The Lawman's Lounge

From Service to Law: Unparalleled Legal Expertise for Veteran's Rights with John S. Berry

🎙️ Leadership isn’t just about vision—it’s about showing up with energy, excitement, and purpose. ✨💪 John Berry dives deep into what it takes to inspire your team and keep those indispensable champions who elevate everyone around them. 🚀 These are the people who multiply success within your organization.

🔥 Tune into this episode to hear John’s perspective on building unstoppable teams and creating lasting energy in your business! 🎧🙌

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Duration:: 1h 6m
Broadcast on:: 30 Dec 2024
Audio Format:: other

[MUSIC] You're listening to The Law Man's Lounge, a podcast dedicated to help you take back and control of your life and your business. Here's your host, Bill, The Law Man, Jumanzky. >> Hey, I'm Bill Jumanz, The Law Man. Welcome to another rendition of The Law Man's Lounge. I don't have my normal co-host with me, but I do have my social media manager, who I enjoy, we hung out last night at a happy hour for mental health professionals. And then we went and sang karaoke, at least she did. But I think this is her second podcast as a co-host. And we've had already technical difficulties. I'm pretty sure my co-host who's in the building sabotaged us on purpose and then came to the rescue because that's how people are. Anyway, we're here and we got a great guest on Jen. Hi, Jen. >> Hi, everyone. You know, when I usually have Jeff on, I insult him. But I know, because you lack boundaries, if I insult you, it's just gonna come back worse. And I'm pretty sure I'm not sure what would get edited out or not, Jen. So it's so nice to see you. Just really- >> I see both of you guys. >> And speaking of our guests, the other guy on the show is John Berry. And he runs a huge veteran's benefit practice as P.I. and criminal runs the firm and what state are you in again? >> So our base is in Nebraska, but we represent veterans nationwide. We've got clients in all 50 states. So right now this, I'm in Omaha, Nebraska, broadcasting live. >> Yes, and John is a, what I love about John is that I had met once. And then I had seen his stuff, never had the opportunity to talk to you. And you sent me this book, I read the book. And then I threw it into chat to have a synopsis of the book to actually scale it down. And I liked it so much that I wanted me to do it again, because it's so simple. And you bring in a lot of your experience in the military. So about leadership and training with your firm. So I'd like you to talk a little bit about that. And we're just gonna get right into it. You can tell us about your background as we're jumping into this kind of stuff. >> Sure, so the bottom line is the book is the leadership manual for our law firm. And here's the thing, I kept learning the same leadership lessons over and over again, and I kept fucking up and it just drove me crazy, right? You get to the point where it's like, wait a minute, I made this mistake already. And I had team members making the same mistakes. And I'm like, okay, like, what if we just document it? And you know, be a little bit aspirational. So this is the stuff that works that we're not doing anymore that we need to be doing. And so it's all stuff that we did, but some of us like after I wrote the book, I'm like, wait a minute, why aren't we still doing this? And so I think it's aspirational and say we're doing all the things exactly this way right now because we do evolve, but the book was, I think it captures the most important lessons for us and I love to come back to them. And look, even the book was a lesson, right? It took three years to get it published. I launched the veteran led podcast because I had the manuscript, couldn't get it published, ran into some issues there and just at the end of the day, like it all turned out, but it was a lot of work and I'm glad I did it. >> So John, I want to talk about that, but first of all, thank you for your service to our country. I think a lot of people don't take advantage of that because they don't really understand like there's all the fuck all on our streets with the election and people bitch and do a bunch of shit. And I don't think they realize how hard those liberties were actually fought for and maintained. There's politics behind every war whether we should have been in Iraq or there should be here or that, but when you're called to serve, you're called to serve and you're doing your duty regardless of the politics. So, first of all, thank you for your service. I think it's important to mention that. And I'd like to address kind of your role when you were before law school, when you're role in military. And if you don't mind going to some of those hard learned leadership lessons. Because not everything is gravy, obviously in the military as well. There's some things that you learn about leadership. Always don't play out on the battlefield or in everyday life. And I'd like to learn a little bit about your experience as a leader of what you did for a country. Sure. So it's got to start with my dad. He was a Vietnam veteran. He had a famous case called the Green Bury Affair. This is where the CIA told members of the Fifth Special Forces to kill a double agent. They did it. They reported it and they were charged with murder. My dad fought that case, ended up subpoenaing sitting president Richard Nixon. And he came back and became, you know, after Vietnam, moved back. He was in New York for a while and he came back to the Midwest. And so when I, I went to college to play football, I was at William & Mary. I thought that's what I wanted to do. That was my dream. I, I sucked. But you know, two guys on my team, Mike Tomlin and Sean McDermott are both NFL coaches now. But I read, I wrote the bench and, you know, in my sophomore year, I got injured. I was going to have to sit out a year and I thought, you know, this isn't, it sucks. This is my dream. But I don't want to do this anymore. And so I thought, what would the next challenge be? I didn't want to go right to law school. And I, I saw this thing on, you know, the airborne ranger, right? And it was like, wow, army ranger school, how tough would that be? You know, 63 days of just getting smoked. These guys are losing 30, 40 pounds. And at the time, you know, I was a football player, some about 220 pounds. My whole life has been gaining weight and running fast, none of this long distance stuff and starving yourself and not sleeping, right? So that, that will be a challenge. So I wanted to become, you know, an airborne ranger. So I decided that I would get commissioned in the infantry, United States Army, graduated airborne school, then failed my first time through ranger school, had a pretty bad injury. And then I passed the second time and I was active duty up through deployment through Bosnia. And then in 99, we started bombing Kosovo. I'm in Bosnia. I think, okay, this is going to blow up. And it didn't. So I'm like, okay, nothing's going to happen. I'm getting out. I'm going to law school. So I go to law school and I stayed in the National Guard. They paid for some of my law school. And I was a company commander and September 11th happens. And after practicing law for about a year after I got to law school, my company was activated and I commanded a company in Iraq. But I had to go as a logistician, not an infantry officer. So I had a different role than what I, what I thought I would have, but I ended up staying in the garden reserve for 20 years, retired like in 2017. But that was a great, a great opportunity. So many lessons learned about leadership and the active component on the reserve component. I mean, when I was a, you know, reserve component battalion commander, I had a full-time staff that was working full-time and I would only be there one weekend a month, right? And I'd call in once a week to check in on them, but I, I learned how to lead remotely, right? And I learned how to make it matter when you're boots, when you have boots on the ground because you can't always be where you need to be. And I also learned, you know, sometimes the best thing you can do is not be around, right? If bill you mask is in the office every single day, people get used to it. If bill you mask, he shows up sometimes on a Thursday at five p.m., sometimes on a Friday at seven a.m., hey, people, that's a big deal. Oh, boss is here. But if bills there every day, all the time, first in, last out, it loses its impact. And people are nervous when you're there. You have more of an impact than you'll ever know. And as a leader, you have to accept that. Yeah, absolutely. I was struck by one of the things that you said, though, which is interesting because you speak very quickly and in there, there was a really good nugget. So I want to slow it down a little bit and take you back into that. You had said that apart when you were with guard, you were, you had people that you were in leadership responsibility, but they were there full time, four weeks out of the month. You were there one week for one week remotely or whatever. And so you still had to manage those people remotely. And I think that's a concept that's not talked a lot about because, you know, traditionally when people leave remotely, you, that's a lot of extra effort to keep engaged with people. Because if you're not in the office, even though people take you for granted by being there, you still may lose it. Like you said, you ought to come into the actual office occasionally, even if it's unannounced, not regularly or whatever, just to be there. But tell us how you led remotely, like one of the things that you learned, how to leave remotely, whereas you didn't have the ability to be there every day or whatever, because you're still leading, even though you're not there. Yeah. The big lesson is metrics, numbers, you know, people, there's this, and it's unfortunate. I think a lot of bar associations take this like leadership is about building consensus. Bullshit, leadership is about getting results. And if you are a leader and you can't be present all the time, you have to set high standards and hold the team accountable. And that's really all it is. And look, I learned this lesson at one point. We had an office in Arizona, terrible failure, because we didn't have a leader there. Other side of the coin was I had a one of our best veterans disability attorneys. Her husband got a dream job off in Sydney, Australia for a year. She worked remote in Sydney, Australia, like in 2016 or 17. So by the time COVID hit, it was nothing new. Like we knew, like if you're going to lead this way, you have to set high standards. But what I figured out is, you know, you can't be the leader who comes in and is, you know, giving everybody a hug and showing up and just being present. Like when you show up, you are the standard. Look the part where the good, you know, obviously that's why you wear these great jackets. But I mean, look the part and act apart because you have a small window to make a huge impact. And one of the lessons I learned from my two deployments was, I hated it when the brass came in. You know, there'd be politicians, general officers, and we would be cleaning stuff for like, you know, two days before, then we'd be in formation for two hours before they got there. It was a big colossal waste of time, right? We are there to, right, my job as a commander is to protect America's sons and daughters under my command. Right? I really didn't like like the dog and pony show. And so as a leader, I never want that dog and pony show. I never want the team to like, Oh, John's coming in. So we got to like, clean the office up like, no, I'm going to stop in whenever I'm going to stop in. And shit had better be straight. Otherwise, right? We're going to have a conversation about it. And we have standards and we have to hold people to those standards and your champions will absolutely love it. So you know what's interesting about that? I, I, I, I've been a leader for a long time. I just hadn't launched with the next employee who left and I, I definitely take it a hard. But I think there's several kinds of leaders and leadership is about results, right? So, but the lonely part about leadership, depending upon whether you score out as an empath or there's many things you can score out as, I think the, the tough part for leadership for me has always been when people are not rising to the standards, right? And yet they're good people, they may be in the world seat or they may, sometimes a functional leadership, but sometimes it isn't, you get them to a place and they're not meeting their standards and they're good people, but you've got to part ways with them or move them on to another seat or get them out. So I know that from your, you know, you've been doing this a long time also, you've had those moments where you've had to move good people out. Has that challenged you and has that been something because that sometimes for me, when we talk about repeatable mistakes is, you know how they say, hire a slow fire fast, it's very hard to do that. When you care about people, numbers don't lie or those statistics do, but you, but if you got metrics shaped up or like how many sales do you have, how many people just sign up, what's your average case settlement, those are things that don't really lie. But when you find yourself in a situation, you've never been challenged as a leader because I would tell you, like I know a lot of guys that were in operations and on the infantry field. And in those situations, leadership or not, mistakes were made, people die. And when people don't die in your business, right, the business can die if it takes a longer time, right? And being out in a battlefield and getting shot, you can tend to give more leeway. And as a result, that standard can lower and have you ever found yourself repeating that mistake or you able to say no, I think because the same thing is like cardiologists say, don't eat donuts, don't eat sugar, then you see them at Starbucks, loading up their shit across from the hospital. You're just kind of like, what the fuck? Have you ever had an encounter with that yourself or have leaders on your team that work underneath you that a hard time letting go of people that weren't coming to your standards? Yeah. I mean, I struggled with that for a long time until I was about 40 years old. And then when I could accept that feedback is a gift, I could just apply that universally, right? So if I can accept feedback, then my expectation is, and it's a gift, then if I give you feedback, you know, it's going to be a gift. And the more painful it is, the better gift, right? So, and also not all feedback is equal, right? The feedback from your stars really matters. And what I found is, yes, it really sucks when you really grow as an organization and you outgrow great team members. And you know, your best player last year is not the best player next year. It just, it's not going to happen. And as you continue to scale and grow, you shouldn't just grow in numbers. You should grow in competence and ability. So, you know, hey, second place on the battlefield is death. Second place in the courtroom is a jury trial loss. So second place isn't good enough, right? So if you want to win, you've got a higher champion. So how do you get champions? You've got to promise them that win. And you know, I know that you were a member of strategic coach Dan Sullivan, right, building that bigger future. And that's what I promised people to come to the organization. I'm going to build a bigger future. And my responsibility is to my A players, right, to keep them, to give them that bigger and better future where they can grow professional skills, make more money, great, more opportunities. That's how I'm going to keep them. And what's the cost? The cost is having to help other team members who do not meet the standards transition. Now, look, when I ran the officer in war, but I went to Ranger School the first time. Look, I mean, you have, you know, Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon, Army Special Forces. Not everybody gets to go. The best of the best get to go and then only 30% graduate. And the first time I went through, I, you know, I failed. So I know what it's like to not be good enough. And, you know, that's just the reality of life is that, uh, if you're going to build a championship team and you're going to go from good to great, like not everybody's going to come along with you, but where do you want to fail? You going to choose where you fail. Do you want to fail and maybe there's some people you could have brought up to that level or do you want to fail your superstars and watch them lead, leave or worse or worse? You watch them suffer because you as the leader couldn't cut the dead weight. And I know that's hard for people to listen to, but the army, it was very tough to fire people. You could relieve people of command, but it was very tough. And we were always taught, Hey, you as a leader failed if you can't get them trained, if you can't bring them up to the standard. But that's not true. You know, as Cy Wakeman says, you can't lead, you can only lead the willing. If they don't want to follow you, it's not your fault. And so you set high standards. You let everybody know what that standard is. You write out the vision statement. I like Cameron Harold's vivid vision. This is where we're going. My job is to get us there and nothing is going to stop me. And you know, so long as, you know, it's legal and ethical, right? We're going to do it. We're going to. And then what that means is you're going to make mistakes. We're going to fail along the way, right? But, but, but, but see, like failing is all part of it. And a lot of people, I think you're K through JD kids that never had faced adversity. All of a sudden they're in the law firm, they lose their first trial. They're not hitting their metrics. They can't handle it. And they're probably not good team members. You know, it's interesting. And I've talked about this with a lot of people, you know, so let's talk about your background, how you grew up. Because here's the deal. You know, it's interesting. You know, it'll be interesting. I don't want to digress into politics, but we know that whether you supported Trump or Kamala, what we do know is disruption is good, right? So the standards that our federal government have fucked off, right? So now they're going to come in, if they can, and we'll see, and they're going to disrupt the whole fucking thing. And people are scared of that. They're scared of the FBI, the scared of the DOJ, the Department of Education, but people are coming in from the outside. And if it works, if, because there'll be a lot of chaos, it's the only thing that saves the organization and the federal government has reached that point. So a lot of that, though, is people that have sat on their ass and have done nothing for years, and there have been no standards or KPIs applied to them. Why bring back your childhood is sometimes when we come from people that are actually successful, some of our own parents haven't taught their kids resilience. She talked about when you got to William and Mary, you wrote the bench. That was failure in some regard, and something that taught you a lesson as you watched others succeed, and probably a great valuable lesson for you. But I somehow suspect that you had failure early on in your life. Tell me about your parents and how they kind of instilled that in you. Because if people that come from nothing at all, it's obvious, they just kind of scratch it out. That's how they learn to hustle. That first generation of people, it's always the second and third generation that can make a society weak, unless the parents take it upon themselves to instill some type of resilience, which requires failure, right, because you can't be good at everything, unless you become a neurosurgeon. We need to talk about your neurosurgeon, because I don't like that fucking starter neck in two hands. What the fuck? Let's do that, motherfucker. Right? Yeah. Now he's a great guy. I didn't even notice that. Well, he told me about it. That's the only reason I noticed it, Ashley. I wouldn't have noticed it if you hadn't brought it up. I thought, man, I don't remember, but let's go back to your parents for a second. All right. Let's see. Okay. We'll go back to it. So my dad's side of the family, my grandfather was a lumberman throughout Iowa. Now before all this Home Depot business, there were small lumber yards in every small town. And so he had lumber yards in several counties. And my mom's side was farmers from Nebraska. And so my mom actually became a nun, she, you know, Catholic family became a nun because she wanted to go study Roman art, but I think the church was much like the army recruiters. Hey, come on in. We'll get you this. And so, you know, she wasn't in Rome studying art, she was in the western Nebraska. And so she didn't, I think, I think that was her idea of becoming a nun was that she would get to study all this great art, you know, and that didn't happen. So she left and she met my dad. My dad at the time was a lawyer, a little bit older than my mom. And this was after Vietnam. And they got married and I have two brothers and a sister. And you know, when I was 10 years old, I wanted to buy a swim predator bicycle. I had to swim scrambled, but I wanted a predator. And my dad's like, okay, well, how are you going to pay for it? I'm like, what do you mean? I'm 10. He's like, you can get a paper out. I'm like, there's a way. So very early on, I mean, once I had that paper out and I was playing, I started playing midget football. So like, I had dirty uniforms, so my mom made me wash my clothes. Like at 10 years old, I really like stopped having rules. It was like my parents like, look, there are actions and consequences. I don't think I was ever grounded. I don't think I was ever, you know, I mean, I'm betting yelled at, but I mean, the discipline in my house was more like, Hey, you know, you screw something up, you know, you will deal with the consequences from it. And it's our job to, I think as parents to let you learn your lessons and so my parents and plus let's face, I had an older sister, so she probably broke them in. But and my mom was working on her master's degree at the time. My dad, you know, I hate handled cases and I think 24 states and three foreign countries. My dad was always traveling, trying cases. So we were left home a lot, like, and, you know, we just, we just fended for ourselves. And we were taking care of there's always food in the house. We never wanted for anything, but my parents were very much like, you can have whatever you want. And my mom gave me a copy of thinking girl rich and I graduate from high school, right? So my parents were very supportive of whatever I wanted to do. It was just that I had to take responsibility for my actions. Yeah. And so that's interesting. You have kids now. I do. I have a daughter who's a sophomore in college, 19. I have a 16 year old son and then two girls who are turning two years old at the end of the month. Wow. Jen, well, I mean, that's like a lot of kids. Yeah. Oh, God, are you are the two girls are they twins? Are like, were they sisters? We're at the same time? We're like, how did that? Yeah. They're twins. So yeah, there's a gap. I upgraded my wife a couple years ago. No. Yeah. So I had two different marriages. Yeah. Okay. Cute. Cute. Yeah. We're being recorded. Like, um, yeah, no, yeah, it was a second. Yeah. Second marriage. So that kids. It's just part of leadership deal anyway. Yeah. She did. Hey, she didn't meet the standards. No, I mean, no, and that's I think it's an important distinction though, because when I got married the first time, I really thought that my brain would slow down that I wouldn't be an entrepreneur that, Hey, now I'm a lawyer. Now I've got, you know, I'm going to be at Home Depot doing home projects and coaching the kids teams and stuff like that, and, and I did that for a while, and I realized like that's not me. And so I think, you know, I what probably wasn't the right person getting married at age 27. And I, you know, my, my wife at the time, I think she wanted, she thought that's who I was. And I thought that's who I was. Turns out I never, I'm still that 10 year old paper boy, right, who, who's always hustling once more. Yeah. That's interesting. I respect that. I think that's about accountability, right? There's too many men and women, they want to blame their other partner when a lot of it's their own accountability. I mean, it does take two, but the idea is it's like you have your own idea, you lie to ourselves. I mean, lie to the other person, but we're lying really to who we are. And if you don't take accountability for that, then there's a good chance you make the same mistakes again in the next relationship. So that's actually very wise. You said that. Yeah. Now, look, I remember the moment, I'm like, wow, like I am a fraud. I'm living the life of like, you know, I've married this woman who expected me to be all of these things and it's like, and, and we, you know, we were doing very well, had a nice house at everything we wanted. And she didn't want more. She's like, you know, we just need to calm down, do this, you need to work less. I want you to be at home doing yard work and stuff. And I'm like, well, why wouldn't we just pay someone to do yard work? And so it was, but it's like, I thought that I was that person. I really thought that I was going to go grow into that old person who would be very happy being, you know, just a small time lawyer that gets to help a few people. And then I had a client come into my life and, uh, his dad was highly successful and he's like, and he learned about our veterans disability practice and he's like, why aren't you helping more people? And I'm like, well, what do you mean? We do this. And he said, no, I don't think you understand what you're doing here is very important for veterans. You have a moral obligation to grow this business. You know, and I thought about that. And I'm like, well, what do you mean? And he's like, well, like there are people who need your help. And if you believe you're good, you should help more people if you can. And if you're really a leader, like you say you are, why can't you grow this thing? And so it was, it was just, you know, it was one of those conversations that, you know, kind of I got me to stop and think and I realized like, you know, this, but that's not the wife that the life that my wife wants. And so we wanted something different. So, you know, the who I was at age 27, I was a different person 10 years later. And so once again, if anything failed in the marriage, it was me, right? Because, uh, I wasn't meeting the standards that, that we had set together. I had changed it from, I don't think I ever changed from who I was, but I changed in my perception of who I was and then I realized like, who am I, I got to be true to myself and who am I? I'm still that 10 year old kid that, that, that, that the things he can do anything. Yeah. I was going to ask you a personal question. You can answer as your first wife found someone that actually meets her standards now and is, is she actually happier for it because you know, that does take to it. You know, a lot of times when people are in these relationships, you know, the other person's responsible will realize they may be hurt and they'll want to blame the other person that openly, they were never fully happy because how could they be if you wanted the real person that was meeting the standards they wanted to meet the first place? Yeah. I mean, the, the answer is I don't know, right? I mean, it may be that she is, I mean, you have to understand when we have kids, one, I mean, and, and she was very good about the divorce and making sure that we, you know, make sure that we put the kids first. So I think that she has been very, uh, discreet in her relationships. You know, I'm remarried, but, you know, her thing was, I don't want you to introduce to anybody unless like you're sure. And so, um, you know, so I think that at this point, she could be in a very serious relationship. I don't know. So yeah. I don't want to probe too far. I'm just curious because you're, you seem like someone that takes a lot of accountability to talk about leadership in your books and leadership is in all areas of our lives, you know, like, and we, we obviously even as leader, we, we let down, we fail and we make mistakes. But I find that one of the things that, that I really thought in your book is how you organize it. And I would love it if you would give us, and this is a cliche question, but really it's not because I think a lot of things to be digestible are just simple concepts. So give us like the three things that you think that your book, because I don't think it's just a leadership manual for law firm. I think it was for every business actually. And so I like the real, one of the three biggest takeaways is someone was going to read your book and what you would want them to take away. Like if they didn't have, if they didn't do any leadership course, and I just did these three big things, these three big proponents. Yeah, I would read the buddy team chapter, you know, in the military, you show for bootcamp, basic training day one, you've got a buddy, you go to the little train with the buddy, the shower with the buddy, you eat with the buddy, you don't do anything on your own. And you know, there's something to be said for, you know, always having that buddy team. And so when I was a platoon leader, my buddy was my platoon sergeant who held me accountable. Then I was a company commander, I was my first sergeant, and as you go through the military, as you move through the ranks, the quality of your buddy moves up too. And that's why Bill, you probably don't like hang out with a lot of your friends from high school, because your buddy teams need to be people who are, who are on your level, and they need to be doing something better than you. And they're going to make you a better person, but it's having that accountability. And the same thing with a spouse, right? So for, you know, my first, my first marriage, you know, I probably wasn't a good buddy because I wasn't delivering the things that she wanted in the marriage, right? I was too concerned with work and taking care of my clients, and it just, I didn't make time for the marriage. I was a horrible buddy, right? And so I needed to go. And I think that's the thing is we outgrow our buddies. It happens, right? And even like, you may have a great marriage for 10 years. It may not last. You may have a great chief operating officer for five years. You may outgrow them or they may outgrow you. And that happened to me. My chief operating officer, you know, got hired by a hundred attorney firm and they made him the CEO, right? And was I pissed? No, I was happy because like, as a leader, I'm like, wow, you have just surpassed me. So I am proud of you. I'm happy for you. And let's make this transition. That's funny how we have similar tangents about that. We're not threatened by people that actually can outgrow us and move on. And I think when people respect you for that, because they know that you actually care for that. We've got a new series called Build a Bridge, Don't Burn It. You know, how to maintain a bridge with employees or team members that leave you. And it really doesn't start from the time that they leave. It starts from the time that you hire them. And you've got to show that you care about them, you're not threatened by them and you want them to do better. And the buddy system, that's the number one thing that I want to digress except that we'll tell you funny story because it has something to do with the company you're working with. Chris and I, Dwyer, we're accountability buddies right now for the next two or three months. But anyway, we're not like, I've been on his podcast a couple times and not as client. You know, I went to Pimpcom because he asked me to go and I wanted to support him. And I really did. Like, you know, you were great by the way, but like, you know, I could be doing other things. Conferences are not my deal, really, but, but I will tell you that we became accountability buddies where I'm actually having date night with my wife without a phone, which is tough. I mean, shoot, tell you it's tough, like, for me, it's tough. There's a fucking phone, you know, it's tough. Can I shut myself off? But I don't, I think it's so long, but I can't see this. And then the second thing is he's having meetings with his people, his leadership and also other people and honors leadership team asking them how they're doing, like having an actual lunch or a meeting that has nothing to do with work. And that's that buddy system. And you can have multiple buddy systems that push you in different ways. They don't just have to be your best friend or a guy you're doing business with or a mentor. You can pick one and go, let's work on that together for three to six months. So that was when I read that chapter about your buddy system, it's funny because I thought about Chris as well, I'm like, that's what I'm doing with him right now. And it's keeping us accountable for what we need to do, which is. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Chris is a great guy. And I really, I really liked, you know, his approach, he really is like a genuinely nice guy. And that that's really what I like about rings. I always say, you know, you're working with somebody who's, you know, at the, at the top level, it's a nice guy who wants to do the right thing all the time. And you know, that's things we all want to do the right thing. But we find out when we work with other partners, sometimes they don't want to do the right thing, right? So I always, I always appreciate that he is, he is very kind and, and, but always, you know, highly accountable person and I always looked at for that in a vendor. But you know, the other, I think the other part of the coin is, you know, your job is to challenge people not to coddle them. And so when I talk about the buddy system, you know, I mean, the greatest buddies I had were my non-commissioned officers who would just, I mean, they were merciless with me. If I screwed something up, they would pick on me about it. I mean, they were just, I mean, physically they would smoke me. They made sure that like, I was not going to break and they made sure that I was not going to screw something up when it mattered. And so they would rib me. They would, they would give me so much garbage. And the thing is, it's a new lieutenant. You don't know anything. I think this is good for, you know, as a new lawyer coming into an organization, you don't know everything and you need to just accept that. Here's what you can control, your neatness of dress, how you look, how you present yourself. I mean, people want to hire a lawyer, look like a lawyer, put away the tennis shoes in the backpack and look like a lawyer, get some proper foot gear and, you know, show up and look like a lawyer. You know, that's number one, but you can control your appearance. You can control in the military, your level of physical fitness because that mattered. But also, and finally, you know, your attitude, right? Like, I always want to learn. And even now, like, you know, I, I love, like, I'll throw hands with you over something. But if you change my mind and you're right, like, I have no problem saying I'm wrong. I mean, I love to fight, but like, at the end of the day, I have no problem. Like, that doesn't hurt my ego if, if John is wrong on this issue. I'm totally cool with that because I just learned something from Bill. And you know, I mean, it's, it's actually kind of funny. A few years ago, I, a woman who worked for her name is Amber Conroy. She is now at Morgan and Morgan. And she, I remember I had a cover, I said, I heard your podcast and she was getting me on podcast. I'm like, get me on that podcast. She didn't get me on your podcast. So, uh, here we are. Yeah, I'm just glad I met you. Your thing was great, uh, your presentation. And, you know, I, I really thought we were going to talk about that, but then I read your book and I'm like, nah, let's talk about that. So I want to go back to that. The buddy system was number one. What is number two in your, your estimation? I mean, I think it's really moved with the sense of urgency. You know, at the end of the day, you know, in the military, you show up and when you're running, you run everywhere, right? And it's like, you are always running, you are always moving. And if you stop moving with a sense of urgency, you're going to get past, you know, the old cliche, you're either growing or dying is absolutely true. But if you as a leader are not moving with the sense of urgency, your team will not move the sense of urgency. You can't be a slug. You're controlling the pace. You are setting the tempo. And so you got to move with that sense of urgency. And I think, you know, the other one is, uh, and these are all in chapter one, which is the survival, the survive, thrive, dominate trilogy, but yeah, survive, thrive and dominate. Let's talk about that. Cause you'll know that I read your book. So when you said a sense of urgency, you actually referenced hiring. So let's talk about that. Like what do you mean by the sense of urgency and recruiting and hiring specifically? Cause that was interesting to me. Yeah. So like right now, some, one of my recruiters, his name is Freddie Kim and they'll spec. He's out of, uh, he's in North Carolina, former Special Forces guy. I've got plans for like a year from now. Freddie, I've already laid the groundwork with Freddie. If you find this person, let me know. I'm not going to wait till I need them. I've already got Freddie out there looking. I've also found that if you have good relationships, you know, and I'll check in with the people I want to hire every quarter because they're going to have a moment of weakness where they hate their job or, you know, they got screwed on their year in bonus. This is a great time. They didn't get the year in bonus. They wanted, uh, there's new leadership on the team, whatever it is. They're going to have a moment where they're not happy. And you know, that's where you have to capitalize, right? And, and you've got to, you know, if you can build, if you believe that you can build them the better future, when that opportunity presents itself, you've got to move quick because they're going to get over that, right? If if something bad happens, they'll probably get over it. But if you can be there in that moment at that time, right, and in the army, we might call this an ambush, right where, you know, but, but it is what we're setting the conditions for success and when there is an opportunity to hire a great person, they're not waiting around because great people aren't looking for jobs. Great people all have jobs. Your great people are not getting, you're not going to find them on, uh, on Craigslist or, uh, or one of the job sites. No, where you are going to find them is happily employed somewhere. The only difference is if you can give them a bigger future and show them that you can, you know, not just tell them, but show them, um, that's how you get them. And when that window opens, you have to move quickly. Now will you make mistakes? Absolutely. And I've made some mistakes from hiring too soon, but hey, I would rather swing the bat than stand there and watch the ball go by. Right. So you're in a situation where you're actively proactively looking for a person that you want to fill a certain position or a certain seat in your firm that you're not ready to have yet, but you want to be prepared to have it. Sometimes in those situations, you might early hire before the position that actually creates itself, you find the right person. And that means keeping a salary on your books, knowing that ultimately it's going to work out, but you don't want to lose that, that, that, that person, we've ever done that. We hired someone. But in this case, you saying, okay, my special sports guy, you're going to find this person that I'm going to need. But what happens if he finds it next week and yet you are not ready, you may be ready to hire, but you're not ready to actually execute, but you know, that's the right person. Like, what do you do in that situation? Have you ever jumped and then hired the person before that needed them? The most important thing I do in the law firm is recruit and retrain top talent. That's it. Recruit, retain top talent. And so if that person that I need a year from now is available, I'm bringing them in. Hey, guess what? What that means? Goes back to the first one, which is, you know, move the sense of urgency, right? Okay. Guess what? We just brought this person in. We're not ready for them. What do we have to do? We got to grow faster. So it's a forcing function. But yeah, no, if it's the right person, do it. Now, I, I think where sometimes I've made the mistake is that person may in your mind to be the right person, like they may come from a very large organization, but they're not going to work in an entrepreneurial organization. So you really have to be certain. You really have to do your, do your due diligence upfront as far as what you think you really need. And then if they check all the boxes and you're certain, pull the trigger. Maybe you don't need them for a year. Maybe you don't need them for two years. Well, that's just because you're growing too slow, right? Let's figure out how I can need you today because I, I mean, I just think when you have that opportunity to get that level of talent, you don't pass on it. You never do because it won't come along. A players, I think maybe, you know, how many A players have you run across a year that bill that, that you would have the opportunity to hire? How many think you run across? It's the 80 20 principle, bro. It's Pareto. So it's very, very difficult. That's why I like our last hire was an attorney that I wasn't sure you're ready to have enough business. I just hired her because I knew she was an A player and she came highly recommended by lots of different judges. She passed through four interviews with us and you know, she tells me like they all do. I'm not going to stay here long and be here two or three years. Sometimes they go through their own thing, but I'd rather have two or three good years with her or maybe an extra year or two and pass it up. And so the business followed after and frankly, if the business didn't follow after, then the other talent that's here, if they didn't measure up would be a reason to maybe separate, you know, because when you hire a good talent, usually raises the level of everyone else around the team or else, you know, they're just more conscious. They're moving with more sense of urgency, not just with you. And you had mentioned just the interesting things. So I've done exactly that. I've hired someone a year before. I'm ready about to do that again, actually. And I want to give you a third viewpoint, but I don't want to forget something that we need to come back to, which is a functional leadership and I wonder how you feel about it. You know, Mike Mogul, who's also a Dan Sullivan prodigy, I had this recent thing up where he talked about it. I just read in a book called Game Changers. What's the difference between a game changer like Tom Brady or someone that's just a great athlete? I forget what they're called in his book. You know, the difference between someone who actually changes the game versus someone that's just a great athlete that gets a lot of scores and does stuff and there's plenty of examples in sports. But Mogul talked about you reach a level of leadership where you're tired of motivating people. It's like you as a leader are cheerleader blah, blah, blah, but if you find the right people, they should be motivating you. Do you believe that? Or not, like there's some pushback about some of that, but his position is I don't want to be the one that has to motivate them because if that's all the energy I've got to bring it every day, and that's okay, but I want them motivating me, like pushing me. And then when they're pushing me, I'm pushing them back and then it works out like in a symbiotic relationship. Have you found that as a functional leadership or no? Yeah. I mean, I think you in the military, we always talk, we talked about motivation a lot. You know, are you motivated? And the thing is like, you can't like motivate people. They're either motivated or they're not, you know, it's the, it goes back to, you know, I think it was, I heard on a podcast, John Morgan saying, you know, you're either a lion or a sloth and you can't change a sloth into a lion. But you know, I think there's some, there's, there's some validity to that. I can think back to when I was happiest. And that was being that young second lieutenant. This is the beginning of the book, young second lieutenant showing up at Fort Hood now for Kavazos, but I showed up at Fort Hood and those non-commissioned officers, the people I was in charge of, man, they were fired up, fire 30 in the morning, coffee in hand. We're going to do PT all day, physical training. We're going to go, you know, do battle drills and they were just, I mean, consummate professionals. And I was so excited to be part of that championship team that those guys just gave me a ton of energy. Now I have been, you know, I can remember I had a team member, you know, as a civilian that would just suck the energy out of me. I'd come into the office thinking, Oh gosh, I hope this person is here. I hope I don't see them because they're just going to suck my energy level down. But I think there's something to be said for you. If someone raises your energy level, then hire them. And if someone is, is detracting from that, then yeah, you probably need to let them go. But I don't think that as a leader, you need to give that purpose direction and to some degree motivation to the team. And so I think you have to show up and, and bring the energy and bring the excitement, bring the vision, but yes, you should have team members that are as excited as you. And those are people that are indispensable to the organization because they are, it's, it's very much, you know, it's the self multiplying company concept. They're going to build their teams within your team because they're charismatic. They care. They're champions. They're excellent. When you get those people on your team, you want to do everything you can to keep them because they're going to raise your energy level. You know, for me, I, I protect my, I protect my confidence and my energy levels by I generally, like, I spend my time with my eight players because that's what's going to tie that's going to rise all ships. If my eight players are winning, then everybody else is going to win. And so I don't, you know, do I think that there are some great team members who come in who are and do great things and maybe nobody sees or hears them? I see them. I know what they're doing. I see when they do great things and I let them know. But they are getting the team fired up. They're just, they're just quiet professionals and there's nothing wrong with that. But yeah, I don't need the team to fire me up. That is, that is my obligation. But I love having team members who are fired up. I love the, you know, the team members that go out that want to win the big trial, that will give everything they've got. I love being around people like that. I, you know, I hate being around people that quit, that whine, that want, you know, that want the easier way, right? And especially think about this bill, you know, you've been there criminal defense case, you know, or PI case, veterans disability case, someone comes to you and says, Bill, this is my future. This is my case. I am putting it in your hands. Bill, please help me. Like we have a, we have a solemn, we took a solemn oath, right? When we got that bar license and, you know, we have a serious obligation and, and for me, like, if you're in a law firm, like you have to have that, it's a non-negotiable. You have to be a zealous advocate. You're ethically required to do it. And if you can't bring that every day, then, you know, then, then you shouldn't be a lawyer or you shouldn't work at a law firm because people are relying on us. You know, and then look, I, you know, I think marketers are great in marketing companies do wonderful things for us, but our obligation is a little bit different. I don't need someone to come in and pump me up. I need someone to take care of my clients. I, you know, that I can trust them to do everything right to give my client the best possible opportunity for the best possible future. And if they can't do that, then, then, then they can't be here, but I don't need them to fire me up. And some of them, you know, they're quiet, bookish people who are just as dedicated as I am. And they may not. And some of them may be kind of hard to deal with. And I'm sure you've hired lawyers like that. Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. And I also think what I mean, motivational, I don't mean that they're motivating you, per se, that they're motivational. They can be quiet and still motivational for themselves because you look at their standard that they said and know that they're drilling it, right? Like they're just throwing it. You don't need to make them become a great lawyer. And it's funny because even this, uh, this year is going to be a big focus on my, is reaching out, having personal meetings with every lawyer, finding out what it is that they really want what they do want and knowing because they're not held the criminal lawyers are not held. I don't, I, I think that's a poor standard to say, you've got to have a certain percentage of a drop rate. Like they're, that, that requires and you can make them do some other ethical shit to do that. But you certainly can have them have a review rate depending on the type of cases they have, knowing that someone's handling murder cases is just not going to have the same review rate as someone handling DUIs. However, you can hold them to a standard to figure out what it is that they want. And also an explanation of when a case goes bad, why, and holding them accountable for that. And a lot of that is based on review structure, balance of reviews and everything. You don't do that. You lose your standard or you just become another shop that's just making money rolling around. And that's probably, you know, it's funny that you mentioned that. I mean, I want to get back to the third thing because I think it's important, but you did bring up something that's a trigger for me. Cause I do believe that my sons are in finance that both live in New York. My wife hates when I say this, when my sons are great kids, I love them, but they don't really have a servant's heart at the age of 22 and 25. And I don't really give a fuck actually, their service right now in their mind is, and they're in finance. So you can imagine, and there's a place for people in this world that are like that is how am I making money? Now they may give back to other people as they build families, whatever, but lawyers have a duty and we have a servant's heart. So like my kids said to me, I want to be a lawyer, I'm going to be like, for what? Do you want to help people or is it just to make money? So that's why this business that we're in is a hard scalable business. It's a low percentage of people to actually scale financially as if there's other businesses that you can do. Like you can buy stock, crypto, investing companies, hedge fund, be an investor, make a lot more money scalability. But you're right going back to each lawyer in your firm takes a duty and we sometimes forget when we're running a business that that's still at the end of the day, the most important thing, which I always learned is when I'm pushing new technology, I have a lawyer in my firm, she's a star and she hates the fact I'm using AI to help us communicate with clients like we need to use it to elevate our communication. No, no, no. I'm old fashioned. I want to communicate myself. I'm like, you should still be bad. Absolutely do that and use AI to elevate your stuff. I'm not suggesting to replace the conversation. It's just making yourself a better order because you may think you're great. But as you know, John, doing criminal defense, a once 30 day contact, which maybe all the time that you have or once every three weeks, unless there's something going on, right? Like a plea or a trial, but you're doing daily, they still want contact. So you need help. But the improvement of each of your lawyer reaching that standard is important and it's a good lesson. Everything's about grow, you die like you indicate, but you also said earlier, it's not just growing in numbers, it's growing in competency and quality. And if you're going to grow in competency and quality as you indicate, you got to give that your service to your client and fight for them zealously, which is in our oath in all 50 states about whether we do that. So I really think that's a good thing for our listeners who are trying to grow their firms, grow your firm, build your firm. But if you're doing it just for money and scalability, even though you yourself have that idea. So oftentimes, when I find lawyers, they start with the same passion we do, then they become business owners and they tend to forget what that lawyer that does for them every day, which is what the basis of our operation is, is client comes to you, John says, I need your help, will you help me? So it's our own interaction. Yeah. And that bill, and this is why the growth is important because we can build capabilities. Years ago, I represented a veteran, former police officer and a federal excessive use of force case. And we won the jury trial. Actually, the first time we tried, it was hung second time we won the jury trial. And my CIO, who was also airborne ranger qualified, he's like, dude, you won the trial, but on the technology side, we got our asses handed to us by the feds. And he's like, you know, your, our trial tech needs to be better, right? And then it's case management software needs to be better. And so as you can build better systems, here's what I believe, I believe that the reason why growth is important and scaling is important is because your lawyers on your team are your tactical athletes. So if I'm bill you, man, I'm in charge. I want to have the greatest lawyers, you know, in the state of Florida, in the, in the country, whatever your goal is, you got to say, okay, how do I make them the best? The one word that, uh, hey, I'm from Omaha, so the Warren Buffett word focus, right? So I want them to focus on the legal problem. So what do I do? I need to have in-house tech support. I've got the marketing team. If I wanted them to shoot a video, everything's going to be set up for them. I don't want them to do anything other than practice law, right? They've got a practice law. They've got to get referrals, you know, business development. They've got to get reviews. They've got to, um, you know, they've got to keep up with their CLE. There's a lot of things that the lawyers have to do, but there's a ton of things that they're doing that they don't need to do. If they're staff drama, that is not a lawyer problem, right? That is why you have a staff to take care of the staff drama, right? If someone's going to be out of the office, out of town, people aren't getting along, that's not a lawyer problem. The lawyer is worried about the client. And so my job is to get the lawyers focused on the client and then focus on the things that can make them even better lawyers. And so for me, the real value in scaling the firm and growing the firm isn't just about size. It's about growing capabilities so that my best lawyers can become even better. And that's why we invest so much money in technology. It's kind of funny. People see the billboards, the TV, they're like, oh, well, you spent a lot of money in marketing. I have no idea how much I spend on infrastructure and technology. Because all that money spent on marketing, if you suck, people will know you suck. And it's, you know, if you, if you're doing something great, hey, expand it, get the name out there, believe in what you do, go all in. But man, like it starts with spending that money to bring the biggest amount of focus so that your lawyers can focus on their cases. And what I found is if you don't market and all the crap cases come in that nobody wants, you need to start taking them, right? So what happens? Lawyers take cases that they probably shouldn't take. They're either not qualified or maybe it's a, you know, the client is not going to be a good fit. And so because they're not marketing, they're not driving the right to their business. That's a distraction. So the goal of marketing is to bring in the right amount of people, the right people in the right amounts, keep everybody else out so that the lawyers can focus on doing their jobs. And so, you know, yeah, scaling and building a great organization, it's not about getting bigger. It's about getting better. It's building better capabilities that help your lawyers focus on being great lawyers. Yeah. And I want to go back to you because I want to make sure that you get this out. We talked about number one, the buddy system, number two, moving with a sense of urgency. And I'm bringing you back now to your book. Let's talk about the number three thing you think is important as far as leadership and bringing it from your experience in the military back to your office. Yeah. So, I mean, I think I think I said something earlier, but maybe, maybe I will. I will change it. Go ahead. Yes. But you don't tell it a little bit. And I got it. But I still want to, I know what you're going for. You know, I think one of the one of the bigger lessons, and this is the tougher lesson is hurry up and wait. And this is about having that tactical and operational patience. It's very tough when you have to set something in motion and wait months for it to get done. And as a leader, further you get from the ground, the faster, the more you can see. But your team, a lot of times cannot work as fast as you. So you really, you really have to develop that, that operational patience of just letting things happen. And it, you know, too often as leaders, we want too much too soon. And we have to, sometimes we have to back off so that we don't break the system. Now, that's contrary to, go ahead. Yeah. No, it's contrary to what? Because this is actually gold, and you spend some time, you hesitated before you said this as you were thinking. And this is really like one of the most important things that you said. So I don't, let's talk about that. Because it's not just a functional leadership, it's a functional entrepreneurship actually. Because you may have leaders on your team that actually will execute and be patient through it. It's you as the entrepreneur that's pushing it at a faster rate up here than what's being accomplished tactically. So talk about specific examples that you've done in your past is really good for our listeners to understand where you got the way, because, you know, like a bull in a china shop. If you have the fucking thing, let's get it done, I want to do it. You can do that in a positive way, but like whatever it is, you just, you set it and now you break it and you just didn't wait, like let it sit for a while, cement itself to each other. It's going to happen. Specific examples about where you fail in the hurry up and wait process and how do you exert the discipline to do that? Yeah. So I mean, from the military example, hurry up and wait, right? So if we're going to set an ambush, you know, we're going to observe the enemy for days, weeks, months, right? And we're going to know when they're going to be coming down the road at this time in which direction, how many vehicles, how many people, we're going to know the enemy's habits and we're going to set, you know, we're going to set up with our security, our support by fire position, our assault position. And we're going to wait, right? And we're going to wait until the enemy gets right in the center of that kill zone before we use our most casually producing weapon to begin the symphony of destruction, right? So before that claymore mine goes off, that machine goes off, the enemy is right in the center of the kill zone. If we fire too soon, then they may, you know, they may be able to escape, but we want to, we want to make sure that this ambush is successful. So we have to wait for the right conditions. And we may be waiting for hours, right? And it may be, yeah, in some cases, you may be, I mean, if your intel's right, hopefully you're only waiting for hours, but you could be waiting, you know, for more than a day. And so for this one event, and so, you know, I learned about that and training through the military, we would do all this training on building that tactical patience on missions like ambushes where the enemy's supposed to be there at this time, but the enemy's not there. What do we do? Well, we wait and, you know, that was, that was tough. And I learned a lot about that through the Army Ranger School that, you know, you're all amped up, but you've got to wait. And you know, I've done that in business so many times where it's, you know, I've got a great idea. I want to, I've got this great marketing campaign idea, right? And I've done this so many times, but our sales team can't handle all the calls and we're dropping calls left and right. Or I've got sales and marketing dialed in, but operationally, we can't handle all the cases. What are we going to do? I've been to the side where, you know, we had two finance people and we couldn't get that, you know, we couldn't process everything. But it's, you know, the business is never growing at this, at the, you know, it's one, it's a three-legged stool. It's always, you know, rocking back and forth and it's trying to get that stability through, through being intentional about just letting things bake out. And so when I went from my, when my C, the CEO that I just told you got hired by the 100 attorney firm to become their CEO, I waited six months to let everything bake out that he was working on before I hired somebody else. And that was an urging of, of one of my coaches, he's like, you know, before you get all amped up to get somebody else, like you might want to like just, there's a lot of stuff you just did in the last year, just like, let's see how it plays out. Like don't, like just let it simmer, let it bake. And that was tough for me, but I learned through that period who my great leaders were and who needed, who needed help. And so it helped me make a better, better hiring decision. But yeah, I've done that. That's great. Yeah, it's great. Your coach did that. That's very interesting. I, I, you know, a lot of times like with foam, like give an example, marketing that you raise, the biggest example, right? You, you turn on a thing and then you don't have the resources to deal with it. And you're just impatient because you want that thing now, because you know it can get your cases. And then all of a sudden your intake can't keep up with the cases and you just lost a shitload of money because you weren't a patient. But, and you know, but in the back of an unsquirtered mind, it's always like, I don't want to be the food ship. I want to be the jet ski. And sometimes the cruise ship takes a long time to turn. And there's some operational things that have to, for example, foam stuff. Remember the days of the ring, ring trees and receptionists and calls dropping, which is still like the bane of my existence anyway. And then you, you, you implement things, your leadership comes through a decision. They make a decision. You know, like, I don't know if that's the right decision, but the leadership function is we all talked about it, I got out voted, the decision's made, then you see it not working. But you're always like, fuck, like how fast do I need to change it? And you get frustrated because you know you're losing money. But you also know if you change it immediately and break it, you break leadership spirit, you break all the people that just got trained on it. So you got to fucking wait a week, two weeks, three weeks until knowing that you're losing money, but knowing that you can't just break it, like if you break it, what's it really saying about your trust in your team, right? So you got to, and that's that tension between being the jet ski, that's nimble, right? And then, and then on the other hand, having the patience to let things bake out because they need time. One of that's like a hire, right? You, you, you said it yourself, hire someone before the position, there is sense of urgency, but you got to let that bake, you know, a hard business about a person, John. And I was like, this is all my plans for them. This is the KPIs that set up for them, but what I had in my mind was really unrealistic to have them do on day one. I communicated the wrong thing to my team and I had it like, okay, we need to dial this back. We need more patience. It's, she's going to cost me more money, but ultimately at some point that return is going to be there. And as long as there's improvement, steady, urgent improvement, but it's not going to be like this. And you got to be patient with your decisions. And sometimes they take longer than you envision up here in your mind, it's, it's hard. So I really think that that's a great thing that you said, actually those three things you can learn from the military. We've been on the Zoom or our podcast for a while. Jen, you got any questions? I feel like I dominate, like I'm sorry. It's okay. I was writing some. I only have four, so I won't hold you for too long. But the first question I came to mind last night, we attended a mental health healthcare mixer. And I was thinking about what you mentioned earlier about PTSD and the military and the veterans. And something that I wrote was how can the legal system and society can better address mental health and the veteran community? So what do you think about that? Yeah. I mean, I will tell you, I, there's a lot of stigmas associated with the veteran community that I really dislike. I mean, obviously post-traumatic stress is a real issue, right? And it needs to be, and it needs to be dealt with. And I think that there are, you know, problem solving courts to deal with that for people that, for veterans especially need to deal with post-traumatic stress. But I also want to point out that, you know, the sharpest, toughest, most resilient people you'll ever meet are veterans. So the people who I found to have had the strongest mental health are military veterans because they've been through adversity. They've been trained on resiliency. So I, but that being said, look, under my command, after I got out, I had three soldiers commit suicide, you know, and I had to deal with a, you know, an attempted suicide from a very person very close to me in addition to that. And you know, I, I, and I've had conversations a lot of veterans since then, and you know, I've always said this, okay, what's really bothering you? And, and it's just, I said, so if you're going to kill yourself tomorrow, well then, what if you gave it a day? What would you do? What, what if you'd agree? What if you gave it a week? What would you do? What, what are you really like afraid of, right? And so a lot of times I'd say, well, you know, maybe they want to get revenge on somebody. Never a good idea. Well, you know, with revenge is always the rotten fruit falls off the tree by itself. You never need to do anything. But, but you know, it's like, hey, I, I failed here and I feel really bad for my family and I feel bad. And like, well, so you failed. So like, you know, make it right, you know, and I think, or they care about what somebody else thinks. I'm like, why do you care what somebody else thinks? Like, this is about you. So I've had a lot of conversations, and I'm always happy when people reach out to me. And in our, I'll just tell you in our veterans law practice, we do get, we, you know, we, we do get contacted by people because they know we're the authority. So they come to us and they say, hey, I know somebody and invite and a lot of times it's just a, it might be one of our clients who has a friend and then they're like, what do I do? There's a, there's a VA crisis hotline. Do we call this? What do we do? And I'm always happy to help. But, you know, what can we do to solve the problem? You know, I, I would just say where I have found in the veteran community, the biggest problem has been you get these highly motivated, dedicated heroes and you take away their mission and you take away their team and you leave them with some pretty bad memories. Nobody wants to be there. So I always say find a mission, find a team and the most successful veterans that I know, I mean, a lot of them, I mean, very successful business owners who have dealt with them said, once I built my team and, you know, once I found that mission, it meant something to me. And I, and that sometimes that's getting involved in the nonprofit, but it's, it's all about having that team again, because what I found is, you know, for veterans that go through a traumatic, I guess there's, there's a lot of different scenarios, but who, who would have to deal with trauma, you know, usually when that team is still there and that mission is there, it's not a big deal. You know, the dragons come at night, not during the day. They come at night when they're alone. So you got to have a plan to deal with that. And my dad always says, you know, if you want to talk about your PTSD, if you talk about during the day, the dragons don't come at night. Yeah, I love that. That's great. And, you know, everything else labels tend to be overused on the John, which I know. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. The next one is how do you balance your role as a child attorney advocate for veterans and a leader at Barry Long, like what drives you to excel in all of those areas? Buddy teams, I've got great people that work for me. And I don't want to let them down. I promise them a bigger, better future. So I am set up like an infantry battalion. I have three commanders, the commander of my VA team, the commander of my criminal team, the commander of my PI team. My goal is that they are all will all be better lawyers and better leaders than me. So I pour into them and, and give them everything I've got. And then I hire a great staff. And that's, that's pretty much how I do it. And that way I get to work on the things that I want to work on, which is keeping it simple, right? Which is something else you refer to in your book. Yeah. We overcomplicate things, especially the lawyers. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. You've been described as a warrior in the courtroom. How does the mindset you've developed in the military chance like to your approach as a child attorney? So you know, I think lawyers tend to overthink things. And Bill just said simple simplicity wins. Certain concise beats cute and clever every time. I know I've had that conversation with Harlan Schillinger and other people, but, uh, you know, who was always told me, just talk to the public like you're talking to the jury. How do you talk to the jury? I said, well, I try to be clear and concise. Now you should have a good narrative. You should, uh, you know, you need to be prepared. You need to do the little things right. But at the end of the day, if you can just have a clear and concise message, that often carries the day. If you've done your homework and you've done it, you've done all the work. Okay. So finally, do you have any plans for another book or do you have any new initiatives that you're working on, anything up those sleeves? You know, the short answer, I'm trying to figure that out. I mean, this has been a busy year. We hired a new chief operating officer, veteran led podcast is going to hit a hundred episodes this year. And the book is out. Um, there's a, I have a lot of opportunities to do some things that I want to do outside the practice of law. And I'm considering pursuing them. Um, I still, you know, I, my wife falsely accused call Mallory Hughes. I love to try cases with her. Um, I want to, you know, my goal is to get in the courtroom as much as I can, uh, and, and help my lawyers to the extent that, that they need my help, but I never want to get in their way. But, uh, you know, I need to, this is the, I'm at the point of my career where I need to take any drink water. This is time for the tactical pause and I have to think it through. Um, we have been, if you read another chapter, um, it's called, uh, ride the lightning, not the Metallica song, but what we call the runaway machine gun. You take a belt fed machine gun, you put the belt and you pull the trigger. Sometimes the trigger will, for lack of a better term, stick. And what happens is even though the trick, you take your hand off the trigger, the gun keeps firing and when that momentum hits you, it hits you so hard and so fast, you know, you can break the belt and take the ammo out so that the ammo doesn't keep feeding through or you can just ride the lightning and just keep, keep that weapon pointed up and down range and just let it keep shooting at the target until the ammunition is gone. And you know, I've been kind of that ride the lightning phase and it's an important phase to being as a leader because when growth hits, you'll never, you know, you never know when it's going to hit, but you hit these periods of rapid growth and, and it's all, you know, you as a leader are really tested at that point. Do I really want this? Is this what I really, because a lot of leaders don't have the guts. Once they've built everything out and, and, and they start to lose control and start writing the lightning and things are happening really fast and they know that they can't stop it. They freak out and they sabotage themselves. You can ride the lightning for a while, but when, when that belt of ammunition runs out, you know, take a tactical pause if you can't and really think through what that future is going to be. I mean, we've got some huge growth plans for this. I'm really excited about where we're going, but, but what's next for me is a different question and right now I'm trying to figure that out. I will know in the next couple of weeks, but for now I am trying to just help my leaders be the best leaders I can be help the coach grow and mentor them and then we'll figure out what's next for me. But ultimately my goal is always to make my team even better and to be that resource that, that is the reason, well, in the end, I want them all to surpass me and I want them to feel like, you know, what they did at Barry Law mattered, not just to the clients, you know, not just maybe to the team members, but also to their families that we provided them a great life and great opportunities. And so for me, it's really figuring out how do I continue to do that and build it even bigger and even better. Yeah, I love that, John, and what's your sign in? What's my sign? Yeah. Like, like my astrological sign? Yeah. That's the question, John. What is your sign? He hasn't been in a club in about ages. Yeah. Well, yeah, no, I, I, Sagittarius. Okay. That makes sense. Okay. There you go. Yeah. That doesn't look, you know, Sagittarius and John. Yeah. I think it's the, it's the horse with the arrow, right? Like the half man, half horse type. Yeah. Yeah. You, bud. And I, sure. Yeah. So tell, we're going to wrap this up. Tell us how our listeners can reach out to you or get a copy of your book. I'd actually like you to send me a couple of extra copies, I'm going to give them out to some people and tell us a little bit about how they can reach you. Sure. So, um, you know, the book can be purchased on Amazon or wherever fine books are sold. Sometimes that tagline, you're supposed to say that. And so it can be, you know, but most of the sales are on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.com. Um, I'm happy to send you some more copies. Let me know. I'll send you as many as you need. Just text me. Um, you know, and, uh, you can find me on any social channel under veteran led. The name of our firm is Barry law, which is I own berrylaw.com, berrylaw firm.com. So it's B-E-R-R-Y, uh, you know, our websites, we have two sites, our national veterans law site is P-T-S-D lawyers.com. It's in post traumatic stress disorder, but actually, uh, also vet injury.com. And then, uh, if you want to find us, uh, our criminal and, uh, personal injury practice in Nebraska and Iowa is berrylaw.com. Well, thank you, John. I really enjoyed it. We went over, but it was definitely worth it. I appreciate you coming on and I used to say law man's out, but I'm not, I'm going to let you say it, actually, because you got a gruffer voice tonight. You got it? Go ahead. Law man. Out. Well, thanks for listening. The law man wants to hear from you. So if you have any questions, give them a shout out. Follow them on Instagram. That bill is a law man. You can also visit the website at www.thelawman.net and on YouTube at bill the law man, you man ski. If you have any questions about your business or anything, just hit them up and we'll try to get an answer to you. We try to bring the best advice that we possibly can. And if you thought it was good, talk to your friends and we'll see you next week.