Founder's Story - Growing Up Poor to Co-Founding Successful Law Firm | Ep. 27 with Lawyer Christina Geraci

Episode Date: July 12, 2020

Christina grew up in LA and always knew she was destined to be successful. Late teenage years she found herself the lead singer of a punk band and one of the few females to do so. She realized she wanted to puruse something that made a difference in... --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ibhshow/supportOur Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Inspired by Her, the podcast that will give you the inspiration, motivation, and tips for success from some of the top executives, CEOs, and influencers from around the globe. With your host, serial entrepreneur, and named one of the most influential Filipina in, this is Kate Hancock and I have here my very special guest, Christina Gerassi. Hi Christina. Hello, hi. How are you? I'm very well. Christina is a lawyer. She's a founding shareholder at Gerassi Law Firm. Christina, for anyone who didn't know you can please introduce yourself uh so i'm christina jurassic i uh i as kate said i we i founded um co-founded jurassic law firm in 2007 and we started out as a law firm and We've now become a multifaceted firm.

We have a media division that hosts trade shows, conferences. We have an in-house publication and magazine. We have a consulting division. We actually designed a platform for our clients, which are private money lenders and non-traditional, non-conventional lenders to, it's really a deal-making site. So that's kind of in a nutshell. But I also have a property development company and I have a portfolio of properties. I previously owned a last studio that was an epic fail. We can talk a lot

about that. We can talk more about that. Christina, everyone, I met her in Greece through the Women of EO. That was, what, four years ago? Yeah. Then we went to Napa together.

You're kind enough to get me a seat of the, what is that company? It's not the. It's Jet Suite. Yes, yes. Yeah. It's fun. Isn't it fun? That was a lot of fun.

And then we went to the Philippines together. She was at my wedding and shared. I'm very honored to be in your beautiful wedding. We shared a room. We still laugh about it, right? Yes. Your wedding night, because Kate had brought, oh my God, Kate had brought a whole, you know, brought her village with her from the United States, and so we, we, we show up in the Philippines, and there, you expected, because you have, you have two hotels, one with four rooms, and then one with

ten rooms, and you had expected that you were still building the ten-room hotel and there was no windows there was two of the ten semi completed oh it was so funny so we had to get extra hotel rooms on the island and some of us ended up sharing the room I think on your wedding night I refused to sleep in your room and I shared a room with another girlfriend of ours and her brother. And I think the room was probably the about 100 feet. Yes. Yeah. So hey, we made it work. But at the same time, we had so much fun. But I was I still remember my my face of like, how shocked I am when the rooms are not done and we're like oh my god where I'm gonna put everyone did you ever see that that movie um it was oh it's uh it's it's

not coming to mind but it was uh uh that actor that played in Beetlejuice and he was running a car factory and they had a certain quota to match the Japanese car company that was acquiring them. And so they're walking in the lot and they're pretending to, to clean a window that isn't, it doesn't exist. It's like, that's what I felt like I was in that movie with you. You were going to inspect the property. All your workers were like, Oh no.

I know. I know. I think the crazy thing, um, you know, the guy that I was working with, he really promised that everything will be done in 30 days. I said, okay, are you sure it's going to be done up to this day? He said, it's going to be done, but you know what? That's part of a great story. We had a blast and it's definitely something that I learned so much from that experience well it was so it was so neat to land like on your island because remember we spent a few days in Manila and uh your connections had gotten us into the Mumbai palace and it was it was a phenomenal experience and then we we go to your, you know, leaving, you know, Manila, which is a big city.

It's like similar. It's crazy like L.A. to go to this beautiful tropical island. And when we landed, they had a parade for you. No, for all of you. The airport lady said, welcome, Kate and Dan and guests. And it was just so special. I had like a little marching band. I'm like, wow, I knew you were a big deal.

I didn't know you were this big. It's so loving there. People were just so kind. Yeah, we had a very kind. That was an amazing experience that I can't wait for us to do it again. Very soon. Yeah, when this quarantine is lifted.

All right, Christina. I have to ask you, where did you grow up? You grew up in LA. Tell me. So I was born in Whittier and predominantly born and raised in Whittier and Pico Rivera. I, my parents, my parents briefly bought a house when they were married. They bought, they bought a house in San Gabriel and then they bought a house when they were married they bought they bought a house in san gabriel and then they bought a house they had a house built out in ontario when there was really nothing there uh and i only think we lived there a couple of years before they got divorced when

they got divorced we moved me and my mom moved back to ribera and we lived in um my grandmother had four little houses and we lived in one of those houses um there were three one bedrooms and one two bedroom and we started out in the two bedroom and then there would sometimes be a confrontation between my mom and my grandma we'd move out and we'd move back in and so it was uh it was always in that area. Yeah, okay. What is the best memories of your childhood and the worst? Oh, that's a loaded question. So my childhood, the best memories I could say was the, I always felt loved. I never felt unloved. My mother did a really good job of making sure that I knew that she loved me.

But there was, it was, I mean, my childhood childhood i mean on on a whole was was a pretty violent it was a pretty um it was a pretty tumultuous childhood i would never say there was really any stability um my parents got divorced as i said earlier when i was six there was a lot of domestic abuse and i remember seeing that um and my my parents split up my mom moved me and my sister my younger sister Olivia to um Picker Rivera and I would you know it was it was it wasn't exactly it was a rough town it was it was a it's a rough city. People, you know, they minded their own business and you, you, you just, that was just what I knew. You know, it was a. Yeah. Okay. So do you, do you always wanted to be a lawyer growing up? Is that something that you really?

Well, my mother always wanted to be a lawyer. And her uncle was an attorney, and her cousin was an attorney. And she actually was a paralegal. And she always, you know, would pound into my head that an education is something that nobody could ever take away from you. And what I love to do, I always I love to sing I love to sing um I can sing at your wedding yeah yeah yeah you have a wonderful um but I knew that I I I didn't want to live the way that I grew up I didn't want to be stuck you know wondering you know when the electrical was going to be shut off or when I grew up most, you know, there were times where we had no pot water and we would steal electricity from the neighbors or, you know, many times we didn't even have food.

And so it was something that I knew I didn't want. You know, once I grew up, I knew that wasn't the life that I wanted to lead. And my mother always told me an education was the way out. And I knew that was my ticket out. So I always went to school. I always had a profound love for reading. Unfortunately, I got really sick when I was a child. And I was in and out of the hospital once at a time, they had removed my mastoid and a bunch of inner ear bones. And when I came home and I was recovering, I think I was around eight years old, eight

or nine years old. My mom threw this big thick book at me. It was like a thousand pages long. And she said, you're not going to sit in front of the TV and recover. You're going to do something. You're going to read. And so I remember she gave me this book from the supermarket she had picked up and that was when my love for reading really began and I I read

everything I still really really enjoy like uh fiction and Paul it's one of my favorite writers um and it just kind of transported me to another world that I can completely invent inside my head because my reality was pretty dismal, you know, being sick and not being in the most stable environment. Yeah. So bring me, I think you shared that your, what school, your, what school, university of which one did you want to so I ended up believe it or not I ended up dropping out of high school um and going to junior college and getting my AA degree and then I transferred to Cal Poly Pomona and really once I transferred to Cal Poly is when things really started shooting up you know I uh I um I got my degree in political science I was a double major it was it was music and political science and I came to the point where I had to choose one or the other because um I couldn't

afford to stay in school and you know pursue a double major if it wasn't going to, in my mind, it wasn't going to provide any real results. And so I knew I wanted to go to law school. And I ended up applying and getting a scholarship to Chapman Law School, which is why I ended up going there. Wow. I know you're a trial lawyer. Can you tell me your very first case? I know you're feisty. I've seen your work. And tell me about the first case that you remember or the very first. wallace versus uh uh it was a carol wallace case um and a essentially a broker had um swindled title from an elderly woman and uh tried to foreclose and kick her out and stealing at that time. This is 2008, 2009, I want to say had a four month, five month old child. So I was, it was over in Santa Ana, the Santa Ana courthouse. Judge Wilkinson was my judge. Very, very good stern judge. And I, you know, I was always very, very assertive, very healthy. Very. And I just remember I would object to your honor and he'd be like, calm down, calm down.

And I was like, well, you know, I would go to the bathroom during our recesses and pump because I had a four month old. I was still breastfeeding. And so I think with those hormones and then I'm just naturally somewhat very, you know, outgoing. It was definitely it was it was definitely a roller coaster. It was it was a lot of fun. My closing argument ended up being an hour long. And they deliberated. We came in and we won. And I to be recognized you know for for winning a trial and then it happened to have been my first and um so yeah that was my first time you are here um you're in that during you know the trial and you're pumping because you're breastfeeding that's just a superwoman right there and it lets you on you know I never thought of it that way it just never crossed my mind not to do it you know people people always ask me well you know you you you had you had it so rough as a child and

once my cousin my cousin Carl Coles was like you know you really made I'm so proud of you you really you did so much for yourself and you really you never let anything stand in your way and my thought was I never there was never any idea in my head I shouldn't be that way tell me what what is the motivation behind that? You know, I knew you were going to ask that question. And I would say, you know, because I'm very into, I know you're very into, you know, find your why, recognizing and defining your why. The concept that starts from that Simon Sinek wrote that book, Star With Wine, it's great. And we see it in a lot of our tools that we use, you and I, as personal development. And they say to clearly define

what your contribution has been to the world, why you do what you do. And I would say there were different phases throughout my life. You know, I guess I, in the beginning, I knew that I could always see 10 steps ahead of everything. I could just, I just always had this, this vision of how things could easily work out. And so around me, I would see people continually doing things that hurt themselves. And, you know, friends that my mother had, I would just see them in these really bad relationships with men, repeating the cycle. We had we had a neighbor, and this girl was 19. And at 19, she had three children. And I mean, she was married and, but it was just, she'd never graduated high school.

I don't even think she can read or write. And I would just see these, you know, these people around me growing up, just making the same bad decision. And for me, I could always see, well, if you didn't do this and you did that, then things would work out for you. At a very young age, I just figured things out quickly. And so it was just a no-brainer. I'm like, well, I don't want to live like this. I don't want to live on welfare. I don't want to have to use food stamps. I don't want to worry about, you know, if I need, if I'm going to be able to pay my bills. And so I, you know, I constantly just strived and moved forward knowing that I could figure it out.

And it suited me, suited me for a really long time. You know, I had a very, I had a mentality that it was, you know, it was them or it was me. And it certainly wasn't going to be me, you know, and that it suited me for a very, very long time, a very aggressive behavior until it didn't suit me anymore. And I started looking for, you know, eventually to, you know, flourishing. But education has always been learning and education has always been kind of what always kind of snapped me out of what I, you know, what was ever holding me back, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Totally. That's amazing now you guys started with two attorneys and scale it you guys uh you're in the pink uh ink 5000 list and you guys tell me what was the secret sauce and what was your role oh my god so we started out um it was just uh me and my partner and he had completely had it with his with his current firm he was like i'm quitting and i'm going somewhere else i'm starting my own firm and i had always i had always owned businesses even when i was in um when i was

an undergrad and my mom was i said My mom was a paralegal. And so there was never any thought in my mind that I didn't want my own business. And I didn't want my own firm. I always wanted my own firm. Even back in undergrad, I would go to local attorneys and I would do bankruptcies and charge them $200

and they would charge their client $1,000. And that continued on even into law school. I was always finding kind of like the side hustle. My mom had her own paralegal business and I would try and figure out new products or services that she could offer to make more money, to just bring in more revenue. you know, there wasn't a lot of it. And I always knew that I wanted my own firm. So when he was completely done with his current firm, I was like, I'm like, well, you know what? You're going to do it. Let's do it now. Because right now we're both bringing in a great income. And I was, I was at a larger firm at the time. I was at a firm that had about 100 lawyers. And I was getting really used to the monthly income that that firm brought in and that job brought in.

And the perks, every year they'd fly us all out to a certain location and put us up at a hotel for a weekend and we had this great big party. And there was definitely really the lunches and there's a lot of nice benefits really you know the lunches and the the there's a lot of nice benefits to working for a big firm like that and had you know we were over skyscrapers off of Maine and Irvine I had this beautiful office with a big building a big big window and and a lot of support staff and um you start to get used to this kind of stuff

and when you said I couldn't i you know i couldn't do this anymore i want to start my own you know we're going to start our own firm right and i go well i'm going to get used to the money so before i do let's you know let's start our own firm and so he he ended up res. We got our first office. I still continued to work for a few more months. We had a 167-square-foot office. Where is that at? It was over off of the Wells Fargo Tower off of Main and Irvine.

Tiny little office. And I remember he brought this litigation case in. I think it was in the Port Cobb Court. And any litigation that came in, I did because he did security. So he did transactional. He didn't do litigation. And so whenever we got this little litigation case in I would go to my office and I would turn off my computer for the firm lock the door pray to god that nobody was going to catch me working on my own cases on my own firm I was like oh my god they catch me and they're going to fire me and you know um until we did that, I did that for about six months. And then I was able, we had enough clients and I had enough workload to be able to quit

and go on full time to the firm. So then it was, it was great. We, we started bringing in more cases and it was great. We started bringing in more cases. And it was two offices. We had one employee. And I shared an office with her. And my partner shared an office with our server. Like literally a server with our files. And it was a server rack that tells our email or our hard drive

it was sitting in an office with him and I shared an office with her and I remember staining the desks you know because we bought we bought desks secondhand and I stained them and um just started growing from there and as momentum picked up brought in more cases um we brought in an additional employee and we brought in a law clerk and just started gaining momentum and as the work came in we started growing and um this was 2007 during the worst recession seven wow we grew out of the worst recession ever. We were, we were hungry. Um, we were driven, we charged a lot less than the big guys. And so people were willing to give us a shot. You know, we, we worked really hard. We practiced what we coined rent law. I love to say I practiced rent law because I took everything in that would pay the rent. Cases that I would never even look at today.

Wow. I happily took because they were paying. Wow. Wow. Wow. That's amazing. And I was able to visit your office in Irvine. It was beautiful.

Thank you. It's a glass door and it's nicely done. I know you're so good. I remember one lunch, you took me out of lunch and you've asked me a lot of questions and a lot of people could learn, especially solo entrepreneurs, right?

You're so good at figuring your KPI. How do you scale? I mean, you got it. Like you play down yourself, but you know so much. So what can you share about what people should know about KPI? So your KPIs. When I started my law firm, there was this old attorney and his name was, actually I just told this story the other day, his name was Moreland Fisher

and he's still around, he's a copyright attorney. And he said, Christina, I'm going to give you one golden rule. One golden rule. One golden rule. If you listen to me and you do this, you're always going to be successful. And I said, okay Moreland, what is this one golden

rule? He said, you always spend less than you make. And you'll be fine. But in all seriousness, I mean, you have to know what your key product indicators are. For my business, it's time, right? I only have so many attorneys, and they need to be able to bill a certain number of you. They're only able to bill a certain finite amount of time, right? I only have so many attorneys, and they need to be able to bill a certain number of you, they're only able to bill a certain finite amount of time, right? And so my

product, whatever your product is, you need to know what your return on investment is for that. So for me, for lawyers, it's time, we sell time, right? And so we need to know how much time, you know, one attorney, you know, our attorney is able to produce at what product, you know, product quality. And then once it is produced, how much of that will actually be recouped? Because just because an attorney bills 10 hours doesn't mean that I can charge my client 10 hours. And just because I charge my client, say five of the 10 doesn't mean that they're going to pay for five of the 10, because maybe they feel that they only really need to pay for 2.5, that, that the attorney should have been able to do it in less time.

So to know what the key is, to really drill down on what your product is, what it costs to produce it, and how much you make off of that. And if you have those numbers down, then you know how much you can then use them as projections I think what you're talking we were talking we were that was when we both were you were in the spa business yes and I'd never be in the spa business I started that lash company it was a very you know painful three-year I loved it right but I okay, how much it cost me for last bill, how much, you know, it was for overhead, how much, you know, I was expected to make off of it and how

many there we had a membership model. So it was either depending on how many, you know, I knew that I had 226 members. I knew that I would have that monthly income that would, you know, it was a reoccurring income. And then how much on products that we, you know, you know, realistically expect to make, which for $3,400 a month, I knew these, and I always knew that there was stuff. And that's why it was a painful learning process. That's why when you, when I talked to you, you were like, yeah, I'm doing great. I'm like, oh, where do you make your money? Is it product? Is it facial? Is it, you know, is it, is it, is it treatments?

Is it massage? It was, it was a really great conversation with you. By the end of it, you were like, oh yeah. Like, well, if that's where you're making your money, then that's where you should focus on. Yes. Yeah. So, um, can you share to our listener about what your experience as far as, you know, buying a franchise or getting into a franchise? You don't want to hear that. Don't do it. If you have a vision and you have a concept, you know, here's the thing.

I, you know, I have, I have a friend probably listening, Leslie Kim. He is a great franchisor. I think he's a pharmacist. Like,

I call, I think I call him a drug dealer. He sells legal drugs, but he, he, you know, he loves franchise concepts. He loves the business in a box concept.

If he can make a great return on investment, I know he really likes them. He really likes like the Pilates concepts. He loves the business in a box concept. If he can make a great return on investment, I know he really likes the Pilates concepts. Because then you just pay one employee and you can service 30 women or 30 people at once. And so you're going to have a higher rate of return. This episode of Inspired by Her is brought to you by Wagner Spray Tech. For a while now, we have been wanting to paint our RV. Luckily, we came across this Wagner paint sprayer called the Flexio 4000. We had a blast painting the outside of the RV because it was 10 times faster than using a brush, which is good, especially in the hot sun. Dan is pretty messy and normally gets paint everywhere, but with the Wagner Flaxio 4000, he was able to make it look professionally done since it's braced directly from the can. Also, cleanup was super simple and only took five minutes. Visit the link in the show notes today and check it out,

the Wagner Spray Tech Flexio 4000. And you don't have a lot of, you know, you don't have like the office equipment or the continual security equipment you know the insurance that would traditionally go along with a lot of franchises so he's been really good at honing in on certain concepts i think he also owns like a creamery but is it the um cold ice cream okay yeah And I think he's pretty against those. Um, but he's, he's really good at that. I am not really great at taking somebody else's concept and implementing it because I'm always looking at ways to make it better or bigger or different or shiny. And I'm, I'm just not a really good student. I'm not, I'm kind of, I was the lead singer of a punk rock band. I really have kind of an issue with authority.

That's why I went to law school. I'm not, I don't like sitting in a box. I'm not a box type of person. And so I would even find myself fighting against a lot of a lot of the ideas and it's just not it's not a fit for whom I am I can see that so what would you yeah okay so but then there's some other um entrepreneur that are super successful right with getting other franchise like we've we have a lot of friends we do yeah so that's a good learning experience i learned so much from that experience and i was able to visit your lash studio it was so beautiful yes so beautiful okay so i still have the sign

and the chandelier in my in my garage I know you're trying to get it I think I'm gonna have I'm gonna hang it in my in my nine-year-old's room have a flash yes and those are expensive those are like 15 grand no I don't think we paid that much I think I paid mine about that amount oh my god I know it's very expensive yeah anyway. Anyway, so you scale that. I really wanted our listeners to really learn from you your secret sauce as far as scaling the business, the law firm from two to a multimillion dollar business. Can you tell me what are your secrets? I mean, it's really not a secret. It's really the people. When we

first started, we started, you know, we had some really strong growing pains. So we had an influx of work and we had no idea how to grow. And it was really painful because then you're doing crap work and you're working twice as hard, not twice as smart, and you're basically just trying to tread water. But we hired in a guy by the name of Mark Kohler, and he runs Lead with Purpose. There's very similar models out there. I know Vern Harnish has one. Scaling Up is one of the best ones.

Traction is one of the really good ones. And there's Maps, I think. And there's, but it's essentially a framework to align and organize your business. And the secret sauce really was organizing a management team, right? Defining who you were. As I said, you know, we practice rent law and we weren't that bad five, you know, seven years in when we really started organizing the firm. But what we did do is we hadn't really defined who we were. And we hired in somebody to come in and help us. And he had basically said, well, you know, you're going to be, I hate to say this, you're going to be Walmart or you're going to be Nordstrom's. You need to figure out who your core clientele are. Who are you going to cater to? Are you going to cater to, you know, are you going to be Walmart and you're going to mass produce, mass volume, untailored product, but it's going to be the same's and you're going to cater to, you know, you're going to have a luxury brand that is clearly defined and it's adaptable and amendable and tailored to your client's needs. So you really have to pick a platform. And so once we, we figured out, you know, we really,

we really are, we're, we're a Nordstrom's model. We are, you know, our, our, our line of, it's a very closed niche. It's a small field. It's not very large. And our clients have very specific needs. And so we've really tailored our services to provide for them in every aspect. We really decided, you know, we're attorneys, but there's a business aspect because we're also business owners. So we're, there's, there's a business aspect and there's a legal aspect, right? And so they need legal advice, but they also, they needed business advice. And so we really became a, a, you know, be all end all place for our clients to, you know, to use as a resource, whether it was for their legal work, for their document work, for, you you know investors for brokers for other things that

they needed anything from you know getting their website designed to um offering their services you know seo thing because they these really were these businesses they need help in every respect yeah so once i mean the secret sauce then was um and i try to be so verbose, but once we put our management team in place and we put the right people in the right seat, right, they were doing what they did best. And once we empowered them to do what they did best, it just skyrocketed. I mean, it just,rocketed I mean it just it took off when when you empower the people under you remember somebody said is Alan Peterson actually I think you know Alan Peterson yeah yeah he goes if you're the smartest person in the room fire everybody because that's not who you want to be yeah yeah now Christina did you guys hire and as the EOS implementer or did you hire a consultant it was an EOS it was lead with purpose and we had a one

page plan we still use it today and it's a I I think it's a it's a phenomenal program it's called lead with purpose Mark Kohler designed it um but the we use a it's a software program. It's called Leave With Purpose. Mark Kohler designed it. But we use it. It's a software. But it's very similar to like EOS. I think any of those programs, if you can get them and you can implement them and you stick to it consistently, I think it's good. Yeah. I think they're kind of all the same. But they're all in the same wheelhouse.

Yeah. Okay. And I remember when you were talking at the spa, you were doing this TEDx style, you were really big in culture. Can you can you tell me more about that? So culture is a huge, right? Culture is people because that's where you, you, you know, that's where I found, if I empower people to, to grow grow, and really that is one of my values, right? Education is a huge value for me. If you give them what they need and the resources that they need and you encourage them to do it, you see them flourish and they bloom.

And they, culture, you don't, you you can't we couldn't have somebody in there that didn't agree with that mentality and we've had it before and if you if you don't have the right um mentality across the board then then culture culture can could basically build you up or kill you so if you have a strong culture i i love um what is it the camel culture by arnie arnie i can't i'm not remembering his name um and i i apologize i um i uh i can't arnie he um he talks about about how to really get your culture aligned. And I was able to see him at MIT. I saw him present. And I took a lot of his notes and I implemented them inside the firm.

One of the biggest ones that became the most helpful was called um like the he calls it the dark arts and i basically called it the employee survey was um okay how happy are you and if you're not happy you know are you happy you know on a scale of one to ten and if you didn't give us a ten why and that was eye-opening that how did you handle that when you have like low, like very low score? How did you handle that personally? You read all that survey and results and it's very face, right? Right. It's really just getting down to knowing what people really want. And if you can provide it, your, the rate of return is, is, is it's not, it's,

it's a sudden, it's, it'll skyrocket, you know, it's, so how did I handle it? I, you know, our management team, when we first started reading these results, everybody would get angry and get hot and like, oh, that's so-and-so, even though it was anonymous, okay? So we had no idea if it was so-and-so. That's so-and-so, and they're just bitter because of this. But once we got past that, we always took a couple days to just relax and let it go. We're like, okay, now that we can get the emotions out of the way,

um, we can see, okay, what the real problem is and if we can address it and if we can address it, well, let's address it and let's fix it. And, um, some, some stuff we were just, you know, wow, we were just really naive. We had no idea this was even an issue right and it was very easily fixable yeah um other stuff took a long it was a long process to fix compensation structures are always difficult they're always difficult i think they're difficult anywhere right because people are always going to feel that they're they deserve more and um so yeah that's that's a lot to take in and um i know i get sometimes to get in trouble for opening my mouth remember that i wouldn't mention it but no i love it because you are you're actually very good about your culture the the ladies are no i mean i love no i what i'm saying is no i love

i love my team actually yesterday we were handling food to our staff and one of my staff said like, oh my God, I feel like we're really not disturbing getting this. Like, no, this is for you guys. You guys took care of the company while we were open. It's our time to take care of you. We'll make sure none of you guys are hungry. But you know that, that when I saw you do it, I saw you, I saw you post a couple of weeks ago that you were providing rice and, you know,

beans and flour so that your employees could eat during this time. And some of them are even living in your hotel. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. With their family. Yes. And I, I mean, I just want to say that is just a true leader right there. It's a very kind person and just representative of such strong leadership. I'm very, very proud of you. You must be very proud of yourself. Oh, no. I mean, like, it's just the right thing to do.

Right. But proud that you are doing the right thing during this time. When I know things aren't easy for you. Yeah, I know. And they easy for you yeah no yeah I know and they all know like we're all struggling and all businesses are shut down but I could do that I would rather not have food in my table than them all of them are hungry you know like you know it's just the right thing to do well and I think that's that's a very important thing you just said because that was always my mentality is that my employees eat first they and they always have and and they they get paid before I get paid period so and I've always believed that I still

do today because they're working for you yeah absolutely a failure of the business is my responsibility it's not theirs yeah absolutely well um christina i know you you've done that to your nanny too um i've heard you sharing that story and um you know it just it just it just it's not hard to make a decision it's just the right thing to do and we know when we do that we get threefold of motivation because we really genuinely care about them you yeah I mean but you're you're such a special person right and you're right now you've got two you know you've got a spa at two locations and you have a hotel at two locations, a hotel and spa, two things that are shut down right now.

You're not seeing any income. And, but, but I love it. I love the fact that this is during all of this, this is you started this podcast and people are downloading it and you're, the whole point is to spread hope and um telling women's stories and I mean your story is phenomenal you know you didn't just pull those sheet up over your head and cry you said okay I got to get out there I had to feed my employees I'm going to start a podcast a podcast what what really like why a podcast well at first you know I was bored myself right I was to be honest I didn't think of it I was just like I was just

going to do a podcast I could entertain myself so I won't get like really focused into what's I mean I'm not trying to stick my head in the sand of not really, you know, paying attention to what's happening, but I have to be productive in this time because I have so much time. And this really gets me into like, oh my God, I could do a lot of things. And majority of us, if you've noticed women, no one really talks about, everyone is so scared to share our story. Even me, like how many times I have to post something, but I have to delete it because I don't want anyone to read or know my story. Right. Like we all do. Like we, we would rather hide in the room. Like, no, we don't want to talk about it. Right. So I was interviewing this two couple in the Philippines.

They have 11 million views. And I asked them like, how did you guys start? Did you guys plan this? Like, no, I didn't plan it. It's like my advice to you, if you want to do it, just do it. Don't even think about it. Like you learn as you go. I mean, I was terrible at the first, it was dark, but I don't really care much anymore. So I just do it and I think it's it's if we can help each other and know what other person in doing what makes them successful and even inspiring a one person that's only my goal and not knowing I get all these messages that they learn so much or they're inspired so why not that's why it's it's so important to just share your contribution yeah yeah so what is your why well I really wanted to push to really uh help a lot of women entrepreneurs

I think if I know what I know now I'm just lucky lucky that I have you guys. I have the women of EO and other tribe, the YAC tribe that really helped me. If I have a question or if I struggle and someone could give me advice, that would be great. That little help, really. I mean, I could save a lot of money of making bad decisions or running a company. You have no clue. Like it just, you know, I wish if I know what I know now, I could have been better. And if I could save someone a mistake, that's great enough for me. I think that's the reason why I created the podcast.

Just to help people. We're sisters there. I mean, we resonate together. If I could just, I feel the same way. I get so, I get so much from helping others. Like I derive so much pleasure if I can help somebody just be happier. I had a lady come over, a friend brought her over and she was just so sad. She's like, you know, I've been a sales manager for 15 years and they just laid me off. And my husband of 25 years just left me. And I was just like, oh my God, my heart went out to this woman. And I, I didn't, I was like, how I just, how do I help her? Like, how do I, there was no words that I could say. And I looked at her nails and she was, oh, don't look at my nails.

She's like, they're just so ugly. And the quarantine and I can't get them done. And I was like, I have gel to your nails. And I did her nails and she was just glowing by the time she left. It was all the payment I needed. I felt so good i could just make this sad lady happy oh wow she was just so happy when she left and i'm like i feel so good right now that i made her that i brightened her day just by doing her nails well you're so generous

like every time i come to your house you just like here's the food you want to bring it like you're just this quarantine has killed my wardrobe it's like wait what what style of yoga pants yeah well yeah i know that's a little round we can just sculpt it put the the what is it the contour on yeah i told you sit in the sauna in the spa um i know i'll come over and i miss i miss our our spa days and our yoni scene i know right talk about a concept you you brought that out that is what made you think it would work here well okay i did it you should define what it is because a lot of people okay so yoni yes i know oh my god i have yoni steam is vagina steam okay and so we put different herbs and ideas you're embracing womanhood you're

supposed to sit there and meditate and you know it's actually a very relaxing treatment don't you agree yes yeah so sometimes it gets really a little bit weird but i remember my mother has been doing it for a very long time for some other things like it's really good after birth and um and it's getting so popular well me and kalika actually went to hawaii we tried it and i was like oh my god i used to do this after birth right and so that was the first time i mean in the u.s but i've done it in the philippines but we we used to just grab any different leaves or just hot water and steam with different you know like whatever medicinal plants that we can we can use so um i guess it's been done for a hundred it's been done for 100 years in in in china for like for the royalties for anyone i mean

it was a very relaxing treatment it just sounds it's so fun when when we get together as a group of ladies and we like well we just we were having our champagne and picking goddess cards and yeah he was there doing the meditation and it was just very it was very it really released the feminine energy like it really brought that up for me yeah yeah it's it's actually it's actually um it's you know it's up to you if you believe in it or not but it it definitely makes me feel really good and connected with i mean i love just hanging out there and we all giggle and laugh and like what the heck we're doing right but um yeah that was a fun treatment and i would love to do that in the resort i i definitely

wanted to bring the customized chair and everything i think it's really such it adds i mean it's a great experience i mean i i by it personally, and so is a lot of people. Oh, speaking of your resort, I never got to boil in your copper pot, the big copper cauldron. No, we call it the cow bath. So you should bring one of those to the spa. We need to visit very soon yeah this will get lifted um so christina uh can you name a person who had a tremendous impact to you as a person. You know, over the last few years, there's been just so many. But I guess one of the very first attorneys that I worked for, she called me into her office.

And I was, I was a memo that I had written. And she said, you know, you're so bright. You have so many ideas. And for some reason, you're just afraid of going for it. And nobody had ever told me I was afraid of anything ever in my life. And so she said, you just need to go for it. You just need to do it. And nobody had ever told me I was afraid of anything ever in my life. And so she said, you just need to go for it. You just need to do it. And, and, and once you do it, then you just, you'll be okay. You just do it again and again and again. And I think having, you know, a woman, especially a woman attorney, um, tell you, you know, just to take that first

leap and just, you know, just go for it. Like my, I was strategizing a case and just like, this isn't what you want to do with it, but this is what you should do with it. There, you know, if this is the road you want to go, even though it contradicts, you know, my strategy, I don't agree with it. This is how you want to go. Then you need to believe in yourself. You need to just do it. You, you know, you can't second guess yourself and so I guess that was that was the one person that really taught me you know to just you know it starts with you starts with me I have to believe in myself first and and and and go from there because nobody else is going to believe in me if I don't believe in me first so I would say as a leader she was really I mean, somebody that had the biggest impact on me.

Yeah. That's amazing. Now tell me about a mistake that you made. Oh, which one? A mistake that i made um let's see one of the biggest mistakes that i've made um that i can divulge not get in trouble for um i'm trying to think of something that, I mean, the most, I guess the most recent thing is I screwed up a report. I was always used to doing it a certain way. And I would always look to the bottom line to take the numbers. And I screwed up because I failed to see that there was a total at the end of the report. And luckily the mistake was caught before it did any real damage.

But that was a, that was a recent mistake. And I, I'm not going to make it again. So I always, I always, I always double check my work, but then that particular time I, I didn't, I didn't see that there was no total at the bottom and so that could have been a really big issue so um are you thinking of another mistake maybe i love that's very good screaming at my children i lose it okay so for any what would be your advice to any aspiring entrepreneur oh

um aspiring entrepreneurs you got to get that uh for me it's taking that that that negative little voice in your head and just ripping that shit out and throwing it away you know because that those those negative voices in your head they don't serve you that's the one thing you know know, there, there, there is, um, you know, that little, you're not going to do it. You're not going to do it. You're not going to succeed. You're not, you can't do it that way. Just throwing it out. Um, the other thing is, is to really stay. I mean, for me, what's super, super important is I meditate and I walk and I, if, if I don't, I really go a little crazy.

So for me doing something that grounds me every day, um, for me, it's meditation and it's walking is self-care, just taking care of yourself. Cause I do notice that especially a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs, you're going to work for me. I worked so hard that I just didn't take care of myself because I was so focused on the goal. So I think for a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in general is just really take the time out to care for yourself because if you don't care for yourself, you can't care for anybody else. That's so true. Yeah. So how are you pivoting? What are you doing with this current pandemic? Are you pivoting your business? What are you doing? So right now we're in a fortunate position. It's legal. So

the attorney, so we naturally assume that securities and transactional work will, securities work will probably definitely go down, but transactional work will pivot as far as instead of writing new loans and making new loans, clients will probably be looking at more forbearance agreements and loan modifications. Foreclosure work will probably go up. Litigation will definitely go up. Litigation and bankruptcy during a business downturn, people just tend to sue. So while litigation was somewhat down, it's that generally you'll see a big peak and a spike in that. And as people can't afford their mortgages, they will be filing bankruptcy. So lenders will need to be protected to secure

their lane position. And so there will be a lot of work. A lot of work. Yeah, that's true. But what the marketing and media division did oh that is that is run by some bright people um and i i wish i could take even an ounce of credit for it but i can't um they're just an amazing group of of um of people that run our media department and they actually came up with the concept of a complete virtual conference. So while we had three conferences last year, we have our big one in Vegas, you know, with a bunch of attendees. And we have another one in Newport beach. And then we have one in LA.

Like we, while we have our, our, our in-person conferences because of the pandemic, they actually created a virtual conference. And that's coming up May 20th, where all of our clients or anybody interested in private money is able to attend by ticket. And it's just a brilliant, brilliant idea so that that was one huge way that the company is pivoting yeah well a lot of a lot of smart entrepreneurs are doing that i just paid two grand for this classes for um i think four weeks or i think eight weeks but like there's a lot of lot of things that you can do we can be creative at this time doing it the right way not like taking advantage of people but yeah you still could do virtual events which a lot of people are doing yeah oh I know I mean like look

at the event space right I heard that uh that almost all events and concerts were canceled until 2021 but these you know really talented artists and djs are out there spinning and they're doing virtual conferences i'm at virtual conferences virtual events you know they're they're uh hosting um you know friday night saturday night parties and they and they're doing sets. I would love to. It was really fun. We were just talking about it last Sunday. We're not going to mention what we're discussing, but something virtual. With our bubbly.

Yes. And so I know we were laughing about doing an investment in Joshua Tree. Isn't that so funny what people are posting and sharing about their properties, like making it sound like it was a big resort, but it's like a dirt. What are you talking about? My property in Joshua Tree is going to be phenomenal. It's like, what do we call it? A dirt bag? Yeah, I know. I was just like, every time I get, okay, for anyone who's listening, I have this property in Joshua Tree and I rented out raw land. And so people can, can't.

Raw land. No water, no power, no street, no road. Nothing. It's dirt. Every time I get a booking. With a view. Yeah. So I get really excited. So I have to message Christina, look, I'm making 50 bucks a night for like dirt bag. It sells. I think it's great.

It's great. Just throw up a fire pit. Yes. Well, I actually created three stone, make it a fire pit. So there's a lot of ways you can do to earn money i mean no matter what's gonna happen we're always gonna figure it out because our brain is it's constantly working we have to we have to because we have a lot of bills to pay it's our nature yeah it just it just never stopped like it just it can't I mean your brain is just constantly working um so Christina how do

you want to be remembered I don't want to be remembered um uh I guess I want people to say that um she was a very loving person and that i did something that helped them be happier you know something just to be happier even if you looked at the world just slightly differently so that or looked at a situation slightly differently so that or looked at a situation slightly differently so that you you know could experience joy some respect oh my god i could talk to you forever i know i was thinking where was this food supposed to be 30 minutes yeah so christina where can they find you what's your handle so it's christina l jurasi um that is my uh instagram

uh but my website is jurasi lp so christina jurasi jurasi law firm g-e-r-a-c-i but if you go to jurasi lp you can see all the phenomenal services that our media division is hosting we like i said we have a virtual conference coming up on the 20th. We have webinars. We're hosting webinars probably almost weekly at this point. And yeah, that's me. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing all your, sharing our story for being open. And we learned a lot from you,

like your advice. I mean, you're so amazing. You do amazing things, even though I think you're not. But I think you're an amazing person and you have a lot. You are an amazing person. And so thank you so much

and have a good day. Thank you so much, Kate. I love you. Bye, Christina. Bye. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. And visit katehancock.com so you don't miss out on the next episode.