167. Daryl Gray — The Power of Authentic Advocacy: Transforming Lives and Uniting Communities

(upbeat music) - I'm addicted to ambition. I'm addicted to the next thing. That's why I can never put my finger on what's gonna make me happy. - That's Darryl Gray for now trial attorney and partner at Wright Gray. - The money's always gonna be, that's not a big thing. It's about being a position to where you are in all these different markets. And you're giving them something that they can't give from somewhere else. (upbeat music) - 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. I sat down with Darrell Gray to discuss why authenticity is the key to long-term success, had to maintain a quality client experience while scaling a growing practice and by being able to effectively tell a client's story is at the heart of fighting for justice. - My whole business model is about trust. It's about community engagement, community buy-in. And you don't do that just by putting up a billboards and hey, we fight hard at anybody else. Where do you add value? It's always about the value ad. For me, it's about making sure that in order for you to advocate for a client, I have to know that client. - That's coming up on the Game Changing Attorney podcast. (upbeat music) - Before we begin today's episode, I want to remind you that we aren't beholden to any sponsors or run any ads on this podcast. This allows us to present all of our episodes raw and unfiltered. I'm not gonna push any mate to order meal services on you or try to save you any money on your car insurance. That being said, I have one small request. If you receive any value from this podcast, please give it a five-star review. Pay the fee so we can keep this podcast free. All right Darrell, welcome to the podcast. Glad to be here. I'm excited, I'm excited to have you here. This has been a long time coming. I know you guys are in New Orleans, but every time you and I chat, you're always talking about growing up in Memphis. - Oh man. - What was that like and how did that shape you into the person you are today? - You know it's funny, you're there with it. Man, growing up in Memphis was a confounding experience, right? Because I grew up, I was raised by a single mom. My dad was murdered when I was like six years old. My mom raised us. I didn't grow up in object poverty, but I didn't grow up with anything. And I didn't know that. And it's a really, it's an interesting thing. And all my friends I always tell me, "Why don't you talk about how you grew up?" Nobody really knows you. They just look at you and see the success. Well, obviously you know this, success isn't overnight. The only thing overnight is parking. That's all the time you're gonna find something that happens overnight. But I grew up in an environment that was, and I grew up doing the crack era. You know everybody talks about that if you're familiar with the show Snowfall. I grew up around all of that kind of stuff. A lot of my friends, parents want drugs. You know I'm talking about mom and dad. We had parents that were in the streets doing all kinds of things and addicted to drugs. And they would walk us to school in the morning. You know one of my friends, I remember this like it was yesterday. One of my friends mother was a prostitute. And she would walk us to school almost every morning. But guess what? I didn't know anything was wrong with that. You know I didn't know that was a problem. Taking it and juxtaposing it to how my household was. And I grew up in a very, very loving household. I didn't have the same struggles that a lot of people that my friends that I grew up with had. You know I didn't have parents that want drugs. You know my family wasn't on drugs. They went to work every day. My grandfather was an AME minister. And he had five girls. And we all kind of grew up in the same house. So when my grandfather being an AME minister, if anybody out there knows anything about the AME church, it stands for African Methodist Episcopal Church. And a lot of those ministers, most of them as a matter of fact, the pastors have college degrees. And my grandfather got his college degree in 1960. So you take that and everybody, all of my aunts have college degrees. One of my aunts has a PhD in nursing. My mom was an elementary school teacher. We actually graduated college together, but she worked for a long time before she went back to school in the finish college. So I grew up in a household that valued education within a community that was ravished by drugs and crime. So I got a chance to see everything. And I got a chance to put values on things that were important. And one of the biggest things that I put value on was humanity. I always see people as people. I don't judge. It's not my place to judge anybody. And I think when you start to look at that process of evaluating human beings, that's what made me the lawyer that I am. I get an opportunity to say, you know what? This person deserves a champion. I'm going to be there for them. And I'm going to get to know them. And I'm going to get to understand what they're going through and what makes them different and what makes them unique. Because I tell people all the time that we're all one-of-one. They always say that everybody's unique and that's very true. But we're all the same in a sense. We want to be treated with respect and dignity. That's how my upbringing and Memphis kind of pushed me into a situation to where I don't put value on things like other people do, I think. And what led to even wanting to enter the practice of law? I think that in evaluating what I want to do with my life, I felt like, you know what? There has to be something that makes me comfortable and makes me happy and gives me the opportunity to help people. Like I was telling you earlier, I grew up in a very religious family led by a AME minister. He was, that was his vocation. That was his calling. I saw sacrifice every single day. And I practiced law from the point standpoint of being a servant. That's how I look like I'm one of the most overpaid servants that could possibly be, you know? So I knew that I wanted to go into a, not a profession, but a vocation. And I got an opportunity when I was younger to figure out, like, you know, I did always do well in school, even though I didn't put four of all the effort that I could have put forth. But I always did well in school. And I want to go into a medical profession. I do, I want to be a lawyer. And after I looked at it and I made the choice based upon lawyers seem to help people. People that look like me more than doctors could. Like it's just, it seems as if the practice of law was just ripe for change. On the way to, you know, going to law school, becoming an attorney, then entering the practice of law, like what were some of the challenges that you experienced? Just forging my own blueprint, I think. I didn't have any lawyers in my family. I didn't have anybody to call them say, hey, what is this about? I mean, law school, I'm trying to figure out all this stuff out. You know, I didn't have anybody to teach me any of that stuff. From an academic standpoint, I've always tested very, very well. But when I was a kid, even though my family was big on education, they didn't check and push. They were like, hey, you got to go do this. You got to go do that. It was all on my own volition. Like, I wanted to do something I did it. That's always been kind of the motivation. When I was in high school, I played every sport. You know, I was a three-year started in basketball, two-year started in football, then pick up football until late. And I actually got recruited in high school to play college football. My family never came to games. Never came to any games. They weren't big into that kind of state. They didn't understand sports. But in hindsight, I know what sports did for me as a person, as a lawyer, as a parent. But I can remember a time when my grandmother picked me up from football practice, and my coach was like, I'm going to get your baby a scholarship. You know, he's getting recruited. She's told him, he's smart. He's going to college. He's going to be all right. I don't care about the sports thing. That was how I was raised. You know, I was raised that you were expected to be successful and to do something with your life other than what you see the people around you doing. So for me, creating a blueprint of my own was always the challenge, because I didn't have anybody to guide me in that direction. And I mean, it seems like it was a challenge, but it was also probably a strength, right? So like, meaning that I'd love you to kind of speak to kind of your journey, you get out of law school, what leads to you starting a practice and kind of going down the entrepreneurial path as well. Wow, man, you know the decision to start my own practice was out of necessity. I had a couple of jobs, and it was never something that I really felt comfortable doing. I struggled with trying to figure out who I was in the space. Who am I? And what kind of lawyer am I going to be? If you don't know what kind of person you are, how do you know what kind of lawyer you're going to be? So I kept struggling with what I saw other lawyers doing and how I saw other practices set up, and I was never comfortable with it. I realized that I had to figure out what made sense for me. And that was the biggest struggle throughout the whole process of going from graduating to law school and building a relatively successful eight-figure law firm at this point now. So you're talking about graduating law school in 2008. And the process for me had a lot of evidence flow. At one point in time, this was back in maybe 2015. I wanted to leave the practice a lot because I just felt like I didn't fit in. Like I felt like if I'm looking at what everybody else is doing, I'm not like that. I don't look at people like dollar signs. I don't look at people as if they are somebody that's less than me. So all of the lawyers around me that I saw and that I knew knew it from law school, they had that kind of mindset. So in 2015, I was like, okay, I got enough cases, I can pull out a couple of million dollars, I can go do something else that's gonna be more fulfilling for me and makes me more comfortable. 'Cause I was starting to have a lot of insecurities about who I was as a lawyer, maybe I wasn't doing this right, maybe I wasn't built for this career that I thought I, you know, even though I didn't know, I thought this was, I made the right decision. 'Cause growing up, y'all, you can build a lawyer, don't get any of the chief, I have to chose to be a lawyer. So the one thing that I can't point to that really changed and was a lightning bolt moment was when I went to the trial or his college. Jerry spent his trial or his college. And I went there without kind of knowing, I went on a whim, I applied, I got in, and I said to myself, I said, you know what, I'm gonna shut it down for a month, 'cause it takes like three weeks or whatever, three and a half weeks to go out there and go through the process. I just went out there, I didn't know what to expect, I didn't know how it was going to be, as a profound effect on my life as it was. And when I got out there and I started to realize, well damn, there is a different way of doing this and there's a different way of accepting people for who they are and loving them and advocating for them. And when I tell you that completely changed everything in terms of the way I approach the practice a lot, now I'm more comfortable doing what I do and living my life every day than I ever have been. But I still struggle because with the success that has come with practicing law and focusing on doing things that serve others, I still, I just like, I'm dealing with a bit of survivor guilt and post-acendron, it's a bit of that bit of this, but it's all pain, it's a struggle every single day. And I always try to figure out like, I can't believe that I just won this case for X amount of dollars. And I got friends that I've been doing 30 years in a penitentiary that I grew up with and I played in the dirt with. That's the kind of stuff that I deal with on the day-to-day basis. And I've had people that I grew up with, you know, see me and just reach out and be like, hey, Derek, I'm so proud of you. And I'm looking like, I'm the still the same person, you know, my Instagram handle is still a degree. And that's for a reason, like I'm the same person that I was when I grew up. And that's what I think keeps me in a position to work as hard as I do to be successful. And I want to elaborate on that, that kind of that crisis, if you will, in the sense that early on thinking, is this for me and my built for this? And now seeing that, man, I can do it the way, the way you're running the practice today, it's actually leading to a very successful practice. You're able to help a lot of people and just forging your own path. I'm just wondering what were some of the things that were some of the disconnects in terms of just questioning, like, is this for me, is this how a practice is run versus now being fully bought into your way of doing things? The greatest disconnect was just like the human aspect, the human element, like, you know, I had one that struck us at the trial or it's called a tell. I mean, you already know what people are coming here to learn. We're enriching it for you, because you already get it. You just have it in you. And I think that the biggest struggle always has been, what do you do to make sure that you always have your finger on the pulse of what's important for your community? Like, I'm always looking to be a champion and a servant to others. That's all I do. Like, that's my whole business model. I think the money is a byproduct of doing that, right? You're going to make money. This is what a $400 billion industry, you know, a lot of people don't understand how much money floats around the legal industry. Legal services is a huge, huge industry, compared to, you know, oil and gas and insurance and tech, all these industries that we know about. So the money is there. But the thing that sets you apart and I think the thing is going to always survive, whether it be, you know, the rise of AI, whether it be other changes like hedge funds coming in and all of this stuff, which everybody's concerned about now. You have to keep your finger on the pulse of what a servant should be doing for the people that need to help the most. And that's that's John every day. You know, if you're not looking at it from that standpoint, then you're not going to create a long lasting, survivable business model. In terms of your firm, what do you do different? And I know sometimes I ask this question everyone's like, "Well, we care more than anybody else. We fight harder than anybody else." And then someone's listening to that. I don't know if that gives them a whole lot, but I mean, obviously you're very well connected with the community. What are some of the things that you would say are like the values of the firm? - The value is just that. It's built upon the people that trust us. My whole business model is about trust. And you don't do that just by putting up a billboard saying, "Hey, we fight harder than anybody else." How do you show your clients that you are the one that they can trust to get them the results, the legal results that they need? You're talking about people who've been kicked in their ass their whole life. They've never had anybody fight for them. They never felt like this was about me. They never felt like I got a fighting chance of being successful in this particular situation. And they're coming to you when they're at, they're lowest a lot of times. You know, I do personal injury. So in a personal injury situation, if somebody's hurt and it's changed their life and they don't know what's going to happen and they're confused and they wake up, it's keeping them up in the middle of the night. Who are you in that scenario? It's always about the value at, right? So for me, it's about making sure that in order for you to advocate for a client, I have to know that client. A lot of times, some of my clients or a lot of my clients have become friends after their case is over with because of the time and energy and attention that I invested into them during the process of me representing them. So that means I go to their homes. I get to know their family, their friends. I wanna know what makes you tick. I wanna walk inside of your kitchen and see what you see when you wake up in the morning. I wanna know how you interact with your kids and your family. I wanna know how they feel about what happened to you with this accident, how you changed. They may not tell you that, but I wanna build a relationship with everybody in this circle. So when I speak on your behalf, I'm doing so from a standpoint of complete knowledge. And I'm also talking about as a professional, as somebody who I spend every day I can focusing on being a better lawyer. And that means I'm always studying. I'm always preparing myself for another case and for whatever I need to work on at that moment. But I always take time out to engage with my clients and get to know them individually and get to know their whole situation in the scenario. They brought them to the point of where they needed my help. Obviously your practice has grown tremendously as the practice scales, what kind of challenges that it introduced? Obviously with thousands of clients, it's hard to get to know each one individually. So how do you scale that when making sure that you have that level of attention to detail for every client, every case? - You know, that's one of the biggest struggles. That's one of the hardest things to do when you're growing practice starts to blossom. You know, like I talk about, you know, just AI for instance. I can't wait till it gets so important to why I can replicate myself through artificial intelligence because you know, you can't expect everybody to be you. That's impossible. Nobody's going to have your DNA. Like I said before, everybody's a one-to-one. And I know a lot of times my clients struggle with, I won't dare to represent me. I won't dare along my case. Well, if you got 1500 clients, then you can't represent everybody because I've created this relationship with the community where they like us, they know us, and they trust us. So when you start to have that kind of connection with the community, they bring you very serious cases. And they're important cases. They're life-changing cases if they're done right for our clients. So for me, I'm really, really invested in making sure that my team understands there are certain boxes that we have to check in the attorney-client relationship. It goes past just, oh, we want to do a quantum study to see how much the cases work. And then we want to put X amount of energy into it. And we want to, you know, make sure that we check these boxes when it comes to pushing the case through litigation. Everybody knows how to do that. But do you know how to care? Do you know how to make the sacrifices that are needed to put this client first? That's what they hired you for. And I try to be very cognizant of the people that we bring it to our fold because we're in creating an environment where everybody understands what it means to be selected by these people in the community. And that's the hardest thing. It comes with all the challenges, but you try to teach and coach based upon, look, we drill, we talk about core values and all this stuff. It all centers around being client-centric, being client-focused, being community-centric. The model for my firm is for the culture, for the community for you. Each one of those tenants have a distinct meaning. For the culture, that means that we understand what you guys are going through out there. And we're here to champion it. For the community, we want to raise everybody up. We want to show that there's unity amongst everybody, but we also want to make sure that we collectively understand what's important for our society and our community. And for you as an individualized approach, like we want you to know that you matter. There is a point in your life to where you can say, they cared about me and they did what was right by me. And it's not about the money. The money is going to come. I have this thing to where I'm always going to make sure my client gets more money than anybody else. And you think to yourself, then it sounds like a bad business decision when the actuality is not because it's too full. You make sure that client understands listening. We're doing this for you. You're one person. We go through 3,000 cases a year. So you've been in this situation to where you okay? It's more important than this little bit of money because we're going to make it up on the back end. We're going to make it up collectively as an aggregate. But for you, that's the most important thing. So that's how we lead our practice. I love it. And then looking back, was there a particular case or just. Something that happened that was kind of the catalyst behind a lot of this just your personal professional growth anything that you think back on your saying like that specific case I either evolved me in this way or changed my perspective anything like that Yeah, I can I can think back to a case that I had very early on in my career It lasts for so long. It was probably a six or seven year process. We represented this family It was in Memphis is a dog by case and this older gentleman. I think he was like 72 years old He was walking from his house to the store, and it was a apartment complex in between his house in the store Somebody was living in an apartment complex had some vicious pit bulls and the pit bulls you get out and neighborhood and menace everybody and On this particular day the pit bulls were free and When the police finally showed up to get the pit bulls and put them away get the the owner to put them away They ran on his name. He was a sex offender. He wasn't registered at that address So they told him put the dogs up in the apartment. They were going to take the jail for being in violation of the sex offender registry well With him going to jail and nobody there's care for the dogs the dogs are running a muck in the apartment and Somebody down stairs. I think call and said the dogs were either chewing on the pipes Come to find out they had they were stuck in the house so long about themselves Freed just running around they were year and they now lower the house and they were dripping down into the apartment below So the downstairs neighbor called the landlord landlord sent somebody over to check on the apartment He opened the door saw the these maniac pit bulls running the crazy He opened the door ran off and they ran out of neighborhood and my guys just happened to be walking down the street They attacked them vicious violent attack He and them having a heart attack his daughter's family different people in the community trying to run down and save him but He died so we ended up trying their case and it took years to get the trial and We eventually during that litigation of the wife died and was only a the family was the deceit at the dad the mom and The daughter that's all they had just they just had each other and The dad died mom died during the penance of litigation. So it trial only had the daughter Who was an adult at the time we end up trying their case and we won? I want to say five two point six million dollars and the judge Reduce that case by half saying that that man wasn't worth that much That shook me to my core Because I could never in a million years think that I Had struggle with how much money to ask for on that case but I struggle with trying to to figure out how much money to ask for and I came up with a number that made sense to me and the judge said that this person's life wouldn't worth that much So again, it goes to who are we? To put a price on somebody's life like that and he cut it in half and we ended up taking the quarter pills and they upheld the judge's decision Which you know judges do what judges do quarter pills are their judges just like the trial court So they all kind of so they all stick together like police But at the end of the day My client my remaining client was so happy not about the money But about the justice she got that day getting a chance to tell her story and and being heard and Fast forward after that trial Maybe two maybe three years after that. I walked her down the aisle She didn't have anybody left and she called me and said because you walked me down the aisle and I did and we've we've been close ever since That's kind of the thing that you give a little bit of yourself Every time you take on somebody's case because you can't do it any other way Like it's just not about the money. You know what I mean? Like I just can't focus on oh, how much of this case worth or I take that case Is I put some energy into that if I take your case? I'm going to war for you That's how I was raised like you know, I talk about that all the time like you know warrior doesn't fight because he hates What's in front of me fights because he loves what's behind him? That's how I am. That's how I was raised That's what was instilled in me as a child, and it's just I don't need I feel completely at peace and comfortable with being in a situation Where I'm fighting for somebody and I know you and I've talked about this before I think the other side of that story When you look at it's like they're not a whole lot of lawyers that even take a case like that. Oh, yeah, you know You look at where the liability is you're pursuing for six seven years like what what compelled you to do it? You know, I look at this like as a vocation. I don't look at like as a profession I just feel like I needed to fight for their family and I'm I was told by Buku Laurie's they all there's a dog shit case like for lack of a better terms of dog shit case I'm not taking out. I can't worry. I wouldn't take that case and then when I got all of that money on the quote unquote money on the case People like oh, he's not gonna click. He's gonna. They stroke the check. I knew everything like I and that's another thing too when I get involved in the case I'm down in a nitty-gritty. I want to know every single thing about every aspect of that case because I need to know that I'm obsessed with knowing every part of a case so I can I can put forth my best efforts Your competitive guy too So I was gonna ask you about this. I mean, I would say the legal profession is fairly competitive But then you take it to another level you and I've talked about this as well It's almost there is that level that probably makes people almost you know a little bit uncomfortable They're all worried about you kind of thing. I'll never give you a hard time. I understand it. But what do you think that is? Man, you know, I don't know man my wife. I mean, it's you know We start like we're talking earlier before we started, you know, I grew up on Michael Jordan the truck bad boys You know the Lakers when they had their own with Magic Johnson and and James worthy Kobe is my all-time favorite player the Mamba mentality my wife was messing with me the other day about I was working and she wakes up at five o'clock in the Five-thirty morning to get ready for work. She woke up. She said When I woke up you were working. I came home because my office is right off the bedroom and she was like it's 11 o'clock I'm getting in bed. You're still working. You hadn't moved and Then she woke up the next day. I was still working and I do that and it's not it's not healthy But it's an obsession that I have. I just feel like when I'm in it I don't feel I feel no pain like I'm just I'm just looking for a route to be successful for my client It is a competitive thing But it's also is that tinged with the trust if you grow up and you know that you got a fight for everything And you got to put forth the effort like the people always talk about Memphis is like this Grit and grind like it's a very blue collar place and In order to be successful. It's about your effort and if you tell me that like I got a work hard That's nothing. That's easy. I've been working through adversity my whole life So it's nothing for me to sit in my huge house and sit and sit there and work on behalf of somebody else to make them successful That's what I was chosen to do. So the competitiveness just flows from the ability So you know again is again is about being selected. I've heard a lot of preachers say favor any fair What does it mean? That means that you know sometimes you just chosen to do certain things and we chose to do certain things Don't take it for granted pull forth every ounce of you and to making that thing a rewarding situation And that's what I that's what I do when it comes to practicing law You got a big vision too. I know we talked about this over the years I remember a few years back you were telling me about this vision. What is it today? What's what's the vision for the firm? Man, it changes it changes from time to time to be honest with you Mike I'm just walking because when I first got involved with Chris I didn't think that I was going to create the biggest law black law firm in Staley, Louisiana I did that in like two years and I did that through the pandemic and I did that based upon The relationships that I have with the community and people trusting me it got scary for a minute because I was growing so fast And I tried to take a step back and recalibrate and try to figure out why Why am I here again that you know that kind of goes into that Survival's guilt that imposter syndrome like how is this happening to me? You know you can set these goals these lofty goals and expectations for yourself But when it starts to come true, what do you do with it? So at the point why I'm right now three to four years. I know for a fact I'm gonna have the largest black law firm in the country. I know that for a fact But that's not how I want to define my firm success because Everything that I do is about sacrifice like I you know I sacrifice for my clients I sacrifice for my team the sacrifice for my community. I sacrifice all these for all these different people I'm a last person on the on the trough but for me I'm also I don't want to call it curse, but I'm also Addicted to ambition. That's why you can never I can never put my finger on What's gonna make me happy because I mean the money is there like the money's always gonna be that's not a big thing It's about being a position to where you are in all these different markets and you're servicing all these different people And you're giving them something that they can't get from somewhere else. That's always gonna be my my next step is about What are we going now like right now? We have we have an office in Memphis. I have two of New Orleans I have one in Shreveport. I have one of Lake Charles and I'm opening Baton Rouge this year And that's all in the state Louisiana. I want to move into other markets. So that's my thing I want to keep growing progressively and I want to do things in a way that my blueprint is Replicated across those different markets. Yeah, and I guess I don't get too deep But how do you define success, right? It's obviously it's not it's not the financial obviously you're serving a lot of people and that number is growing You're after a year. I think for me at this point the finding success is About how many times am I able to Give somebody something they never had in their life one of my law partners in the state center the Jimmy Harris He's been a public servant for for 20 some of my years and every time he brings me around He said you know, this is Darrell Grace. I was also going to introduce me to new people and I'm always talking about what we're doing in the courtroom And in the business spear and how you know understand I like some most law firm owners, especially trial lawyers, I understand CAC, I understand case acquisition, cause I understand data points and metrics. I get all of that stuff, it's easy for me. But what I always tend to lose sight of is the changes that we make in people's lives. Like we give away scholarships to kids. I just do that because I think that's the right thing to do. So for me, when I start to look at how do you really measure success, it's about being part of somebody else's success. Like if what I do creates a model by which other people can be successful, to me, that's the most fulfilling thing. And I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about this big party you guys throw. Cause if you work hard, but you guys also like to have a good time, especially sharing of that with the community. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's New Orleans, my main office is in New Orleans. It's a part of the culture. When somebody dies, they have a parade in a party. Like this is a part of the culture. You know, I tell people this all the time and just start to don on me. I've been in New Orleans almost as long as I've been in Memphis. I've been in New Orleans for 20 years. With 21 years, I was in Memphis for 22. For me, you know, embracing the culture, the cultural aspects. It's such a unique and fulfilling place. You know, a lot of times, if you go out of the country, go to Caribbean or South America, you're going to feel like you're in New Orleans. And the same cultural things kind of translate. So the party that we have every year is really about a celebration of the culture of the city and giving back and showing people like, "Hey, this is what you guys mean to us." We know what we mean to you all because we hear it all the time. Like, thank you for doing this. You know, we partner with the police department. We partner with the city. We partner with some of the school systems in the area. And we do all this giving back. But at the end of the day, we want to make sure that that party shows everybody like, "Hey, this is what community engagement is with community endeavors to make people's lives better and bring some joys all about." And see, there's no problem filling it. I don't know, no, no, it's a free party. So it books up within the first 24 hours really. It's crazy. And we always be, you know, it's a celebrity. It's a celebrity part we bring in. Guess celebrity, guessing all of this stuff. So it's a good time. I think working hard is just at this point. It's like table stakes, right? I mean, if you're going to operate at the high level, I think you have to put it in the work ethic. But how do you just, after all these years, just to sheer endurance of it all, how do you stay motivated? How do you stay engaged? Are there any certain habits that you practice certain things that keep you focused? You know, I think for me, the engagement comes from self-identifying. People always say, like, who are you? What do you self-identify with? And it's two things, right? You look in the mirror and you, and that's some bitch in the mirror is always gonna be somebody that's gonna just, that you're gonna have to fight against. Like, you gotta, that's a challenge. There's a battle there every single day. But you also have to self-identify around the roles and the aspects of your life that's important. You know, I'm a father. I'm a husband. I'm a business owner. I'm a leader. And I'm a trial lawyer. Those are the things that define me. Speaking of the nuances like this, it's like this gumbo of greatness for me. Like, how do I take all of these things and put them together to make me a better person, to make me a better neighbor, a better friend, a better family member, a better community partner with all of the people that we work with. And, you know, if you look at all of those different things, you know, fatherhood is the greatest gift to a man. Like, you're gonna be a father and lead somebody and mold and shape them and make those sacrifices for them and that's greatness, right? You know, even though my wife is my best friend, I know someday she doesn't want to be married to me, but I also make sure that I can consider her and she's always been to herself. So we have that connectivity from that standpoint and we try to support each other that's the best of our abilities. When it comes to being a business owner, you know, what is that about? That's about sacrifice. That's about motivation, motivating people, being, you know, letting people know that they matter, being a guy through difficult situations. I consider myself to be a field general, right? I'm always gonna have blood and blood on my boots. I'm always gonna be right there and the trenches with the people that I work with. So leadership and being a business owner, kind of really go hand in hand when you start to really think about it. Because when you're a leader, you gotta be smarter of the know when to listen, when to talk, when to lead, when to follow. And sometimes you gotta talk to the poem, you gotta shake heaven and earth. And that's where it kind of flows into being a trial lawyer. You know, being a trial lawyer is probably the most addictive thing that I ever been involved in. I could not have another drink. I can give up cheeseburgers and hot wings. I love both of those things, right? But the idea of sacrificing it all, like your time, your energy, your emotions, putting it all on the line for somebody else, the passion that goes into trying cases, it's this thing that burns inside. You can't even, you don't, it's hard to talk about it with people who don't, like you're a business owner, you've grown something substantial, so you get it. But most lawyers, they can't understand it unless, I consider trial lawyers to be like the fighter pilots of our industry, right? 'Cause it takes all of this work you gotta get there. And it's the dedication it takes to be successful at it. It doesn't stop. Being a trial lawyer just, it's the drive that's required to harness the passion and not let it destroy you. You know, it takes a lot of discipline. You gotta know when, like I can't do this, I gotta shut it down for three weeks to get prepared for this trial that's gonna last for four days. That's a lot for people. When you got it, the suppose being come, you got all this other stuff that's going on. It's just a lot of sacrifice to make. But it all centers around doing what needs to be done to continue to be a servant to other people. Yeah. And it seems like you've done an amazing job. I know some people like the success it goes to their head, they get the silk sheets and they no longer have that same level of fire burning within them that they did when they first started. Like what are some of the ways that you've been able to stay grounded? Being around normal people, it's funny. I don't really hang around a lot of lawyers. My friends are just normal people. Like one of my closest friends is a fireman and I hang out with some police officers. I just got normal folks that I hang around with. And I don't let the fact that I'm a lawyer defined really who I am. I'm more so focused on what can I do to help other people? That's how I live my life. I know that I'm doing something that's special, but to me again is always about what can I do to be special to somebody else, to help somebody else. And looking back, if you had to give younger Daryl just something you know today that if you had to go back 20 years, what advice would you impart on him? Keep fighting young ruler, keep fighting King. You're gonna be all right. You just gotta keep focusing on what's in your gut. That's what got me to where I am. Probably tell them to bet on certain sport games, but outside of that, just always be yourself. If I would have been comfortable being myself in this profession a long time ago, before I found my pathway, I would have gone further quicker, but at the same time, I'm always accepting of my path. You know, again, when you start talking about the money and all of this stuff, who cares? The money is what it is, but who are you? Like when you look in the mirror, are you happy? Are you challenging that person in front of you? Yeah, so it's like no finish line. No, absolutely not. You know what I do after I get a good result on the case? Go beat the shit out of myself. I question everything. I nitpick myself. I torture myself to figure out if I could have done something different. If I could have done something better, there's never a day to where I'm going to be like, okay, I've done enough. It's always about keep challenging yourself, keep pushing yourself, keep finding what you could do to do this better, to make a change. To your point, I know you kind of hinted at it earlier. It's almost like a blessing in a curse because on the one hand, it's like the way that you are is really, really great for doing the work that you do, but at the same time, it's probably somewhat of a curse or it's probably somebody listening saying, man, why can't you just enjoy himself? Why can't he just relax? I am enjoying myself 'cause I'm living in my purpose. Like, over the last two years, I lost my grandmother. Now, I lost my mom first and I lost my aunt. I told you before we all grew up in the same house, so I was raised with my mom and my aunt under the same roof. I lost my since Hurricane Item. I lost my mom, I lost my grandmother. I lost my aunt and I lost my brother. Who's younger than me? And all of that loss taught me that you have to value everything in your life. And the one thing that you have to value more so than anything is who you are as a person. Because all of the people that poured into you, they did that for a reason. So to honor my family, to honor the people that have cared about me, to the people who gave of themselves to me, I just keep fighting and keep working. That's what I was raised to do. Just going back to my childhood, I can recall when I was a kid, me and my brother just getting all kind of trouble. And my mom was just, she's a cry like, I don't know what to do with these boys, they just so bad. And we had this juvenile court counselor who had our family's file. And this guy, God named Stephen Allen, tall white guy, he told my mom, he said, listen, they got some kids that live around the corner of your family or brothers, there's no hope for them. But your sons, they're going to be all right. He started to take a special interest in us. He didn't throw us away and put us in the system. Just a white dude back in the 80s, in the early 90s. He just throw us away and put us in the system. He made sure that he worked with my mom to get us to where we need to be. She was a single mom raising all of us. And Steve Allen just come to my basketball games. I didn't even know he was doing this. He's come to my basketball games and watch. And I started not getting in trouble and just playing sports and moving it to my purpose. And I can remember when I first started practicing law, I was working in a law firm. And one of the guys I was working for sent me to court and juvenile court. So I went in and did my thing, I advocated. I'm walking out. And Steve Allen is in the back of the courtroom. And he's crying. He said, he put me to the side. And I'm like, hey, Steve, what's going on? He said, why are you crying? He said, I knew I made the right decision when I told your mom that you guys were going to be all right. So coming for a circle, I understand what got me to where I am. It wasn't me. I had some guy giving abilities and talents and things that nature but it was the people around me that made those sacrifices I can't rest on my laurels of like oh look at me. I don't give a shit about myself I care about other people and you know I get the benefits of doing well and all this stuff. That's fine and good But all they can go away. Now what did I do? Who am I really stripping away? Who am I and as you know, that's how I practice long. That's it. That's easy for me There as we come to a close this being the game changing attorney podcast. What does being a game changing mean to you? I think being a game changer really means understanding the game understanding it is a game Understanding that there's rules and all of this stuff and once you grasp their concept Question everything. There's a reason for that. There's a reason for this Understand all that understand why there's a referee understand why there's a you know why there's an opponent Understand everybody's rolling it and then reach out on the edges and touch the edges and find space to to make changes You know, there's always room to be innovative There was somebody before Michael Jordan. There was Kobe that was LeBron There's always room for the space to be changed and it's about you doing what you can to understand the space Respect it honor it, but but also upset it I want to give a huge thank you to Darrell great for taking the time to speak with us today And I want to thank you. Yes you from listening to this podcast and for your commitment to growing as a leader If you found this episode valuable here are three free ways that I can help you grow your law firm Number one download the first chapter of my book absolutely free at gamechanging attorney dot com Number two, you can shoot me a text at 404 5 3 1 7 6 9 1 and I'll answer any question that you've got for me And finally number three if you can lead this podcast a five star review It'll help us gain access to more influential thought leaders and bring their lessons learned here to you For more information on our interview with Darrell Gray see the show notes for this episode in your podcast app or visit legal podcast dot com