TrueLife - Strategic Narratives: Redefining Success with Casey Berman

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Casey Berman Greetings, Esteemed Audience,Embark on a journey of strategic exploration and innovation as we welcome the remarkable Casey Berman, a true multipreneur shaping destinies in Fortune 500 boardrooms and empowering professionals to redefine their career narratives. From unraveling business complexities to guiding attorneys towards new beginnings, Casey’s narrative weaves a tapestry of possibility and strategic insight. Brace yourselves for an illuminating conversation on finding a better way to success, one story at a time.Welcome, Casey Berman!#Strategy #Innovation #Storytelling #CareerDevelopment #LeaveLawBehindhttps://go.leavelawbehind.com/aboutus?r_done=1 One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, guess what? I have a beautiful podcast for you today. But before I get started, let me go ahead and say that I hope the sun is shining, the first. is singing and the wind is at your back. If you find yourself in a little bit of a rut,

then you're going to have to listen to this podcast episode today because I have with me an incredible individual. And I hope that you listening to this are ready to embark on a journey of strategic exploration and innovation. As we welcome the remarkable Casey Berman, a true multi-repreneur shaping destinies in Fortune 500 boardrooms and empowering professionals to redefine their career narrative. from unraveling business complexities to guiding attorneys towards new beginnings.

Casey's narrative weaves a tapestry of possibility and strategic insight. Brace yourself, ladies and gentlemen. For an illuminating conversation on finding a better way to success one story at a time. Welcome, Casey Berman. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much. What kind words. Fantastic. I need to play that for my family over and over. I want that a loop in the house.

No, thank you. I really appreciate it. the kind words and I'm flattered. I'm honored to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Yeah. Well, you know what? I have found that we live in some really interesting times right now.

Yeah. And I think that, you know, there's a saying that says the first ones over the wall usually get clobbered. And I think that you have been one of the first guys over the wall. I've been over the wall. I'm taking some beatings. And so many people we know in the octopus movement or so many of our friends and family or maybe people in our community, they want to get over that wall and they're trying.

And you have a unique way of helping. people do that. So I was kind of hopeful that maybe you could start off a little bit of a background, man. Like, who were you before you jumped over this wall? Yeah. Thank you. Well, I don't want to bore everyone with my life details. Real quickly, I am based here in Maui now a few years ago, my family and I moved here and I have a born and raised in San Francisco, California. And that's where my family is my parents, my wife, kids. That's where we all started. And I sort of did what I was supposed to do. You know, I got a, uh, went to undergrad and then I went to law school because that's just what we were supposed to do back then and did not really like law school. Just wasn't for me.

Um, and went to become a lawyer and I had the job many lawyers wanted, which was in-house council as a tech company 20 some odd years ago. Think of the, the dot com boom and all those movies about all of that. And that was me right there, dogs in the office and free lunch and, and, and all that way back when. But the job was just very reactive, anxiety producing. We had an office in England as well as San Francisco, and I would wake up in the morning. They'd been working all day, and I'd had all these emails and texts and all that sort of stuff. So I left in 2005 and started on this career that I would just kind of create out of thin air. There's a E.L. Doctoro was a, a was a professor of writing, a novelist himself. And he has this quote about writing a novel,

and I take it to life, which is, you know, life or writing is like driving your car at night. You can only see so far as the headlights, but you know you'll get home that way. And so that's something through all the self-doubt in 06 and 07 and 10 and 12 and 15 and 20, all those years that I went through, it really brought me through saying, you know, I don't really know what run the bend, but I know I'm going to get there. And so I just would have been a great corporate person and ladder, corporate ladder. And I did. I worked at companies, but I was always creating a side gig on the on the side. And those side gigs have blossomed and are now real companies that I run now. But I just always knew inside of me that as much as I was able to kind of climb that corporate ladder

and be the good employee and so on. And as much as I needed to do it for years to make money and raise a family and kind of you just I had to get a job I knew it wasn't for me and so which is a mixed blessing because on the one hand I wish it was for me it would have made life a lot easier just to kind of stick with that path but I just saw something that I couldn't unsee anymore or unfeel and luckily I persevered through it and and I have these two businesses one is a corporate strategy business where we help good companies connect with the customers and another one that you're mentioning is called leave law behind, and I help unhappy lawyers to get their life back and to find non-law, non-lawyer jobs that they love, they're good at, and they get paid well for.

So anyway, I'll stop there, but that's sort of my entrepreneurial journey in a nutshell. It's awesome, man, and thanks for explaining it that way. Sometimes it seems like an obsession. When I look at sometimes in my own life or when I talk to other people, there's this thing inside of them that feels like it's dying. Maybe call it the sound of your heart, call it not following your bliss, call it whatever you want to. But for some people, they get up and they feel like to do in the right thing every day. And maybe they have to.

Maybe they're on this path because they feel so conditioned they have to or they have these responsibilities with their family. But there's something pulling at them. Did you feel that it's like you didn't pull the trigger on this voice in your heart that you were dying inside? Or was it that vital? What was that like? I mean, is there something unique to the entrepreneurial? spirit. Well, it's, I, to answer your question, yes, it did feel like something was dying inside. There were moments of dread that there's something in there and I can go do my day job work,

which, listen, I don't want to sound like a diva. Paid me good money. They were great people. Right. Many other people enjoyed it. It was a fit for them. They took care of me. I had health benefits. I mean, a day job for many people is what you want. And for many people, for me, for many years, it was good for me. I got to meet and learn and learn and learn and all of that. So I don't want to knock a day job at all. Right. There was just always something inside of me that wanted to be my own boss, that wanted the freedom,

that wanted the ability to create, that wanted that. And I think a lot of people want to be an entrepreneur, business founder. It's kind of hip in Silicon Valley and hip in the world to be the CEO. But they don't want to put the work in. They don't really have that in her. They want to do it for the reasons you want to watch or a purse or a car. It's a status symbol. And for me, I think entrepreneurism was more than a status symbol. Like it was it was deeply ingrained in me. My father worked for himself. Many other people in my life worked for themselves. And so there just came a point where I said, you know, this isn't just a status symbol.

This isn't just something I want to, I really want to pursue this. But I definitely had moments thinking, oh, no, I am not making enough money off this entrepreneur stuff. Am I going to be stuck doing this day job? Which is fine, which is great. On paper, I mean, I had so many people say to me like, yo, Berman, what are you doing, stopping a diva? Like, stop this entrepreneur thing.

Like, you've got a great job. People like you. It's you're doing good work, you know, the other, like. Right. What are you doing? And, but I just, just couldn't tonight. At the same time, though, I didn't want to throw everything away and just burn bridges. I just kind of plot it along.

And, you know, it took me 20 years and you just kind of keep at it. And then I think what happens also is that you need to really get real. And that's where the inner work happened. In the early, you know, 2012 or so, you have 2011. there were some moments where I got a dog and I started listening to people that I, on YouTube, the Alan Watts and Ram Dass and just sort of getting into the, getting into beyond the ether type stuff. And I met my business partner for Louisville A behind in 2014 or so.

And he has coached and mentored me a lot on on how to think and belief systems and so on. And so, you know, as they say, when the students ready, the teachers appear. and I think there came to a certain point inside of me where I was just ready. And I'll say ready because when it comes to entrepreneurship, you don't really see this in the business times or Forbes and so on, but it is a spiritual journey. It is inner work. It is touchy-feely emotions.

You know, I'm a big sports fan, so you see these big macho guys on the football field and so on. And, you know, when they say they're in the zone or the flow state, all that's saying is they're not thinking. They're not being intellectual. They're following their heart, right? It's a very macho way of saying woo-woo type stuff. And so the entrepreneurial journey is a very spiritual, it's very non-intellectual in many ways,

and it's a visceral journey. You know, it's interesting that you bring up spirituality because when, for one of your businesses, you're trying to help lawyers leave the law firm. And it sounds to me like on some level, you're looking for people who may feel that avoiding themselves while they're doing pretty well for themselves, maybe that they're not happy with it. And that's a spiritual moment when you're doing something, you're not happy at it. Like you start going down that wrong road long enough. And all of a sudden, you're like, I'm too far. I can't turn around now. But that's BS, right? Like, you can turn around. Like,

if you're willing to do the work. You can always turn around. Yeah. You can always make that too. That's right. No, 100%. I mean, you can always turn around. You can always slow down. You can always shift, pivot, whatever word, whatever verb you want to use, you can, you can, you can always do that. And what that takes is really realizing, I heard a wise person say this, that do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? And that line really pisses me off because usually with my wife and my kids, you know, it's like, ah, and, you know, I often want to be right when really, okay, so they didn't clean

up or okay, they didn't get to bed exactly at nine or okay, okay, this. I just, you want to be happy. And I think a lot of people want to be right. See, I told you work is horrible. I told, you know, they want the misery complex, murder complex or whatever. So, but everyone, everybody who's listening right now can shift. And you just take baby steps.

Don't think like, well, you know, I'll do it over the holidays or I'll do it over Thanksgiving weekend. You're not going to do your stuff then. Just literally five minutes a day, you could be in a new job or start your business or have a new blog post or have a new podcast like you do, George. Yeah. I have this up in three weeks, three months, three years.

Yeah. Yeah, without a doubt. Have you, I'm curious on your philosophy on relationships. It seems to me that a lot of people who find themselves at a spiritual crossroads or begin making changes in their life, they start seeing themselves and other people. They start seeing the things that other people do, maybe that piss them off or that they like. They start seeing that, hey, that's kind of what I do. Or, you know, sometimes that's pain.

Because you could see somebody doing something in case. You're like, I really hate those guys. The guy really pissing me off. But then it hits you like a ton of bricks. You know why I dislike this guy? Because he reminds me of me. He's doing these things that I do. And now I'm reminded of that.

Is that something that you ever look at when you see in people and pick up on that? Or what do you think about that? There's a spiritual practice that talks about their term is forgiveness. But it's essentially when something happens in the world, whether it's someone gives you the middle finger, whether someone cuts you off in traffic, whether it rains, whether your team loses, whether you don't get the contract, whatever it is. Whether someone says something, whether your spouse says something in the kitchen and Snide remark that you think is, in a remark that you think is Snide, that you forgive them. And you forgive them not because of what they did,

but because of what they did not do. And so that remark wasn't. snide. You projected snide on it. Maybe your wife or husband is tired or is feeling insecure. Or maybe they didn't roll their eyes or maybe they rolled their eyes because they had some lint in their eye and they just went like that, but it's not at you. Right. And maybe your team loses the playoff game because they're just going to rebuild for next year. And so maybe you are not able to pay your bills because this is this is a test to see how you can get it the next time. And so, but on the flip side, good stuff, you know, good stuff isn't there either, right? So yeah, you're knocking the ball in the park and you're got relationships and you got people

loving you and you've got the money coming in and so on. That's, you give your own meaning to that. Now, you can give the meaning of, man, I'm a badass and I got this world. under my thumb or you could just kind of say, yo, this is just flowing to me and I got to do well with this money and I definitely want to take care of myself and I'll go enjoy a fancy meal. Nothing wrong with that. But at the same time, like, I'm just a medium and this is passing through. And what am I going to do with this, right?

So it's up to you to determine it. And so this idea of forgiveness is just not, again, do you want to be happy or do you want to be right? Just kind of going happy and saying, like, I'm going to think through this of a mind of she didn't give me the snide remark. I'm just going to move on. I'm not going to use that as an excuse to now get angry at everybody in the household or whatever. And I'm just going to go give a hug.

And I'm just going to say, I'll get the dishes or whatever. No, it doesn't mean you get walked on or taking advantage of. If someone's giving you a hard time, put your foot down and stand up for yourself. But at the same time, just realizing that to your point, you're projecting meaning on to everyone. We're the one. Everything is neutral and we're projecting meaning onto it. So I like that. It's really well said.

It kind of brings up this idea that translation means interpretation. You know, and when you see something, you're translating. You're interpreting the meaning to it. And I'm like, I'm wondering, like, you are really good with language. Like, your linguistic ability is off the charts. Maybe they came from some of your training. Maybe you're born with that. But can you just unpack this idea a little bit on,

and however you want to take it, the idea of the idea of the, problem with translation and interpretation. That's an interesting question. Yes. Thank you. And thanks for sending me that before the podcast. So I could be careful. I would say so translation, if I'm thinking the Webster's Dictionary in my head, translation is telling someone what something means in a different language from a different language, right? Right. And so languages are just words or symbols. So when we we say water, water is not H2O, that is different. Right.

And so we have all these different languages. We're choosing English right now, but there's all these different combinations of these symbols that we write out or think in our head. And then it combines into sentences and structures that give us meaning, that we find meaning or we see meaning again. I think translation is kind of a lift and shift, if you will. Here is a language that is saying. something and we're just the same meaning but in a different set of symbols. Now, things get

lost in translation, but that aside for a moment. Interpretation is more subjective. And I know translation is still subjective, but let's assume translation is objective here as much as possible. Interpretation is subjective. And so I think the difference there is that is that the interpretation is a the receiver of that message of those symbols to take their own life experiences and layer what they want to see on it, which for better or for worse. So going back to the point where you were thinking about projecting, I think that we just need to be aware. There's no way that we can.

I don't think there's really a way I'm not enlightened enough to not be able to project or not be able to interpret or not be able to layer my experiences. on it. What I do try to accomplish is to take step back and just observe when I'm projecting. Observe when I'm interpreting. That's the whole forgiveness idea is that I'm seeing a smirk. I'm seeing a snide remark. Wait a minute. I'm projecting. It could be so. So I think that's where interpretation is just being able to take that step back. Because otherwise, if you don't take that step back, and this is why it's such a great question you ask, we can mix interpret. we can confuse interpretation for translation.

We can confuse the subjective or the objective. Yeah, it's interesting. I love the idea of language and words as symbols and just this whole dot this. I love one of the most powerful things we have as human beings is our language and we can communicate. But on some level, it's the, it's the lack of words to explain meaning that gets us in trouble. And like if you travel, sometimes your neighbor, something like that. Like you can say something exactly to them, but it can mean something totally

different to them. And that's why I just wanted to flesh out that conversation of interpretation. Like a good question people can ask themselves in a conversation is, what else could this mean? Maybe this could mean that this person likes me. Maybe they switch their tone because they like me or maybe they did this because they like me. But I love the idea of that. It kind of brings me to the next question, which is, how do you believe the intersection of strategy, innovation, and storytelling can redefine success for individuals and corporations alike. Okay. You're not holding back today.

So the issue with language, to go back to your point there, is just that it's very inexact, right? Yes. It's very inexact. If it was real exact, we wouldn't need a thesaurus, all these synonyms. Right. So, but how, so let me say back, how does strategy, innovation and storytelling, storytelling, redefine success for individuals and corporations alike.

So let's unpack that sentence then. Okay. Because if we're going to go to, if we want to answer it, want to be clear on what we're after. Okay. So success, how do they redefine success? So that assumes that we don't like our definition of success. So if some people enjoy success, then keep doing what you're doing if you've got a good definition. If you don't, and many of us need to either, many of us as individual corporations don't like success or need to get a new definition of success because things aren't working well for us.

Or we're living, not living a good life. We're living paycheck to paycheck. We don't have a good relationship or as a company we're floundering. Or we're doing okay, but just in the interest of continuous improvement, we always want to keep proactively assessing our goalposts and what our North Star is. all of those. Okay. So how do we define success? I think there are some basics around the ability to provide for yourself, the ability to be, you know, we live in a world of, of, we live in a financial world that is no longer bartering, is no longer communal living in that sense, but is one that's based on this ability to leverage this thing we call money. And money is just a measurement. It's

just an accounting, but it holds a lot of high regard, the more money you have. Yeah. So, and that's just a belief system we have, and that's just what it is. And so let's just run with it, right? Okay. And so if success is money, and money's a great thing, money's a neutral thing, money's a great thing. Listen, temples and churches and food shelters are built and take money to be built, right?

So. Right. But what are the definitions of success? Money, roof over your head, fantastic relationship. relationships, free time, doing for the most part what you really want to do. You think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you don't need to necessarily just fulfill your normal needs, but you can go meditate. You can do a yoga class.

You can fly your kids wherever they want. They want to go somewhere. You can go and do it. Yeah, you budget it, but it's possible, right? And people obviously, I think your audience could add more layers of success. I think also it's that idea. of just kind of inner, it's that ability to just feel good about your day to day, to wake up looking forward to things. And not that every day is perfect and you definitely have some paperwork

or you still got to get your taxes done and you still got to go get a colonoscopy or whatever. I'm telling you how old I am. I hear you. You know, you still have that. But nonetheless, you still have a good day and you're feeling excited and fulfilled for the most part. So that's definitely a measure of success. All right. So if that's the end in mind, that's where we We want to get. And as a corporation, you've transformed. You've got high employee morale. You've got a good culture.

You've got products or services that align with what the market needs. You're feeling you're at a good clip. You have good processes in place. Technologically, you're in the cloud and you're not using legacy software. You know, you've got your back end and your front end. You've got a good vision. You're in a good spot, right? So you get a good succession plan.

You're well capitalized, all that. So then that's how we define success. And I don't want to bore one to tears. But so then I would say so strategy, innovation, and storytelling. So real quickly, a strategy is more than just a plan. You know, a strategy is sort of this sandbox of strategies, a very overused word. But I think it's a very important word because it's not just what we're going to do.

but what it does is it ties into that end in mind. And it also takes into consideration other variables, other ideas. And most importantly, if you infuse it with innovation, then that enables you to kind of make what's unobvious, obvious to you. That's what enables you to see what you're not seeing. So a strategy in and of itself, yeah, it's a plan. There's a to-do list. There's deliverables.

There's a project plan. Ultimately, it flows and cascades into, all right, what do we? we going to do Monday. But ultimately, a strategy is kind of this real safe space where people can pressure test ideas, throw out their ideas, build relationships. I'm thinking of a company or even personally about that idea of success. The strategy, if it's done well, is literally keeping in mind if this is our end state, this idea of success, how do I want to get to it? Innovation then is really a way of new ideas, it's invention plus adoption. Is if you invent something and no one adopts it, you can't innovate.

So think of the old tablets, the Watson, I think, or the Einstein in the 90s that Steve Jobs created. It didn't get adapted. Didn't get adopted. And think about that in life. Like if you have a new idea, I'm going to go do a new exercise routine or something. You're inventing an idea, but if you don't go through with it. So innovation really is invention, a new idea, or taking an idea and applying it to yourself in a new way, but also adopting it. All right.

So then storytelling, and then I'll pause, give you back to my. Storytelling is so essential because that's how we learn. That's how we act. I mean, the only reason, if you think of everything in our life, American democracy, Walmart Corporation, Chevrolet, baseball as apple pie. These are all just constructs. And the only reason the Capitol building and the attack on the Capitol building was so visceral is because the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. is really the one physical representation, a physical representation of American democracy because American democracy is invisible.

It's all in our minds. You can't touch American democracy tangibly with our senses. five senses. So it's all a construct. And so storytelling is one way that you take these constructs and make them real so that we vote, go to war, wake up in the morning. Why do we do all this stuff? Why do people go to war? Because they're following a story. So strategy, create the plan, keep this end in mind. Innovation is invention, something new to you or a new idea plus adoption. And then storytelling is what gives the gears in motion. because the only reason you're going to do something is if you like the story that's being told about it.

Harness the power of the invisible enemy. Make him your friend. I like that. Wow. That's really well said, Casey. I'm just looking at your point. Yeah, no, without a doubt, I love the way you answered the question. And I like the fact that we can break it down and talk about each one of those things and hold each idea for a minute and then run with it.

I think it's important. It makes sense, man. Thanks for doing it like that. In your experience guiding Fortune 500, What common threads have you discovered in unlocking trapped business value and establishing customer-centric strategies? Say that one more time. So when advising companies, what strategies to unlock the business value? Like trapped business value.

Or you could just say business value. Yeah, the trapped business value. So that they can connect with their customers better? Correct. Yeah. So the trapped business value. can be found in a number of different areas. Internally, it can be in the back end.

It could be our processes are off. We don't have the right systems. We don't have information. I mean, think about anyone who's been on the phone with a company and they don't have your record pulled up. I mean, within seconds, you're a dissatisfied customer. And so it's really making sure, and this is where the cloud and digital, you know, really helps.

But it's just making sure that you've got that, that backend, that infrastructure in place to give what is really the most important thing right now, which is information. And it's actually two-part because you need information, but you also need the interpersonal aspects to deliver it to the customer. So having the technology, the nuts and bolts, all that geek out technology stuff there so that there's that platform and that foundation to do whatever you as a company need to do. then on the customer facing front kind of generally speaking i'm going to go with empathy uh there's a level

of empathy that corporations have not prioritized over 50 70 years and so on and they haven't only needed to but in the eight in you know growing in the 80s or 90s you needed to book a hotel room my dad was doing that for a vacation you literally whipped out the yellow pages you have out the white pages and you flipped and you called or you called 1-800 Hilton or whatever. And if they didn't have a right rate for you, you called a travel agent or you had to call high it or you called whatever. Now, you know, you have hotels tonight and you got hotels.com and you got it right on your phone.

And if you don't like what one rate is, you go somewhere else. And so the dynamic has shifted 180 in favor of the customers in many ways. Maybe not fully 180. It kind of, it can vacillate back and forth, but a lot of it has shifted back. to the customer where not only just bad reviews for a company, but also this ability to jump to their competitor. And that's why you have all these newfangled apps and competitors that have come because they deal in information. So unlocking that value is really around empathy for the customer and really having a pulse on what the customer is after. And so if you think of companies that,

new companies that have really tapped into a customer sentiment, it's, you know, Tom's of Maine and their environmentalism, whether it's Tom's shoes, whether it's Warby Parker, right, ship our glasses and we have high glasses, $99, ship them back if you don't like them, whether it's Hems and Hers and the hip way they have prescription medicine. They do it in verticals. They don't really go horizontal, but they kind of get bite off a little vertical of the market and take care of it. You know, they really see or thought they saw a pain or an opportunity for the customer.

That could be a real pain like, I need inexpensive glasses. Or it could just be kind of a hip thing because you can buy Viagra from anywhere, but like if I can get it delivered to my house discreetly, yeah, why not? Right. And so they've been able to tap into these things. Now you also look at older companies who've been able to transform themselves in unlock that value with empathy. Domino's, for example, with all of the new, you know, we'll get it there in a certain amount of time. I just saw an ad where you pin your locations so you can order Domino's

to a park bench, right? Simple, but they didn't have that before the technology, but now everyone just pins where they're going. And Domino's said, let's do the same thing. I mean, very simple innovation idea, but they adopted it. And here they are running ads, like we'll literally deliver a pizza that anywhere in the world. You don't need an address. It's crazy. So it's those types of things that empathy, and empathy could be something, you know, a cry on my shoulder, but it also just could be, hey company, corporation, just fit with my life nowadays. So I would say back in technology, infrastructure, really investing in what they need so that that then enables them to connect with their customers via that empathy. I love it. It's interesting.

to on the topic of value, we talked about the customers being valuable, but it almost seems like in this world of acceleration that the idea of the customer being valued is boomerang back to the employee being valued on some level. Like you're starting to see these lifestyle companies. It wasn't too long ago that if you were going to start a lifestyle company, people would be like, oh, you're lazy, you know, but now you're starting to see people want to live a certain type of lifestyle because it seems to me they're beginning to value their life more. They're beginning to value their relationships more and maybe we're beginning to value the human being again for so long we've been so computer-centric and focus driven on productivity but it seems now like we're starting to

re-value the human being a little bit what's your take on that exactly happy employees equal happy customers yeah 100% research research has shown that no you're absolutely right and the companies that are investing in their customers in in their employees well first of all it's just a good thing to do But second of all, it reaps so many dividends for their customers. And then it reaps so many dividends for the company themselves. And you see the outward manifestations of this, just pool tables and a bonus here and there and food in the kitchen and so on, which is all great. But it's deeper than that. To really have happy employees is a sense of purpose and mission.

When people say I'm burnt out, some people, have been burnt out over COVID and over the past few years or even before that. And they're working hard and too long. But there are a lot of people that I think we're using the word burnout, my hypothesis, not because they were really burnt out. They weren't working 80 hour weeks. They just didn't care. And they couldn't say, I don't care about this company.

That's not the right thing to say. But they could say I was burnout. And I just read in between the lines, I think a lot of people said, dude, I don't care about your company. I don't care about the product. all good to you. I just don't care about it. And so my hypothesis. And so happy employees who believe in what they're doing. I have a leave all behind client who I just got off with earlier this morning. And he's in the process of looking at jobs. And he's getting very close to some job offers in an

industry that he really, really likes. And he was very daunted about reaching out to people doing informational interviews, connecting. Once we have a good idea about what his skills and strengths are and what the job he should pursue, you then just get out there and you start connecting with people and I have this whole plan to help people do it. But he was hesitant a bit with that. And he says, you know what, Casey, I just love it. I'm having fun.

I'm connecting with people. And part of the reason he's having fun doing this in this job search is one, he's good at it. He's interpersonal and his skills are coming to the forefront. Some muscles that had atrophied a bit as a lawyer are now he's flexing a bit more. And two, he really cares. He obviously cares about himself and his mission, but he really enjoys these jobs. And I asked him, I'm like, now, do you really like these jobs? Like, don't do it for me.

Like, is this something you really want to do? And he totally did. So just having that you know when you care about something and having that mission and that purpose and just really enjoying it is all the different. So when employees are really enjoying their work, as an executive team, you can take a step back and go to lunch if you want or set the strategy for the next 10 years. Yeah, I like that. It almost seems like you're taking off a mask that you, like a Halloween mask that made you a different person or made you kind of scary a little bit. And now you get to take it off.

People get to see you for who you are. And there's something revealing in that. And there's something that is relaxing in that. And there's something refreshing in that. But many people including executives and corporations and corporations are legally considered a person want to be right, not happy. And so they don't want their employees to, in some ways, it's a weird perverse irony that if my employees are happy, they might be messing around and not as productive. And I no longer believe in billing by the hour. I think whatever the result is.

So there is this perverse. I think it's even subconscious feeling in the corporate world that, yeah, we can make the employees happy, but I know, that might hurt productivity. They're going to just be messing around. They're going to, no, some might. I mean, and you just, you know, hire slow and fire fast. If someone's messing up and they're toxic and, okay, that's fine. You can let them go. But most people, if they're really into it, they're going to be working even more efficiently

and they're going to get work done and they either take the rest of the day off, which, hey, okay, fine. Or they raise their hand and they take on a new project. Yeah. Do you think it's generational? Like, it seems to me, like, in the early 2000s, every book was like, scare your employee, scare them into productivity.

And it seems to me that we still have a lot of maybe octogenarians or people that are, you know, I'd say in the boomer generation, it still subscribed that ideology. And when I look at multinational corporations, and this is just my opinion, my idea, I don't know if this to be true, but it seems to me to be generational.

You start to see more younger companies coming up and they have more of a lifestyle sort of bent to it or they want to work remotely. In your opinion, Do you think it's generational or is it situational or what's your take on that? To a certain extent, it can be. I don't, I haven't really polled. I don't know.

I know many people who are 50 or 60 who love working from home. Yeah. So I don't know. I think it's situational. Yeah. Plus, I don't totally believe the headlines. You know, if all you do is listen to, say, the men who run Wall Street, you know, they would all say come into the office. But I think you as do.

The Swiss bank said we can all work remotely. I'm not sure, right? I do think it goes back to and run with me on this, Rene Descartes, the French philosopher of the 1600s. And so, I mean, he was really the basis of Western philosophy where he said, Kagito Ergo Sum, right? I think, therefore I am. Really, he was saying, I doubt, therefore I am.

And so his point was he based his consciousness and our consciousness and identity on the fact that we can doubt our existence, so therefore we must exist. And if there's any philosophy majors out there who can say it better than I do, please jump in. But that's my layman's understanding of it. But I think what that's done is it's really prioritized the intellectual in Western civilization since the 1600s.

I mean, the railroads, the Industrial Revolution, there's a reason we have so many productivity apps and productivity is so high on the list in in 2024 America and Europe. That's great. The mind is something, and I didn't say brain, the mind and how we're thinking and our intellect is something that is essential to us in this reality matrix simulation, however you view it. That being said, we can't ignore the heart. And the mind is just half of it.

The intellect is just half of it. There's the visceral and the emotion. And so I don't know if it's situational or general. I think it is subconscious culture that we need to be productive. I'm one of them. I mean, I'm type A. I love my to do list.

And so I just have to take a step back to say that, you know, I think some of the most important things might just need to be quiet time. I think there's a quote that Gandhi said, which I'll butcher, but it was something along the lines of, you know, I have 12 hours of work today. I have to meditate for six hours. and you would say, why are you kidding me? But the best way that he was really able to be productive

was to take a step back. And so I don't know if the productivity or working from home is necessarily generational. I think it's something that has been with us for hundreds of years. That being said with technology, and I'm not saying technology can solve everything. I don't believe that. I do think, though, that with the ability to enable us to offload things

to the internet, to digital connections, to AI, all of this. I know there's a dark side. Don't get me wrong, but I think there's a really bright side, which has enabled us to free us up. And part of that frame up has made us realize that we don't necessarily, we humans need to flex our muscles to be so productive. We can let others do it. So if we have some free time, that's where we can go and be introspective.

Now, many people take that free time and watch Netflix. Okay. We all need entertainment. I've watched, I spent four hours watching my 49er game on, on Sunday, right? But we do want to take some time to, to observe ourselves. So I would just call that out. I love it, man. Yeah, I think, you know, coming back to Descartes and language, isn't it interesting to see the rise of the mechanistic metaphors and how that changes our outlook or maybe narrows our outlook? It's interesting to think about us. I mean, we're this machine. And you start having these mythologies of like John Henry versus the steam machine. And then all of a sudden we move into this AI world. But now, and I'm curious to get your opinion on this, and I don't have any information for this, but it might be a cool study to do is to look at how much mechanistic metaphors are in the literature and novels, sci-fi, all that stuff,

and then see if there's a change moving back to more of a natural metaphor. It seems to me to the people I talk to today that we're moving back into ideas like heart-coherent, spirituality. And isn't it interesting that we have all this, AI right now and now we're moving back into this idea or maybe we're building a bridge to the mechanistic metaphors and the natural metaphors a little bit. What's your what do you think about that? No, that's a great question. Everything you know, everything's cyclical. Everything's back and forth. Again, I'm a sports fan. Sometimes I forget my kids names, but I know the 1984 giant

Thank you. No, no, no. I remember. How dare you, Casey? Exactly. But I know in in sports, like offensive philosophies, right? go back and forth. So, you know, right now in football, running backs are deprioritized because you have mobile quarterbacks and so on. But, you know, in 10 years, we're going to have a lot of running backs or, you know, flankers and so on. And so everything just kind of shifts in sports and it does in life.

Right. So I see that healthy tension between the metaphor, the imagery of a machine compared to more naturalistic. I think, you know, the imagery of the. human body as a machine really focuses on the external. And so it's not really focusing on the internal. I don't mean internal organs. I mean the internal in the mind and what we are because that's that's amorphous. That's not tangible.

It's difficult for us to really understand what that is. And it should be because our brains, our minds only go, can only conceive of so much. So I think the fact that we do view the body as a machine is a result of or indicative of our need to be productive and our reliance on really the seven ways that we, to go back to your point, interpret the world, our five senses, seeing, touching hearing, and so on, our thoughts, right, and our emotions. I mean, those seven ways are really the ways that we interpret this world. If you're watching a movie with a character,

James Bond movie, you know, right now we see what he sees and we hear what he hears. So only two. We still know we're Casey in the theater. But if we would taste sense, what's the other one? Smell, James Bond, the five,

and then if we thought what James Vaughn thought and we felt what he felt, we wouldn't be Casey anymore. We'd be James Vaughn. Luckily for us, we only, or unluckily, we only, have two of his senses. And so while we're in the two hours of the movie, and so

I think the human as a machine imagery really shows our over-reliance on the way we interpret the external role, but I think to the detriment of looking inward and that introspection. That would explain everyone searching for external validation as well. You know, you started thinking about it from that angle. You know, something else,

to think that could be interesting is that I had a long talk with Chat GPT about what the world would look like if we had a shift in sense ratios. And the reason I bring it up is Marshall McLuhan wrote a really cool book called the Gutenberg Galaxy. And in that book, he argues that it was the printing press that shifted our sense ratios. It gave us ideas like exact repeatability and all these interesting things we didn't have before. And in some ways, I think you can make the case for AI shifting our sense ratios again. And what might the world look like if we were were just not to have two of the James Bond characters, um,

attributes or senses, but a shift in them. If it was a little bit more visionary, a little bit more hearing, like that would shift everything, right? Because of all the moving parts, we move one of those,

the law of complexity, right? If we shift one of them, maybe we shift the whole machine, or natural machine, I guess. Well, and, you know,

the printing press, obviously that was revolutionary and changes so many ways. Right. But the main, one thing that I really find interesting, A main result of the printing press was, in my opinion, was the deprioritization of religion and the king in a world. I think that led to the Renaissance and to more liberal thinking because all of a sudden we didn't need to go to the church for the Word of God.

We could read it. We didn't need to go to the king necessarily or the town hall. And you could disseminate these languages, these thoughts, these ideas, these beliefs for better or for worse, without being, without having to rely on that central authoritative figure. And so when it comes to chat GPT, I think what's going to emerge is there's a new, there's a new like, you know, white collar, blue collar. There's a, there's an AI collar worker. Yeah. Yeah. Something new is going to happen in that sense.

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting that I once heard someone say that it's not AI that's going to take your job. It's a person that knows how to use AI that's going to take the job. And there's so many. And like you said, there's bumps and bruises along the way. But it does seem like there's a whole new decentralized world that's opening up the people because things are moving so fast. There's real no way to centralize it on some level. What's your take on the future or speculations on the, on the accelerations on the,

the acceleration. Well, acceleration is all in our perception, to go back to the earlier point. So some things are moving fast. You know, what I think that's a, it's a popular way to say is that things are moving faster. And I think they're moving faster because information is disseminated faster. There's more versions of it. people are getting whipped up into a frenzy quicker than before for better or for worse. And that's true.

And the internet and digital and technology and AI all are helping to facilitate that. So I think there are definitely some moments that things are happening faster now than they are than they did in the past. That being said, I think really the core element is you mentioned, you know, can people change? I think people are really slow to change still. And many of them still want to be right, not happy. And so that's the main driver because AI is just a tool for us. And if we don't use it in an accelerated way, if we don't use it in an efficient way or an accretive way,

then it'll lay dormant. And so the acceleration is there. And for the most part, I think acceleration is good. It gets us to that end state. It gets us to success quicker than we would have before. That being said, sometimes quicker isn't always better. You need to go through the steps. That being said, why go through all the steps if there are people out there who can tell you don't make the same mistakes I did, right?

So I think that it's true. I think things are definitely moving faster. I feel for the most part, that's a good thing. I don't think childhood is a good thing to move faster. There's certain some things that I think just need to go at their own pace. Yeah, it's well said. Dominique, thanks for chiming in over here. Dominique says, accurate, that's what I see almost every day.

People are always so stuck in their ways. You know what? Maybe that's necessary. Maybe everybody has to be stuck in their ways and face a pattern until they overcome that pattern. And when the individual becomes the best version of themselves, then we as a community become a better version of ourselves. Would you take on that? It's true.

Yeah, it's true. The one thing you can control is how you react and how you act to things. And that definitely helps the collective, whether it's a sports team or whether it's, you know, a whole country of hundreds and millions of people, without a doubt. The stuckness, though, is not necessarily beneficial, though, because we're here. here for growth on this earth. Right. They're definitely our cycles, but we're here for growth.

And if you're feeling stuck, I think that's a feeling of lack of growth. I feel that's a feeling of lack of movement, not necessarily forward movement that you have to get somewhere. But I encourage everybody to, again, not to be happy and not necessarily be right. I would encourage everybody to realize that there are better situations out there for them that they can step into, that they can create. The feedback to that would be, yeah, what, Casey? And how am I going to do it? And to go back to the EL doctor wrote quote, you just, you've got to trust that the headlights will show you.

And you got to trust the process. Now, you may need help. You may need to go see a coach. You may need to hire somebody. I mean, even the best basketball players have coaches and trainers. So you don't need necessarily to do it on your own. But I definitely have seen lawyers who are very stuck in their roles. And once they're able to get out of that job, sometimes they have to hit rock bottom.

Sometimes they just need to let me push them. And then they get into a job they love. And then they go to an non-law job number two. They're just they're making more money. They're enjoying what they do. And the big thing is all of a sudden, they are a. model to their children. They're a model to their spouse. Now you're talking. You know, if it anyone comes back, I mean, think about yourself, think about your kids, think about your parents.

Yes. There is nothing, there aren't many more things for a child to see than a very unhappy parent. And those kids, they see it. They pick up on it very early on. And so if you don't want to do it for yourself because you're stuck in your ways or you want to be right, not happy, or you're getting that what they call, Dr. Hawkins called it a cheap little payoff. Like you just really like being angry or you want that murder. Right. Or you want something to complain about. Fine.

I know you get that good feeling from complaining. But if you don't want to do it for yourself, do it for your kids. Do it for the people around you. Because you know what? It flows downhill. And there's nothing better for a child to see than a better model than a parent who enjoys their job, who is challenged, who,

and feels a purpose and initiative. Man, that makes me want to cry. Thank you. That's a beautiful way to put it. And I walked you right up to this hour right here. I only got like five minutes and you got another appointment. But before I let you go,

I can't believe the hours past that fast, but before I let you go, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Yeah, thank you again. Thank you for inviting me. This was the highlight of my week. And I was really looking forward to this story.

So thank you. Thank you so much for. having me on. I'm honored to be here. You can find me at Leave Law Behind. L-E-A-A-V-E-E-L-A-W-E-H-I-N-D dot com. I'm Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at leave-Lawbehind.com if you want to email me. And what I'm excited about, I mean, I, so I think for me, I'm excited about where I go. I think in the next little while, I've got some blockers and obstacles and fears that are that are standing in front of me.

I want to continue to grow my business to the proverbial next level. And that's going to take some work and inner work and real focus and me facing the stuff I've been talking about for the past hour and glabbering on about. So I have my own, I've got my own stuckness to get out of. And then there's new things I want to do, whether it's writing or whether it's, there's some initiatives here on Maui that I want to put in place to help people with jobs after the Lahaina fires I'm passionate about, but it's going to take. a lot of work or I think it'll take a lot of work. There's writing I want to do sort of under my name and my own website and I just don't know what that is yet, but I just got to put a little work in. So I'm excited about all that. I'm scared about it. I'm procrastinating. So I know the feeling. But those are the things that the further growth for me are the things that I'm excited at.

Yeah, the path of growth must be chosen over and over again. Hey, word on the street is you're going to be hosting your own podcast, man. Is that true? It is. Yeah. Congratulations, man. Thank you. I was chosen by the octopus folks to be one of the podcast hosts.

So I'm excited to kick that off. And I'll be in the regular staple of hosts. Hopefully, hopefully you all will like the shows I conduct. But, yeah, I'm honored to be part of that. And I think we'll be interviewing a lot of the octopus members, founding members, and picking their brains and all this. So I'll be on your side of the, your side of the microphone. doing that soon. You're going to crush it, man. I love the way you see the world. And thank you

very much for being here to hang on briefly afterwards. I'll talk to you real quickly afterwards. But ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being here today. Go down to the show notes. Check out Casey. Reach out to him. He's an incredible individual with a lot of great ideas. And that's all we got for today. Aloha.