458. AMMA — Finding Your Identity Inside and Outside of Your Business

What would you do if you didn't have any connections and you didn't have any money? You had to start over and I'm like, "All good, you didn't take the thing that was most valuable away from me." Which is, the knowledge and the experience and the wisdom and the insights and all the things you've learned along the way because that's where the true value came. I'm Michael Mogul, founder and CEO of Crisp, the nation's number one law from growth company. I've built my business through practice, not theory. Crisp started which is $500 to my name and has grown to over eight figures in revenue over the last few years, earning a spot on the ink 500 lists of the fastest growing private companies in America. Our approach has been to take everything we've learned about generating massive growth within our own organization and help the country's most ambitious and committed law firm owners do the same for theirs. In each episode of this podcast, I sit down with innovative market leaders from the legal industry and beyond to learn from those who thrive in the face of adversity, challenge the status quo and define what it means to be a true game changer. This is Jessica, head of Coaching Strategy at Crisp, and today we're flipping the script for another special edition episode to get Michael's take on, addressing burnout and the sustainability of a grind first identity, how to balance authentic leadership intensity with being an approachable mentor, and maintaining drive and ambition once survival is no longer your goal. The person who's just driven solely by money, once they get enough money, they're satiated, right? That's about how many people you can take with you. That's an infinite game and that becomes a truly dangerous adversary because that person never stops. It's about creating bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger impact. That's coming up on the Game Changing Attorney podcast. Here we are, yet again. And we're back. It's almost like we just did a podcast and we're about to do another one. Weird. So weird how that happens. Listen, we figured out this formula where you can record more than one podcast in a single session and it turns out to be very, very productive versus having to like sit down. So well, here we are again. Here we are again. And it's like, wow, what are we going to talk about? Because this episode that we're recording right now won't air until like another week or so. Another week or two? Yeah. So you got to be a little bit careful because we could be a World War III by the end and who knows, right? We can't talk about current events. Cannot. Anything about psychos and how I actually, there's something I've been doing on Friday early mornings and it is, you know, if you ever wonder where the psychos at, I could tell you exactly where they're at. They're at the lake or the river and they're wearing a wetsuit at six o'clock in the morning and they are preparing to jump in and swim in 50 degree water. And you know, this kind of goes along the lines of like one of the last time you did something for the first time. This past weekend, it wasn't on a Friday, but it was on Saturday morning, went up in Lake Allatuna and got into a wetsuit and jumped in the water and there's like, you know, there's like families walking by the trails that's early in the morning and they're like, uh, how is it, right? And you're like, oh wow, like there's a bunch of us. We got like these little floating buoys and all this stuff because, you know, we're training for triathlon. So you want to get comfortable swimming in open water. And open water and swimming in a pool, they might have all be two different sports entirely. You got a pool, you can see everything. You got this line on the bottom, like he's got, you know, the water is like calm. It's like a country club compared to swimming in open water where it's like, look, I can't see a damn thing, right? You got to do sighting. You look down. It's just like, you know, it's all opaque. All right. I got something nibbling at me and I'm like, I see someone got some guy, I saw somebody walking around with a fishing pole and I'm like, is this fish in here? Right. What kind of fish we got? Right. So anyway, my point is that things like that are amazing experiences. You got to do things that absolutely challenge you and, and I think I've gotten to know a habit in my life that as soon as I get comfortable with something, I do something new that makes me uncomfortable, right? Like what, I was just telling you about this. As soon as I got comfortable pool swimming, get that open water swimming. Yes. As soon as I got comfortable riding a road bike, it was time to get a try bike, right? Like as soon as like this, this level of comfort sets in, it's like, okay, now, you know, we need a new level of, it's like the adaptation, right? You're always kind of challenging yourself and it's the same thing, you know, same way in the business, right? So we got, we hit a level of momentum, boom, it was time to cause some more problems and level up in some way, set a bigger vision, set a bigger target, whatever that might be. To be basically expand the ecosystem or, you know, take on a new challenge in some respect. But those types of things, I think is what makes life interesting. When you're doing something new for the first time, it, you know, I think we talked about this maybe a couple of years ago that I read this study where it said that after the age of 30, like one of the last time you jumped, like jumped and one of the last time you sprinted, right? Like if you asked somebody 40 years old, 50 years old, 60 years old, was it the last time you jumped or you had to run a sprint? Like just, I don't know, you just do, I mean, it, it's probably been years and it, you know, when you, when you stopped doing those types of things, if you're ever in a situation when you had to, like you had to jump to get out of the way or you had to sprint, like that's how these injuries happen because the body is not used to it, right? So it's the same way when you look at flexibility and someone like, I mean, I'll go get our kids, these girls can do splits, like, and I'm looking at them and I'm like, damn! That's like so normal, natural for a child. Correct, like I couldn't do like a Van Dam split, like, I mean, I probably could train for it, but, you know, they can just do it like on, just how they sit. Yeah, exactly. Remember that commercial, there was like probably one of the best commercials ever. It was like from Volvo, I believe, where it was like John Coffe Van Dam, and it like had him zoomed in on him and he's doing the split and it's like these two giant Volvo trucks, right? Like these tractor trailer type trucks and he's like split in the middle of them. And I think I was reading, they did this shoot, they did one take, and there was no CGI back then. It was just awesome commercial, right? I just popped in my head. Okay. So I'm sure some of you remember that, but yeah, I mean, one of the last time you did something for the first time, I would actually challenge you to think about that and answer that question for yourself. And when you can get into a state where you're comfortable in a state of discomfort, I think that makes the rest of your life much easier, right? It doesn't mean that you get comfortable in discomfort, but it more so means that when you are in an uncomfortable state, it doesn't feel so completely abnormal to you. It doesn't feel like jumping into a cold plunge that you're just like, okay, I understand this environment. I understand why I'm a little bit more anxious. I understand why I'm a little bit kind of nervous right now, but I understand also that's part of the process. All right. So now when I find myself in an uncomfortable situation, I see how my mind's responding, how my body's responding. I start to see a pattern there and I start to realize, hey man, it's okay. Like, you're not going to die, right? Yeah. I remember the first time I jumped in that cold plunge and I mean, even a couple of weeks ago, I like, you know, I've been in that thing probably 400 times and it had been a couple months and I was getting in that thing just a couple weeks ago, I'm like, hey, you know I'm going to jump in this thing for a little bit and it was 35 degrees. I thought I was going to explode. I was like, wow, this shit is cold, right? It hurts, right? But then I, you know, that's your mind goes, oh, am I going to be okay? Right? But then you remind yourself like, you're not going to die, dude. It's totally okay. It's like, 35 degrees. You're not going to be a hypothermia, all right, for being in here for like two to three minutes, so just calm down and relax, right? And then you come out of there and like, I've never known somebody who got out of even like a cold plunge. It wasn't proud of themselves. Yeah. And I've never known someone who just did something they didn't believe they could do. Like they walked on hot coals or they did, you know, like, we've done this at workshops at the fire walks, like then walking on glass walks, right, we've done the cold plunges and like every single person who gets done with those things feels immensely proud of themselves. And it's because they just did something that they didn't, they haven't done before and they didn't know that they could. Yeah. And when you stack enough of those types of things, you start to become much more confident in your ability to do other things that may seem impossible to you today. Anyway, I wanted to share that. Let's get to the AMMA. You guys submit the questions. We answered them here on the show. I'm not saying this is the definitive answer and I'm not even saying that I'm right. I'm just saying this is my answer, right? That's why it's called the AMMA. Ask Michael Mogul anything. You guys text us at 404-531-7691. Jessica compiles the questions. We answer them here on the show. This is one of three episodes. We got this type of episode, the AMMA. We got the traditional podcast episode. We bring on a guest from the legal industry and beyond. We bring in a credible subject matter experts, elite athletes, doctors, authors, etc. And we pick the brand, give your insights here on the show. And then we have the on court issues. We bring back some of our most popular episodes. One thing you may notice is that we do not run any ads on the show. We could probably should, but we do not. And that is to enable us to say whatever we want on the show and enable our guests to say whatever they want. We could book whoever we want. We could do whatever we want. And my only ask and the only fee for the show is that if you get any sort of value from this episode or other episodes of the podcast that you go online and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or you share the show with somebody that you believe could benefit from hearing these insights. So with that, what do we got this week, Jessica? All right. With that, let's kick it off with question number one. Michael, I'll be straight with you. I don't really know who I am outside of my firm anymore. I started my practice 12 years ago with nothing, grinded my way to a team of 30, and somewhere along the way, my entire identity became about the business. My kids are getting older, my marriage has taken hits, and I recently had a health scare that genuinely scared me. I'm starting to realize I've been running on fumes for years and the version of me that built this thing, the guy who outworked everyone, never said no, always had something to prove. I'm not sure that guy is sustainable anymore. But I also don't know who I am if I am not him. How do you start over personally when the thing that made you successful is also the thing that's been slowly destroying you? Well, I was just saying you got to start over. And look, there's a lot there. There's a lot to unpack there. I mean, number one, the guy who's asking this question is not alone. I think there's, you know, sometimes the price of success is all the trade-offs you make along the way. And it's also to say that I think a lot of successful people make it their identity. You know, who are they, if not for their business or their law firm? Yes. What have you in? I mean, I empathize, right? Because this was our first child. Like, Christmas, before we had kids, it was crisp. And so much of the good in our life has come as a result of the growth that has come from crisp. But at the same time, like, I mean, to me, this comes with really a realization that you are not your law firm, you are not your business and your business is not you. Okay, and what that means is that if you had to start over, let's say you're bank count with the zero and like you didn't have any connections and like, I remember having to answer this hypothetical question years ago. Like, what would you do if you didn't have any connections and you didn't have any money and like, you had to start over and I'm like, all good, you didn't take the thing that was most valuable away from me, which is the knowledge and the experience and the wisdom and the insights and like all the things you've learned along the way because that's where the true value came. And you can deploy that in different ways in terms of different businesses and different approaches. So that comes with you. And you can build it back up and probably build it better and do it in half the time or third the time. So I don't know if, when this person's kind of going to extremes like, I don't know if you had to start over, but I do think that the business should work for you rather than against you. In the sense that this thing that you're building, I believe, it depends on how you define success because sometimes people define it just monetary financial success. It should be something that enables you to live the life that you want to live. So if that's not the case, it starts by figuring out why is that not the case? Maybe it's, I mean, from many of our firm owners when we start working with them, a lot of it's because they're spread too thin and it's a capacity issue where it's like, I'm spending a lot of time at the firm because my firm needs me and as a result, I'm not able to focus on as much time with my family or going vacations or focus on my health or whatever that is. And I think that is a problem that you can solve. And that's where you bring on help and that's where you hire people to help to free you up. This to me, you sounds more of a question of why is the business so dependent on you? Because as you're dedicating more time and you're investing in the business, the idea is not supposed to get harder. It's actually in some respects, like it doesn't mean the problems go away, like you graduate to different problems. You have certain problems at a million, a 10 million, 50 million, a hundred million, et cetera. But I've found that it's much easier to navigate challenging problems at the various levels when you're not doing it alone, right? When it was just me, it was just starting crisp, it's like every problem was my problem and I had to figure it out. And now it's like when we encounter a challenge, you got a hundred plus people, right? And we've got an executive leadership team. And it's like you don't have to do it alone. So it gets much easier. But I do think that the business should enable you, like that investment of time and energy that you're dedicating for all these different years, it should be built along the path where it should get you to a point where you're focusing on doing the things you enjoy the most with the people that you enjoy doing it with and you can live the life that you wanna live. And if that's not the case, kind of break down why is that not the case and tackle it that way? 'Cause it doesn't mean I'll have to start over. - No. - Right? - I know. - Go ahead. - Just getting clear, like what do you want? I think a lot of times if people don't even know which direction or what it is that they want, therefore they just stay in the cycle. - Correct. - Yeah. - Correct. So I don't know if it's like start over or I go, I gotta sell this thing and then I'd be finnly happy and I don't know that's the case. It's funny, I had this conversation with some of the today in the sense that sometimes people will tell themselves if it's like, oh well, like this job sucks, my last job sucks, my next one's gonna be good or I hate living here and when I move there, everything's gonna be good. The problem with that thinking is that you come with you. So if you didn't like the previous job, you don't like your current job, you still bring yourself to your next job. And it's the same way it's like, even if you move to a new city or state or so, you're still bringing yourself with you. And that means you're bringing your thoughts, you're bringing your decisions, et cetera, along with you. So I do think it involves looking inward and to your point answering really like, what do you want? Instead of spiraling and catastrophizing and then like trying to get into this thing and like, oh, who am I, not for this business or whatever, it's like, well, you're probably a lot of things. And, you know, I also think that you should be able to pursue the things that you enjoy in the hobbies. We talked about this on another episode, but there's like, you know, you've got a family, maybe you're a dad, maybe you're a husband, maybe you're like a son, maybe you're a friend, maybe you want to play the guitar, maybe you want to play video games, maybe like you're a movie buff, maybe you enjoy this kind of music. The world is your oyster. You can be so many things and do so many things that you don't have to like, align yourself to any one identity. - Yeah, I think it's the multifaceted side of that. Okay, question number two. Hey, Michael, been a listener for years. Here's my situation. I've been told by people I respect, including my leadership team and my wife, that my style has changed and not necessarily for the better. I built my firm by being direct or relentless and holding everyone to an extremely high standard, including myself. It worked. We're at 20 million and growing. But apparently, somewhere along the way, I guess I went from being intense to being intimidating. And now I'm hearing that people are afraid to challenge me, let alone bring things to me. I don't want to become some soft feelings first leader, but I also don't want to be someone, my team fears. Is it actually possible to evolve your leadership style without losing what made you effective in the first place? - Yes. (laughing) - All right, question three. - I mean, yeah, of course, it's possible if you choose to, no one can make you do anything, but you can decide. I look, if what you were doing is working, then there's really no reason to change. And if it's not working, then I think perhaps it might be necessary to evolve if the goal is to get a different type of result, like to achieve a desired result. That has nothing to do with you being intense or whatever. I think it would be a huge mistake that for you to be any less authentic to who you are. At the same time, I do think that you should create an environment where you can be you, but that doesn't infringe on someone's ability to be able to be productive and effective, right? So, meaning that, yes, I'll share an experience. I can be intense, I can have a high standard and I want us to excel and I want us to operate at an insane and elite level and I want us to continue to grow and be competitive, right? At the same time, I can also be empathetic to people's situations and we meet one-on-one, I want to hear them out. You don't need to be pounding your chest all the time. It could be situations where you're like at a company all-hands meeting and you want to get people inspired and you want to make sure you elevate the standard. And at the same time, there's going to be team members that want to meet with you one-on-one and they may be going through something challenging. And I think that's where you need to be a bit of a chameleon and be able to adapt to whatever the situation is. So, I don't know that you have to look at these as like, you know, binary or Boolean, right? One in zeros, in the sense that you're either this or that, I think you can be both. I think you can be extremely intense on the court and extremely empathetic in the front office. - Yeah. - And that's my mentality, right? When it's game time, like I'm like, like foot on the throat, let's win, right? But then, when the game is over and we won, it's like, yeah, thank you guys so much for your help. Thank you so much for your support. You know what I mean? It's like, we're all friends now, right? It's like, again, it's no different than if you're competing in like a sports competition or whatever it is like a race. It's like, when I'm racing, I believe all these people are my enemies. Absolutely my enemies. Like, they are going to take food off my table and I'm not going to be a provider for my family, right? In that moment. But as soon as we cross the finish line, it's like, hey guys, we're all good. We're all friends. Like, I respect them as equals. Like, they showed up today. They had to train today, like, they train for months leading up to this. It's like the low of dedication. I'll probably have more in common with them than I do with other people that I know, right? So, you should be able to be a bit of a chameleon and that's part of the evolution as a leader and the sense that you can hold an immensely high standard. And a lot of, again, it comes back to authenticity. You can be you, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't adapt to how, like, you make people feel. And, you know, there's one thing for how things are said and then another thing is how it's, you know, how it's set at the mouth and how it's received at the ear. So, if you're looking at it from like an outcome basis, it's really starting as a leader to evolve and think about, well, what does my desired outcome in result? If I want this thing to be online, they wanted to work together and I want it to be collaborative, it's not so important that I am right. It's more important that they are working together in collaborative and feel comfortable coming to me and like sharing their concerns and doing those things. And if that's the case, how do I need to evolve as a leader in order to make them feel more comfortable and to be open and receptive? - Yeah, I think I just really putting that focus on authenticity, just you have to be true to yourself. - Correct. - That also means, just I'll add to this, authenticity also means vulnerability. So, a lot of times I find that with leaders, the reason why people see you as unapproachable is because they feel they can't relate to you. Like, there's just such a gap between where they are and where you are. And I've seen this especially as the business has grown, right? I mean, when we started Christmas, it's like, when we're all sitting in the same room, we're all like trying to figure it out and like, we're all eating ramen noodles and I'm just like, bootstrapping this whole thing and it's like, let's figure this out, guys. And then years later, like we wrote to this team of well over a hundred people and there's been more success than certainly when there was at the start. And when somebody knew comes in, they just see like, there's gap between you and them and like, you may seem or come across as like, unapproachable to them because they can't relate to you. But if you're authentic and they see, okay, this is not just like I'm some CEO of, you know, this company, but they're a human being as a family and also at the same time they're like me. And you know, you can bridge that gap a bit more by showing some of the vulnerabilities and kind of sharing like most, at most all hands meetings, a lot of things that I share are my mistakes and the lessons that I've learned. I'm not sharing wins, like who cares about that, right? Like, here's where I failed, here's where I've learned, here's where I need to improve, here's what I'm working on. People come to relate to somebody like that as opposed to this infallible leader that's like, I got this, everything's all good. So. - All right, to round us out with question number three, hi Michael, I want to ask you something I think you could relate to. I've spent the last 15 years building my practice and my entire personality around being the underdog. The scrappy kid from nothing who outworks everyone in the room. That chip on my shoulder has been my fuel for as long as I can remember. But lately, I've noticed the chip is getting harder to find. We're successful, we're respected, I'm not the underdog anymore. And honestly, sometimes it terrifies me. Like if I'm not hungry and angry, improving something, who am I? How do you stay driven when you've already become the thing you were fighting to become? - Ooh, okay, how do you keep that fire burning? - Yes. I don't know if it was Rocky 2, maybe Rocky 3. where Rocky's now, you kinda starts off as that underdog, now he's coming to some money, he's got the mansion, he's got the Ferrari and so on, right? And that's kind of the story of that movie in the sense that how do you maintain that chip on your shoulder, that underdog mindset? And the reality of it is, is that there's things that are going to drive you early on in the journey, which for me, at least it was like, someone who didn't grow up with a whole lot of money, and my initial vision was like, don't be broke, right? How can I get to a state where it's like, I'm able to provide for myself and my family, right? Like I can take care of people. But once you kinda climb up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's like, now you need something new to drive you, and that's where I actually think it gets exciting because this is a great opportunity for the vision to expand. So maybe the thing that got you to where you were is like all the people that were doubting you, it didn't believe in you, and like, you know, put chips on shoulders, create chips in pockets. Yeah, there you go. So it's, maybe it was early on, it was something that was driving you because you wanted to prove everybody wrong. But now, you know, perhaps it's evolved beyond that, and it's like, now you don't care about proving other people wrong, maybe it's about proving yourself right, and then maybe it's about you being able to do things, not because you're doing them for somebody else, but because it's important to you and it's meaningful. Maybe you're doing things, you know, you climb to the top of the mountain now, it's like, well, how many people can you bring with you? All right, that to me, it became more exciting, right? than my own success. It's like, how do I help other people succeed? So I think that the vision can evolve, and the vision can expand. That sounds like really what it is, and it also sounds like things that used to drive you no longer drive you. Yeah. That's okay, right? That means you just solve for one wrong, right? And you solve for one problem, now you've got to figure out what the next thing is. So I actually think that makes you a more dangerous adversary, because the person who's just driven solely by money, it's like, once they get enough money, they're satiated, right? It's like, okay, great, they solve that problem, right? Easy competition. But the ones that are driven by like a higher purpose, and like a larger vision, and perhaps even are playing a more infinite game of like, for example, my vision is like, how many people can I take with me? There's not a limit to that, right? If my vision was just how do I meet my needs? And when it's like, once you hit a certain number, then it's like, great, whatever, like now you hit the needs. But if it's about how many people you can take with you, that's an infinite game, and that becomes a truly dangerous adversary, because that person never stops. But that most of all, I think most importantly, it has to be something that inspires you, it has to be exciting to you, it has to be something that's meaningful. So you have to really think about what that could be, and again, it comes back to like expand the vision. So maybe no longer, it's no longer about your underdog story. Now it's about this, you know, maybe what's next? I can't answer that for you, but I can say that in a lot of the entrepreneurs that we work with, it was about expanding their vision. And once they did that, whoo, they became more dangerous adversary than they ever were when it was just about, you know, that chip on their shoulder, right? Like that, whatever, right? That was like, in terms of like how impactful that was for them, it's almost like when people have kids, I've talked to other entrepreneurs this way, and it's like when they first had kids, they're like, okay, well, now I've got to make decisions. I got to do what I do, not just for myself, but now I've got this family to support, right? And now I'm like, I remember when we had our first child, I was like, man, I just became a total demon. You thought I was motivated before, and it's like now, 'cause that was just about me, right? - Right. - Now with the kids, it's like, whoo, we do whatever it takes, it definitely changes. And again, I just come back to the fact that you have to find that what is that thing that's driving you today, when it's no longer that chip on your shoulder, or maybe it's no longer money, or maybe it's no longer something else. - Yep, all right, that's it today. - Cool. - Thank you. - Until next time. (upbeat music) - You've been listening to the Game Changing Attorney podcast with Michael Mogul. If you found this episode valuable, here are three free ways that we can help you grow your law firm. Number one, download the first chapter of Michael's book, absolutely free at gamechangingatourney.com. Number two, you can shoot Michael a text at 404-531-7691, and ask him any question you'd like. You might just hear the answer on the next episode. And finally, number three, if you can leave this podcast a five star review, it will help us gain access to more influential thought leaders and bring their lessons learned here to you. For more information on this episode, see the show notes in your podcast app, or visit legalpodcast.com. (upbeat music)