Focused - 115: Solving Interesting Problems, with Ernie Svenson

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

Ernie Svenson joins us to talk about how focus inspired his career change from lawyer to small firm consultant, the importance of getting help, and the value of journaling.

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, my friend and yours, Mr. David Sparks. Hello, David. Hey, Mike. How are you today? I am doing great. How are you? I am looking forward to recording Focus. We've got a good friend and a fellow Focus mate with us today, so I'm I think we're gonna have a great show. But before we get started, I just wanted to one more time, talk about these focus calendars, we're starting

to get emails in from listeners who've got them on their walls now who've received their calendars. They're looking great. You dear listener should have a focus calendar on your wall as well. It's just a great idea to have the full year on paper in your office or studio or wherever you get your work done. I talked last episode about how I use it as a way to say no to things because I, you know, write in highlight on the calendar, my big engagements and like production times. And it may, it just gives me a lot easier, um, basis to turn things down when I see what I've already got on my plate. Um, this year they are dry erase. So if, you know, something weird happens, not that that ever really happens, but you know, sometimes a year goes off the rails a little bit, uh, you will be able to dry erase

and make adjustments this year. So, uh, go check those out. Mike, what do you do with your calendar? What's your favorite trick with that wall calendar? Well, the calendar is split up into a couple different quadrants. They're shaded for like if you follow the 12-week year. And at the bottom, there's a key, which is intended for you to just map out the habits that you're going to do, the things that are going to move you in the right direction in executing your 12-week year. But I actually use that to reinforce my yearly themes. So I am

still thinking about mine for 2021. We're going to talk about that in a future episode. But for 2020, it was rest and relationships. And those are both separate colors that I have, these dry erase markers, even though the previous calendar wasn't dry erase. I use those. So the things that were focusing on those themes that ended up on that calendar, I use the colors to represent those things. And it kind of helps me make sure at a glance that I am staying true to my intention and my themes for the year. Yeah, I use the highlighter to block out production times for field guides. And because it wasn't dry erase last year,

it was like a contract. You know, I could not, I'd look up at that calendar and realize I need to get working because I committed this time. That's going to be one of my goals in 2020 is not to take advantage of the dry erase on some of those production times.

But either way, they're beautiful looking calendars. Monday, the week starts on Monday as they should. some of those production times. But either way, they're beautiful looking calendars. The week starts on Monday as they should. They look great. So go check them out. Get yours. It's not too late to start off 2021 with a beautiful focused wall calendar. Absolutely. Links in the show notes. Check it out. But this week we have a guest and it's a longtime friend of mine. Welcome to the show, Ernie Svensson. It's great to be here, David. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I have to admit, gang, Ernie is like one of my dear friends. Him and I first met, I don't know, like 10 years ago.

We used to be co-speakers at the American Bar Association and Ernie and I just hit it off immediately. He's been a guest, I think he's been a guest on the Mac Power Users too in the past, Ernie, if memory serves. Yep. But Ernie got his fame with the website, probably the best attorney website on the internet, Ernie the Attorney. Yeah, it was a masterstroke. Yeah, that was, that was. But Ernie the attorney is no longer Ernie the attorney.

He's now a small firm coaching consultant and very, very much connected on a lot of these topics. We talk about the show, about being focused and getting your work done and managing small business. And every time I have a conversation with Ernie, he does this thing where he sits there and patiently lets me just spin my wheels for a while. And then he comes in with this like great bit of wisdom at the end. And it always blows me away. And I wanted to share that with the audience. So Ernie, thanks for coming on the show. Oh, it's great to be here. And thanks for no pressure there. Now I have to come up with something. Yeah, no pressure at all, buddy. No pressure. But let's talk a little bit about that. I think being focused is, we talk about this idea of focus, right? And staying on target with the one thing. But I don't think we've had anybody on the

show, at least in recent memory, that realized at some point that the one thing was no longer the one thing. Yes. And you kind of went through that. I mean, you had an active and successful law practice, and now you've got this other thing. I mean, how did that happen, and how did that work? Serendipitously, without any particular plan, just kind of, you know, I mean, I knew I was unhappy with my practice at the big firm. And it was right after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.

And people here, you know, when something major changes your life, which of course now everybody can relate to this because the pandemic is worldwide. But back in 2005, when Katrina hit New Orleans, a lot of people in New Orleans are walking around going, oh my God, this is so much change. I wonder if I should be doing something completely different. And suddenly you give yourself permission to think about things that you were bottling up. And I realized I was just miserable practicing law. I mean, I kind of knew it, but I just said, you know what? I don't have time for this. If there's going to be hurricanes hitting the city, you know,

I need to figure out what I really enjoy. And I hadn't figured out that I didn't want to practice law. I just figured out that I didn't want to do it the way I was doing it at the big firm, where they didn't want to adopt technology. They didn't want to try new things. They wanted to be traditional. They didn't value anything that I valued, at least as far as technology. So I said, time will go. I'll go on it on my own. And if I can't make it on my own, I don't want to do this anymore. So I did it on my own and it worked. It didn't happen overnight though. No, no. It was a long, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's come into grips with things that, you know, like I'm a, I'm a big believer that if you really tap into what's going on inside your inner world, you know what's going on. You know what's making you happy or unhappy. You just maybe don't want to deal with it because you can't see what the path would be figure out that I didn't want to practice law. I just knew I wanted to use technology to be efficient.

I mean, that's what I cared about. I was like, I want to solve problems efficiently. And if technology will let me do that, that's what I want to do. And then, you know, I reached, I hit the wall with, you know, law, as you well know, you know, has barriers on how efficient you can be, especially if you're doing litigation, which is what I was doing. And I had been talking to lawyers about how to use technology, and they'd been hiring me, and I'd been getting hired to fly around the country to speak to groups and teach them.

And the more I did that, the more I thought, well, gee, maybe this could be a business I could do, and then I wouldn't have to deal with all the mayhem that is inherent in litigation. We talk about focus on the show and being self-aware. I think that is a big part of this, is kind of know thyself, which is a lot harder than people think. And looking at myself, I kind of went through a similar experience where law wasn't really making me happy anymore. Law wasn't really making me happy anymore. And I was a litigator for much of my career. And at one point, I had this epiphany like, oh, wait a second.

I don't like doing this anymore. And the constant negativity and the problems, it just was wearing me out. And I just changed the way I practiced well i didn't stop but i changed and i didn't realize until after i made the change how desperate i was you know it's funny how you get lost in those in those moments right it's like you can't let yourself be aware of how miserable you are you can let yourself be slightly aware or up to a certain point but you can't take the full body blow of it because unless you're going to change it, you know, that's just too much misery to deal with. I also think part of it is an identity thing where too often we tie our identity to what,

you know, brings in the paycheck and that it's inconceivable that you would change that because then you would change your own identity. And I think people, I know I struggle with that. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, like I, after I had shifted to not practicing law and I was happy about it. I remember the first time I was really happy, you know, these moments you remember. And one of them was this guy who comes up to me. He sees me in the parking lot and he's like hey

ernie you know hey listen i want to ask you a legal question i'm like i don't do that anymore you know it's like i don't have to have this conversation ever again especially with people that i never wanted to have it with in the first place which you know this guy was kind of an annoying person so that was that was like my first awareness that wow i'm really going to like this not practicing law but then at the same time as said, my identity had been wrapped up in this for 20 plus years. And it still felt weird to, even though I was teaching lawyers or helping lawyers, so I was still in the realm, it felt weird when people would say to me, well, you're practicing law. I'm like, no, I'm not a lawyer in that way anymore.

Is that a tough hurdle to get over? Because I mean, I don't have the experience with the law background like you guys do, but my understanding of it is it is a ton of work. And once you get the certification that you need, I can imagine it being a little bit difficult to essentially throw that away and start over. Yeah. I mean, I think the identity thing, at a more superficial level, it's about what you call yourself. But I think the thing that when David talks about identity, what I think of is just a habit.

You think of yourself as this person who goes to court. I mean, it's a whole thing. You think of yourself as this person who goes to court. I mean, it's a whole thing. You know, you go to court, you meet people. There's a whole thing that happens when you're practicing law. And it's more that was the part that kind of felt weird. But like I said, I was still working with lawyers. It's just, I was only working with them if I put on a presentation or if I was invited to give a talk and people always assumed I was still practicing law or at least in the beginning. And, you know, and I kind of, that's when it would feel weird.

Like, you know, well, I could, I could take a case if I wanted to, but what I know, I definitely would not take a case. So yeah, it just messes with your mind. I'm not really sure how exactly to describe it, but yeah, it was weird. So, uh, being being an attorney you've got a certain degree of focus on your clients and that business model and what you you shifted to and it was really kind of genius in hindsight is i'll just give some background to the listeners the law racket is crazy and there's a bunch of people who charge extraordinary amounts

of money to these large firms to sell snake oil. It's nuts. And we don't need to get into it for now. But Ernie instead said, I'm not going to even play that game. You decided to go into the business of taking care of small firms, which really don't have very many people helping them. business of taking care of small firms, which really don't have very many people helping them. But it's a completely different business and the focus of your life changed. How did that adjustment work? I mean, was it easy or what were your challenges? So first off, let me just be completely candid and say, I really did not know how to run a business. I mean, I went out on my own and the business I knew how to run was the business of being a lawyer. And that one, not even as well as I would, if I were going to start now, because you don't learn how to run a

business in law school. And even though I was a business lawyer, that's not, you know, I did business related stuff that doesn't make me a bit, you know, that doesn't teach me how to run a business per se. So the first thing was, I thought I could run CLE programs and I got accredited to give CLE and was able to do that. And I thought that's going to be my hook. Everybody needs CLE. So, you know, these lawyers need continuing legal education. So they'll pay me and I'll teach them technology and it'll be a wonderful world. Then I realized they don't want the training that most of them, they just want the credit. It's like to them, it's like going to the DMV. And so I had to

learn that that, you know, so I was pitching to lawyers in big firms, anyone who'd give me money, I was pitching to those people. And I learned, you know, niche marketing is it, you have to pick people that you care about. And while I had a lot of friends in big firms, because that's where I came from, I realized the only reason they were there was because the big firm would pay for them to go anywhere. And they liked me, so they'd come to my C who care. So I started learning marketing and I started niching and I was very suspicious, wary of the idea that this niching thing would work. I mean, it just seemed counterintuitive to me. Let me get this straight. I'm going to signal to fewer people that I do this work and I'm going to tell them that I only do it for them essentially. And somehow this is going to work out better for me. You know, I couldn't process that that would be true, but you know, that is how marketing

works. So, you know, I started to learn marketing and I started to learn that I actually enjoyed that work with the smaller people. So, you know, smaller firms. So it was this process of just kind of Mr. Magoo-ing my way, you know, toward something that worked better for me. That's the case for all of us, man. Yes, right, right.

Yeah, but start a new business, but limit your market to a very small niche of people, and the people who historically don't want to pay for anything. Right, right, yeah. Jump out of plane, see if parachute works. Yeah. You know, jump out of plane, see if parachute works. Yeah. That's interesting because I just got done reading a book by Seth Godin called The Practice. And it seems like a lot of the stuff Seth recommends is kind of contrary to a lot of what you hear marketing-wise in The Practice he's talking about. You're going to write to somebody, not everybody. There's going to be people who hate you and that's okay. And a lot of the advice

that he gave as I was reading that book, I'm thinking this is kind of contrary to general SEO strategy and getting noticed by as many people as possible. Did you have a moment when you were going through this stuff like, well, okay, maybe that works for Seth, but I don't know how this is going to work for me. Or did it just kind of click and you've just worked the process ever since? Yeah, no, Seth Godin definitely resonated with me early on. So when I, when I realized that, you know, my initial success was based completely, my initial success for all this was based on, as David said, I had a website called Ernie the Attorney. And that was because there was a magistrate in federal court who used to call me that when I started blogging and apparently was the fifth lawyer to start a blog.

I didn't know what to call it, but I knew I had to change the name from Ernest Fenson's radio weblog so that I didn't stick out like a sore thumb. And so their name, Ernie, the attorney popped in my head and I named it that and then got invited by the ABA to speak. And everybody thought I was a marketing expert when I wasn't. Well, when I went into the business of helping lawyers, that's when I realized I wasn't going to make it because I started the Fifth Lawyer Weblog. I didn't know marketing. I realized that. So I started studying people like Seth Godin that I liked because he talks about marketing as something that, you know, it made sense to me. He's not telling you try to, you know, force yourself on people that don't care. He's very thoughtful and philosophical and he's just a good person. His values are great. But he doesn't tell you, or at least he didn't when I started,

how to connect those dots at the ground floor. So that's when I had to kind of go back to Amazon and scout around and I found people like Dan Kennedy and all these other direct response marketing people. And I treated it like a research project. Back when I was working for the judge, when I was doing research as a young lawyer, where you go into this wilderness of lots of different case law that you've never worked with before, and you try to figure out what the law is, you know, in consensus, in a consensus way.

And you just look at all the cases until you realize you're coming across the same information over and over again. And you go, well, if all these different courts say that this is what the law is, then I guess this is what the law is. And it was the same process for marketing. It's like all these different people were saying, you know, focus, identify an ideal client, speak only to that client, give them stuff for free, follow up with email, you know, all that stuff. And they were saying the same thing. And I thought, oh, well, I guess this is what you should probably be doing. And I got that more from that research project than from Seth Godin. I think since then he's written a book called This Is Marketing, which is a little more practical. But when I was checking it out, he hadn't yet crossed into the nitty gritty. I remember when I left my firm and went out on my own before you had started this business, you gave me essential advice. I mean, Ernie was one of the people that I talked to

probably more than Ernie would have preferred as I was making them. I was happy. See, when people like you are going to do something like what you were doing, I love those moments because I knew you were going to be happier being your own boss. And I'm like, what can I do to convince you to be your own boss as a lawyer? Why would you want to do it? I mean, it's miserable enough being a lawyer. Why would you want to do it for somebody else? Yeah. And one of the key bits of advice you gave me at the time, maybe it was from Seth Godin, but as I was building my website, you said, make the website to attract the clients you would like to have and repel the clients you wouldn't like to have. And that is probably the best advice I got about building a website from anybody. Yeah. Well, that was one of those things

I learned from a lot of different people. But I remember Dan Kennedy being the first one who said this, like he said, you know, you're going to piss people off if you do this right, just because when you stand for something, there will be people who don't like you standing for that. And Seth Godin would probably agree, although Seth Godin is less confrontational. But Dan Kennedy said that, and he also said, if you're not pissing off at least two or three people by 12 o'clock every day, you're not doing it right. And he's a little stark, but the concept is you can't be afraid to be who you are and to be the champion for the people you care about. And, you know, at first that felt weird to me, but the more I've thought about it, I've realized like, yeah, when you tell

people what you care about and what you find problematic, that resonates. I mean, in my case, for example, who do I stand against? Well, I hate to say it, but I stand against bar associations. And I had to wrangle with whether I would say that out loud, because I get that there are people in bar association, most of them are trying to do the right thing, but it's a bureaucracy and it's not helping solo and small firm lawyers in the way that it once did. And that pisses me off. And it also breaks my heart. So if I just try to wash that over, like, well, they're trying hard and they do the best they can, that's not going to resonate with the people I really try to help. And as soon

as I said that in emails, like, look, these people are well-meaning, they're well-intentioned, but they're clueless about technology. People would pipe up, thank God you said that. I've been waiting for somebody to say that. So people are waiting for you to say what's real, what they know is real. And those are the people you're going to connect with. And I don't know, that's the best advice I can give people. It feels weird at first when you do it, because you feel like, well, I don't want to say anything negative about people, but you're not saying anything negative. You're saying what you believe. Yeah, I definitely like the focus aspect of marketing. And it's cool to hear your experience with it because like I said, I think the traditional advice on it seems to be very contrary.

In addition to being true to yourself and saying the things that are in alignment with your values, who you really are, in an effort to attract the people you want to work with and disenfranchise the people you don't want to work with. Any other quick tips you would share around focused marketing? Because I know I haven't known you as long as David has, but I have learned quite a bit from you in this area. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think what it comes down to really, if you want to make your life easier and do the, and do what feels more like the right thing, then when you're vulnerable about things, you know, and when you don't try to pretend, you know, more than, you know, or when you don't try to, you know, call it standing on your tippy toes. Like, you know, kids when they're young, try to stand on their tippy toes to pretend that they're taller, right? And that's normal, right? It comes at an early age. We want to seem to be more than we are. And as we get older, we have more sophisticated techniques for doing this. But in reality, if you just admit you don't know things that, you know, that's what makes people connect to you. Now, again, who's going to connect to you? Well, the people that, you know, that's what makes people connect to you. Now, again, who's going to connect to you? Well, the people that, that, that makes sense for, you know, I mean, you're going to chase

away the more you are who you are and you're more open, you are invulnerable and admit you don't know things when you don't know them, the more you're going to get the kind of people that you would like to have, have a conversation with. And the less you're going to deal with people who ultimately y'all going to rub each other the wrong way. And so, you're going to deal with people who ultimately, you're all going to rub each other the wrong way. And so, I mean, that's kind of, that's been more natural for me to do that, I guess, just how I grew up. But I found that as I became more intentional about marketing and studying the templates and the, you know, the frameworks and all that stuff that they tell you to study, the less I was myself, because I'm so busy trying. It's almost like if you're a musician, you know,

and you're trying to play the exact notes in the exact way that they're supposed to be played, you lose all the feeling. And, you know, I remember when Marcellus, if we want to talk about music, he's a, you know, he's a New Orleans trumpeter, well-known Marcellus family. And he's the head of Lincoln Center and he's teaching, you know, he's a New Orleans trumpeter, well-known Marcellus family. And he, he's the head of Lincoln center and he's teaching these kids, high school kids how to play an instrument. And this one fellow is playing something and, and, and Witten says to him, listen, you know,

what you need to do is just stop worrying about making mistakes. Like just put yourself into it and feel it. And the guy's like, well, we're not supposed to make mistakes. Right. And he says, no, you're going to make mistakes. That's fine. He goes, look, you know, I played a thing the other day at Lincoln Center and some music critic came up to me afterwards and said, hey, you know, I heard on that sonata, you know, you made a mistake in the fifth movement or something. He goes, yeah, well, that's the difference between you and me. Wynton says, you heard it. I felt it. So it's, you know, you can't divorce yourself from feelings. And if you just, if you just tell people things that are real to you and admit when you don't know something, you're going to connect to a lot more people. And that is, you don't have to pay for that.

That's not SEO. That's just, you just be who you are. And I think related to that is the, on the topic of focus is that it's a lot easier to focus in your wheelhouse than outside of it yep exactly this episode of focused is brought to you by express vpn high speed secure and anonymous vpn service get three extra months free just go to express vpn.com focused so take a minute to think about how you chose which internet service provider to use. The sad thing is most of us have very little choice because ISPs have a lot of control in the regions they serve. They can then use this control to take advantage of customers with data caps, streaming throttles, and the list goes on. But worst of all, many ISPs log your internet activity

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Well, I think, Ernie, one of the things that I feel like is a big challenge for staying focused is just having enough time to work on the things that are most important to you and finding ways to, you know, get rid of the other stuff and, or at least get help with it or something. And this is another thing where I consider you one of my teachers, because it seems like every time I talk to you at some point in the conversation, you say, oh yeah, I have this person that does that for me. And you're just so much more open to that idea than for whatever reason I am. How did you get there? Wow. Well, I feel like I have a long way to go. I mean, I feel like I have all the same barriers, resistances, everything that everybody else has.

I have it. Like starting with the, well, I already know how to do this, and it's just easier has, I have it. Starting with the, well, I already know how to do this, and it's just easier for me to do it, and I'll go ahead and do it, instead of trying to find somebody to do it, and then their standards aren't up to it, and it'll be a disappointment. So I have a million reasons why I won't give something to somebody else. So I have to make myself do it. And it's really just been by listening to people who are doing this at a high level, like Michael Hyatt, whom I know you have had on the show. He's been a big guiding force for me. I mean, there's a guy who, to me, he ran a traditional

business and knew all the stuff that you do in a traditional business with regular employees. And then he started an online business, essentially. So when he talks about the importance of delegation and then says, you know, here's how you do it and here's what you have to overcome, I'm paying attention because I know he struggled with this too, except he succeeded. So whatever he says to do, I'm just like, well, if it feels weird, that's just tough. I'm going to do it. it feels weird, that's just tough. I'm going to do it. There's a distinction here, I think, to be made between getting help, which is kind of like, I don't know how to do this thing and I need someone who can help me create this thing in my head that I don't know how to make on my own. And delegation, which is maybe that, but also I know how to do this and overcoming the limiting belief that you're the best person to be doing that thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that's what Michael Hyatt, if you listen to him talk about it, he'll say that like he'll give examples of things that he, you know, he did that he enjoyed doing, like writing. You know, he enjoyed writing his blog post. He had it down to a science. He could knock it out. And then he said, well, you know, is this the best use of my time? I do enjoy it, but there are other things that I probably should be doing that are, you know, only I can do.

And so I will do those. And he said, as he learned to let go of that and let other people do it, he found that they got good at it or they already were good at it. And they really enjoyed it. That's what they lived for. Whereas for him, it was something he enjoyed, but not his, you know, thing that he loved the most. And that clicked for me when I heard that.

I thought, oh, this is more than just me not letting go of it for myself. It's also me not giving somebody the opportunity to do what they really, really enjoy. And so why wouldn't I do that? Like that's what division of labor is all about. It's knowledge work, division of labor. So just update Adam Smith and let her rip. Now, you actually taught me quite a bit about delegation, and you had a couple of key questions that you asked. Do you want to go through these? And kind of related to that, what is the thing that you've identified as only you can do?

Yeah. Well, again, this is the kind of thing that Michael Hyatt would talk about, his mentor Dan Sullivan talks about. The people who really do this well talk about that what you're trying to do, or you should be trying to do because you'll be happier if you accomplish this, is if you can stay in your genius zone. You know, like a genius zone is defined as there are things that you do that to you seem natural. Like you don't have a, it's not a big deal for you to do these things as much as it is for other people. And other people will look at you doing these things and go, my God, how are you able to do that? Like that just seems like such a big deal, right?

So if you can figure out those things that you just don't think are a big deal, and this is why a lot of this is all mental, right? You have to really get in and analyze, self-reflect, until you understand what you're overlooking, what you're not sufficiently giving value to. And so when you're doing the thing that you love doing and people will pay you for that, you're helping them.

You're loving what you do. You're going to be happier. They're going to be happy. It's all going to be better. But if you're doing something you kind of really like doing as much, but you're just doing it because you think you have to, then that's when you start to drift away from true north, right? And most people never found true north because either they don't think that they can do that, you know, they don't think they're allowed to do the things they most want to do, or they don't think they can or whatever, you know, mental barriers they have going on. But you can do whatever you want to do. Now, you know, mental barriers they have going on, but you can do

whatever you want to do. Now you can't do it overnight. You can't switch from one thing to the other overnight. I mean, I couldn't have gone from practicing law in a big firm to doing what I'm doing now in one move that, you know, I can look back and tell you that clearly wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't even have thought it could have happened. I had to move to one thing to see the next thing, to see the next thing. So, but the key is not doing things that you can't stand. So that's step one. Is there are things you don't like doing? Stop doing, you know, it's the old joke, doc, it really hurts when I do this, you know, with my arm. It's like, well, then don't do that with your arm. You know, whatever you don't like doing, stop doing it. Give it to somebody else. you don't like doing, stop doing it. Give it to somebody else. The pain is a big indication of something that you shouldn't necessarily be doing. I don't think it's a 100% accurate

indicator though. Sometimes there's things that you just have to go through that are painful as you are growing to the point where you don't have to maybe do those things anymore. But for a season, you got to push through and suck it up and do those things. I'm kind of curious how this perspective that you picked up from Michael Hyatt and others assisted you on your journey, because my exposure to this sort of stuff has kind of been through the lens of making yourself more efficient. But it sounds like maybe this had a part to play in you finding your true north. Is that accurate? Yeah, it is. I think you kind of grope your way toward, you know, it's like you don't have vision. It's not like you're groping toward something and it's foggy and then you latch onto it and you're like, wait, this feels like more like what I want to do. And then I'm making it, I'm making a visual metaphor, but that

it is more like that. Like, so for example, I think what I like doing the most, which I would never have known that this is what I like doing. I would never have said this, even if I had a clue is what I like doing is I like solving interesting problems, but they have to be a certain kind of interesting problem. So to me, technology is an interesting problem and that's okay. That's good. That's one level away from what I like doing most, which is figuring out, helping people figure out how to do something they didn't think they could do. That's it right there. When I see like, oh, wait, no, you could totally do that. And I see a lot of people have self-limiting beliefs. And I guess I didn't grow up that way. Like I grew up being told basically like, just try it, jump, see what happens. And speaking of

jumping, I broke my arm three times as a kid. So that's an appropriate metaphor. Like things are going to go wrong when you do this, but you learn, right? And I agree with you. You know, sometimes you have to push through and you learn, but you're trying to learn the things you need to learn so that you can do what you most want to do. Some people want to dance and they get pleasure from that. Some people like cooking and, you know, but whatever it is that you really, really like doing, you, the universe has given you permission a long time ago to do those things. And that's actually going to be your, that's your path. That's your hero's journey.

Like, how can you find the way to do the thing that you really want to do? Because you're going to help more people, you know, everything's going to align better for you if you figure that out. The problem is there's a lot of forces conspiring against you. Yeah, and turning that around, I think the important statement you made there is that turning around that isn't like a switch. It's not like it's like, okay, well, tomorrow everything changes. It just doesn't happen that way. No, it doesn't. And I don't know that it's happened that way for anybody. I mean, like, since I've started paying attention to this, I'll pay attention to people talking about this. And they never say, oh, I figured it out immediately. Or maybe if they figured it out as a young child, it may feel like that to them.

Tiger Woods, I'm sure, felt like, yeah, okay, I play golf. My dad taught me to play golf. But that's rare. That's very unusual that somebody would know exactly what they want to do early on or ever. You have to figure it out. It's hard. I think another mistake people make on this is they think that that other thing is the destination and it just isn't like when you decided that practicing law wasn't the thing

for you and you decided continuing education, I'm going to be the world's greatest continuing education. I remember you told me on the phone, I'm going to make continuing education videos that don't look like hostage videos. It's like, that's the thing. And that was the thing, but now it's no longer the thing. Oh my God, that is so not the thing. That is like seven steps away. And it's funny to hear you say that because I remember now saying that to people and thinking, this is it. This is the holy grail. I'm going to make CLE videos and I'm going to be happy and the world's going to be great. So on that topic, since this is seven steps ago, where you are right now, do you consider this to be maybe not the end of the journey, but like a plateau, a rest stop? You're good here for a while, or you constantly looking for the the next step in this and looking for ways to iterate on what you're currently doing no i'm i know this is it i know what it's

just a question of how do i execute and and tweaking some of it you know i mean like i can i could give live presentations i can give webinars, I can do, you know, online teaching, but whatever the medium is and the method in the end, I'm trying to help human beings figure out how to do something that's going to make them happier. And, you know, I coach lawyers and, um, you know, the lawyers I coach in most cases are trying to figure out how to be better lawyers, but we're figuring out how to keep doing what they're doing, but in a better way, sometimes with technology, sometimes better marketing, whatever. But, you know, I was talking to somebody yesterday,

he's a young lawyer and he does litigation. And we were talking about his strategy and negotiation. And I was telling him, look, you know, this is, you're just going to have to be, you can't be so nice to people. Like you just have to, you have to be zealous for your clients. And I was telling him about this and it came out that he didn't really want to be a litigator. You know, he just, he's like, he finally started to admit it. And I said, well, you don't have to be like, you can be either a transactional lawyer or you don't have to be a lawyer at all, but you can take these skills you have of wanting to help people and figuring out negotiation and other things and do it in a way that doesn't make you miserable.

You're allowed. You have permission to do that. You mentioned this is it, and I'm going to put you on the spot, but how do you know this is it? What is a clue to you that you have arrived at your destination? that you have arrived at your destination? Well, I've been doing a lot of journaling over the past 10 years, and I've been doing a lot of meditation and reflection. And if I were to go look at those journals

when I first started doing them, they're a clear archeological record of throwing a lot of things, a lot of madman ideas, which I can see how they got me to where I am now. But now when I journal and I talk about things, it's much clearer. I just know. I don't know how to say it other than it didn't happen overnight, but I helped myself by recording my thoughts along the way. I think journaling is a really important thing to do for a lot of reasons. You know, just like meditation.

If you do it and if you've never done it, at first it feels weird. It's like, well, what am I going to talk about? The weather? Well, let's keep it safe. Let's just talk about some superficial stuff. And then you start to realize like, well, you know, maybe I should share my feelings. Share them with who? With yourself. But you know, nevertheless, when you reread this stuff, it looks, you know, infantile or adolescent. What was it? I think Anne Frank said,

paper is more patient than people, something like that. That's a great line. Yes, exactly. The, you know, when you said this is it, my eyebrows went up too. Because I feel like that's a difficult statement to defend. I think about it all the time too. Because I've said on this show quite often that you never arrive. This is all a journey and you never know where it's going to be. This is it until this is no longer it.

But then I look at my life and the way it has evolved over the last 20 years to where i've got this balance of i have this different kind of law practice than the one i used to have one which i enjoy and which i feel like i could do until they put me in a box and um and the max barkey is the same way i love making field guys i love making podcasts and the stuff i do gives me meaning and makes me jump out of bed. So why wouldn't I say this is it, but you just never know when things will change. It's that level of certainty that you have that is impressive.

Well, I mean, it is because I really do think that anything, so I, for example, I could say, well, you know, I want to stop teaching lawyers. I want to write a novel because, you know, part of me wants to be, I mean say, well, I want to stop teaching lawyers. I want to write a novel. Because part of me wants to be, I mean, I write a lot and I could see that as being a thing I might want to do. But if I wanted to do that, and I might, it would only be because I think, well, that's a way to help people understand things in a different way. a way to help people understand things in a different way, right? Like, I think the trick of getting people to believe that they can do things that they don't think they can do is you have to go about it often in an indirect way, right? You can't just tell people, here's a bunch of information, and if you just put this all together like a recipe, voila, you will have accomplished something amazing. I think most of the amazing things people have to accomplish, there are internal struggles, there are confidence battles,

there's blind spots, there's cognitive glitches. There's a lot of different things people have to overcome. And I think stories, for example, are one way that that happens. You can tell people a story and unconsciously they can process the information and figure things out that they wouldn't figure out if you told them directly. That's why stories are so popular. That's why we love stories. So I could do it through a story, but I know that anything I ever do from now on is only going to be because I do like helping people figure out how to do things they didn't think they could do. I like that. I think it's really important too that even if it isn't the last stage on your journey, that you approach it like it is. It sounds like you've got your core values there. You want to help people do things they didn't

think they could do. And so whatever you're doing in the moment, if you can authentically believe that this is the best manifestation of those values, you're going to bring a higher degree of excellence to your work. Also helps you be more present, kind of reminds me of the Christopher Robin movie, which I watched with my kids the other day, where Winnie the Pooh asked Christopher Robin, what day is it today? Christopher Robin says, it's today. And Pooh goes, oh good, that's my favorite. I love Winnie the Pooh. Oh, my God.

Yeah. That's a great movie. But, you know, it's interesting how often we talk to guests and so much of the motivation for what they do. And, you know, by and large, they're all successful people like Ernie. Comes down to, you know, I do what I do because I find this is a way to help people. And I feel the same way. I mean, I feel like the stuff I do as a lawyer and as Max Parkey, at the end of the day, I just want to help people. I want their lives to be a little better. I want the listener of this podcast to take one little nugget away that may make a difference in their life. And I feel like

that's a fundamental motivation common to most people who are happy with what they're doing. And maybe that's a way to barometer check yourself. I mean, do you feel like you're helping people with what you're doing? Maybe that is an underlying question you need to ask. Yeah, it's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Like the highest one is self-actualization, but it's usually self-actualization in the way that you're talking about. Like I've, you know, when people have, I mean, and that's the hero's journey, right? Again, you know, Star Wars is a classic hero's journey story.

You're trying to meet a big challenge or you're trying to skateboard them, whatever starts you on the journey. But in the end, you've become a different person. You've learned a valuable thing. And then you want to teach that valuable thing to other people who want to learn it as well. It's just natural. I mean, like, you know, we're all parents. We know what it was like, you know, your child is born, doesn't come with an instruction manual, but you know what you want to do is help that child learn things you didn't learn, be better, you know, improve. That's, yeah, it's natural for us as humans, I think, right? This episode of Focused is brought to you by Woven,

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That's woven.com, W-O-V-E-N. Our thanks to Woven for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. All right, in the last segment, Ernie, you had talked about journaling being a key piece to helping you identify what your big thing is. I know you've been experimenting with a form of journaling called Morning Pages. You mind sharing with us a little bit about what that is and what your experience with it has been? Sure. So Morning Pages is a term associated with Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way. And she is somebody who was a screenwriter, is a screen associated with Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way. And she is somebody who was a screenwriter,

is a screenwriter, maybe still famously married, Martin Scorsese. I think they got divorced, but she ran workshops and teaches people how, first the workshops were about how to write. Then the workshops became broader and it was more about how to be creative. And then her co-presenter

said, why don't you just make this into a book? And so she made it into a book. It's been out for 25 years, all kinds of famous people, Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame and Brian Koppelman of Billions fame and all kinds of other writers swear that this is the thing that changed their life. And so I was curious, like Tim Ferriss also talks about it, and a lot of the people he has on talk about how they do it. So I was curious to try it, and I tried it. I bought the book and did it. I ended my first 12-week run with this right before the pandemic started, and then I've decided to start it again, and I've been doing it again for like 25 days. decided to start it again. And I've been doing it again for like 25 days. And what I've discovered is that I think why this is valuable is it helps you overcome something that you also run into when

you do meditation and when you try to prove yourself in any way. And that is that there's some kind of resistance that we seem to have, all of us. This seems to be a universal condition with humans where even when we're trying to do something, there's something that gets in the way and it derails us and it's something internal. And Steven Pressfield wrote a book called The War of Art that's highly recommend. He calls it the resistance and shrinks call it the resistance. It is the resistance. There's an internal resistance that we have. There's the critical voice. You can call it that. And whatever it is, it wears you down. It prevents you from moving forward. And so the trick with the three pages is that all you're doing is you sit down and you write

longhand and just keep the pen moving across the page or pencil if you want to use a pencil. hand and just keep the pen moving across the page or a pencil if you want to use a pencil. And when you're done, you can shred it or do whatever you want. You're not supposed to show these to anybody else because if you start thinking that you're performing for somebody else, well, then the resistance becomes even stronger. You don't allow yourself to see and learn things that your subconscious will present to you if you just let it spit stuff out. And if you do this, you'll see things, you know, your ideas will come out as they do in meditation, except in meditation, they disappear quickly, whereas you're writing them down. So they're not going to go away.

And you're going to have a record of them. And there's just something magical about doing this. I can't describe it except that it works. So what do you do with your pages then? You mentioned you can shred them, you can keep them, and it sounds like you're getting a lot from this. So are these ideas that you capture somewhere else and you flesh out and they end up becoming the emails that you send and stuff like that? Yeah, they can. I mean, like when I first did it, they were more chaotic. So the first round was just, you know, kind of mayhem, but I say I saved them all because I thought maybe I'll want to go back and look at them. Um, and then the next round, the one I've just started, these have come out much more

coherently and they seem to just kind of be around a topic and a couple of them. Yeah. I could look at them and say, oh, okay, I can see where to use that idea. So I think the more you do it, maybe you start to get things that are more practical or whatever. But you have to clear out the fuzz first. And I think that's kind of true of writing in general. I think that's kind of, well, we're all creativity. That's how creativity works.

And I say this, you know, I play guitar, I play piano a little bit, I've written songs, I've tried to write songs, I've written songs without trying to write them, and I understand the theory behind music and I listen whenever people are talking about how they create things. and by the way there's a really if you want to see this there's a really great podcast called sonic song exploder but it also has uh a netflix version where they're up to like three or four different people and they you get to see how people create stuff who do this you know like at a high level and it's mayhem in the beginning it's not you know they don't sit around go let's we've written it all out it's it's just's just, it's just, they're trying stuff, but they get through that trying stuff part way faster because they've learned by doing this. That's just what you do. Like it's, you're going to have a crummy first draft, um, just get through the crummy first draft and take what you can out of that and move to the next level. So that's what creativity is. And I think

everybody's creative, but also everyone's blocked in some way. And the three pages is a way to minimize or if you need to overcome the blocking. is even more of a direct analogy to meditation because there is that voice in you. I mean, there's different voices that we all carry. I mean, there's the one that's the loudest, which is the liar and the jerk. And then there's the one inside that speaks the truth, which you never, it's very hard to connect with that person. You know?

Yeah. And there is something about writing on a page. And the thing about morning pages that you didn't say that I think is important is you don't go into it with an agenda. You don't say today, I'm going to write about my relationship with Mark, you know? No, no, no. Whatever the first thought is, whatever the first thought is, if you don't have one, is what you start with. And I've started with things like, well, I don't even know what to say right now, but I'm just going to write the sentence until I think it's something to say. And sure enough, something pops in your head and then you start talking about something meaningful.

Yeah. But it is really an interesting thing. And I know a lot of people that really rely on it. It's religion to them to wake up every morning and spend 20, 30 minutes getting those pages written. Yeah. It's becoming religion for me because, I don't know, meditation is great, but this feels more practical. Like I have something that I can work with from this. And it seems to be progressing more. Now, who knows? That could just be because I'd meditated for so long and

done the wacky journaling for so long and maybe i would have you know maybe i wouldn't have experienced that feeling as quickly this time if i hadn't done all that prep work but it definitely feels more useful and i i do look forward to it because i always come away going wow like that's a cool idea there i hadn't thought of that i guess I wouldn't have thought of it unless I wrote it down. I mean, so much of everything we talked about today, I feel like is aimed at getting through to that person inside of you, that true you, and letting that person free. And whether you get there through meditation or morning pages or making slow, steady progress, I mean, there's probably all of the above, but that's the goal. I mean. Yeah. I'll give, so I'll give you an example of something,

and I don't know if this would make sense to anybody. And I, when I, when I thought about this, I described it to my wife, Donna, and she said, oh yeah, that, and I, but before I started, I said, I cannot prove this to anybody. I'm just telling you because this is something that came up in Morning Pages that I realized. And it was that I realized that feelings, your feelings, matter. And I know everybody says, yeah, of course they matter. But to rational people, and more so men, I think, than women, we tend to think, yeah, yeah, I got feelings. But I don't want to let them get in the way of this logic thing that I'm doing. And then you realize if you cut yourself

off from your feelings, you are eliminating a huge swath of your ability to understand things in an intuitive way, right? And feelings are primary. You learn to feel before you learn to think. So when you cut that off, because whatever reason, then it debilitates your instincts, right? And so I was reflecting on how a lot of the big mistakes I've made in my life were because I did what I thought I was supposed to do, but it ran against something I felt. something I felt. I knew what the truth was. And I look back and go, I knew what the truth was. I knew what was real for me. Why did I do that? It was because I operated completely on logic. And that to me was a huge insight. And I don't know if that makes any sense to anybody, but I know that if you're operating only off of the logic engine and not the feeling engine, you need to harmonize them. And I think a lot of the mistakes people make and the reason why people don't achieve the things that they think they can achieve is probably in many cases due to that. And that I just figured out not too long ago,

writing that down in my morning pages. Well, you're speaking to me when you share that, because I think I can identify with that, where I felt that I primarily shouldn't do something, and then I rationalize my way into doing it, and then it doesn't go well, and then I look back on it, and I should have just gone with my gut there, for lack of a better term. And you're right that I specifically, I guess, try to downplay that stuff. I don't know why. I don't know who convinced me that emotions were a sign of weakness. But if I'm honest with myself, that's kind of how I act sometimes.

I think that's what we get. I think society kind of tells us that, especially men more so than women. Cause I mean, and you know, looking back on growing up, I like, I thought the same thing. I was like, well, why did I get this idea? It's like, well, because that's kind of the idea you get more so being, you know, generalizing. But I think for men, that's more what you get. Like, yeah, your feelings are good, but really you need to be logical and you do need to be logical. I'm not

saying you shouldn't be logical. I'm saying that if, if you have a strong feeling, go look at what that feeling is pointing you towards and use your logic, but don't use logic to automatically override feelings, especially strong ones, because they're probably trying to tell you something important. I know in my experience, like my dad died shortly before I got married. And we had the conversation, like, you're going to be a man, you're going to support a family, that's your job. You know, nothing else is important once you say yes. You know, my dad and I had a discussion about those vows. important once you say yes, you know, my dad and I had a discussion about those vows.

And I know for decades, that conversation drove me to not necessarily listen to the inner voice, you know? And in hindsight, you know, I'm in my 50s as I kind of, I started waking up in my early 40s, but I mean, I'm in my fifties now and it's just like, man, I, I really did let, and I don't begrudge my father. He was absolutely right with what he said, but my execution wasn't, wasn't great. You know? And, um, I do feel like that, you know, learning that lesson early in life can serve you well. Too many of us learned it late. Yeah. And a lot of times, like with something like the example you just gave, you have to be careful because you can misinterpret what might have really been said, right? Like, I mean, I don't know how you thought of it, but, you know, I'm kind of reflecting on how I might have thought of it myself. And I think, you know, it'd be easy to think the message there is, you know, sacrifice everything for your family, when that might not exactly be the message. The message might be, don't get distracted and chase a rainbow

and leave your family stranded. Like, do what your family needs to do, but also, you know, honor your own true self as well. That might be in there, right? Or he might just not have said it in a way you might have picked up on that. So like a lot of these things that we internalize as truths, they're not exactly true in the way that the person who imparted that information meant, right? There's all kinds of examples of this kind of thing where people, you know, as young kids hear something and then they slavishly follow this thing that they thought somebody said or meant, and maybe they did mean it. Okay, but that's a whole different ballgame.

But whatever it is, if you're not following the path that feels the best for you, and in following that path, you're actually trying to help people, but you're not just trying to make money and be greedy, but you're following your path because it has heart. If you're not doing that, something's dying inside of you. You know what I mean? Like something bad's going on inside if you're not doing that. Well, I mean, the moment of revelation for me was I realized I, for a moment, I saw what kind of person I was when I came home from work.

And it wasn't the example I wanted to set for my children. And I realized what dad said was your number one job is to take care of your family. Well, you're not doing it. Maybe you're making enough money, but you're not doing what he told you to do. And it's like that was the switch. And then I started making small changes, and I'm in a much different place now. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's hard to figure this stuff out. You know, you got to pay attention. Keep looking. Well, Ernie, I, uh, I, you know, every time we talk, we have these, these, uh, deep conversations, but I wanted to share what you have to say with the audience. Uh, the, the main website is still Ernie, the attorney. If you are a small firm dot net, if you're a small firm attorney,

you should go check it out because Ernie has a lot to share, but you also, I mean, you do podcasts and, and I just, I still read the blog. I feel like a lot of the stuff you write is helpful to anybody in any business or, or struggling with these things. We are going to talk today on Deep Focus about Ernie's experience with a mastermind group. One that just happens to also include Mike and myself. So that's going to be fun today.

We're going to talk about that. All right. And we want to thank our sponsors for this week, ExpressVPN and Woven. And we'll see you in a couple of weeks.