In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Amy Wood discuss:
- Cultivating inner balance
- Training your career like an athlete
- Building the four pillars of success
- Managing energy and embracing growth
Key Takeaways:
- Focus on inner balance rather than chasing work–life balance. Intentionally manage your energy, mindset, and relationships to sustain long-term professional performance.
- Treat your career like elite athletic training by consistently prioritizing physical health, restorative sleep, and daily self-care as essential foundations for mental sharpness.
- Surround yourself with the four pillars of success: a genuinely supportive network, a solution-oriented mindset, deliberate self-care, and engaging, nourishing diversions that spark creativity.
- Protect and invest your energy wisely, design environments that actively inspire focus, and embrace mistakes as valuable opportunities for growth, reflection, and learning.
“When you’re thinking about your energy, look at it like a battery that needs to be recharged.” — Amy Wood
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About Amy Wood: Dr. Amy Wood is a licensed psychologist, certified executive coach, and award-winning author who has devoted her career to helping individuals and organizations articulate and arrive at new and more empowering versions of success.
In particular, she is known for helping individuals and organizations to edit down overwhelm to their own customized productivity and happiness essentials. With a doctorate from Adler University and a prior career in communications, she inspires transformation with a unique blend of humor, directness, and psychological insight. Dr. Wood’s intention is always to live and work in ways that bring out the best in herself and others.
Connect with Amy Wood:
Website: https://amywoodpsyd.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoodpsyd/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: [email protected]
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steve Fretzin [00:00]
Attention. Everybody just saying, if you think rainmakers are born, not built, this might test your belief. The next few minutes could unlock a completely new mindset around your success. All right, that’s my tease. Enjoy the show.
Narrator [00:21]
You’re listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [00:43]
Hey everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I am Steve Fretzin, and I’m so happy that you’re joining us again, twice a week. Every week, we’re sitting at like 570 shows. Amy. We’re really rocking and rolling. And again, we’re putting out some really, really fun and interesting and helpful content to lawyers who want to be that lawyer, confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. I’m so happy that you’re with me today. Um, how’s your day starting out? Okay?
Amy Wood [01:06]
Everything is great so far. Had a really nice cup of coffee, okay, in the winter, and my dog is sleeping next to me. What could I do?
Steve Fretzin [01:13]
Grind beans and, like, do the whole thing, or you just, I don’t do all that. Okay, just stick it in there. Do you do a Keurig? Like, a cup? Yeah, I have an espresso machine, espresso, yeah, yeah. My wife likes that because it has the foam, the little foam on top, yeah, she’s all about the foam, all right, yeah. But is this show about coffee? Is this show about being that lawyer? We gotta, I gotta flip a switch here already. But let’s start off with the quote of the show. And this one is a new one I’ve never heard before, and I really loved it. Make the most of the best and the least of the worst. Robert Louis Stevenson, so welcome to the show Amy and tell us why that quote.
Amy Wood [01:47]
I love that quote because I think it speaks to optimism. A lot of us get optimism wrong. We think optimism is just pretending to be happy when we’re not not looking at what might be wrong. And really optimism is looking at the whole picture and saying, Yeah, we have some problems here. Life isn’t perfect, so let’s figure out some solutions. Let’s focus on the solutions and move forward and make the most of what we have. What’s going well.
Steve Fretzin [02:11]
Yeah, I love that. I love that. Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s all about minimizing mistakes and minimizing, you know, the things that drain our energy, the people that drain our energy, the the time sucks, that there’s like, you know, my dad was late, great, Larry the lawyer, everybody, when he hit a certain age. I don’t know when that age was, but he basically said, I’m not doing anything I don’t want to anymore. And it like, upset people, because there’s things that we still have to do that we don’t want to do. And, you know, whatever. But he was like, No, I’m just not going to do that. And his wife wasn’t real thrilled about it, but, you know, it’s like, hey, like, I put in my time. I’m just not going to do things that make me uncomfortable unhappy. And he kind of got away with it. So anyway, well, everybody welcome. You’re in for a treat today. Amy Wood is my guest today. She’s owner psychologist specializing in attorney well being, executive coaching, training, consulting. She’s the author of the ABA book, lawyer like an athlete, which is amazing, and I want to get into that a little bit later today, but welcome to the show and do us a solid and just give us a little more background on how you came to be and and how you got into the well being area for lawyers.
Amy Wood [03:13]
Well, I started off as a psychologist, and always have been interested in coaching, doing executive coaching with very ambitious adults, because I am an ambitious adult, and I realized early in my career I don’t want to give up my ambition. I’m not going to do that to have a full life. So my goal has always been, how do I do both? And I’m pretty good at that, and that’s what I help people do. So naturally, I started to attract attorneys into my practice who want the same thing. So from that, started to do a lot of coaching with attorneys and a lot of CLE webinars for attorneys, particularly, particularly through state bar associations and all sorts of other legal organizations.
Steve Fretzin [03:51]
Yeah, really, really important and helpful. I feel like it’s hard for me to do my job on the business development branding front if somebody’s not in the right state of mind. So I I play psychologist, like part time, you know, mental strategist and therapist and all of that. But it’s more out of necessity, when, in reality, maybe I should just be sending some of my folks to you, but, but it’s, you know, there’s a lot of different moving parts to the game of being successful today, and business development is one of them. But if you don’t have the right your head in the right place makes it very challenging to do most lawyers just go back to being unhappy or just like focusing on the billable hour.
Amy Wood [04:26]
Yes, yeah, exactly. And I think they don’t realize when they take the focus off of that fixation of the billable hour and nourish their performance. In other ways, the billable hour becomes easier to obtain.
Steve Fretzin [04:42]
Yeah, I wonder to some degree if AI is going to solve the billable hour stress that attorneys have, because if the billable hour is either going away or is completely minimized, that is that, you know, things are just done more efficiently, I don’t know how that’s going to impact the legal world, just from a mental game and from a stress level game.
Amy Wood [04:59]
Yeah, well, I’ve been. Asked to speak about that very topic a lot. Lee, because, as you probably know, people are concerned, not just attorneys, but everyone’s concerned about two things. One is that AI is going to take away everybody’s jobs, yeah. And the other is that, you know, you’re just going to get overwhelmed by it and not know how to navigate it. And what I really believe is that if you as an attorney or in any profession, no matter what you do, use AI as a tool. So think of yourself as the artist and ask that tool. What can you do to allow me to let go of what I don’t want to do and do more of what I love to do, or what I’m best at? I’m doing those high level things that really allow you to be the ringmaker and really allow you to be in the flow of your job.
Steve Fretzin [05:46]
Okay, so it sounds like you’re leveraging AI and chat GBT, for example, in this to help you sort of figure out your career path and figure out like where your brilliance is, or where you should be spending your time. I mean, I have to do that in some instances with people who want to specialize, or people that are making some big decisions about, you know, should they stay where they are? They going to move to another firm and the trajectory of their career? But ultimately, I think AI may be super helpful to sort of evaluate and analyze better than maybe, you know, doing it through a human being. I don’t know.
Amy Wood [06:16]
Yeah, absolutely. I think AI is great at doing research. It’s great at organizing, scheduling, doing all those in the weeds kind of things that just keep us stuck in doing work that’s not that fulfilling, yeah, and it frees us up to do better work. But the important thing here you’ve probably heard about attorneys who have relied on AI to do their research, and then they go into court, yeah, you present something, and they get called out because it’s not even true. The important thing about AI, it’s imperfect, just like we are. So you have to vet it. You have to review everything that you get from AI to make sure that it’s correct. Look at all the references first.
Steve Fretzin [06:55]
But like a friend of mine was telling me he went through and, did you know, like, 50 hours of work and doing it through chat. GBT, like, you know, took, you know, it was like an hour or less to do it, and then he got the results. They look great. He reviewed them. He said, They all look great, and they present it to the client. And, you know, every nobody could be happier, and it didn’t take a lot of time and money and energy. So, but let’s talk about that’s maybe one way to reduce stress is to leverage automation. Ai, delegation. I’m continually beating people up about the importance of that. What are attorneys doing wrong to reduce stress? What kind of where are they kind of missing the boat?
Amy Wood [07:28]
Well, I think one of the things attorneys are doing wrong, and they think this is right, because this is the very old school, very dysfunctional attorney culture is just focusing on work, work, work, work, work, and thinking that that is going to help them to progress, help them to get those billable hours, help them to get promoted and have a great life when couldn’t be further from the truth. The more you focus just on work, the more you’re going to be unfulfilled because you don’t have anything outside of that, and the more you’re going to start breaking down and head toward burnout, because you’re not resting, you’re not recovering so that you can come back to work with renewed energy. So that’s the number one thing. And the other thing that I see, which is related to that, is, first of all, trying to create work life balance when it doesn’t exist. You know, we live in a world right now where even people who have a lot of time and aren’t in really demanding professions, they can’t create that because we’re accessible 24 hours a day, and so everything’s integrated. So it’s a myth. So I would say, for any attorney struggling with that, just let go of that, because it’s not possible. The only way to create balance is to look at it like an inner balance, with that you create by doing four things. And here’s the solution. This is what successful attorneys do. This is how they perform their peak. They nourish their performance. They don’t push their job aside and say, Oh, I’m just going to not take it so seriously. You have to take it seriously because it is a very serious job, and it requires that you be at your best every single day. So in order to be at that peak, you have to surround yourself continually with making sure you have a really strong network of people in your corner, socially in your profession as well. So colleagues, family, neighbors, friends and also you want to have the right mindset, and that’s in particular where I come in, you know, helping people to realize the power of their thinking and creating their reality and reducing stress. The other thing is what I call exquisite self care. You know, my book is called lawyer like an athlete, for a reason, because athletes understand what I’m talking about right now, that you put your work at the center and you nourish yourself in every way, especially physically, so that you can perform well when you’re in the spotlight. And a lot of attorneys say, Well, I don’t need to take care of my body because I do mental work. But guess what? The brain is part of your body, so you’ve got to take again, exquisite care of yourself. Yeah. And finally, you know, having nourishing. Diversions outside of work to help you to unwind and help you to think in different ways. I’ll give you a great example of that from the world of sports. A lot of NFL players, they play chess in their downtime because it’s a way to relax. It’s a way to use their brain differently, so that they’re not always using their brain in that one way that makes them good at their job.
Steve Fretzin [10:23]
Yeah, for me, it’s Wordle. Oh, I love Wordle and Scrabble. My wife refuses to play Scrabble with me. I’m not. She’s an English teacher, so she’s going to come always come up with better words than me, no doubt about but I’m a strategist, and so I’m getting triple word and triple letter and all this stuff so but that to me, I’m using my brain differently through those kinds of tools, and they’re certainly convenient on my phone, better than Doom scrolling and wasting time watching pressing reels and such. But I think what you’re saying too, and just to take a step back, is, you know, look, we’re in people are hearing me say this quite a bit, but we’re batteries. I mean, we’re just bad. We’re just flesh batteries. And you know, if we’re not eating right, if we’re not sleeping right, if we’re not exercising, if we’re not doing the things that are going to allow us to perform at the highest level, like an athlete, you’re a lawyer athlete. You may not see yourself that way, but that’s who you are and who you want to become. And you know, people can’t not only be great lawyers, but also develop, you know, be rainmakers without really taking care of the battery. So do you have a couple of tips about how to best take care of the battery?
Amy Wood [11:29]
Sure. So I talk about this concept quite a bit. When you’re thinking about your energy, look at it like a battery that needs to be recharged. Yeah. You know another mistake attorneys make a lot is they look at what they can’t control. And there’s a lot of things attorneys can’t control, and instead of looking at what they can control, and one thing that every attorney and every person has control over is their energy, how that energy is used, and most of us throw it away. But if you look at your energy like a currency, you wake up every day and you ask a high energy a low energy day, and what do I need today to get through it? How do I want to spend my energy so that I’m putting my energy into the things that are most important to me so I can accomplish what I really want to accomplish? And when I say that most people and a lot of attorneys throw their energy away, I’m talking about things like you mentioned, like Doom scrolling. So many attorneys tell me, you know, I have to get news alerts all day long and know what’s going on, and they’re constantly distracted and feeding into all these hyped up headlines that don’t amount to anything. Yeah, they’re also spending their energy, let’s say, talking to people who are draining to them who they don’t really need to talk to. So that’s something all of us do. You know, we may be in relationships with people we don’t really even like that much. Yeah. So how can you either end those relationships? Or if you have to have contact, and we all have to have contact with people we don’t like at work and at large social gatherings for family and community, etc, you know, limit the contact, set boundaries so that you can take care of yourself. That’s where we the most control, just like you were saying about your father, you know, to in a certain extent, we can say, I don’t want to participate in this. There’s certain things we all have to do, but try to go with what allows you to be at your best, because then you will perform at your past best. So doing the things you love, being with the people you really love doing what brings you alive as much as you can being with people you don’t have to be on for. So you can relax a little bit.
Steve Fretzin [13:25]
There’s a show called What We Do In The Shadows. It’s a ridiculous vampire thing, but there’s one character in there called the Energy Vampires. All the vampires are sucking blood. This guy drains the energy from people from the room, and it’s like the greatest character that’s ever existed to give a purpose, but we really have to be careful with the people that we spend time with and the things that we do and the things that we take in. Like we’re all the we’re just these big information sucking devices, and so what are we putting in our heads? And I know, like, I do like to keep up with the news and politics. I just like the idea of knowing what’s going on, but there’s no question that I’m like, disgruntled and like dismayed and like beside myself just about every day with it. So I’m not really sure how to balance that. And that doesn’t have to be a question answered today, unless you have one.
Amy Wood [14:14]
Well, I have one way I’m really into politics and knowing what’s going on, and at the same time, I find that when I get too into it, it really throws me off balance. Yeah, because I getting really discouraged and really anxious, like all of us do. So I tried an experiment. I have two podcasters I go to for political information because they’re really entertaining and really smart, and I decided for a month I’m not going to tune into these people. And you know what? I don’t even miss it. Because what I realized is those podcasts are very repetitive. And so what I recommend is that, you know, the great thing today is we have so many sources for news, way too many. So choose a couple. And for me, that’s looking at the New York Times newsletter on the morning when I have my wonderful coffee from that machine. Yeah. So that takes about five or 10 minutes. I can catch up with headlines, and then I read the magazine the week, which is.
Steve Fretzin [15:07]
Oh, the week I have, the week I love the week. Yeah, you love the week, yeah, because you’re not getting into the personalities and the emotion of the speaker. I think you’re why I think you are onto something. I think maybe what I need to do is I need to focus on reading my news, not listening or watching my news. That’s actually, that’s really brilliant. And I don’t know I have all these, I have all the formats, right, online, yes, magazine, newspaper, all that stuff. And I’m finding myself leaning towards podcasts and MSNBC in the news channels. And it’s, it is really, you know, it doesn’t affect me all day, like, I’m negative all No, I’m a super positive guy. I love what I do, and I love doing all this stuff, so I don’t think it affects me all day. But I know, I know it definitely in the moment is like, I just shake my neck, oh, are you kidding me? Or oh my god, or what’s next? And it just that’s not, not a great feeling first thing in the morning, right?
Amy Wood [15:59]
But at the same time, we need to be informed, and so I’m not for just ignoring the news, but I think it’s about looking at all your options and asking, you know, what are two or three news outlets that I could look at in moderation where I know I’m getting a balanced perspective on what’s actually happening? Okay?
Steve Fretzin [16:17]
Okay. I like that. I like that. Yeah, with proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm. Rankings.io. Prides itself on proof, not promises. Mentality. The best firms hire rankings.io. When they want rankings, traffic and cases, other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver, get more rankings, get cases and schedule a free [email protected] today. Hey everybody. It’s Steve Fretzin as the you know, I’m the host of the be that lawyer podcast, and if you’re serious about growing your law practice, let’s talk. I’ve coached hundreds of attorneys to build bigger books of business without selling, chasing or wasting time. This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a real 30 minute strategy session to explore what’s possible for you in your practice. Just head over to fretz.com and grab a time that works for you. And let’s make this your breakout year. So, you know, the book is lawyer like an athlete. And there’s going to be, you know, I know you’ve got some things to share that lawyers can take in and just start doing today. So we just talked about like, maybe, you know, taking care of the battery. We talk about things like maybe not watching the negative stuff, or Doom scrolling. Okay, what are a couple of more proactive things that lawyers could take away from this show, from you, that they could start doing today that will make a difference in their performance and how they feel?
Amy Wood [17:32]
Well, one thing is, you know, as I talked about earlier, a lot of people want to achieve this work life balance, which doesn’t exist. But what does exist is, again, that inner balance. And the way that we achieve inner balance is you look at every environment you function in the most so for most of us, that’s our workspace, either at home and or at a building away from home. It’s where we live, and it’s also our car, if we drive a lot or commute, and so asking, and this is another area we have control, and we don’t even realize it. Ask yourself, like, if you’re in your workspace right now, yeah, looking around, you know, does this workspace make me feel the way I want to feel when I’m in it? So if you’re in your workspace, you want to feel motivated, inspired, energized, focused, and so if you’ve got a bunch of clutter in your workspace. You know that’s distracting to you, and it’s taken away from your focus. If you have, let’s say, a picture that you put up 10 years ago that inspired you 10 years ago, but no longer does that’s taken away from your focus. Okay, you know, for example, Steve, I’m looking at your space right now, and you’ve got some really inspiring things on your wall that I would think really motivate you. Yeah, right.
Steve Fretzin [18:43]
Well, yeah, like, no soup for you on my Seinfeld poster, right? I’m always thinking, I can’t have soup. Serenity. Now, you know, I’m just yelling at it myself all day. Those are very but you know what, Seinfeld, to me, represents greatness. It represents the best, in my opinion, my humble opinion, the best sitcom that’s ever existed, and I’ve watched a lot of sitcoms, and Michael Jordan Jersey autographed on the two my latest book, which is the 101 top Rainmaker secrets, with all the best tips and ideas from all the top rainmakers. So to your point, a plant a fake plant, but yeah, that’s to me, this is not just a great backdrop for my podcast and for my day, but it is something that I’m looking at and working with on a day to day basis. I think my problem is the stuff you don’t see that’s over here, and I’m super organized. There’s no clutter that went away long time ago, but I still, I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of pictures of my family and my, you know, my parents and stuff like that, and some inspiring books. So it’s pretty good. I gave my dad a t shirt. I can’t really say this on the show, but it says, because he used to say this, getting old isn’t for and then you can fill in the word Okay, and I’ve got so when he passed, I asked my stepmother for my mother in law, who was a stepmother for that T shirt back, and I framed it, and I put it up there, and I look, and it’s an old man. Holding a cane angry, and it says Getting old is in four and then you put the word in, but yeah, so I love that. So people need to really look at their environment around them and figure out, like, how to improve it. What would be another tip?
Amy Wood [20:12]
Well, another one. You know, you clearly have a great sense of humor that I certainly appreciate. And humor is another big thing that everyone has access to, and it can really help reduce stress, to expose yourself to something funny. And it could be like a a two minute Funny Video. Yeah, you might like or, you know, you might watch your favorite comedian for five minutes when you have a break. Or, you know, try to spend time with the people you find funny. So if you know someone right now that you haven’t been in touch for a while, he always makes you laugh. Get in touch with him today. You know, just send them a brief text or recall a memory of spending time with that person. So I would say, bringing humor into your life, yeah, and getting more sleep. You know, whenever people come to me and they say, you know, I’m, I’ve read your book, I’ve I like your work, pop or whatever, but what’s the first thing I should do? And I always say, get more sleep. Because most attorneys, most American adults, in fact, don’t get enough sleep, and we’re suffering for it. We need sleep to be at our peak when we’re at work.
Steve Fretzin [21:13]
But Amy, there’s getting more sleep, and there’s the ability to get more sleep. So it’s, I think there are people who want to get more sleep, but they’re just so jacked up and wired up, and they’re thinking about all the things they didn’t do. They’re thinking about the trial ahead, and it’s just hard to get the real good sleep. What are some Is there something you’d recommend people do to try to get you know, the seven to eight? I think it’s seven. Eight hours is kind of magic. Number five or six. I think you may be missing something. Yeah, I agree in this case, a couple hours. Yeah.
Amy Wood [21:42]
So everyone knows, we all have an individual number for ourselves, you know, like I am about an eight or nine hour person. There are people out there who can get by in four to five hours of sleep, like Warren Buffett, you know, one of the richest men in the world, he gets by on four hours a night. But a lot of attorneys will come to me and say, you know, I’m trying to train myself to sleep less so I can get more done. You can’t do that. You need what you need. So the first thing is acknowledging how many hours do I need, and then gradually trying to develop an evening routine where you’re letting go of work sooner. Because what happens? We all know this when you hit your pillow at night and your mind is still spinning because you just stopped work, or you just stopped watching some really stimulating show on TV, or reading a really exciting thriller, kind of a book. You can’t fall asleep that fast, yeah, you know, you have to segue into it. So as a first step to that, you know, I would say just, you know, try gradually. You need about an hour to segue into sleep from, let’s say, looking at your laptop or, you know, watching TV. So try to spend maybe five minutes just winding down as a first step at night, you know, and shutting off the TV or shutting down your laptop and stopping work five minutes sooner, and then you keep on working at that in terms of, you know, that does take some time getting more sleep, but another thing people can do to get instant relief, aside from exposing themselves to something really funny, is to just go outside, you know, even for a few minutes, even if you live in Manhattan and you don’t have nature near you, just going outside for a few minutes just does wonders in terms of giving you more energy, helping you be more innovative. Bit of when you go back side inside, solving problems more quickly, just being in a better mood. So you know, I’m lucky. I live in Maine, and I’m all there’s beauty all around me, natural beauty. I spend a lot of time outdoors, but some of us don’t have access or time to go on a hike or do something in the winter, like go skiing or something, but just going outside for a few minutes and just breathing the air is a way to boost yourself, especially on a really tough day.
Steve Fretzin [23:57]
I love that the I’ll tell you one thing that worked for me really well is, you know, sitting in bed, laying in bed, and looking up and just thinking about all the things I didn’t do, or thinking about all the things that I have weighing on me. I haven’t had that in a long time. I read getting things done by David Allen, years and years ago, and it really changed my life. I’m at a zero inbox every day. I have everything that I need to do, every task accomplished at the end of every day when I leave my desk. So I don’t have the and I have all my clients. Know, you know, if they need me, they’ve got me. But you know, they schedule time, and it’s like I’m not, you know, gonna get a 12 O’Clock call. So for me, and again, you know, this wasn’t easy to do. I’m not built that way. But for me, not having the stress of the disorganization of piles and bills, and what did I pay? And what did I not pay? Who did I not follow up with? I’m a big commitment guy, but there’s 10 people that I blew off on commitments like I can’t even imagine that being a way of living, yet people are doing that all the time, and it can’t positively impact your sleep and be. Be the way that you’re representing yourself in the world. So I think, I think being organized may be one addition to what all the things you just shared. Amy, but I think we’re brilliant about how to get better sleep.
Amy Wood [25:10]
Yes, exactly, having things be more organized, and that starts with just getting rid of what you don’t need, what’s just creating clutter. And that, to me, clutter is anything you don’t absolutely love, or and or absolutely need to be happy and productive. Yeah, get rid of the rest.
Steve Fretzin [25:27]
Yeah, that’s right, I donated a ton of books. I had way too many books, and they’re books that I had read, and I was said, Am I going to read this book again? No, I got, you know, I love, I love and hate relationship with some books where the title of the book is the book meaning, like, there’s 300 pages there of research and information and really deep, deep thinking. But like, the name of the book kind of told me everything I needed to know about, like, the book. I mean, I can’t read lawyer like an athlete and just say, oh, now I’m going to be a lawyer athlete like, you need to read the book to get the goods of you have what’s in there, because that’s all the things you’re sharing on the show and that are in the book of like, how do you do this? And it’s tactical and actionable. Those are the books I keep, and then the other books I donated. So but let’s before we get to Amy’s big mistake, let’s take a moment just share a little bit about the book. What you know, it’s an ABA book. What can lawyers expect in reading that book?
Amy Wood [26:19]
Well, what they can expect. I designed it to be just like a a training book, you know. So it’s really a playbook for peak performance, and it takes you through each chapter. Can pretty much stand on its own, but if you go through the whole program, it’s designed, you know, starting with that model we went over. You know, have four components that you need to surround yourself with to inject energy and motivation and inspiration into your performance so you’re at your peak. There are several ways to do that, and you can do it at your own pace, but the idea of the book is to look at it like, Okay, I’m training myself just like an athlete would, so that when I finish this book, and I mean this really true, you’re going to have every strategy, every tool you need to lawyer like an athlete, meaning to come to work, totally sharp, totally alert, ready to go. You’re probably going to make more rain because you’re going to be more efficient. And so I say throughout the book, you know, there’s no rush, there’s no perfection in this, but it is about it’s about pace, and it’s about practice. So going in a pace that works for you, and not feeling like, Oh, I gotta get through this book right now, yeah, um, and learn all this stuff, but you know to give yourself time and to know that even when you finish the book, you’re still going to have to practice. And I’ll say that all the strategies I give are strategies I use in my own life that work for me, and I would consider myself an expert, but I still have bad days. Well, because no day goes the way you want it to. Sometimes you get good surprises. You get unexpected curve balls, so going through it with a sense of pragmatism and patience, you know, not expecting to get some perfect answer from this, but you will get a lot of tools that will help you to lawyer like an athlete, meaning be better at what you do and also have a more fulfilling life. Okay?
Steve Fretzin [28:13]
And where can they get the book? Is it? Is it through the ABA website?
Amy Wood [28:16]
Or, yeah, it’s on the ABA website and it’s also on Amazon. Okay, so great. Those two places.
Steve Fretzin [28:22]
They’re fantastic. Alright, so let’s get to the fun stuff. What’s Amy’s big mistake?
Amy Wood [28:25]
Well, my big mistake, when I made this I thought my career would be ruined, and that’s where the learning comes in, because it’s happened many years ago when I was in graduate school, and at the time when it happened, I was devastated. But now, you know, speaking of mistakes, I realized that mistakes are just part of learning, and I learned a lot from this. I had presented on the topic of adult development when I was in graduate school, and I was getting asked to speak at many places, many conferences, and I was feeling pretty good, like, wow, I came up with this great talk, and I was asked to speak in Europe. Went to Europe, and I went there feeling very cocky, like, this is going to be a great talk, like it is everywhere else. And I felt like a real big shot, you know, so I’m speaking in Europe, and the audience hated it. Absolutely hated it. And the reason why is they felt it was, and it was, it was very centric to the United States. So I didn’t even do my research to see if what I was talking about was in terms of adult develop, develop, it was so true for the states to actually work in Europe, and so they were downright, you know, criticizing me as I was speaking and calling me names, and oh, my God, it was horrible. And I thought, okay, my career is done. I haven’t even gotten out of graduate school yet. But, you know, I learned so much from that. The biggest lesson, like I said, is that making mistakes that’s how we learn and grow.
Steve Fretzin [29:43]
So it’s the most important thing. I mean, wish it was a clear path through and everybody does, but that’s not how we become who we’re going to become, right?
Amy Wood [29:52]
And so what I learned from that, you know, of course, is you really need to know your audience. Yeah, you need to know also that whenever you think you know. Know everything, you’re really in trouble, because the people who know everything quickly find out, Oh, you really don’t know everything you in fact, sometimes you know nothing. So it really made me more humble, which served me well. That cockiness went away, and I really learned I need to prepare more when I go out and speak. But mostly, you know, in retrospect, I think about how anxious I was, took me about a week or two of anxiety to start recovering from that, and now it’s just a blip, and I look at it as a very valuable experience. I’m very grateful I had it.
Steve Fretzin [30:33]
That’s exactly the reason why I love this question at the end of every show now, because it’s those are the epiphanies that separate us from people who continue to make the same mistakes or that don’t learn lessons, and that’s what life is, and that’s how we grow. Let’s take a moment thank our wonderful sponsors. I want to just mention, as we talk about athletes, rainmakers roundtable, if you are a managing partner, equity partner, doing a million plus, and you want to be in a room with other successful lawyers, athletes, you’re going to want to talk to me about the Rainmaker roundtable. I facilitate a hell of a group. Help everybody’s accountable, everybody’s sharing ideas, sharing problems in confidential environments. So if you’re listening to this, or you know that your managing partner might be interested, please pass that along. Of course, I want to thank law her podcast with Sonia and rankings, io, with Chris dryer, amazing company. Amy, people want to meet you. What are the best digits for them to reach out to you?
Amy Wood [31:24]
Hey, best digits would be my email, and that’s Amy Wood. AM, y, w, O, O, D, at Amy Wood, p, s, y, d.com, fantastic.
Steve Fretzin [31:35]
Well, thanks for coming on the show. I mean, I’ve got, as people know, my typical page of notes, but I’ve got some amazing things that I wrote down that you said, that I’m going to follow and share in the show notes and the video clips we do, but just thank you so much. I mean, this is what lawyers need right now, because there it’s the end of the year. It’s all time. Stress levels are up. We’ve got to come up with ways to reduce stress and do and still work at a peak performance. And you’re the master. So thank you so much. Thank you, Steve, yeah, and thank you everybody for hanging out for the last 30 with Amy. And I hopefully you got as many takeaways as I did. And you know, again, if you’re really looking to live your best lawyer life, I don’t think you can just go by day after day and year after year being the same person. I think we have to evolve and grow, whether it’s business development, whether it’s being like an athlete, I don’t really care. It’s all about improvements and how we take our careers, have fun, take them seriously, but understand that there’s more that we can get in less time if we just do the right thing. So that’s my rant at the end. But thank you. Everybody. Take care, be safe, be well. We will talk again very soon.
Narrator [32:40]
Thanks for listening to be that loyal, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website, fredson.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode check out today’s show notes.