In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Chris Ducker discuss:
- The role of coaching and masterminds in personal and professional growth
- The importance of niching down in business and branding
- Balancing lifestyle design with entrepreneurship and long-term success
- Learning from mistakes and validating ideas before scaling
Key Takeaways:
- Niching down to serve a very specific audience allows you to attract ideal clients while repelling the wrong ones, making growth easier and more sustainable.
- Accountability in mastermind groups is critical because peers will hold you to your commitments and prevent you from operating in isolation.
- Building a life-first business means setting boundaries, like working only Monday to Thursday and pre-scheduling family time before business commitments.
- One of the biggest entrepreneurial mistakes is failing to validate an idea; rushing into a business without testing the model can waste significant money and months of effort.
“Burnout isn’t a badge of honor, it’s a warning sign that you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing wrong, and maybe for too long as well.” — Chris Ducker
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About Chris Ducker: Chris Ducker is a serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and bestselling author of Virtual Freedom and Rise of the Youpreneur. As the founder of three multi–seven–figure businesses over the course of his 20-year entrepreneurial career, he has helped thousands of entrepreneurs build personal brand businesses that stand the test of time. His work has been featured in major media outlets, including Forbes, Entrepreneur, and INC.
Known for his straight-talking style and British humor, Chris is passionate about helping leaders avoid burnout while building careers they love.
Connect with Chris Ducker:
Website: https://chrisducker.com/
Book: The Long-Haul Leader: https://longhaulleader.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisducker
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisducker/
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]
Hey everybody, if you want to be that organized, if you want to be that strong as a producer for your firm or for your own law practice, and be that lawyer, you’re going to want to check out my other podcast called be that lawyer Coach’s Corner with Steve Fretzin. Search for it on your device or wherever you get your podcast, and I know you’re going to enjoy it, sharing tips and secrets on how to help you live your best lawyer’s life directly from me to you, enjoy and enjoy the show
Narrator [00:28]
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, hey
Steve Fretzin [00:50]
everybody, Steve Fretzin, and welcome to be that lawyer as usual. I’m thrilled that you’re here. If you’re new to the show, go back. Check them out. We got 520 something shows something for everybody. You want to hear something about, you know, mindfulness and health. Great. We’ve got marketing, business development, tech, you name it. We’ve got it. My goal every single episode is to bring you the best guests I can. And today is 100% no different. I’ve got Chris waiting in the wings. How’s it going? My friend, very good. My man, good to be here. All right. All right. Where are you in Kentucky? It’s a southern draw. Yes. How did you guess I’m so smart that I figured it out quickly that it was, I could tell it was a southern Kentucky draw. Now we’re gonna have some fun. We’re gonna keep keep it going. Everybody with our photo the show Zig Ziglar, this guy, boy, he got a lot of great quotes. And here’s his, one of his, probably, maybe his most famous. You can have everything in life you want, if you will, just help other people get what they want. It’s sort of been a mantra for me, I mean, for a long time, but, but welcome to the show. And why that quote?
Chris Ducker [01:57]
Well, Zig. Actually, I discovered Zig as a 15 year old school boy in London, and I was kind of I was goofing off a little bit at school, the big high school exams, I guess you guys call them like the SATs or something, in the US, they were coming up, and I was goofing off quite a lot. And I was walking around the library, Wimbledon library, about 20 minute drive away from center court, which is where I was born, and I came across they had like an audio cassette section. This is where I start showing my age, right? So they had like an audio cassette section, but because I was under 16, I wasn’t allowed to take the tapes out. You had to be 16 or over to get audio tapes. So, and I saw this one from this guy I’ve never heard of before in my life, Zig Ziglar, and I’ll never forget was See you at the top. And then the tagline was, it’s a checkup from the neck up. And I said, that sounds awesome. I check up from the neck up. Like you wouldn’t believe. It was the first, kind of, genuinely, my first sort of foray into self development, or whatever you want to call it. But like I said, I couldn’t take it out, so I stole the cassette. Instead, I put it in my pocket. I was a schoolboy at the time. We’ll give you a break, and later on that evening, I was listening to it on my stereo. Remember those stacking systems back in the 80s and 90s? They were great. And my mother heard this, this, this American man’s accent coming from my bedroom. Walked in, and it was like, you know, you can have anything in life that you want. And my mom said, What is going on here? And sooner or later, she got it out of me that I stole cassette. She marched me down to the library, pulling me in via the ear like a good Catholic Irish mother, and my penance was that I needed to go to the library every day after school for an entire month and sort through little index cards. Wow. So yeah, learn two lessons. Number one, zig ziglars, awesome. Number two, don’t steal things, yes.
Steve Fretzin [04:09]
But in the quote, if we can get to that too, is, you know, we can just be greedy and selfish and just do self serving things, and maybe at the end we can say we lived a great life, or if we could help others accomplish their goals and their dreams and make their lives hap happen, how does that impact how we feel about what we do? Right? I think you and I as coaches probably can appreciate that as much as anybody. I love it.
Chris Ducker [04:38]
Yeah, that’s that’s like, that’s the reason why I coach and mentor is to see people succeed that maybe they wouldn’t have succeeded without me, or possibly they wouldn’t have succeeded as quickly if I hadn’t have helped them out. Or whatever way you want to spin it right, like I like I have had a text message from one of our clients earlier on this morning. She landed at 80k contract. Months for a year’s worth of work with a brand new client. Never worked with this client before, and that’s a massive win for her to be celebrated. So I’m celebrating it with her. And I think that’s one of the
Steve Fretzin [05:10]
reasons people go into coaching and other areas like that, is because the reward, the rewards we get of helping others and watching them succeed, and, you know, we took some part in that, right? We helped, you know, give them a process to system. We help them with their head trash. But ultimately, you know, they’re the they’re the they’re the athlete, were the coach, and they did the work, but we’re a part of it. And to watch that growth, and to watch that head there’s, I don’t know that there’s much more rewarding of a moment in someone’s life than when, when you’ve helped someone else, someone else, get over and control their future and their destiny. So yeah, kudos to us. Is what I’m saying. We’re the bomb. We fantastic. Hooray and cheers for us. And by the way, lawyers are doing this all the time, whether they know it or not, by helping people solve their legal problems and getting them out of jail because they were convicted, you know, wrongly, or because they were being, you know, attacked in litigation by something, somebody that wanted a money grabber. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a powerful, powerful thing to
Chris Ducker [06:13]
help others. Yeah, couldn’t agree more with you, yeah.
Steve Fretzin [06:16]
Well, let’s take a deep dive. Everybody. We’ve got Chris Ducker here. He is the CEO and founder of the youpreneur. And give us a little background, other than being an absolute thief and menace as a child, what else? How did you how did you come to be?
Chris Ducker [06:31]
I’m so glad you added as a child. Yeah, I did. Yeah, you know, I’ve my entire career. I’ve been in sales and marketing. So I didn’t go to university. I got my first kind of full time job as a 17 year old, and I was handed a copy of the Yellow Pages. And I was, well, I was working for an advertising company where, every week they would, they would print this kind of newspaper, magazine thing that was called Auto Trader. I don’t know whether you Oh, yeah, Auto Trader was huge in the US. Oh, okay, great. So I went in, and I was basically either in classified ads for auto trader, but I had no idea what I was doing at first, I was handed a copy of the Yellow Pages, and I was like, told, you know, start at the beginning, go all the way through to the end, cold call everyone, and then when you’re done, go back to the beginning and start all over again. That was kind of my level of sales training, and so all these years later, I’ve now been building and running my own businesses for 23 years. We’ve sold two large, multi, seven figure businesses in the last three years. Opener is the one that now still exists. Youpreneur.com is focused on helping experts ultimately monetize the expertise to build that personal brand and to, you know, do the work that they feel called to do. So it’s everybody, from authors and coaches, consultants, speakers, those kind of folks that we work with, day in day out, whether it be helping them get their book published, you know, right the way through, to help them create a Keynote or something somewhere in the middle, right? And, you know, in addition to that, I have my own mastermind, the roundtable mastermind, which is an inner circle group I’ve running for almost eight years now, and it’s honestly one of my favorite things to do. You know, it’s a smaller group of individuals, about 20 people or so, that we work with on a rolling, kind of year, year to year basis. And, you know, some days I’m a business coach, some days I’m a therapist, and they’re
Steve Fretzin [08:29]
not, they’re not too far apart, right? No, not too far apart. And I deal with lawyers, right? So therapy is sort of like sometimes, top of the list of things that I have to because if the head is, you know, the check up, from the neck up. I love that, and it’s so true. Because how do we do business development, and how do we grow our brands when our mind isn’t in the right place? And so I think maybe that’s a great place to start. Is, how are you working with people, and what is the key to getting your head on straight to accomplish goals and accomplish the life that honors the time that we have on this planet. Well, I think the most
Chris Ducker [09:07]
important thing when it comes to everything that I’m working on now, as you know, a new book is coming out in September, the long haul leader. It’s my third book. All of my books have been written on nothing but purloin experience. I’ve gone through a horrible burnout in 2021 come back from that working way less, making much more and a lot happier in the process as well. And one of the overarching kind of, I guess, messages of the book overall, is that being being busy in an industry trying to please everybody all the time. It’s a bit of a trap, right? It shouldn’t be about being busy. It should be about being impactful and having the right kind of impact with the people that we’re working with. So if you’re trying to be something to everyone, you’ll never be anything to anyone. And so the one really, really big thing that I work with most clients on straight out of the gate. Is their industry, their niche, you know, the sub niche within the niche that they’re working. So for example, you could say, well, I’m going to be a health coach. Well, that’s great, but there’s, like, a gazillion health coaches in the world. The world doesn’t need another one, right? So what can we do about that? How do we niche that down, or niche that down so that people can come to you ready to buy immediately, because they resonate with you immediately. So we said, Well, I’m not just gonna be a health coach. I’m gonna be a health coach for men. Okay, that kind of narrows it down a little bit, like, Let’s chop it down even further. I’m gonna be a health coach for men in their 40s and 50s. All right, now we’re starting to get somewhere right, because the 20 year olds, they’ll tune out immediately. The 30 year olds, they’ll tune out immediately. What if, though, we went one step further. What if we went with the men in their 40s and 50s who are also recovering from major surgery? Now we got something, okay? Now we’ve niche down to something that is so specific. Yes, you you’re saying no to all these other prospects, right? These is prospective clients that are out in the world. But when somebody does come across you and does consume a piece of content from you, whether it be a book or like see you on stage, or they read a pot, a post that you put up, or a podcast episode, or whatever it is. Once they hear that you work with 40 or 50 year old men who are recovering from major surgery, they are going to feel seen immediately, and it’ll become a no brainer for them to reach out to you. So two things happen in this instant, and I call this marketing like a magnet. What happens is, is you attract the best people, the right people, the dream type of clients, right the ones that you know you can serve better than any other person on the planet, but at the exact same time, just like a magnet, you’re repelling away the wrong prospects, the people that kind of clog up the ecosystem, clog up your email lists, clog up your inboxes, etc, etc. These folks that they might need help, but they’re not going to get it from you. Let them go and find out that, you know, find out where that help is elsewhere. For those who do you know, those who are, what’s the colloquialism, those who are picking up what I’m putting down, they’ll, they’ll jump all over it, you know? They’ll jump
Steve Fretzin [12:21]
all well, then the other thing is, the niche is the reaches, the riches are in the niches. But, but the argument that lawyers would have, and maybe others would be, you know, but what am I giving up? I’m deciding that instead of being a general litigator, I’m focusing on a certain type of industry, or a certain type of litigation, or becoming known for that, yes, but then what about all the business I’m potentially giving up? And you and I both know the answer to this, but I’m saying, like, I’m just putting out there that there are, you know, that that everybody needs to kind of have, it’s and it’s very normal, yeah,
Chris Ducker [12:57]
very, very normal. You know, you’ve worked hard. You built up this career, you got a good client book. You’ve helped a number of people, a number of different industries, niches, countries, situations, whatever it is, right? But it will become easier, yeah, it’ll become a lot easier for you to get business. It’ll become a lot easier for you to be able to not only get the business, but then convert on that business and do a great job for your clients, if that’s all you’re doing day in, day out. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know the law in America. I don’t claim to, but what I do know is industries and leaders within industries, and I know for a fact that those who niche down, who really, truly niche down and focus on a more narrow marketing message and language. Everything becomes easier, falling out over time. It might be a lot tougher at first. Well, yeah,
Steve Fretzin [13:48]
I was gonna say the I was gonna say that it doesn’t have to be a flipping of a switch. Today, I’ve decided that I’m gonna drop everything I’ve been working on for 10 years, and I’m just gonna do this little thing right? It can be done over like for me, I became the lawyer specialist over around 16 months, and I built it up to be about 80 to 90% of my business. And that’s when I flipped the switch and said, All right, now I’m changing my name. Now I’m going to, you know, put attorney and law and everything I do and and focus on it. It? Yes, I moved away some financial planners, and I moved away some other professional services people, but, but again, to your point, I’m working with the best people, the nicest people, the smartest people, and in an industry that I’m very deep in understanding now more than you know, there you go, 15 years ago. So even though I’m not a lawyer, I think lawyers want a specialist in their corner, not a generalist in their corner. Yeah, I agree 120%
Chris Ducker [14:52]
and not only can you have more impact as a specialist, you’ll also make more money as well. Yeah, yeah.
Steve Fretzin [15:05]
Hey, pi attorneys, if you’re serious about scaling your firm, there’s one event you can’t afford to miss. Pim con 2025 happening October 5 through the eighth at the Phoenician resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. Pimcon isn’t your average legal conference. It’s an experience. Learn how to take your firm from good to go with some of the biggest trailblazers in the PI space, including yours truly, as we share our elite marketing and brand building strategies. Tickets on sale [email protected] that’s p i m, c o n.org or just hit the link in the show notes. Your climb to the top starts at pimcon 2025 let’s go from good to go. Hey, be that lawyer friends. If you’re looking for smarter ways to grow your law practice and want to stay ahead of the curve in legal tech, business and strategy, then it’s time to check out legal verse media. The go to hub for lawyers who want more. This international platform connects you with global thought leaders through articles, podcasts, webinars and interactive forums that are shaping the future of law. Explore everything with a free 14 day trial, including early access to tools peer discussions and a chance to build your brand as a thought leader. Don’t wait. Visit legalverse media.com and register for membership 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 fretzin.com and grab a time that works for you. And let’s make this your breakout year. And so, like you and I were talking about how you work with coaches, and I’m, I’m a coach, so your ability in working with coaches to identify, for example, the gaps to identify someone isn’t niching down enough, or how they’re really going to make a lot more money and help a lot more people and live a more satisfying life. You’re at a next level in doing that with coaches in a similar way than I am with lawyers, which I think is what we’re all looking for. I don’t want a generalist coach to work with me. I would want someone that has that experience.
Chris Ducker [17:19]
Yeah, totally, exactly. And that’s why I probably turn away nine out of every 10 people that walk up I turn away 10 out of 10. Wait a second, maybe you just got a lot more money.
Steve Fretzin [17:30]
I’m so busy that I’m turning away 10 out of 10. No, but I you know what you’re doing is you’re figuring out in the nine out of 10 that there’s the one that is going to be successful with your help that’s going to really buy in, drink the Kool Aid and take it incredibly seriously, and matches in your personality and style and everything, right? Well, that’s the big thing. Being a great coach is to find the right client.
Chris Ducker [17:55]
That’s the really big thing. Is to match it in style. Yeah? Because, you know there are, there are a good amount of decent business coaches out there that could help any one of the prospects that come my way. But I just know, based at this point in my life like I I need to have certain in China, first of all, first and foremost, the people that I’m coaching need to be of my era. Yeah, okay, midlife, 45 plus, because I’m not going to be able to gel with it, with a 28 year old kid that’s got, you know, all the hustle that you can muster up in your body, right? Like I want, I want, I want to work with the type of people that want to have great impact, that have had a phenomenal career, that can stand on that career and that reputation, that can and but, but still, they’re not ready. They’re not ready to hang it up. Yet they still want to, you know, serve and go to work every day. But they’re not interested necessarily in making 5 million bucks in a year like they they’d be quite happy with like, a half a million dollar business each year that is running at a 65% 70% profit margin. That’s my wheelhouse. That’s where I want to be. That’s where I help.
Steve Fretzin [19:01]
And I know coaching is a big part of your, your life, and mine as well. And then you and I, you know we’re connected in some, in many ways, in in the belief in the mastermind, the pure advisory, in the putting people in a room together to work as a team alongside us, right, as facilitators and coaches. What? Are, what should someone that is? What are the symptoms or the issues that someone’s having where a mastermind would be the right play for them? And I, I just want to dialog this out, because I think there’s people that don’t realize the value of it and why being in it would make sense for them.
Chris Ducker [19:38]
Well, I think first and foremost, nobody’s got a monopoly on good ideas, right? So and Masterminds have been around for a long, long time. There’s nothing new about them, right? So, you know, I think the big thing here is that if you’ve got to the point where you you’re feeling a little beaten up, little burnt out, and you understand that burnout, unless. Really isn’t a badge of honor. It’s more of a warning sign, I think, that you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing wrong, and maybe for too long as well. That’s a good sign that surrounding yourself with other people on a similar journey is going to be a good a good plan. The other thing is, you know, entrepreneurship, very specifically, is extremely lonely at times. You might have a gazillion buddies that you you know, have a beer with on the weekend, or sit and have a barbecue with, or go to the game with, or whatever it is. But unless someone’s talking a similar type of game to you in terms of what they do for a living, entrepreneurship can be very, very lonely indeed. And so we find a lot of people come to us very specifically because they want to be part of a group. They want to be part of a community, right? They want to be part of the cool kids club, right? And so that’s, that’s another thing, the the one really big defining factor across everybody that that we work with is that they want accountability. That’s a really big one, really big because without accountability, you’re kind of shooting in the dark to a certain degree. Even I, you know, I’m a coach. I run my own mastermind. I coach other people. I’m also a part of two actual masterminds myself. Two of them I invest every single month in, because I get slightly different things from both groups. One is a group mostly focused for men and fathers very specifically. So it’s more kind of life led. And then the other group is completely business focused. And so two very different things, two very different groups of people and conversations, etc, etc. But in I make that investment because I know that if I say I’m going to do something business wise, I’m going to launch this I’m going to write this book, I’m going to put together this live event experience, or whatever it might be, my peers within that group will hold me to account. They will hold my feet to the fire. Yeah, I love that. I need that we all need that. Likewise, if I say I’m going to, you know, take a solo trip to you know, right now, I’m planning a solo trip and my son, we’re both keen bird watchers, so we go out every week together on a Saturday morning. How else would you get a 16 year old out of bed at 6am on a Saturday morning?
Steve Fretzin [22:14]
I don’t know. I thought you had to be 40 to appreciate birds.
Chris Ducker [22:17]
Well, you well, actually, you do. You know, it’s funny, we went to a there’s a fair, the global bird fair. We attended it just last weekend, and we were walking around. He’s He’s incredible photographer as well. My son completely self taught, and we’re walking around all these stands and talking about everyone. And I said to him, What do you think the average age is here? And he said, probably about 65 Yeah. Yeah, right.
Steve Fretzin [22:43]
He’s an old soul. He’s an old soul. But,
Chris Ducker [22:46]
you know, but we’re planning a trip right now to go to the Isle of Mull, which is just off the coast of Scotland, where we can photograph and spot
Steve Fretzin [22:54]
white tail. I think that’s called birding, isn’t that? Isn’t that a sport?
Chris Ducker [22:57]
It’s called a thing. Now, birding is the thing. It’s real thing. Yeah, I do
Steve Fretzin [23:01]
the same thing with my son. And people that listen to the show and know me from Facebook and LinkedIn know that that my side been fishing with my son since he could hold a stick and like, that’s, I mean, we’re going off on a tangent about about kids, but
Chris Ducker [23:13]
this is important as well. Steve, oh,
Steve Fretzin [23:15]
it’s absolutely important. Past times, no. I mean, we just got back from the big Canada fishing trip, just the two of us up in a lodge in the middle of nowhere in Canada, and had an unbelievable time and lot of laughs and all that. So it’s, it’s important, but I want to, I want to just get back that, that the accountability, the shared ideas, getting getting away from your silo and being a part of something, a part of a family outside of your firm. Really, really important. And again, I think what makes my my masterminds, the Rainmaker roundtables, unique, is it’s not about tech or operations or all the we dabble in stuff, but it’s all about growth. And so they’re there to talk BD, they’re there to talk marketing. They’re they want to learn from each other. And for me, and I bring in top level guest speakers too that can share with them things and answer questions that they’re just not going to find on their own. And to your point, the accountability of we just had these meetings. I just ran all four of my groups. It’s how did you finish out? Q2 what’s the plan for q3 How are you going to bounce back? Or how are you going to keep the momentum going? They’re all having to say these things out loud to each other, and there’s something about or I’m going to lose weight, but I’m not going to tell anyone, and then I don’t, and then it just goes away, right? Yeah? Versus me telling the world I’m going to lose it, now I’m feeling like I’m going to let everyone down, or myself down if I’m if I don’t execute. There’s something about the verbalization and the accountability that people just aren’t getting enough in life.
Speaker 1 [24:45]
Yeah, agreed 100% Yeah. So let’s talk about how we get to
Steve Fretzin [24:52]
the point where we are living the best life we can. And I know for me, I just canceled Fridays like I’m. No longer working Fridays now. Client wants to talk to me and call me up, text me. I’m clients come first for me, so I’m gonna, I’ll take a call on a Friday. I’m not scheduling anything on Friday, so that’s something most people would dream about. And me too, and now I am, but I think it’s, it’s because I’m become so good at delegating and so good at automating. Talk to everybody about that, like the importance of what we need to do today, to to work hard, but also to live a full life. Yeah.
Chris Ducker [25:32]
I mean, you know, I also don’t work Fridays. I’ve not worked a Friday for probably coming on almost 10 years now, I think, and and I
Steve Fretzin [25:40]
don’t maybe I picked up the idea from you in our call. Maybe it’s subliminally hit me. I don’t know.
Chris Ducker [25:45]
I mean, maybe, yeah, I mean, I’ve been quite vocal about it, but yeah, I see it now. I don’t take calls on a Friday, so my clients will know that past 4pm on a Thursday, they won’t hear from me again until 10am on the Monday. I work 10 to four, Monday to Thursday. That’s it. And I think, you know, it’s about boundaries. It’s about the importance of understanding that your yeses are ultimately a commodity as well. When you say yes to something at the exact same time you’re saying no to something else, right? So I think you know time, you know, let’s not get boring and start talking about productivity and time management and all that kind of management or corporate speak. But I think there is a certain amount of understanding that for you to be successful over the long haul, for you to be successful doing what you’re doing regardless what industry or niche or who you’re serving, you have to understand the short term wins, which are the shiny object wins that we go after, right? Launching that thing, closing this, doing that, traveling here, whatever it might be, those short term wins are actually they’re pretty loud. But when you talk about impact over the long haul and that long term, that long game that we like to play, they whisper. This is the analogy I’ve been using recently, like those little micro moves that you make, they whisper until they start roaring. So the real game here is patience. Is consistency. It’s showing up when it’s not sexy, like doing the UN flashy work as well. Super important, and understanding that focus really does build momentum. If you get distracted, then that drains away from momentum. And you don’t want that to happen as well, obviously. But you know, there’s the life side of things. Business is one thing that the life side of things is understanding that you can’t be everything to everyone. Like I said, on the niche side of things, that’s also in life as well. Our job is to try and master every moment right? It’s about knowing who really matters in our lives. And for me, there are very, very and I’m not talking about work life balance here, because I don’t think that’s a thing. I think that’s a myth. Quite frankly, we’ve gone beyond that. It might have been the case up until maybe the late 90s, but the moment the BlackBerry came in, the smartphone came in, you couldn’t go home and switch off from your job. It just wasn’t possible anymore. And so work life balance isn’t really a thing. We had it. It was kind of built into our lives all those years ago. Now it really just comes down to priorities and prioritization of what is important to you at that particular moment in time. So when we look at mastering every moment, what we’re seeing here is not not just trying to get the best out of every moment that we have at work, but also away from work as well. I do one very simple thing that prioritizes my my private life, over my business life. And I do it every single year. It’s a very simple thing. Every October I get together with my entire team and we plan out the calendar for the for the forthcoming year. We’ll do it this October for 2026 but I walk up to that meeting with my calendar already pre filled out, already pre loaded with all of my all of my family trips, all of our we have a one month sabbatical in August every year. My wife and I go on three individual breaks with each other throughout the course of the year as well. And I also do solo trips with my four children. I’m a busy guy when it comes to my, you know, priorities, but that’s exactly what they are. They’re private priorities, and they’re on the calendar before I even walk into that.
Steve Fretzin [29:27]
So great. That’s so great, yeah, because if you’re a busy lawyer and you’re you’re billing 60 hours a week, and you’re running on this treadmill, billing hours, and then all of a sudden you’re like, hey, I think I’d like to take my, you know, significance somewhere, or the kids somewhere, and then you’re trying to fit that into that situation, that it’s going to be very, very challenging,
Chris Ducker [29:48]
but I think business should ultimately spearhead the life that you want to live. Yes, yes. Should create the life that you want to live. And that’s why I’m just a big believer of the hustle culture being hopefully phased out. At some point. You know, I don’t think hustle is not necessarily a bad thing. Hustle is a good thing for short periods of time. And the way I look at it is that, you know, if you’ve got that deadline, you’ve got to hit two and you’ve got to put in a little extra time, that’s your hustle right there being spent. That’s that’s that hustle currency, right? But hustle is a season that’s not a lifestyle. It’s not sustainable, and so it’s super important to make sure that you’ve got those those breaks and that kind of recharging time on the schedule before you plan anything out.
Steve Fretzin [30:33]
Well, I know lawyers are kind of like frothing or, you know, dripping at the mouth listening to this, because they want, they want to live the way you’re living in plan out, the way you’re planning out. But things haven’t always been easy. At some point you were, you know, a convict in England ceiling tapes. And, you know, I know that wasn’t, though
Chris Ducker [30:55]
theft will come back to haunt me. That’s it. It is this
Steve Fretzin [30:57]
is this is all that library is going to be calling you back. We need you back to do help
Chris Ducker [31:03]
my time with those darn index cards.
Steve Fretzin [31:06]
And good for your mom for doing that. By the way, I stole something when I was a kid, and my dad dragged me back into that shop, and I had to apologize and give it back, and didn’t have a consequence beyond the humiliation of it. But boy, that really, that really hit home. Oh.
Chris Ducker [31:19]
I mean, you know, Catholic Irish mother I went to, I went to Communion as well that week. And I had told I, I was told, after the fact that my mother had already spoken to the priest, and she said to the priest, you know, make sure you give him a few extra half fathers,
Steve Fretzin [31:36]
there you go. But Chris, aside from that, what, what? What else is, what else was Chris’s big mistake coming up
Chris Ducker [31:45]
there was, from the business perspective, there was a big mistake, for sure, back in probably about 2000 I’m going to say 2012 or so, we started a new company called your web pa. And your web pa was built around the concept of, you know, you get like these Freelancer websites back in the day, they’re still around a little bit now, but you know, where you would kind of post the job, and then you would have a whole bunch of, like resumes sent to your house, sent to your inbox, and then you would go through those resumes, you’d pick somebody, and you would end up getting the job done. Well, I thought at this point, I’d already been in the outsourcing business since 2004 at a really good, you know, solid reputation in the industry. We had a large course in the facility. We had Virtual Staff Finder, which are which was our VA recruiting hub. And I was in the stages of writing my first book, which was about building a virtual team called Virtual Freedom as well. So truth be told, I think I drank a little bit of my own Kool Aid. And I kind of thought, hey, you know what I can do this with my internal team. Put a 20% markup on it and make easy money all day long. And I don’t know exactly how much money I lost. If I had to have a guess, I’d probably say about 40 grand on the deal. And more importantly, though probably about seven or eight months of my life. Yeah, it’s the time planning and all the rest of it. So yeah, that was a big mistake. The big mistake there wasn’t necessarily drinking my own kool aid, but the big mistake wasn’t really validating the business idea properly, yeah, yeah. Clearly, people were utilizing the internet and websites to find people to do their work for them. But because of the additional charge on top, we needed to obviously make our our end of the deal in terms of that markup. Because of that, we ultimately priced ourselves out of the market. And, you know, other than a few very loyal customers that did business with us just because it was my company, yeah, we didn’t get any business at all out of that.
Steve Fretzin [33:50]
But the lesson learned focus validation,
Chris Ducker [33:54]
validation, yeah. You know, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
Steve Fretzin [34:00]
That’s, that’s, yeah, and we’ve all, I’m a serial entrepreneur that had to beat himself into submission to focus and and made, you know, not, not very costly mistakes, but, but time wise, maybe. But I totally get that. Let’s take a moment, though, and thank our sponsors. Of course, we’ve got legal verse media, if you’re international, want to hear international news stories, writing, check out legal. Verse media com. We’ve got pimcon coming up here in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the Venetian, top notch pi focused conference. I’m going to be on stage talking about podcasting, but there’s going to be keynotes like you can’t believe they’ve got an amazing comedian coming in. It’s just a first class experience. And of course, the law her podcast with Sonia kicking ass. Check that out as well. Chris, people want to learn more about you. They want to talk you know, hear about youpreneur. They want to get your book, which coming out in September. Long Haul leader, Beth. Digits for you.
Chris Ducker [35:02]
Everything is over at Chris ducker.com but if anybody did want to grab that new book, they can do so before September two, which is the pub date, and go to Long Haul leader.com and if they send me a copy of the receipt, I’m going to give them a load of bonuses worth 600 bucks. So there we go. Nice. I love that tree money. Who doesn’t want free money?
Steve Fretzin [35:21]
It’s like a Brian Tracy move. I love Tracy move. I love it. Good for you. Hey, this has been great again. I you know, people listening need to be inspired. They need to get some fresh perspectives on on not balance, but, but the way that we can, you know, take stock of our business and our life and our personal stuff, and how to balance it out, you know, or at least weave it together, understanding more about the power of masterminds and peer advisory and why that’s so valuable, and coaching in general. And again, you know, the, you know, the working on the brain. Fantastic, man. Just thank you so much. I’m happy that we met, and I want to keep in the loop with you, for sure, sure, absolutely, man, it’s all my pleasure. Awesome, awesome. And thank you everybody for hanging out with Chris and I for a little bit today. On be that lawyer. We’re helping you. You know, be successful. Be that successful. Be that lawyer. They’re working hand in hand. Take care, everybody. Be safe. Be well. We’ll talk again very soon.
Narrator [36:21]
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.