BILFPOD - Fighting for Success: How Combat Shaped a CEO Mindset

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

New Episode Alert – BILFPod x Jeffrey Harvey Lawyer, CEO, and advocate for justice—Jeffrey Harvey has dedicated his career to empowering communities and redefining what leadership looks like in the legal world. From the courtroom to the corner office, he’s driven by a mission to make legal services more accessible and meaningful. With a vision rooted in integrity and impact, Jeffrey’s journey proves that true success is measured by the lives you uplift along the way. In this episode:•⁠ Building a career that blends law, leadership, and purpose•⁠ How Community Legal Services is reshaping access to justice•⁠ Lessons on leading with integrity in high-stakes environments•⁠ The challenges of balancing business, advocacy, and personal growth•⁠ Why making a difference starts with showing up for others This conversation is about purpose, resilience, and what it means to lead with both power and compassion. Catch the full episode now streaming on all platforms.Get Connected:Follow Mara Dorne → @maradorneFollow the Podcast → @bilfpod#BILFPod #BossIdLikeToFollow #JeffreyHarvey #MaraDorne #LegalLeader #CEO #JusticeDriven #CommunityImpact #LeadershipInAction #PurposeAndPower #LegalMindset #UnfilteredSuccess #BILFCommunity #LeadershipPodcast #ChangeMaker #VisionAndIntegrity #EmpowerThroughLaw #Podcastdrop 

After my fourth deployment overseas, I kind of decided I was time to take, yeah, take a break and move back home. I was always interested in the law. I've really, I think my true passion really is leadership. Welcome back to the BILF pod. We're authenticity trumps authority. Now, for those of you that are tuning in for the first time, my name is Mara Dorn, and this is BILF. For those of you that have no idea what bilf is. Do you know what bill's stands for? Boss, I'd like to follow. Oh, thank God. You knew that. Yes, it is boss. I'd like to follow. You're right. I am so excited about today's guest. I mean, this guy is a true bilf. We have today. We have Mr. Jeff Harvey. He has such

an incredible background. Now, I was telling you a little bit before that one thing that you and I have in common, for those of you that don't know about my background, is I was on my way to law school. Like, I really thought that I was going to be a JAG officer or I was going to be like Aaron Brockovich. Like, that's what I really, that's what I thought. I had, you know, but then, you know, life didn't work out and I ended up in sales, but I'm just meeting somebody that's so successful. And your background is really extensive. And I just want to say, first of all, thank you for your service. Thank you. And I know that you have a million accolades, but I think the most impressive for me to read is that you did a tour and everybody that you were on tour,

you brought everybody back safe. Yeah. So that is, I mean, that's so commendable. And what an achievement. Yeah. Thank God. Yeah, right. Thank God.

Right. And so then from there, you became a lawyer. And now you work for a prestigious law firm where you are the CEO of community legal services since 2020. You also received an incredible prestigious award for being one of the best places to work, which is, that's so crazy. A law firm, one of the best places to work. I mean, that's, that is incredible. But without further ado, I'm going to let you talk a little bit about your background and just how you kind of got into law and what you're doing and just your whole, you know, what, what it is that you guys provide to the community. Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I went to college on an ROTC scholarship. And so I was thinking about this the other day, unlike a lot of my friends in college who spent their last semester trying to figure out where am I going to work. I already kind of knew where I was going to work because I had the commitment to the Army. So I went in with both feet and at one point had thought I was going to stay 20 years and maybe be a general or do something like that. And after my fourth deployment overseas, I kind of decided it was time to take a break and move back home. I was always interested in the law. I think my true passion really is leadership. But there's a whole component to that that the law plays.

And so decided to move back home and go to law school. And then found my way into community legal services. It was kind of by luck. You know, people asked me when I was in school what I wanted to do. And I said, I wanted to run a law firm. And typically, you don't run a law firm until you've either built up a humongous book of business or you've started at a large firm and you've worked your way up. And so luckily for me, I was at a hearing one day and ran into somebody that I had known who said, hey, I need a director of operations. And so they hired me on the spot.

So were you a prosecutor or were you a public defender or? I was in private practice. I did a lot of local government law. Nice. And so not going to go into names of places, but I was kind of assistant city attorney for certain cities and things like that. Yeah, that's amazing. And then today your job is to provide services to people that are underprivileged. Yeah.

So community legal services provides no cost legal assistance to low income, seniors, veterans, survivors of domestic violence, people that cannot afford legal assistance. Right. And now, my question for you that I really want to know is do you select who you're going to take on? Is there like a whole process or you just take anybody that says, hey, I need a lawyer, I can't afford it. Is that how it goes or there's like a vetting process? It's both. It's both.

So our primary funding comes from a couple of different places, legal services corporation. the entity formerly known as the Florida Bar Foundation, they all set kind of income standards and guidelines. We do get some funding to help seniors and survivors of domestic violence. It really has no income guidelines. But that's kind of one of the threshold issues is, you know, or do you make little enough that you qualify for the assistance? Right.

Then there are a million people in our 12 county service area that have legal needs. Yeah. And even though we're the, I think, eighth largest law firm in Central Florida. How many lawyers do you have at your firm? We have right now 60, almost 70. Wow. You can only help so many people a year. So between the type of issue, how far along they are in their issue, because the earlier you get to us, the more we can do with the least amount of resources.

And then obviously the income, the income piece is typically how we select to our clients are. Right. I mean, that in itself is incredible. You're running this incredible practice. I mean, just giving back to the community. That's a big part of what I believe in is hope, giving back, you know, being servant leadership. You talked about that. So let's like kind of dive in. Now, I know because I run a huge sales team that it really takes, takes a part of quite a person

to run a whole bunch of different personalities, right? It's a hard job in itself. So, I mean, not to mention what you're already doing, but on top of that, you're managing all different types of personalities. You have men, you have women. You have people that are a type. you know, people that are hedged. I mean, just a million types of different people.

And here you are nominated for this award. You win the award. But how do you do that? How are you able to run this incredible practice and navigate all of these people? Yeah. So, first of all, I think it starts from the top and it starts with authentic relationships. I love that. You know, the people that you are leading have to believe that you are truly interested in their best well-being.

interest. Ingo. And so that just takes being you, you know, listening, being you. But then from there, it's more of a science than it is an all. I guess it's kind of an art too. The average person can't manage more than seven people. Right. Like that's just a rule of thumb.

And so once you get larger than that, instead of building a team, you're not trying to build teams of teams of teams, which require team leaders. And then sometimes you've got teams of teams of teams, right? And so that's kind of for me, you know, once I became the CEO, I think the first thing that I really focused on, whether I knew it or not at the time, was do I have good connections with everybody in the firm? But the immediate second thing that I started to do is build a team. Think of a structure that would make the organization work and how do I start putting that team together with people in each one of those places that can manage and ideally lead. The other thing I think is I made organizational priorities. And I committed very early on that my first priority as the CEO was my staff.

Because in a human services organization without my staff, I literally don't have the product we're trying to push. Right. And kind of flip around to the fourth priority, which really circles back to the first, it's individual growth and self-development and leadership development. If you're working someplace where you spend most of the time that you spend on a weekly basis, if it is not somehow making you into a better person, it ends up taking away from you.

Right. And you can only be there for so long before you're so drained that it's just you're not effective anymore. And so we're constantly looking for ways to give people opportunities to grow, both as a leader and in a person. A lot of companies have opportunities like that. and they kind of make it very narrowly, you know, has to fit your job function. And I kind of look at things bigger.

You know, if you work for me, you're filling a specific role right now, but I don't know what roles I'm going to have in the future. I don't know what needs I'm going to have in the future. And so to have you grow in a way that may not directly impact the position you're in, but somehow have a benefit to the company later. It's a win-win. It's a win-win.

Yeah, because if you're not growing, what are you doing? You're stagnant. Right. Which is funny because, you know, our organizations are completely different. I mean, although, you know, we did agree that everything is sales, but my organization is set up the same way. We have leaders and then we have people that we have head leaders and then we have agents. And you're absolutely right. Like it all comes down.

Number one is authenticity. People can feel it. If you are not authentic and people really just are not bought into you, you're definitely not going to be able to lead a team. They can smell it. They can smell it a mile away. And I don't know about lawyers, but salespeople, we are eccentric people. So we need a lot of love. And I think you do lead with love.

I think that, I mean, that's how I lead to that it's very personal for me. My relationships with the people that I bring in, I would say that almost everybody that I know that's close to me works, either works with me, works around me. Or you need that because people feel that, you know, and that authentic connection. And then you're right, the constant leadership development. I mean, we use, we just took our agents to Patrick Beth David. And it's, you know, it all goes hand in hand. Because if you aren't learning and you aren't growing, then you can't evolve and you're not able to give back because we do give so much of ourselves that we need to learn how to decompress but also develop as a leader and then teach this skill. Which it is the skill.

It's a skill. It's an art. It's a science. Right? Just getting along with people. Connecting with people. How hard is that? It's hard.

Some people really can't do it. They cannot, no matter who they are, connect. It doesn't matter. But that is, it's so unique that your organization is the same way. And, you know, I was listening at the beginning we were talking and I heard before you came in that the culture at your firm was not good. So let's talk a little bit about that and what it's like when your culture. Because I don't think people realize that culture, I say this all the time, culture is everything. You know, I'm not the smartest, not the sharpest tool in the shed, but the one thing that I really, when I first started building was culture.

I wanted to, I wanted my organization to be a place that people would come in and feel comfortable because you're right. They're here, 14, 16 hours. So I used to bring everybody after work, I'd bring everyone to my house. That was a big thing for me. Bring them in, put your arms around them and build the culture. So if you're here, I mean, I know every single one of my agents. I'm always, you know, trying to do something to engage with them. But culture is super important.

So I want to hear a little bit about how your culture was and then how you kind of pivoted and changed it. Yeah. So the place I worked at five, six years ago, it was, I'm trying to think I had to explain it. There was a whole undercurrent of people that never knew if they were going to get fired tomorrow. The organization didn't have any real common goals. It was kind of just take cases. There was no clear path on those things.

There was a huge disconnect between how the organization received funding and the story we were trying to portray to funders and outside third. parties and the people that actually did the one. You know, I kind of back to something I said earlier, I believe that if you're spending most of your time at someplace, you know, that you should enjoy where you, where you want. Absolutely. So that was kind of one of my goals was to make it a place that people enjoyed working. I even had a couple of times where I didn't think I was going to make it in part, I think,

because it just took so much out of you. I had a fellow director of mine who used to call me all the time, like eight, nine, ten o'clock at night and just go on and on and on and on. Right. And I had a boss that there were some days you could go in and say, hey, listen, boss, I don't think we should be doing this. And she would just blow me off other days where I had to literally say, you can't do this. This is not okay.

And it wasn't sure if I was going to get dismissed on the spot or not, right? When I was looking out for her and I was looking out for the organization. So unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it. You know, I took over in March of 2020, April of 2020, like right at the very beginning of COVID. I had a very good mentor at the time who was the interim CEO. Her job was to basically come into companies like mine take over for a short period of time when they went and found somebody to do it full time. Right.

And she was very in tune to people's personal. personalities. And so I kind of fed off of that. And that's, that's kind of what we did. So we made some progress. I tried to make sure everybody had a seat at the table. Everybody had access to talk to me. Spent a lot of time on the phone. And then, an opportunity came up to apply for the best place to work. And I know we had tried to apply before. And we didn't get enough survey responses from staff to even qualify, which tells you something, right? Yeah. And so in this instance, I said, well, let's just see where you are. And I was genuinely interested in the feedback because if there was something we could do better, sometimes people aren't going to tell you everything. Maybe this

would tell me. But luckily, we went through the process and we're notified. And I can't remember what number we were, number eight or number seven or something like that on the nonprofit times. And then another opportunity showed up the next year. I think it was the Orlando Business Journal. And then year after that, it was the Orlando Sentinel. And I said, let's just keep doing this. And at some point, there was a piece of it, too, that when the organization voted, itself a best place to work, it then became a best place to work. Right. And so... Because you're holding that up. Right. It's something that they are proud of. So they continue to be a best place to work. And I still think that they are. It's been a few years since we've applied for the award, in part because I was like,

I was just tired of dealing with doing it. Right. And I think we're actually applying this year. But people want to be proud of where they work. And so there are going to be tough times and they're going to be times where they're not happy with their boss or they're not happy about a policy or whatever. but when they take a step back and they think, yeah, but this is a great place to work, right? That just reinforces the culture you're trying to make. Yeah. I had a mentor of mine from the military, actually, when I got to kind of a certain level as a commander who said, you know, I don't solve problems anymore. I'm a culture guy.

And it kind of resonated with me. Like, I'm really not even a place to solve problems. I do every once in a while. But a lot of times I'm usually trying to set people in the right direction and let them figure it out. Yes. I love that. In part, because people learn from the mistakes. So if I'm trying to build leaders, I have to create opportunities for them to make mistakes.

It's so true. Right. Absolutely. I mean, it is. Everybody laughs at me. They always call me a pushover. Well, you never put your, in fact, I was having a conversation with one of my leaders this morning. And he was telling me one of the issues that are going on.

And he's like, why do you never put your foot down on anything? Like, why? I'm like, unless it's like an absolute definitive, you can't do it, it's not, that's not my job. My job is to guide people into becoming leader. That's what a leader is supposed to do is you lead other people so they can lead. It's not to problem solve anymore. You're right. That is absolutely true that we are not there to give.

It's like therapists. We just give you the tools. And then you implement them and sometimes you have to let them fall, which to make them a betterly. I mean, how many times have you fallen in order to become a better leader? Absolutely. Right? It's not always easy. It's not easy.

Peasy. It doesn't. There's not always a clear. road. There's no roadmap. I mean, I always say I'm always winging it all the time. You know, people think that I have it together. I mean, you look like you have it together. You look pretty cool. You look like you do. You look like you have it. You look like you do. Not at all. You're faking it till you're making it. That's like me. But what, so one thing I want to know, when I ask about this all the time on the show is we all have different levels of discomfort.

You know, even when we look like we have it together, there are things that make us uncomfortable. And one thing I talk about is I do not like being in a road. room full of people that I don't know everybody. It makes me very uncomfortable. So I always have like a security blanket or an entourage of people or people that are around me. What would be something that makes you uncomfortable and how do you deal with it? You know, bad news is never comfortable. And so anytime you have to have tough conversations, that's a tough thing. I have some staff that work for me that have become very good at it, probably in part because I made them do.

That's me too. I don't. I'm not like, I like to be the good guy all the time. I don't like the bad conversation. No, and I do it. And I do it.

And it's important. And I think the more you do it, the better it becomes. Because at the end of the day, it's just business. I hate it. Right? And so that's the other piece,

I think at least in that scenario, if you have conversations with people that are tough. And, you know, it's not truly anything personal. It's just, this is just the way things are. I mean,

I think it works a lot better. And I've noticed, once you have those conversations and you give the person a little bit of time to kind of like absorb it and think through it. Yeah. You know, nine times out of ten, the way they respond will tell you something about their character. A hundred percent. We're, we're, I think we lead very similar.

Yeah, probably. I really, like the more I'm listening to you talk, it sounds like we really lead in the same direction. I hate this, but you know my favorite line, this works all the time. What would you do if you were me? It's part of my guidance, yeah. It's such an easy. Because then it takes the pressure off of me and then they make their own decision.

But what I find you're right is when you let people give it 24 hours, they get the wind out of their sales, they come back because the way that you feel right now is never the way that you feel the next day. So the tough conversations never really have to be that tough. And then I feel like I feel like you can do this too. Like there's certain things that we could say that might like somebody else can't say it. And then we walk out of there holding hands and everybody feels like it was great, you know. I don't, but that's how I lead the same exact way. It's funny that you. And you have to have some faith in the system and people, right?

I've had tough conversations with people that I thought, I'll just have this conversation and it'll be over. And they're going to self-select out. They're going to quit. They're going to whatever. I'm tired of dealing with them. And then they surprise you. And then I've had conversations with people that said, you know,

this will be easy. I'll just tweak this little thing and they've lost it. Yeah. How do you deal with that when they lose? Because it's happened to me. So many people just, I've not had people say some absurd things to me. So what do you do when people say some absurd inappropriate, like they've lost their shit?

Well, so one of the things we did as an organization early on was develop a set of core values. And I like that. And everybody knows what the core values are. Like you talk about it all the time. We use an acronym just so you could remember what they are. It's a killer. Yeah.

We do the same thing. And I think if it doesn't, if it's not illegal and it doesn't violate a core value, we'll get through. Yeah. You know what I mean? it's and so that's the piece where like and as somebody will say something absurd to me usually kind of let it go because at the end of the day I know I hold all the cards I love that so many people don't know that though they always want to react back I've had somebody

tell me to go F myself like literally came to my face told me to go F myself and I did nothing zero I've had people do that to other staff members and I won't tolerate it like that's where that's kind of my yeah yeah yeah if I've and I we had one that um I got to be careful how much I talk about here. But I used to say things to one of my direct reports that were just unbelievable. And finally, I was like enough. Like, this person is violating the core value of respect. There were questions on competency.

And so I had to let them go. Yeah. And, you know, that was nerve-wracking, right? But at the same time, it was kind of fulfilling. Because, you know, you're taking care of your people. Yeah, that's what it comes down to. Yeah, it's that servitude type of attitude. you're absolutely right.

Like when it comes to the people that I work with, I'm really going to have their best interest. Like you could say what you want to me, but you cannot say it's like to my kids. Like you can say what you want to me, but you can't say it's to my kids the same thing with the people that I work with because at some point, you know,

can't always react. And I think that's a really big thing that people don't understand, especially when you're at the head, is that reacting does not always give you the result you're looking for. And sometimes when you don't react and then being conscious too,

I'm sure, listen, you guys are lawyers. So you're already dealing, with a lot of heat to begin with. You're dealing with other people's problems right off rip. And then you have your own problems at home. You know, you have your own personal things. So it's really, I think, important to kind of understand that when you are dealing with people to be conscientious of the fact that these people do go home and they have other things going on. So when things are or someone's out of character or acting out of character, I always like to take that into consideration. Yeah. And you should never react. I mean, if you're in that role,

everything you do and don't do is got some sort of impact on the organization. Yeah. And so, you know, I think I picked this up a long time ago in the military. Very few times do you react. And when you do, you've rehearsed that reaction so many times

that it's ingrained because you know it's going to set you up for success. But the rest of the time, everything is deliberate decisions. I feel like we've spoken before. I literally just had this conversation. I have literally had bosses that I thought lost their temper

and like we're going to, you know, have an aneurysm. And then I get down the hall and turn the corner and they're like, what do you think? And it was hilarious to them because they calculated through a fit, right? Because that's what the organization needed at the time. And so you kind of have to figure out how to do that.

And then if you don't take yourself too seriously and you don't take success too seriously and you're cognizant of the risks and whether or not you can underwrite those risks, you're not ever going to be in a situation where, I mean, life or death, right? I mean, I say that sometimes and my staff kind of laugh at me, but I've been there. Nobody died. Nobody's died. Yeah, the earth's not falling. I say the same thing.

The earth's not falling. The sky is not shattering. Like we are going to be, it's not that serious. It's really, you know, unless it's something, like you said, life or death, it's never that serious. But at the end of the day, you know, leading people in itself is so tough. So, and I already asked you if you were married and have kids. And you said you did.

So I also am married and have kids. I think one of the hardest things for me is turning off. That's a really hard thing. Yeah. So how are you able to, you know, be the CEO at a prestigious law firm and then go home and be a husband and a dad. Like, how do you, is there something that you do? Do you decompartmentalized?

Do you decompress? What do you do? It's tough. And the hardest thing for me, I think, is transitions. And so I definitely need some time to transition back home. You know, I've got the National Guard I do too. So I've got some transitions on there. Is there anything you don't do?

And you also run a T, don't you do a broadcast also? That's part of the company. But yeah. And I think if I allow myself sufficient time to transition, then it becomes a lot of easier. But I think the key to it is you've got to look at your calendar. I have a former boss that used to say calendar is king. If it wasn't on the calendar, it wasn't going to get done. And so, you know, I'm just as deliberate at planning time off as I am with things that I need to get to. I will make sure that my kids soccer games are on the schedule. And then really, like you said,

you got to make an effort to be present. So there are plenty of nights that I'm home. on a Wednesday night and I'm looking at my phone and my wife's like to put your phone down. But, you know, when the times that really matter, you got to, you got to make those important. Yeah. I mean, I always say I have no balance. I don't. I really have. I don't even know what balance means.

But I think when you're building something that's greater than yourself and that's the organization that you have, you have an organization that's clearly bigger than yourself and the people that work with you. I feel like the word balance is kind of, you know, kind of. No, no, no, no. It's not balanced. I have a friend of mine who uses this phrase. Everything's on credit. Credit.

Right? So when you're doing certain things, you're basically putting everything else on credit. And so there comes a point at which the bill for one is too high and you've got to go pay that down while you're putting something else on credit. That's the only way I can think of to juggle everything. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. You know, because it really is. It's a credit act.

You're right. It's revolving credit. Like during hurricane duties for the guard, right? I get activated for Hurricane Duty. I'm gone for two or three weeks. I do pay a little bit of attention. to work. I do pay a little bit of attention to my family, but ultimately speaking, most of my focus is on the hurricane crisis in the garden. So I know when I get back from that, I have to

deliberately make sure that I spend enough time with the organization and deliberately spend enough time with my family to kind of pay that credit off, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I would agree with that. Like, I don't always spend on the front end, but on the back end. Like we do vacation. I do have very intentional time with each one. How many kids do you have? Two. You have two boys. Boys. How old are the boys? They are once middle school age and one's elementary school age. Oh, you have little. I have two little boys, too.

Same thing. I have one in elementary and one in middle school. And it really is. I mean, do they think you're a real life superhero? I don't know, some days. They better think you're a real life superhero. Have you ever gone to like career day and told everybody what you do? I think I did actually.

I definitely go on Veterans Day to the school and kind of, you know, dress up as a guardsman and kind of explain to them about the military. That's something I do every year. Wow. How do you feel about your kids going into the military? I think if that's something they want to do, absolutely support it. I mean, I think everybody needs to have some sort of service to the community. And that's a great way to do that.

You learn a lot of good stuff. I mean, most of my leadership foundation has been because of things that I learned in the military. It's not the whole, like, yes or no, sir, no, sir, follow orders that you would think it is. It's much more nuanced. And when you're in a situation, like a commander, where, I literally can tell you because I said so or else and you know, I can name a whole list of things that I could do to people from that position, right? But you realize that that or else or because I said so is a silver bullet that you can only use sparingly once in a while or you're going to lose everybody else.

Then when you get in a situation like the company or even your family, you realize, hey, in that situation, if I can only use it once in a while, then I absolutely can only use it once in a while here. So it starts to kind of help energize you because you've got to explain to people why and you have to have them understand. And you really want them to meet kind of your ultimate intent. Yeah. And so but for them, I mean, I think if they want to go, go, go and I support it. Yeah. Why not?

Right? I don't know. I'm we're just trying to figure out what my kids are going to do because I have one that has a big mouth. I have one that wants to go into the NBA. And the other one, I don't know. I don't know about the other one. The other one is like way left field. He's really smart.

But I want to just circle back. You did talk. One thing I do want to ask you before, we wrap up. You talked about having a mentor. I want to know your take because I use, I've had different mentors throughout my career. And I think having a mentor is so important and continued leadership. But what is your take on people having a mentor and why is it so important? Yeah.

If you don't have one one, you're an idiot. You know, it. it gives you an opportunity to figure out what the answers are like on the other side. It gives you an opportunity to learn from their experiences. You know, mentors can very often introduce you to people you need to meet. They can kind of help you understand the place that you're in as you're trying to move to a new place. Right. You can't, and this is just basic leadership.

If I don't know where I am, I can't figure out where I'm going. And so from your own personal career perspective, the mentor helps with that. Yeah, it gives you introspection. which is hard. A lot of times when you're knee deep into something, it's really hard to give your own introspective perception if you're too, like if you're really inundated with all kinds of things. Yeah, I would agree. And they teach you, they teach you lessons that you otherwise wouldn't know. And sometimes, you know, you can try to explain it to somebody, but if they're not in the right place to really understand what you're saying, it doesn't, it doesn't mean as much.

And so like in a mentor-mente relationship, a lot of times, I may have heard something 100 times from other people, but it wasn't until I asked the question of the mentor because I was really looking for an answer that they would say the same thing, and then it would all click. Like it would all make sense that people have been telling me all along, you know? Yeah. I also think it's good to have a few people that you don't look up to. I mean, I've learned a lot from terrible bosses. Yeah, that's the, yeah.

I don't go ask them questions. You know what I mean? they're not my mentors per se. We know what not to do. But on the flip side, I think back to some of the times like, well, I don't really want to do it the way this person did it for sure, right? And so, you know, it's, there's, there's some lessons that can be learned there too. For sure. Yeah. I think that any experience is definitely a learning experience, no matter how, whether it's good or bad and you can take away. I mean, that's how I built my leadership from good leaders and bad leaders because you know what works versus what doesn't work. And it's just incredible how your

business really side by side is very similar to how we run our organization. with all the components, your core values, which I want to touch on core values are super important because everybody's on the same page. And if everybody doesn't resonate with the core values, then they probably shouldn't be working with you. You know, then you talked a little bit about leadership and leadership being important and that servant type of leadership. I mean, again, very aligned in any organization. And I think that's important for the viewers to know that whether you're in sales or you're not in sales or you work for a nonprofit or you work for, it doesn't matter, corporate America, that these are specific, um,

guidelines that you should have in place if you are running a large organization in order to be successful. And I think the number one, I think you would agree with me is culture. I mean, culture really, it sets the tone for everything. If you have a great culture and a thriving environment, then I'm sure you have thriving lawyers. You have happy lawyers, right? You have people that are able to execute their jobs better. Because if you go into a poor culture, because I've been in whether it's poor culture, then you're not thriving. You know, you're not thriving at all. You're just kind of, you're, you're just waddling around over there trying to figure out what's going to happen next. But all of those, all of those standards and guidelines apply in any organization and then having a mentor.

I mean, I think that is extremely important. And then the last component is continued leadership in development. I don't think there's ever, I know that I'm constantly growing. You know, nothing, I don't feel like I've made it. People have asked, you know, have you made? No, I haven't made it. I'm always learning. I'm always growing.

Do you read? Are you, are you an, I'm not an average. I'm a avid reader, but I definitely read. Yeah, I digest a lot. I'll put it that way. I don't always read everything, but I'm always absorbing new ideas.

And, you know, I might get a book and read two chapters of it and be like, okay, I know enough about what they're talking about, then I'm moving on. But I'm always looking for something else. Yeah, same thing. And I think if you're not a lifelong learner, then you're not good at leadership. Never. And you're not going to grow.

And your leadership team is not going to grow. And you will not have a thriving, successful business or organization. And that's such an important tool that people miss out on a lot is that we don't have all the answers. I think people look at us like, you guys, I don't have all the answers. I'm always, I mean, I get things from, especially these new guys that come in. I'm learning things every single day from about AI. I'm learning things, you know, from Instagram, from this, all of these things. And if you're not open to learning, then you're never going to be a successful leader.

You will never ever. And that's a big part of why organizations fail because of the ego. not wanting to learn because I don't think I'll ever get old enough to learn something new. You just don't, right, overall. But so as we wrap up, I want to know some important advice that you would give to someone that is that is running an organization, maybe somebody that's newly starting out, or maybe somebody that is kind of like in a rough place and they're not where they want to be with their organization. What kind of advice would you give?

Hmm. I think listen to your people and figure out the type of person you want to be and then actively work to be that person. I like that. Is it just one person or many persons? You try to be like. It should be many people, right? I mean, at some point, right, you've got a whole bunch of different aspects of your personality and in your life. And so.

And I understand that. that life is bigger than the organization. Yeah. I love that. So if you, I look at you and I think you're like a real life superhero. Is there anybody, anybody in your world that you look up to and like maybe on your bucket list of people

you want to meet, just somebody that you want to emulate, maybe a famous person, is there anything like anybody out there that you would strive to be more like or want to meet or maybe get a piece of advice from? And is there anybody? I don't know if I can answer that question on the spot. I have to think about it.

But I don't know. There's bits and pieces of a lot of different people. I mean, it's alive or dead. It doesn't matter, yeah. I always admired Harry Truman. Okay. You know, first of all, he was an artillery officer, so I kind of have that in common with him. But he was just a simple guy.

He couldn't figure out what he wanted to do. He got into politics. And then all of a sudden one day he wakes up and he's now the president and has decisions like the bomb and dealing with the depression and the war. And like, it just, he had a lot fall on. him at once. And he kind of took the approach, the buck stops here. So actually have that sign on my desk. Do you? Yeah. Because, you know, at the end of the day, it all begins and ends with me. I love that. I could definitely see why you were voted and your company were voted,

like the best place to work. Like, you just have that personality. You're so nice. Are you always like this easy going? I don't know. You can ask my staff. I try. I'm going to have to come there and ask them. I mean, is this really because you're just so easy, like a very easy conversation. It's like, it's definitely apparent why you are where you're at and why you've had so much prestige. And I mean, just your whole background from serving, which again, thank you for your service. Everything about you just screams BILF. You're a BILF. Did you know that? Thanks.

You're really a boss I'd like to follow. So ladies and gentlemen, if you have not heard all of the BILF insights, I don't know what you are doing, but I hope you took great notes. I just want to thank you, Jeff, for being a guest. You were incredible. You gave amazing insight, and I cannot wait to hear more about your company. I can't wait. I know you said you're not doing it right now, but I'm sure that you'll be voted again.

I'm almost positive of it. But thank you so much. I appreciate you. And anything you want to tell anybody about yourself where they can find you or they can tune in, anything? Yeah. You can go to our website, legal access for all.org. And if you know anybody that needs any legal advice or legal assistance,

there's a lot of resources there too. We can't help everybody because we're funded for the most part for that bottom kind of 20%. But the website's available to everybody. That's amazing. And we'll put the link on there. We'll put it on there so people can reach out to you. I appreciate you. I appreciate you. I appreciate you giving back everything that you've done for America, for our community, everything. And that's all I got to say. You're amazing. Thanks.