Sean: What happened in between? Tell us about those 17 years and then tell us about the 19 years.
Jeff: You're right. You used the word aspiring, you know, people aspire to be a lawyer and that's absolutely what it was for me.
I guess ultimately one of the problems, if I re or unpacked my life is I had a reason to become a lawyer, but it wasn't a very good one. But the main reason I did it is, you know, when you're that age, you're like, what am I going to do with my life?
I had no idea. And my mom who has since passed, but my mom used to say, you know, Jeff, you should be a lawyer because you love to argue and you're really good at it. I think back on that and say, well, if that's true, then all teenagers should probably be lawyers because most teenagers like to argue, maybe I was good at it, but that was so real as a motivator. Because probably five years into practicing law my mom sent me a letter and said, "I really hope you like what you're doing, because I know that me saying that had an impact on you deciding to be a lawyer."
I mean I nailed it. I had a high paying job, was married, you know, all that, you know, house, kids. And, but that's what I started to ask the question like, what's next? Because I achieved my goal. And so I needed a minimum, a new goal and I looked around the very big firm. And I said, what I concluded I wanted was I wanted to be in leadership.
I really felt called to leadership. I just did. I felt like I had unique perspectives. But I took a look at them, they were run by a committee with a managing partner and I looked at who was on that committee. And I said, I'll never get in that room because I realized that the firm leadership saw me as unusual.
Let's call it odd and not in a personal way, but professionally, they used to say, I asked too many questions and I would say, isn't that the idea? And they say, no, it's actually not, you're pain. Because you know, and here's, what's really interesting. I don't know where this came from. I suspect it came from my dad who was an entrepreneur.
One thing that sticks out of that time was in leadership or the leadership perspective, people at the firm regularly said to me, why do you spend so much time with the staff? I ended up marrying a legal secretary at the firm. And I said, well, because they're great people. And I realized that they saw themselves as different from the staff.
And they saw themselves as in many ways, better than the staff when I didn't. And so early in my career, I was a guy that treated everybody with dignity and respect, which I think is frankly, the heart of leadership. And so as a result, I said, well, if they're not going to let me in the room, I'll go create my own room.
And I left and started my own firm. And. Did that for seven years on my own, 10 years at a big firm, seven years on my own building an awesome firm, we had a great team, great people. I was very committed to building that from like a business versus a firm. And we built this amazing firm and it was rocking.
And then I was running the firm and I was bringing in clients just like you said, and I was doing the work building the team. I was doing it all. And I had a life to make it, I mean, I had achieved Nirvana for lawyers. Cause I had a life. Most lawyers work too hard. This is the life you just go. I nailed it.
Except when I had nailed it, I started to think about what I was doing and realized I didn't actually like practicing law. I loved the business, but I didn't love practicing law. And it was a challenging decision, but it wasn't a hard decision because I knew that I couldn't do something I didn't love.
And I quit. I walked away from all of it.
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