What can a handful of great books teach lawyers about listening, delegation, client service, and building a thriving firm? Brian Klein and Steve Fretzin share the ideas that changed how they work—and how they care for clients.
In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Brian Klein discuss:
- Listening, empathy, and authentic networking
- Reading and continuous professional growth
- Time management, delegation, and buyback rates
- Value-based offers and client hospitality
- Health, stress, and entrepreneurial risk
Key Takeaways:
- Listen to understand first; genuine curiosity builds stronger relationships.
- Create systems for your time instead of relying on memory and willpower.
- Delegate work when someone else can do it well, even if you could do it yourself.
- Make the value of your service clear, and create client experiences that feel personal.
- Taking care of your health and acting before conditions are perfect can improve your odds of succeeding.
“If you can have someone that can do the job, at least 80% as good as you. You got to give it to them.” — Brian Klein
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About Brian Klein: Brian is an unconventional labor and employment attorney recognized for blending engaging personality with effective legal counsel. Named a New York Super Lawyer (2022–2024) and a former “Rising Star” (2017–2021), he founded his practice on the belief that legal counsel should be informative, approachable, and engaging. Beyond representing clients—including former legal adversaries—Brian has taught as an Adjunct Professor at Hofstra Law School, written for publications such as Eater and the International Business Times, and serves on the NYC Bar Association’s Committee on Labor and Employment Law.
Connect with Brian Klein:
Website: https://www.weinsteinklein.com/teammembers/brian-g-klein/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-klein-552200a/
Email: [email protected]
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 [00:02]
Hey everybody! Before we get to the show, I want to just share another quick LinkedIn recommendation from my client and friend Blake Stroudon’s in the Be That Lawyer community. He says, “What impresses me most is the community he’s built through the Be That Lawyer. It’s not just another networking group or coaching program. It’s a group of accomplished attorneys who openly share ideas, successes, challenges, and support one another. The relationships, insights, and accountability that come from being part of a community are invaluable. I want to thank you, Blake, for being a great leader in the community. I hope you guys can check it out at bethatlawyer.com/community. Check it out, and we’ll see you soon and enjoy the show.
Narrator [00:46]
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 Fritzen will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now here is your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [01:08]
Hey everybody, Steve Fretzin. Welcome to the Be That Lawyer podcast. If you didn’t know this, we are globally the number one podcast on legal business development. So we are a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche, and it keeps going down. But if you want to be in the niche space, then this is the podcast that is is conquering the world, helping lawyers to be that lawyer, confident, organized, and skilled rainmakers. And you guys, I have such an exciting and fun show for you today, and it’s so different than what we typically do. Normally, we you know, oh, it’s someone to talk about you know time management. You’re going to give some takeaways on that, or takeaways on marketing and whatever. Nope, I’ve got Brian here, and we were talking about our favorite books. And I said, Brian, let me ask you a question. Do you think you’d be open to just having a a show about books, about our favorite books? And what did you say?
Brian Klein [01:57]
I don’t even think you got the full sentence out.
Steve Fretzin [01:59]
You were all over it. I was all over this. Let’s get weird. So, quoting books, takeaways from books, like how do we get like the most value out of the books that we read? And I think you’ve got three books. I’ve got three books. And so, if you’re listening today, you’re in for such a treat because we’re gonna have fun talking about our favorite books, why you should read them, and even if you don’t read them, like what you can get out of them. We’re gonna talk about our favorite takeaways, Brian. We always do this, though. It’s our tradition to start with our quote of the show. Of course, Stephen Covey is the man, and his quote is: “First seek to understand, then to be understood. So, welcome to.
Brian Klein [02:34]
Ironic that we’re quoting Dr. Covey too.
Steve Fretzin [02:37]
Yeah, we’re quoting a book on a show of books.
Brian Klein [02:40]
There may be an overlap here.
Steve Fretzin [02:41]
Okay, you’re forecasting what’s what’s to come.
Brian Klein [02:44]
Little forecasting.
Steve Fretzin [02:45]
All right, I like it. All right, well then, might as well start off with telling us why you love that quote.
Brian Klein [02:50]
So I love that quote because I love the book that is in that that that quote is from, which is Seven Half to Five Successful People.
Steve Fretzin [02:57]
Yeah, yeah, and it’s. I think for me, what it so I teach sales free selling. I’ve been teaching the same system for over 20 years and about 18 to lawyers. And what I love about sales free selling is it’s all about listening, questioning, listening, understanding, empathy, qualifying. It’s what can we can we shut the hell up and stop talking and just take a minute to listen to people and what’s going on. Now I don’t do this with my wife, and she tells me that all the time. But when I’m with my clients, when I’m talking to prospective clients, I am the master listener and ask her questions. and And that’s what this is all about. Like, why are we, why are we, you know, doing anything other than trying to understand others as a way to then be understood as someone that could be an expert or someone that can can can you know find the best fit, et cetera. So, just by the way, this is a
Brian Klein [03:49]
safe space. the the The dichotomy between my emotional intelligence with other people and my wife is is pretty staggering. So, let it out, man. It’s crazy. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [03:58]
So she, the last time I interrupted her, and and I hate that I’m even bringing this up, but she yelled at me, and then she saw that I got I got upset that she yelled at me because I’m not used to being yelled at by anybody other than my teenager. Everyone’s got a boss other than my teenager who’s outgrown it, who’s now a mature 19 year old. But I said to her, I said, you know, honey, I I’m just not trying to tell you what to do or mansplain, but you know, when I interrupt you, first of all, you know I don’t mean to. I’m just excited about about the conversation and what we’re talking about. I said maybe just like you know show me the hand, like instead of yelling at me, like just show me the hand. We work through it. She’s like, that’s brilliant. Like we’ll do that, and that way you’re not getting upset, but also you’re recognizing and starting to be conditioned like like an animal, like a like a monster that you need to shut the hell up and listen. So
Brian Klein [04:40]
yeah, Pavlov was onto something. No, listen, it’s almost like there’s something to this seek to understand before being understood.
Steve Fretzin [04:46]
Yeah,
Brian Klein [04:46]
and you can have a good conversation with with people and everything else. The reason why I have Seven Habits as one of my three books, and it sounds like maybe it’s one of your three. It is
Steve Fretzin [04:56]
not.
Brian Klein [04:57]
Oh, so there you go. So that doesn’t mean
Steve Fretzin [04:59]
it isn’t one of the best. Books. It just means I handpick three that I I feel my audience would totally appreciate.
Brian Klein [05:05]
So we got bonus things. So I was we’re gonna. It looks like we’re trying to sell towards six total books, so no overlaps. But I love this book for so many reasons. But let’s talk about networking. You actually had Randy Cohen as a guest. I
Steve Fretzin [05:19]
sure did. The
Brian Klein [05:19]
great incomparable Randy Cohen, and she mentioned something to the effect of, you know, networking is a four-letter word. You don’t, you don’t like to call it networking because to her, networking is just, it’s just connecting with people, and I, I cannot agree with that more. You have to be genuine, you have to be authentic, and so all of these things that help you be a better, more emotionally intelligent person. There, there are so many downstream effects I find with actually networking, BD, and everything else that goes there because people like you. I’ll give another great quote. So I heard this recently. When all else is equal, people like to do business with their friends. So make all things equal and make a lot of friends, and and I think there’s a lot of real great nuggets from that quote. Be friendly, be genuine, and to do those things, you want to listen to people, you want to be interested in people, and you have to do it in an authentic way. And there’s so many great tips from that book. Again, downstream with with just being a better person,
Steve Fretzin [06:21]
yeah.
Brian Klein [06:21]
But if we’re talking about it from a networking perspective, oh my God, seek to understand before being understood.
Steve Fretzin [06:26]
Yeah,
Brian Klein [06:26]
you will be amazed. I think at the benefits he would reap.
Steve Fretzin [06:30]
It’s a rock star book. So so we’re jumping right in. We didn’t waste any time, but I want to just share that Brian Klein is the co-founder and managing partner at Weinstein, Weinstein & Klein. God dang it! I, I, I.
Brian Klein [06:42]
Doctor Frankenstein,
Steve Fretzin [06:44]
Doctor Frankenstein, yeah, Frankenstein, Frankenstein. If nobody’s seen the movie Young Frankenstein yet, you’re gonna wanna. That’s old Mel Brooks, but I mean, it it it holds up. It does. It doesn’t hold up. But yeah, let’s let’s um just just give a little background on yourself too, so people know where you’re from, what you’re doing, kind of practice, and then then we’ll get back into books.
Brian Klein [07:03]
Awesome! So that probably is an important thing. We jump right into it. See, we got excited about the books. It’s going to
Steve Fretzin [07:08]
happen. It happens. People don’t change.
Brian Klein [07:10]
You know, it is what it is. Well, so Brian Klein, Weinstein, Weinstein & Klein, we are a law firm located in the wonderful Moorestown, New Jersey, the Garden State. We started our firm about little over seven years ago. We got about 15 lawyers. We are outside general counsel for our clients, so we specialize in employment law. We do commercial litigation and then corporate M and A. My background, what I’ve done my entire career, is labor employment. I have only worked with business owners, and basically have been that shoulder to cry on, that person to counsel, walk them through the hard moments with anything, everything has to do with their employees, their unions, et cetera, et cetera. When things get ugly, we do some litigation, and that is what we do. So we are trying to be this more or less full service firm for our specific types of you know small business, that SMB community,
Steve Fretzin [08:04]
and you’ve you’ve built this very quickly and powerfully, and I think you attribute some of that to not only the coaches and the mentors you’ve worked with and folks like that, like our friend, our mutual friend Margaret Burke, but also you know reading books and like becoming a student of the game of business. Like you’re not just going to sit and wing it. You’re going to read and watch and listen and take in things that are helping you to be a better leader, a better scaler of a business, a better human, whatever it might be. Yeah, there’s all this education out there, and we need to we need to absorb it.
Brian Klein [08:36]
I think you’re doing yourself a disservice, and I mean we like quotes here, so I’ll give another quote I heard is if you look back yourself from a year ago, and you’re not better than that person. I’m butchering that quote, but it’s you get the gist.
Steve Fretzin [08:47]
Yeah, you’re not kind of always better. What are you doing?
Brian Klein [08:49]
Be better than you were a year ago.
Steve Fretzin [08:51]
Yeah,
Brian Klein [08:51]
and you know you you do that a number of ways, but read books. There’s so much information that’s out there,
Steve Fretzin [08:56]
and I’ll quote Melania Trump: Be best.
Brian Klein [08:58]
There you go. See, I see you did there.
Steve Fretzin [09:00]
Okay, all right, man. So, seven habits of highly effective people. Stephen Covey. That was your first book, right?
Brian Klein [09:08]
That was my first book.
Steve Fretzin [09:09]
All right. Here we go. I want to rewind about 20 years. I have stacks of business cards, stacks of paper, 500 emails unanswered, paper everywhere, sticky notes everywhere. Just a big mess of a human being organization. Terribly, I’m running like three companies at the time. Just a disaster. I get referred to this book, and I get to hold it up because I got the video. Getting things done by David Allen. This book is so good that I send my clients when they sign up with me four of my books and this-that’s it. Four of my books and this-that’s what they get from me in their package and a T-shirt, the BWR podcast T-shirt. So, if you’re hunkering for a T-shirt, let me know. This book changed my life in so many ways because you know we we we have a process of how we. Dry off after a shower. We have a process for how we make a recipe and when we put it in the oven and how long we let it bake or whatever. Yet when it comes to our time, no process. Just let it rip, right? And our most valuable asset. So things like the purge of clearing out all that clutter. Now years later, I’m 100% paper free, zero inbox every day. Sleep like a baby at night. I don’t have things hovering over me that I wake up at two in the morning. Go, oh my god, I never returned that call or whatever. Having a system for business for business development, having a system for time management for how you run your how you you know work your business critical thoughts to the book you read. I read
Brian Klein [10:41]
that book because you told me to read that book.
Steve Fretzin [10:43]
There we go. One
Brian Klein [10:44]
of our very first encounters. I remember this like it was yesterday. You told me to read that book. I think we were talking about emails and just everything going back, and we started trending towards inbox zero. Yeah, and you highly recommended that book. There you go. I immediately got it. So I am very familiar with it. I read it because of you.
Steve Fretzin [11:03]
Well, all right, this is it. This is why we’re doing this show. I mean that we, you know, these things, you know, you know, they get absorbed, and and it can literally be a life changer. Like it’s it’s funny. You just hear I hear someone say about an email automation tool called J AI, and it’s not inexpensive, but I go out and get it, and now 80% of my emails are automate automatically created for me to send out. If I got to send out an email to 30 people individually, I can use that to copy and paste and do that, and they all look like individual. Like it’s just you hear one little thing, and it can make a big difference in your life and your time. It’s incredible. I mean,
Brian Klein [11:40]
this is atomic. I mean, it’s not part of my books, but I mean, this is atomic habits and things like that. You can combo in these things. You can habit stack. But there’s many different things, and it it was so spot on what you said about we think of we have all these systems in place, but we don’t have it for what is probably the most the thing that we need it the most for.
Steve Fretzin [11:57]
Yeah, it’s our it’s our number one you know unrenewable asset, and we just blow through it, and we waste an hour there, five hours there. We, you know, we’re chasing after clients or whatever potential clients. So, all right, let’s move on to your next book. So, this is book number three. In case you’re keeping track, everybody, what’s book number three?
Brian Klein [12:15]
Buy back your time by Dan Martell, along the same lines of creating systems in place and understanding your value and your worth, and and not just winging life. This book was hugely impactful for me. If we’re talking about the Trump, it was bigly it was bigly impactful for me. And really, this this book was what convinced me to get an assistant. And there’s a lot of great nuggets and takeaways. You know, he he comes up with his buyback formula, which you know you can play around with it. But essentially, what he says is take whatever you earned for the year. If you’re a w2, it’s easy. It’s what that is. If you’re a business owner, there’s this whole formula. But you basically take that and you divide by four, and that’s your buyback rate. So if your buyback rate, let’s say, is $25 an hour. Essentially, what he is saying is, if you can get someone, if you could, if you could outsource something for the buyback rate or lower, you have to do it because otherwise, you’re doing it, and you are being inefficient with your time.
Steve Fretzin [13:15]
And it may not be your best. It may not be what you do best, right? I mean, a lot of the things that we find managing partners and lawyers doing answering their phones, doing admin work, going through droning boring emails, handling their social media. This is not a $500 an hour or $1,000 plus job. So why are you paying that to yourself or taking that out of your time? Right.
Brian Klein [13:39]
It’s so so you just said something, and there, there’s sort of two forks in the road with this one because how I think of the buyback rate is what you just said, which is you may not be the best person. So why are you doing it? Which is spot on, and that’s I mean, we could talk for hours and hours about running a business and having the right people and like who not how type of situation, which again is also not one of my books, but a great book. The other thing, though, you could be the greatest person. I could be the I am the greatest emailer of my people. I use all the exclamation points, all the right shifts and emojis. No one does it better than me. But is that a good use of my time, or can I have? You know, he also he has another rule that he has in there, and I like it’s very formulaic. It’s another good reason why he books it. I think he says something like 80% is good enough. So if you can have someone that can do the job, at least 80% is as good as you. You got to give it to them.
Steve Fretzin [14:34]
Yeah. Wow. I love that. I love that. Fantastic. That’s a book I I I don’t know that I’ve read that, but I think I have to get it to read it. If not just for me and in my business, but as a potential to share and talk about with my clients, and I’ve heard that book mentioned a half a dozen times. So it’s not, it’s it’s one of those things where I just got to pull the trigger and and grab it. So I will do that. Let me go through my next book. This is book number four for those folks keeping track. And I’m not going to suggest that this book has everything for everybody, but I’m just going to share. This is my my own personal favorite, you know, favorites, not just of this book, but of the man himself, Alex Hermosy. Like Alex Hermosy,
Brian Klein [15:12]
love Alex Hermosy. Check
Steve Fretzin [15:13]
this out: 100, 100 m offers, and I thought I’m not really in the sticky, you know. Hey, I have a guarantee, or hey, I have, you know, I am a, you know, hey, everybody, look at me, I 10x, I’ll 10x your business. Like all these people that make these promises of the shticky like sales pitches they make, I I abhor them. So, but what this book showed me was that sometimes you have to go outside the box in your thinking about how you add value, offer value, and come across different. So, what I ended up doing was taking a program, my main program, which is coaching and training, and making it about from nine months, and actually making into a two-year engagement. And in that two-year engagement, it’s like one of the things that he talks about is throw everything in the kitchen sink that that’s actually valuable to people. So, in most people don’t even know like what does Steve offer in his main coaching and training program. There’s six months of classes. There’s a year of one-on-ones with some upfront significant upfront time. I’m on full retainer, meaning my clients call me on weekends and evenings. They call me anytime. So even if they’re like, well, Steve, I only get an hour one-on-one a month. That’s not a lot. Well, first of all, you’re in a class weekly with me, and then on top of that, I’m available to you anytime you need me. Now, if I’m having dinner with my my family, I’ll I’ll you know not pick up because I’m smart. Still learning with my wife, but yeah, we got some emotional questions. It’s good. Turn it off, and ultimately, I’ll get back to you when I’m, you know, done with dinner. They also get into my peer advisory groups, so now they’re in, and they’re not siloed. They’re in a group with other successful and ambitious attorneys, and they’re getting the Be That Lawyer community. So when you add all in books and like all my content, everything. So when you add all of this up, it’s like more than any other coach in the country, maybe in the world, is providing, and the fees a little higher than it used to be because I’m adding all. So it’s like he gave me the structure and the confidence to do something for my business that benefits my clients. They’re getting more than they’ve ever thought they would, and I’m getting you know deeper relationships, greater fee, everything else. So it all everybody wins in this book really helped me really create more sustainability in in my business.
Brian Klein [17:24]
I’ll give you some props for this one too, because that that’s high praise coming from you, who is in and of himself very good at this. I’ve learned from you, and I think you had a LinkedIn post about this recently. But I’ve learned from you a tremendous amount with respect to selling value. So you know, don’t necessarily quote a price. Don’t necessarily certainly don’t lead with with with costs. You know, don’t just shoot these are out of their rates. Listen, listen, you know, sell your value. Don’t necessarily quote a price. You you have taught me a tremendous amount when it comes to that. So that’s high praise coming from you that you’re you’re offering that because that is a big thing that I’ve learned from you, and that’s for for everyone listening. Just the art of selling and and making sure that, especially with AI and the hour they rate. And again, we could talk a lot about that. You’re selling value. Why should someone? And there are Lord knows how many lawyers out there. Why should someone buy from you? What are they? And and really paint the picture, paint the dream, because that’s why they sell. It’s no different than you know. Why do you buy something? Why do you buy a car? Why do you buy a painting? Why do you buy a house? Why do you buy certain food? Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [18:32]
I just got a Rivian r2 and paid you know paid asking for it. Never questioned for a second because I saw so much value in that car, and wanting that that you know driving it, it’s emotional. I mean, when we get to the bottom of it, decisions are made emotionally, and people are willing to pay what they’re willing to pay for the right solution, or for the right product, or for the right service, or whatever it might be. The problem is sometimes we can’t read our label from inside the box, and I the bottle and I think with with my business I’m in it so long and and I know I’m I’m offering value and I appreciate you saying that Brian but how do I turn the value into a deliverable that makes sense and works and I needed to just read this book to get what I knew inside was there out into a program into a platform that that actually made sense, and then test it out, and sure enough, it it’s been working incredibly well. So, but appreciate the praise.
Brian Klein [19:27]
I think that’s the beautiful thing. No, of course, I mean back at you. It’s the beautiful thing I think of reading this book. At a certain point, you know, you can only read so many books about self improvement and growth and stuff like that, and then you start to actually take home, but there’s a compounding effect, and you take a little bit of nuggets here. And okay, actually, I was just telling this story, and this is how I can shape it with this one. Again, not one of my books, but along these lines, the power of moments, which is what I’m reading right now, selling, selling value, selling emotion, selling these peaks and things like that. But I’ll finish. With my last book, so this is book five, I think. For those who keep track at home, we have one required book for all new employees. So every new employee at the firm, they are given a book, and it is unreasonable hospitality by Will Gadara. Got to finish with obviously the the one book that is required reading here, unreasonable hospitality by Will Gadara. I remember reading that, and it was very life like life changing in in many ways. I think we had you know Damian and I had hit upon this early on, and a lot of our you know entrepreneur stories are we got lucky with a lot of things, but I think directionally the thought process there we we maybe didn’t have the wording for it, but culture. Everything starts with culture, and it all kind of leads into, you know, attracting talent, attracting people. If we’re talking about selling, you know, selling emotion. So it’s the Maya Angelou quote. You know, people forget what you said or did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. That is such an important takeaway from this book, which is obviously about the hospitality industry, so it’s specifically about 11 Madison Park. But the reason why the book has become so popular is the hospitality movement is applicable in any service business. Yeah, anything where you’re dealing with people, and even the the robots have you know emotion these days. But anytime that you’re dealing with people, it’s emotional, and so if you are ignoring the emotional aspect of communicating with people, of building a business, of trying to, you know, hire someone, of bringing on a new client, or even just developing a relation with a current client and mining those clients, which is all best form of new business, your current clients who already like you understand the emotional aspect.
Steve Fretzin [21:47]
But it’s not it’s not done enough. It’s not done intentionally, Brian. You know whether it’s a handwritten thank you card to a client or a wonderful Thanksgiving or holiday gift that not is a standard gift that everybody gets, but maybe specific to they just had a newborn, and you know they’re Green Bay Packer fans, and you send them a little onesie, Green Bay Packer onesie things. And again, I’m not suggesting you have to go that far, but that’s the the type of level of service and loyalty that we’re trying to create with people. Sometimes we have to be unreasonable in in going after things and doing it at a higher level, referring our clients to help them find a new assistant GC, helping their kid figure out what they’re going to do in their career, and they’re going to immediately. Like I met with one of my clients’ sons who was getting into sales, he was getting into financial services, and I just kind of like laid out like what I felt he should be doing to be successful. He called me back. He’s been doing it like a year and a half, he’s like the top guy there. He’s he’s killing all their records, and I’m not saying that’s me, but he needed to hear from someone and just took in that. What did that mean to his dad that I did that right? And where his son, how successful his son is being. I’ll give you. I’ll
Brian Klein [22:55]
give you another. I’ll give you another little thing again. I’ll give you credit and why you’re so good at what you do. When we spoke recently, and there had been a little bit of time before we had spoken, you immediately recalled my daughter, how old she was. My guess is you probably took notes of this as we’ve been communicating, and again, it’s the little things, and that made me feel seen. It made me feel, you know, what he cares.
Steve Fretzin [23:19]
Yeah,
Brian Klein [23:19]
and whether whether you care or not, and you do.
Steve Fretzin [23:21]
I mean, I wish my memory was a steel trap, right? I memorized. I’m, you know, I was. I knew
Brian Klein [23:26]
you were going to go there. I knew you were going to potentially pivot that one. Even if you did have a photographic memory, you still took the time to be like, okay, but I listened because I still had to at least listen to it. Yes, first time you told me I had a daughter. So you’re not you’re not fooling me in. Yeah, and I got you.
Steve Fretzin [23:40]
All right, all right. Well, I think that book is is mandatory reading. I mean, all the books that we’ve shared, I think, are are incredibly powerful. Hey, everybody, your next big client might call at 8p.m. on a Saturday night. The question is, who’s picking up? With Lex Reception, a real person answers every call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so you never miss a lead, no matter when they reach out. No AI agents, no voicemail, just professional, legal literate receptionists representing your firm the right way around the clock. And right now, be that lawyer listeners get 250 off their first month. Visit www.lexreception.com/partners/bethatlawyer to claim. your offer. That’s www.lexreception.com/partners/bethotlawyer. Hey everybody, Steve Fretzin here, and at Lawyer.com, they don’t just market law firms; they help them grow from connecting millions of consumers to trusted lawyers to smarter intake and industry-leading events, they’re building stronger connections across legal visibility, intake, events, growth. That’s lawyer.com. Check them out today. With proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm, Rand. 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 consultation at Rankings.io today. I wanted to end with something, and then we can we can bring up any other quotes or books that we want to if we have time, but this is off the charts of the business books. But I find that that mental health, physical health, you can’t be your best lawyer self if you’re not feeling well. And what was happening to me was I was having pain in my neck where my neck would tweak like this. Okay, and this is before I was old. This is like when I’m in my early 30s, maybe mid 30s, and then that would go away in a few days, and then it would be my lower back, and it would twinge down my you know glute, and I’d be like, “What the hell’s going on? Sciatica? Like, what is this going on? And I’d go see chiropractors, and I’d get X-rays, and I’d go through, you know, MRN, just like try to figure out like what’s wrong with me because I wasn’t injured, Brian. I was just hurting in different places, and then I heard, and this is not a great reference, but I’ll throw it out anyway. I heard Howard Stern. I was listening to his radio show back then, and he mentioned about this guy, Doctor Sarnow, who wrote a book called The mind body prescription. Now, do people take Howard Stern seriously? Some do, and some don’t. And I did my research because there was also a 2020. This is an old show, like 60 Minutes from the past, where they did a report to kind of debunk this guy, and they found that he was incredibly reputable. And I’ll give you the gist of the book. You know the book, or no? Have you ever heard? I do know
Brian Klein [26:40]
the book. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [26:41]
you know the book. The gist of the book is, and and this is where I’m going to lose some people, and other people be like, “Holy shit, that just that just happened. Is that our brains are so powerful, and we hold in so much emotion, so much pain from our past and from the the stress that we’re having in our day to day, that to deal with it on a psychological level is overwhelming for most people. So what your brain does, it says, you know what I’m going to do, Steve. I’m going to give you some lower back pain to deal with, and that’s going to take take your mind off of this emotional stuff. Now this is all happening at a subconscious level. You don’t know what’s going on, but your brain is giving you something that’s real, something physical to deal with, so that you’re not dealing with the physical and emotional stuff that’s going the the emotional stuff that’s going on with you that you’re just burying and burying and burying. So you read the book, you do what it says. It gives you a couple of of the ways to go through it. One of them for me was like watching a really sad movie. So like feel the dreams. Hey dad, want to have a catch? And there’s a stupid scene from Curly Sue. If you know that movie with Jim Beluzi, there’s a cute scene from that that gets me going. Listening to my my podcast with my dad, my 200th show, and I’m just gonna admit, like you know, I gotta cry it out. Like I have to like have a release, and men have a hard time with this, but it it it fricking works. And so, like the surgery that I was going to have, or the chronic pain that I was going to have, and I’m not suggesting that there aren’t people that need surgery, but this Dr. Sarna was able to get through it with people to help them avoid surgery and just deal with the fact that our bodies age, but our brains are doing some some crazy stuff with our with our bodies.
Brian Klein [28:19]
You’re not going to lose me on this one. I’m a believer of this, even if it’s just stress leads to inflammation and inflammation. And why is
Steve Fretzin [28:24]
there so much back pain now versus you know 3040, years ago? Well, some of it’s sitting, extensive sitting, and some of it is just flat out stress, stress related you know issues. Well, that’s not an injury, but it’s real.
Brian Klein [28:38]
I went down this rabbit hole, so I was diagnosed with celiac years and years ago, I’m a I’m a proud gluten free, not by choice, and I I just classic fashion. I was reading everything I could about it, and I remember reading this one book about the gut brain axis and just how so much of what is going on with your body is related to your gut. It’s like, what are you talking about? Like, I’m not, I’m, I’m having all this like anxiety things because of my stomach. It’s like, yes, actually, that is entirely possible. I’m like, so it, it, I’m, I am, you, I’m not one of those people that you will lose with talking about this, this book. And I’m gonna read that book.
Steve Fretzin [29:18]
Yeah, I mean, check it out online. Like, Google it, Doctor Sono, S-A-R-N-O-E. I think he passed away recently, but the guy has a tracker. So 2020, like went into his office. They pulled randomly. I hope he didn’t pass away from like
Brian Klein [29:30]
stress or back pain because that that would have been like you know, Doctor Atkins passing away from cholesterol or something like that. Well, maybe
Steve Fretzin [29:36]
Sarno’s alive. I don’t know, but I think he’s dead. And but they pulled these files randomly. They they called those clients and they were just talking about how yeah they were going to go in for back surgery, major back surgery, and that he was able to help them get through it without the back surgery and they’re pain free. So it sounds like magic and it sounds like like you know ridiculousness. But I would say Google it. I would say AI it. I would say buy the book and give it a. Because if you’re dealing with any kind of chronic pain and it’s unexplained, or it is explained, but it but it may just be aging, right? Like I have a bulging disc in my back, I can feel it. But why is it that sometimes it hurts and sometimes it doesn’t? And sometimes when my wife tells me about a problem she’s having with my teenager, it hurts more. Well, isn’t that interesting, right? Like that, that conversation, that stressful conversation we used to have. Like when he would bite another kid, like when he was in whatever used to be a biter. My kid was a biter, and we get these phone calls, and we’d have to have these conversations, and then then yeah, my back would feel funky, right? Anyway,
Brian Klein [30:34]
I get
Steve Fretzin [30:35]
- Ah, yeah,
Brian Klein [30:36]
I don’t think my kid’s a biter, but I get it. I so I I I like I said, I’m I’m a big believer in the hall.
Steve Fretzin [30:43]
Yeah.
Brian Klein [30:43]
First off, I feel buried the lead too. How can you be your best self if you’re in pain? If you’re if you’re not trying to, I I was at a I was listening to some interview. I don’t know, someone of these like wellness influencers, something like that. And we’re talking about quotes. My my the people at the firm will will laugh because one of my off the wall quotes is, “You got to shoot the alligator closest to the boat, meaning
Steve Fretzin [31:07]
yeah,
Brian Klein [31:07]
obviously right naturally. Everyone knows what that quote means. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [31:10]
yeah.
Brian Klein [31:11]
But you’ve got all these problems. Don’t try to solve all of your life’s problems with once. You got to shoot the alligator close to the boat. I have no idea what it means, but I heard it, and it’s you know it’s provocative. So we know it sounds good. It
Steve Fretzin [31:23]
sounds good. It’s like you know how to eat an elephant one bite at a time. There are all these animal. I’ll I’ll start using that one. So we’re not eating
Brian Klein [31:29]
elephants. We’re shooting out whatever. So with that, it was essentially you know all these people talk about I’m going to do this supplement. I’m going to do that supplement. And how many grams of creatine should I do in the morning? And and this influencer basically said, “I’m going to stop you there. Are you sleeping enough? Are you working out to a reasonable degree?
Steve Fretzin [31:47]
Yeah.
Brian Klein [31:47]
And are you eating properly?
Steve Fretzin [31:49]
Yeah.
Brian Klein [31:49]
You’re not doing those three things, right? You know, don’t worry about. Yeah, you don’t have to wonder too hard about what’s going on. You’re you’re missing the three most important things of of human health is you know eating, sleeping, and and exercise, and how can you expect to to you know another another great book is Farm Street, Shane Shana blanking on his name, but he wrote a book that’s essentially it’s it’s it’s about optimizing your life and doing things like that, and one of his one of his like sayings is you can live life on easy mode or hard mode. You know, living life on easy mode does not guarantee that you’re going to be successful, and living life on hard mode doesn’t guarantee that you’re not going to be successful at life. But if you live life on easy mode, you probably increase the chances of having success. If you live, if you play life on hard mode, you increase the chance of having a difficult thing. So, like, optimize your your life so that you are putting yourself in a better position. It’s all about like just positioning. So
Steve Fretzin [32:47]
yeah, yeah.
Brian Klein [32:48]
How can you expect? You can certainly network and and do great business development and grow a business by having chronic pain and not eating well and eating like shit and not working out. But you’ll probably increase your chances of doing those things better if you take care of yourself.
Steve Fretzin [33:02]
Well, and that’s why God created the GLP one, right? Just to solve, just take a pill, take a shot, solve the problem.
Brian Klein [33:07]
And that’s why God created the GLP one, GLP two, GLP three. I think we’re up to.
Steve Fretzin [33:12]
I don’t know. Hey, man, listen, we have to wrap up, but you know, I’ve got one more question for you that I need an answer to, and that
Brian Klein [33:18]
is, you do.
Steve Fretzin [33:19]
What’s Brian’s big mistake?
Brian Klein [33:20]
So the biggest mistake was not starting the business soon enough, and that was really it was the the best thing that happened. Leaving leaving my old firm under less than optimal circumstances, but I digress. And you know, doing this thing, and I I I truly it has been one of the most rewarding, amazing things, non-daughter and wife related, and it’s been just an incredible journey. And I wish I did it sooner. And the message to any young entrepreneur, any any entrepreneur in general is, you know, there’s never the right time. There’s never the perfect time. Don’t wait for the right or the perfect time. You just got to take the chance and take the leap.
Steve Fretzin [33:56]
Well, that being said, I just want also just the other side of it. It isn’t for everybody. So there, you know, that entrepreneurship is a special gene that means you’re willing to to eat shit and put up with a lot of difficulty to get somewhere, right? It’s like a marathon runner. That’s someone that that gets through an actual full marathon. You know, that’s someone that’s willing to really, you know, take take the hard road to get to get to you know to to accomplish something. So, but I but I’ve loved being an entrepreneur. I can’t imagine ever working for someone else and doing going back to that environment again. But really, really great. Take a moment. Thank our incredible sponsors. Of course, Rankings.io, one of the top lead generation companies in the world. We’ve got Lawyer.com, great directory for lawyers and of course Lex Reception another one of the you know delegation tools is don’t pick up your phone delegate it to the pros and get it done 24/7 people like to call you late at night and you’re not picking up you’re losing that business whatever it might be Brian people want to get in touch with you they want to hear more about your book. And more about books you like, or just they want to they want to talk to you about your about what you do best best best best fidgets.
Brian Klein [35:06]
Yeah, so the best way is LinkedIn, and you can always just add on our website. We have a blog that we release weekly. I do the employment blog, and then one of my partners has the business blog. It’s award winning. I think it’s our own awards, but we like to get it’s award winning, and it’s a lot of fun. We love reading it, but you can always reach out to us on website to find our information. And we would love to continue to have conversations with anyone and everyone about books, business, or otherwise.
Steve Fretzin [35:29]
Yeah, and we’ll we’ll make sure all of that’s in the show notes. And just remind everybody about Be That Lawyer community growing every day. It’s got the content, it’s got the networking, it’s got the live events. It’s I think we did it. We did a value prop. It was about $20,000 for this thing, and we’re giving it away for essentially $99 a month. So for a year, so kind of a no brainer. But that’s on you guys. Check it out at bethatlawyer.com/community. Thanks, Brian. This was fun. I mean, we don’t always get into books. I think if we add them all up, it’s probably closer to eight or nine books that we talked about today. But I’m hoping everybody got a lot of takeaways. Thanks, man. I appreciate you coming on the show.
Brian Klein [36:07]
See that? See about that value. We talked about value. You came for six books. You got like nine books.
Steve Fretzin [36:11]
Yes, right. The value just keeps on adding up at the Be That Lawyer podcast. This is where you build your book, you own your future, and you be that lawyer. Everybody, take care. Be safe and well, and we will talk again very soon.
Narrator [36:27]
Thanks for listening to “Be That Lawyer: Life-Changing Strategies and Resources for Growing a Successful Law Practice. Visit Steve’s website, Fretzin.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.