. And then your goal is obviously to run a business and make money through that. So to get you guys both closer to that goal of content can be a huge help, but in order for someone to make that purchasing decision, they need to know that you are the right person or product or brand for them.
Christina Scalera:
You have to overcome the objection that you cannot help them because that's what they're already thinking in their mind. Then once you've overcome that objection, you have to overcome the objection that they think that they are not able to be helped. In some way that they are a special circumstance, that they are so unique that no one could possibly understand their problem correctly. So you have to overcome that objection that your product or service actually can help them because they are not beyond help. They are able to get help. They have to trust themselves basically. So they have to trust you. They have to trust themselves. They have to trust whatever it is that you're selling. That's the third thing. So they have to trust that your service or your product is in fact the way through things.
Christina Scalera:
So once you've shown them that your company is reputable or you're reputable, that you've shown them that they can actually receive a benefit from this, that they're not beyond help... Then the final thing is you have to really show them that this is exactly what they need, and this is the right time for them to do that. So sometimes I split that last one into two parts and I'll do like a four-part content or emailed series or something. But that's really just to break it down to more of that fourth-grade reading level, make it easy on the people that are busy. They don't have time to read this. They don't have time to consume it. So you can do this for emails, podcasts, blog posts, any kind of Instagram posts. You can do it for any kind of content.
Christina Scalera:
And then finally, the other reason I do it is that I'm a big fan of Clickfunnels and Russell Brunson. Not everything that they do. I really liked Julie Stone. She was the senior vice president of Clickfunnels for awhile. I really liked her approach to Clickfunnels, I should say, for people that are familiar with the product, not necessarily like Russell Brunson's approach. That being said, one of the things that Russell Brunson of ClickFunnels talks about a lot, if you're not familiar with it, it is just a software service company, but it's got this whole other kind of culture dynamic that goes with it.
Marshall Lichty:
And we'll leave, we'll leave a bunch of this in the show notes too because this is, this is important, but in-depth stuff, and we'll maybe spend more time on it later.
Christina Scalera:
One of the things that he talks about that really affected me early on was this idea of a "soap opera sequence." And I just thought it was interesting. So I tried it out and it worked incredibly well. I really didn't want it to work because he's kind of a sales-y marketing guy. And I was like, I don't know, but I'll just try it. Everybody says it works. So I'll just try it. It worked so well. And so that's another reason I split my content into different segments. You know, part one of four, part two of four... And people are really interested and engaged and looking for those next parts to come out. So that's one way for you to break it up and make it easier on yourself. Because you don't have to write 2000 word blog posts all at once. You can just write 700 words today, 750 words tomorrow, and give yourself a little bit more time, but then also overcome these four objections that anybody has that they always have to overcome to make any kind of purchasing decision.
Marshall Lichty:
I love it. I love having a system. I love anything that we can do to help lawyers understand that sharing content is not giving away services for free. Sharing content is helping people that want to be your clients learn to know you and love you and trust you so that they can hire you and actually pay you money to help them do things. So I just love the content marketing empire that you've built. And you know, I think any, any lawyer out there who is interested in understanding where you can take content would be wise to check out some of Christina's stuff. We'll have a bunch of show notes about some of the resources that she's mentioned for her. Because this stuff is well-tested, it's not like she's making this up, right?
Christina Scalera:
I've learned this from a lot of people. I wish I made this up. I'd be a lot more wealthy if I made this up.
Marshall Lichty:
Right? These are long track records of copy that work in content and philosophies that work in helping people get the help that they want and they need. Lawyers have for too long been allergic to that. And so the idea that there are some recipes out there and some tools that will help you do, I think is, is really spectacular too.
Marshall Lichty:
Before we wrap up, I have a couple of questions that I like to ask at the end. For fear of taking a negative turn, I believe that for the most part having ADHD is ultimately something that will give you great strength and help you create a life that is interesting and creative and beautiful. We talked a little bit about some of the downsides and the stress and the depression and the anxiety and how wellbeing among lawyers is a challenge for our profession. If you don't mind, I understand that you have some feelings about that, about wellness and about the impacts that it can have on us and our friends and our profession. And if you wouldn't mind, can you just tell us a little bit about how that culture of denial is hurting us?
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. So I'm wondering if you're alluding to my story about my best friend? My best friend in law school died at 27. I'm 31 now. He was a year older than I was. He died of an opioid overdose. It was published in all the papers and his obituary said that he "died peacefully in his sleep." Well, nobody that's 27, unless they have an undiagnosed cardiac condition maybe, but... yeah. I later found out it was an opioid addiction that he was hiding. He was just straight up hiding it from most people and not like the signs weren't there, but I didn't know what the signs were. He was getting a lot of staph infections, which is not normal for a 27-year-old. He was losing a ton of weight, which he just told me he was working out more.
Christina Scalera:
He seemed incredibly happy, like happier than I'd ever known him to be. I had lunch with him a month before he passed away. And so I just think that the opioid epidemic that we see in "middle" or "rural" America is hitting lawyers too. The girl who does my hair, her best friend was a lawyer. The same thing happened to her best friend when she was 37. She overdosed on opioids as well. So I mean, obviously this is anecdotal, but I would just really encourage any of you that thinks you have a friend that has substance abuse issues or any kind of like opioid addiction. You know, my friend really liked to party and have a good time and I probably should have seen that as more than just "normal law school partying."
Christina Scalera:
And in hindsight it definitely was. So there were a lot of warning signs, but it's just really sad that I think he felt like he couldn't talk to people about it because he was this up and coming lawyer in his community and you know, just really active, really engaged, not the picture of someone that you would think that would overdose on opioids at 27 years old. So it happens. This is someone who came from a very privileged, middle- to upper-class background. He just had everything in the world going for him, had an up-and-coming career, had been featured as a local musical artist, was going on tour with his band for a little bit for fun. It was just a lot of things that were going for him and it just... It can happen to anybody.
Christina Scalera:
So I just want to encourage anybody that might have some of these things that they're seeing, their friends are losing weight, they're getting weird staph infections or weird medical conditions for their age. That's the kind of stuff that you just have to pay attention to because these very subtle signs could help save their life hopefully. But yeah, I definitely don't think there's enough done for lawyers. And I think they just kind of sweep it under the rug and say like, "Oh, lawyers are prone to depression and suicide. And that's just like an accepted thing, but like, I don't know why that's so acceptable."
Marshall Lichty:
I think that's right. And I really appreciate that. And I appreciate that vulnerability. Lawyers with ADHD are 10 times more likely to have substance abuse issues. We are astronomically more likely to have anxiety and depression, alcoholism. We have a whole cohort of stuff that if left unmanaged is really, really difficult and potentially deadly and the worst part about it is that it doesn't have to be that way. You know, we are a community of lawyers. Sure. But you know, we're also a community of people and taking care of each other and building community and being open and honest with each other and being vulnerable to each other and trying to end some stigma around ADHD or anxiety or depression or substance abuse or alcoholism is part of the process of healing our profession. And so I want to thank you for what you have done to make our profession more beautiful and creative and compassionate. And I want to encourage everybody that's listening to, to do the same, to take care of each other and to get help. You've got to get your oxygen mask on before you can help everybody else.
Christina Scalera:
Yeah, for sure. I tell everybody that everybody should be in therapy at the risk of sounding like I'm a crazy person in therapy. I just don't care. I just tell everybody, "you should go to therapy. Just try it. If you don't like it, you don't like it."
Marshall Lichty:
And if you don't like that, try coaching. Everybody's had a coach. You can just think of a coach. It's different. It feels better. And coaches can help you with very practical things. You mentioned earlier that you have a Shopify coach, you have someone who helps you and coaches you do a thing that you're trying to get done. That's true in productivity. It's true in lawyering. It's true in a bunch of other things too. So go get some help. Coaching, therapy, whatever it is... Take care of yourself and take care of each other.
Marshall Lichty:
I want to wrap up with two questions. Are you more of a more of an optimist or more of a pessimist?
Christina Scalera:
Definitely more of an optimist.
Marshall Lichty:
So we're going to save that one for last. We'll start with the glass-half-empty one. If you had a magic wand and you could just wave it and make one feature of ADHD disappear for everyone on the planet, what would it be?
Christina Scalera:
I would just stop losing stuff. Like really important things. That would be really nice. If I could just remember that or just stop losing stuff. I even lost a Tile, those things that are supposed to help you find things. I lost that.
Marshall Lichty:
Get rid of that. That's impressive. The Tile. All right. The flip side if you had the same magic wand, maybe the different button or a different spell, or I don't, whatever, I don't even know how to frame this question. Other than if you could give everybody in the world one feature of ADHD, what would it be? What's the thing that you love about your ADHD?
Christina Scalera:
Oh, definitely just the manic drive to get something done. Sometimes that's where our best sales and our best products and everything has come from is I'll just sit there and be like, "meh. meh, meh" about it for a while. And then all of a sudden something will just light a fire under my butt and I'll be like, "dah, duh, dah!" And then a week later, there's a course that I've been sitting on for two years and it's up and being sold and out there, and we're making thousands of dollars off of it. That's the stuff that I think is my superpower from ADHD. That would be pretty cool if other people could experience it.
Marshall Lichty:
Well, I will tell you—and not just because this is a clean way to end a podcast episode—you are an inspiration to folks. I love your drive to create and to make amazing things that make the world better. And to hear you tell your story and to tell your story as a younger person who has done a lot of things I think can be an inspiration to all of us. Thanks for the work that you do and keep it up and, you know, never stop. For everybody that's out there, Christina is available kind of all of the places. I think the best place to find her is at The Contract Shop. We have a URL in the show notes, but also you can go to the "Chuck Norris of legal products?"
Christina Scalera:
It's on our about page, I think. Yeah, that was a long time ago that I wrote that. We're The Contract Shop everywhere. It's our handles, it's our domain name. It's, you know, our email. Whatever it is, if you just roughly throw that out into the Googlesphere, you'll find us.
Marshall Lichty:
Right on. And if you're looking for somebody who can hold your hand through the process of turning a service into a product or learning how to think outside of the box as a lawyer or as a service provider, Christina would be a great person for that too. And so we'll put a link into The Owners' Inner Circle.
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. That's just TheOwnersCircle.com or my name. That's the new project that we've been working on. So that's exciting, but yes. Thank you so much for having me and for everything you're doing here and sharing about and just bringing attention to all of this.
Marshall Lichty:
Well, it's my pleasure. And good luck sorting out Georgia versus Colorado. I have an inkling that the West will have one here before too long.
Christina Scalera:
I think you might be right
Marshall Lichty:
The best to you in all of your endeavors. And thank you so much, Christina.
Christina Scalera:
Yeah. Thank you. Marshall.
Marshall Lichty:
Isn't Christina Scalera amazing? This is a woman whose drive and wanderlust and creativity and clarity and entrepreneurship have driven her to amazing places, humbling places, places that get me so excited. And what I love most about her stories is her vulnerability. I love how she shared with all of us the many bumps along her path and the bumps that she has seen in other people's path, sometimes to really devastating effect. And I love that she shares that she's failed repeatedly, that she struggled with mental and physical health issues, some related to ADHD and some not. She, like a lot of us, was diagnosed with ADHD later in her life.
Marshall Lichty:
She shared her story with us and she told us about the many challenges that she was facing before she got diagnosed. And through those struggles, there was this underlying pulse of creation and growth and malleability. It's all so conspicuous if you are paying attention, ADHD and drive us all to amazing places, I'm glad that you're on this journey with me. And if you'd like to talk to me about one on one coaching for your ADHD and its impact on your practice or your life, please email me@marshallatthejdhd.com. We heard Christina Scalera talk about how getting her ADHD under control, changed everything for her. That gives me so much hope. If your hope is bubbling up to let's talk, see you next week.