In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Carl Ficks discuss:
- Taking control of your wellness as a busy professional.
- Taking better care of yourself than your car.
- Having specific goals in your health and wellness, not just your career.
- Carl’s 10 Steps for getting back in the game.
Key Takeaways:
- You cannot get through long days on RedBull and Snickers. You need to take care of your body and health to sustain you through the longer days.
- Physical activity and exercise are effective treatments for anxiety.
- Fitness is a bedrock success principle.
- The results will be there if you put in the effort.
“Compete against yourself. You’ll find it to be far more rewarding.” — Carl Ficks
Connect with Carl Ficks:
Website: https://carlficks.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlrficksjr/
Get Carl’s 10 Steps for Getting Back in the Game Here!: https://carlficks.com/free
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
lawyers, fitness, pandemic, litigation, people, steve, eat, goals, ran, stay, attorneys, exercise, pounds, clients, practice, business, workout, chip, law, habits
SPEAKERS
Narrator, Carl Ficks, Steve Fretzin
Carl Ficks [00:00]
Sometimes we don’t stay in our lanes because we want to beat the other guy. But just compete against yourself, you’ll find it to be far more rewarding. And the other thing along the same lines is to block out the noise. Social media world, there are a lot of haters out there. And we as lawyers, we traffic in the bad news business. So we need to have a tough skin, you need to carry that over to your fitness.
Narrator [00:27]
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 [00:50]
Hey, everybody, Steve Fretzin here with be that lawyer. I hope you’re having a terrific day so far. You know, this pandemic is draining for people, we’re just coming out of it, but it’s ever changing. And, you know, you need to make sure that you have good positive habits, that you’re setting goals that you’re trying to make sure you’re developing your book of business, but also staying well and staying fit. I’ve got an amazing guest for you today. Someone I’ve met recently, through another highly known professional that I interviewed a while back. His name is Carl fix. He is the founder of no surrender LLC. And he’s going to talk to us today about habits and wellness and health and how to make sure that we stay alive and also practice the law. How’s it going, Carl?
Carl Ficks [01:30]
It’s going great, Steve, and thank you so much for having me today.
Steve Fretzin [01:33]
Yeah, it’s my pleasure. And again, we had just had such a great call. The last time we spoke, I was like, This is the show, you know, the call we had should have been the show because it was just so interactive and fun and engaging. But I think we could try to recreate it today. And let’s start off with if you wouldn’t mind giving a little bit of a background on my audience about what you do.
Carl Ficks [01:51]
Sure, fan. Thanks again, Steve. So I’ve been practicing law since 1988. I did for a few years, take a side trip down the philanthropic into the land of philanthropy, but then returned to the practice of law. And I’ve had a litigation based practice. And I have found over the years that exercising, staying fit, et cetera, et cetera, has really helped my practice, it’s allowed me to be far more resilient. Because it is a I like to think of litigation as a full contact sport, and you need to have some endurance in you to succeed. It’s just been kind of a bedrock business principle of mine. And I’m trying to parlay that passion. Now you formed this no surrender LLC to help busy professionals, specifically, lawyers take back control of their wellness.
Steve Fretzin [02:40]
And there’s a story that you told me when we spoke last about you going into courtroom with a lawyer who was much younger than you who was out of breath and just seemed really kind of tired. And you want to share it like that. That was a great story. I’d love for you to kind of I think because it sort of gives a great example of of what sort of become the issue with health and wellness for lawyers and people in general. But lawyers, you know, there’s definitely, you know, an issue there.
Carl Ficks [03:03]
Sure. So I was on trial back about two and a half years ago, picking a jury in Connecticut, which is quite an elongated process. But I got into the office at seven or 730. In court at nine, pick the jury till four 430, we had a little issue with an expert, the judge ordered me to take the deposition of the expert that evening, which I did starting at 630. And the deposition wrapped up between nine and 930. So there you have almost a 15 hour day, and at the time, I was 5455. And I was with a younger lawyer and he he was stifling a yawn and I said, Hey, what’s going on there? And he said, Well, I’m tired. I said, Well, this is a teachable moment. I said, you know, litigation, there are long days long weeks, and you cannot get through them on Red Bull and Snickers. So my the exercise that I do, and I try to stay in shape really helps me with these very, very long days and long weeks. And I’m sure your audience is well familiar with them. Yeah, I
Steve Fretzin [03:59]
mean, it’s like having a house where you don’t do any landscaping and you don’t fix the plumbing and you just let everything fall apart and just, you know, hope that it keeps rain off your head. And that’s, you know, and then our bodies are treated the same way. Right Snickers and Redbull.
Carl Ficks [04:12]
Right. And as you and I spoke about when we first chatted lawyers are famous for treating their cars better than their bodies. And I found that personally, in my practice, again, pass the bar and 88 the first four or five years are the formative years, you really need to pay attention and dig deep. And that’s where you form your good habits in your practice. And I had bought a new car, and I was the guy cleaning the rims of my new car with a toothbrush, maintaining it detailing it getting the oil changed, and oh, by the way, working long hours and totally neglecting my body. And I thought well, this is this is not sustainable. And we see it all the time. I mean, I think big law just came out the large law firms are now paying their graduates $160,000 a year. A lot of times they’ll treat them goes to a new car. And that’s awesome. That’s great. And then they’ll take better care of the car than themselves. Yeah. So I think we need to kind of turn that upside down and pay a little more attention to ourselves and change the oil and clean our rims before we clean the car ramps.
Steve Fretzin [05:15]
Well, let me ask you, in your experience, or were in your you’re always studying health and wellness, and what’s latest in the news? And has this pandemic been positive for people getting in shape and figuring out Exercise and Health or is this been detrimental? More than anything?
Carl Ficks [05:33]
No, it’s absolutely been detrimental. Steve, and there was an article on May three, so a couple of weeks ago in the American lawyer, which said it surveyed 3200, law firm attorneys and staff. And when asked, and I’m quoting, when asked whether the pandemic made their mental health worse, 70% of the respondents said yes, so 70% of 3200 Law Firm attorneys, that’s over 20 137 of the percent of the respondents said they felt depressed in 2020. That’s an uptick of nearly six percentage points. 71% said they have experienced anxiety up seven percentage points. And 14% said they have a different mental illness up a little over two percentage points. So that’s very, very alarming. And there is the University of Michigan published a study that said physical activity and exercise are effective treatment strategies for anxiety. So if you link those two, it’s the answer is kind of right in front of you. And there are abundant resources. For instance, the New York Times in March of 21, published an article on a small study group that said, Folks, some folks added two pounds a month body weight during the pandemic. Yeah, so it’s, it’s people either gone either way, they’ve really gotten in shape, or they’ve really let it go.
Steve Fretzin [06:52]
So between the mental health, the physical health, and then the pressures of litigation, or lawyering or getting worked on, or maybe, you know, a lot of lawyers have their businesses actually increased, because they’ve become more efficient with, you know, their time and how they’re able to get a lot more meetings in during the day or just working from home with the commute. But what are some of the things that you’re seeing in observing, in addition to what you’re saying, as far as like, the real world consequences of not paying attention to your health and just kind of knocking out a day knocking out a week? And I think you may have heard me say that, did you have the week or the week have you? Right? Because that line, right? Just gets it just gets twisted around? And you end up not being able to get things done? So what are you kind of seeing and what’s the the obvious downside that people are facing?
Carl Ficks [07:38]
It’s, I think it’s much lower productivity, I can tell you during the pandemic, our office closed for a number of months, but there was a skeleton crew that came in and I just, I don’t live far from the office. So I was in with a few of my partners. And I found Steve without without a routine without parameters without guardrails. I could bang out six or seven hours, and then I actually felt Wow, okay, that’s enough. But when we’re up and running and humming, you know, you can clip off eight 910 hours, no big deal. So I think a lot of the systems that people had in place to guide them kind of the guide rails when those were taken away. There was some floundering. And as a result, I think the productivity was down. And you know, litigators like to get in court, I really, truly miss the ebb and flow of a courthouse, interaction with my colleagues, interaction with judges, that was all taken away. So the sense of isolation went way up, and people react to that differently. Some self medicate, with things that aren’t good for them. I had, I rode my bike a lot last year, and I would always say I’m pedaling through the pandemic. And maybe one day I’ll write a book called pedaling through the pandemic. But that’s, that’s what I don’t. Yeah. And that just kept me on track. And it allowed me to stay resilient through the pandemic. And again, it’s a very bruising profession, and there’s a lot of weight on the shoulders of attorneys. We’re now in a 24/7 world, we need to set some boundaries and have some me time. And it’s okay to be selfish about that.
Steve Fretzin [09:13]
Well, let’s let’s transition that to, you know, like, we’ve just basically just strangle the entire legal population because they’re all feeling depressed and down with all the stats and all the information. I mean, we’ve we’ve definitely hit someone that’s listening over the head that says, Yeah, that’s me. I’m not working out. I’m not eating right. I’m not I’m getting slammed at work. I’m not I am stressed out. Sorry. So we get that. Now, let’s talk about what do we do so as you know, in some of the books I’ve written and some of the chapters I because I’m working with attorneys, I’m only as good as my clients and I can only I can only lead the horse to water they’ve got to want to drink. So I’m constantly working with them on habits. I’m constantly working with them on goal setting, trying to get them into good what I call good behaviors, because I find that in most cases, behaviors drive I’ve positive attitude behaviors drive the belief in oneself, right? It’s just getting those actions done. So what are some of the things that you work on with your clients and that you work on as a lawyer looking to continue to to make sure that you’re sustainable?
Carl Ficks [10:15]
Well, I’ll take one of the words you mentioned is goal setting. And just this morning, I was reading an article which had a link to a study from September of 2019, a study conducted by the University of Oregon, which said or basically concluded that having a specific goal increases your ability to achieve it, starting with motivating and directing your training towards that goal. Lawyers are goal oriented to people, the billable hour despite its best efforts by a large part of the population to squelch it, the billable hour lives on. And so there its goals, associates have goals, partners have goals, our goals, dollar goals, goals are equally helpful in fitness. And you identify in your book three internal motivators necessary for a successful networker. And that’s in your attorneys networking handbook, right behaviors and habits, a positive attitude and self confidence. Door number one write behaviors and habit habits. Fitness is, again, a bedrock success principle. And I think if you can kind of get back into the flow, and if you haven’t started, that’s number one internal motivator to follow again, your steps, your 14 principles to growing your practice.
Steve Fretzin [11:32]
Yeah, and I think the problem with fitness is getting started. And so let’s you and I, you know, collaborate a little bit, and let’s come up with three or four ways to get people started and to get it done. Because at the end of the day, my safety, the end of the day, meaning end of the day is not maybe the best time to do it. But that might be one of the things we talked about. But it really is about how to get started. And so something that you and I talked about, and I’d like you to expand on is starting at the beginning of the day. And when I say did you have the day or the day have you or the week, it’s impossible for some people to get things done, if they don’t do it first thing in the morning, because they’re just going to get annihilated at work with ours, with constant pressures from clients and people that need their advice. And they’re going to just push it to the next day and push it the next day. So how does getting set and structured in early help?
Carl Ficks [12:27]
Well, I’ve found over my career, it’s helped tremendously for a number of reasons. And again, in your book, you recommend scheduling business development in the morning before the day gets carried away. I couldn’t agree with you more. When I was running a lot. I had a friend of mine, we had a standing date on Friday mornings, we ran 10 miles we were done by seven in the morning. And he would look at me and say nobody can take this from us. And I would have the workout and then drive to work. And yeah, I had a I had a punch list of things that I wanted to do that day. But I knew it could get carried away in a single moment if a client calls and this is actually something I would always when I would mentor young lawyers, I’d say when a client calls and says, can you talk, you unequivocally say yes, even if the building is burning down, you have one foot out the door, or you’ve got 1000 Other things to do, the client wants to speak to you. We deal with clients that are in distress. And what they don’t want is the lawyer to say yeah, I’ll get back to you, whenever. So clients demand attention, and you gotta give it to him. So again, the best laid plans that day can get carried away. And I just found that in the morning, you bank it, you own it, it’s yours. And it just lifts my day. And I also find, again in for what it’s worth categories, such clarity of thought, after a workout, there’s a joke with my partners, I’ll go in to speak to them. And I’ll say, Hey, I had an idea this morning. And they’d laugh and say, Oh, so you went running a writing. That’s where I have my ideas. Because I’m able to kind of empty, empty the head and things come to me. And then sometimes I’ve pulled over on my bike and punch something into my iPhone, because I’ve had this idea and I gotta write it down. And the lawyers that are listening know that I’m sure there are lawyers that write their closing arguments in the shower, they think of them and then put pen to paper right when they jump out.
Steve Fretzin [14:19]
Well, I mean, right off the bat, you’re given two great ideas. One is get it done early before the day hits you. And number two is find someone with similar values or interests or is willing to work with you and get a workout buddy. It’s amazing how easy it is for us to break commitments to ourselves. And when we include someone else, it changes everything. We don’t want to break a commitment to someone else who’s counting on us and they don’t want to break the commitment for us. So if you can find someone that’s why you know, people hire trainers, that’s why people have coaches. That’s why, you know, it’s important to have a buddy because it’s at the end of the day, that’s going to stop you from doing the regular which is just continuing to break commitments to yourself which by the way, people may not realize, but I’ve studied this quite a bit. And when you break commitments to yourself, not once, but over and over and over about different things, cleaning the garage, working out, not eating cake and eating it, whatever it is that you say you’re going to do, and then don’t do, which is possibly all day. It’s actually chipping away at on a subconscious level at your belief in yourself and your attitude. So you may feel bad or not realize like why you’re feeling bad or why you’re not healthy or things aren’t going your way. A lot of it’s happening in on a subconscious level in any Yeah. What do you thought were thoughts about
Carl Ficks [15:31]
that doubt? For starters, I would like to tell you, Steve, I’ve got I’ve got something I’d like to share with the audience. And I can give the link at the end of our podcast, but it’s basically 10 steps to getting back in the game. And these are really easy things to follow. And these are just things that have helped me over the course of my career. So I’ll give the link down. They folks can download it. And it’s worked for me and they can they can I invite them to be curious with it, they can adopt them all or reject them off. But
Steve Fretzin [16:00]
even if you get two or three that you say, You know what I can do that or two or three and say, you know, that’s reasonable. Like I can’t do these three, but I can do these two. But that may be all it takes to get something started that isn’t going now. Correct.
Carl Ficks [16:12]
But back to your your question. There is a commencement speech at the University of Texas that’s viral. It’s an admiral, he commanded the Navy SEALs. And one of his bedrock success principles is is make your bed every morning. Because then you’ve accomplished something, and nobody can take it from you. And his whole thing is task accomplished. So what I like to preach is that when you’re starting out to formulate a goal, you know, goals are good. And when you formulate that goal start small. I’ve presented at CLE seminars on wellness. And I have a screenshot on my PowerPoint of Mount Everest. If you’re a high mountain year person, you know, Everest is the gold standard and you want to climb it, you’re not going to start climbing Mount Everest. So formulate a goal, even a small one. And I read something in Runner’s World, which I work into my CLE presentations. There was a guy to pack a day smoker in Georgia. And he decided I’m going to run to my mailbox. That’s when he started and he said the first time he ran to his mailbox, he wanted to, quote, throw up and quote, He then ran to light posts down the street. He then ran to a local park, he became an ultra marathoner. And he said, I may not be fast, but I’m faster than sitting on the couch. And he started small, he started running to his mailbox. Yeah. And when I decided, Steve that my, you know, 12 hour days and eating Fettuccine Alfredo at 10 o’clock at night, and going to bed at 1030 was not sustainable. I formulated a goal and I could not run two miles without stopping. And I had been, I played youth sports, I played sports in high school, I played sports in college. And then I found myself not able to run two miles. So I’ve been there done that, and you just keep chipping at it. No chipping at it.
Steve Fretzin [18:07]
I feel the same way about pull ups. That was always my Achilles heel was the pull up trying to get more than a couple pull ups done. Right. But it’s true starting small. And just to reference this back to business development for a minute. Yeah, I’m working on goals with my clients. But I also asked them, you know, how many hours are you billing? How are you doing at delegating? How’s your time management? You know, what do you think you could handle? And sometimes it’s, you know, can I can handle, you know, one more meeting a week, while not five meetings a day, one meeting a week. And maybe that’s where we need to start until we can start getting some other things figured out or some delegation in place, or start saying no to partners that want to give you work that you may not want to do.
Carl Ficks [18:46]
I will share with you. Yeah, I’ll share with you this story story, Steve up sadly, two months ago, one of my good friends and partners at the firm died in his sleep 63 years old. So a colleague from another profession reached out to me and said, you know, expressed his condolences. And I reached out to him, I responded, and I said, if you haven’t gone to a cardiologist go, I go to one preemptively. And he responded and said I’ve been he’s told me to lose 40 pounds in the next 18 months. That’s what his cardiologist told him. And I was out the next morning writing and I thought, I’m gonna help this guy. 40 pounds in 18 months. That’s a little over two pounds a month. So I texted him, I said, Hey, we can do this. Two pounds a month. That’s a half a pound a week. And he responded and said, Well, when you put it that way, that’s doable. If I said to you, Steve, you in the month you need to lose 40 pounds, you’d say Well, I’m gonna chop my leg off. Yeah, but it’s 18 months 40 pounds. We’re a little over two pounds a month and a small bites. And that’s, that’s, you know, I’ve found that you chip chip away like that in litigation too. You can’t, you know, you pick up a file and you’re already thinking if this thing goes to trial, what’s my closing argument, and then you back out your entire case from your closing argument. And it’s brick building, brick building. I left the law for few years in 2013. My last trial right before that was in New York, it was the fall of 2012. It was for a barge accident, which occurred in 2004. we’ve litigated for eight years. That’s a long time. That’s why I like to cut my lawn because I can finish in one hour, and I could admire my handiwork. You can’t always do that and litigation, but you can in fitness, you can and you may not be able to run a mile one week, but the next week, if you keep at it, you can run that mile and you think, Boy, I can do this. Yeah. Small steps, small bites. Nope, that’s good. Good.
Steve Fretzin [20:45]
What other tips on that on the list? Have a
Carl Ficks [20:47]
plan? Well, let’s take a step back the accountability thing, you talk about that. In your book, you say research and event register for the event and the log the event in your calendar. I can’t agree with you more. If you formulate a goal, and it’s an it’s an event, put it on the calendar and then start working towards it. And you do have to have a plan to get there. It’s like filing a flight plan. You know that? Yeah, carriers file flight plans, they need them. That’s how they fly around the country. You do need a little roadmap and litigators are used to that if you work for institutional clients, especially insurance carriers, they want litigation plans. What’s your discovery plan? What’s your litigation plan? What are the expenses, so lawyers, they have the ability to plan. And we all have building codes for institutional clients, it’s no different. Just apply that to fitness. And that’s where having a plan you, you can be selfish, a little bit, there are some workouts that take 15 minutes. That’s it. There was a recent study by a university in France that basically said a 15 minute jog is better than a 15 minutes of sitting around. There are 15 minute workouts that you can fit in. And if you put it on your calendar, then there’s an accountability thing like okay, I’ve got to work out here.
Steve Fretzin [22:06]
And um, let me I don’t want to get us off topic. This is sort of on topic, but I just have a question for you that I’m curious about because I have an opinion about it. And I understand that fitness is about food. And it’s about stretching and flexibility. It’s about muscle. It’s about exercise, and there’s a lot of elements to it. But I always feel that fitness is sort of the second most important thing, I think the most important thing is food, and how much trash we’re putting in our bodies. And look, I enjoy candy and cookies and ice cream as much as the next person and in pizza with gluten and all that. But the reality is, is that you know, we’re constantly putting crap in our bodies. And working out I think is a great thing. But if you’re just working out, but you continue to eat terrible things or consume way beyond what you should I want to get your take on that because you’ve got a background in this.
Carl Ficks [22:55]
Yeah, so it’s garbage in garbage out. It’s no different than the world of computers. So I’m not a big fan of exercising just to stay even. I don’t use and I have not used my exercise is kind of a Wonka ticket that Well, I just ran 10 miles. So now I can drink six beers.
Steve Fretzin [23:13]
Right? Right. That’s some people do that they play that game where they go, you know, look, I’m gonna eat all this pasta and all this pizza because I just you know, and I think I’ve probably done that I’ve burned six 700 calories if you went to a sport, and that’d be like, you know, tonight, tonight, tomorrow night, or something like that.
Carl Ficks [23:27]
My my mother in law has a saying, you know, it’s we see somebody that that is quite large. And somebody would say, Geez, I wonder how he got so big. My mother in law would say one pound at a time. And that’s it. It’s like brick building. It’s like form formulating a litigation strategy. It’s one brick at a time. The fitness it’s one pound at a time you put it on one pound at a time. And you do have to watch the intake. For instance, there are a lot of drinks that you can take in while you’re exercising that have high fructose corn syrup. They have way too much sodium, they have way too much sugar. And the big thing is protein you’ll see even potato chips now and I’m the chip guy confession, but they’ll the chips will give you they’ll say three grams of protein, and all of a sudden that that’s a marketing thing. And it swelled. If you eat these chips, you’re gonna get protein. Well not really because the protein is wrapped up with saturated fat which is a no no, you know, I do I eat bananas and I eat peanut butter. Those are very helpful. And for those of us that there’s some that Benji and binge eating again, I’m not an MD But binge eating is okay if you binge on the right things. You know, I was chatting with a friend who said why stress eat but I stress eat bananas. Okay, well that’s better than stress eating Cheetos.
Steve Fretzin [24:50]
The rice right? So yeah, if you can, you know stock your fridge with cucumbers and getting carrots and celery and peppers and things like that. We’ll go to town you know? That’s correct. to some point, you’re gonna feel foul and you’re gonna stop. And it’s not going to throw on three, four pounds, you know, a week for you.
Carl Ficks [25:07]
Right? And and again, it’s a numbers game lawyers love numbers. And if you look at calories in and calories out, you know, it’s almost like I remember my tax law class back in law school, the definition of insolvency was breathtakingly simple. It’s where your liabilities exceed your assets. That’s easy. It’s almost like fitness. If your caloric intake exceeds your caloric burn, you’re going to put on weight.
Steve Fretzin [25:33]
Yeah. Easy,
Carl Ficks [25:35]
easy concepts.
Steve Fretzin [25:36]
Right, right. Let me hit you up for one more, and then we’ll wrap up. But what’s another kind of key tip to someone staying fit and are trying to get into a groove to get fit,
Carl Ficks [25:46]
I would heartily and strongly recommend that they compete against themselves. Lawyers are very competitive people. And sometimes we don’t stay in our lanes because we want to beat the other guy. But just compete against yourself, you’ll find it to be far more rewarding. And the other thing along the same lines is to block out the noise, social media world, there are a lot of haters out there. And we as lawyers, we traffic in the bad news business. So we need to have a tough skin, you need to carry that over to your fitness. I’ve changed up training regimens. I’ve had some runner, buddy, say that’ll never work. I kind of blocked it out. And it worked. So just compete against yourself. I mean, a road race is a beautiful thing. There’s such positive energy, and you’re really running for your time. So just kind of contain yourself. I mean, again, in litigation, there’s usually a winner and a loser. Fitness is kind of cathartic. Because there’s one man and one woman that’ll be the top finishers in a road race, that’s it, everybody else is behind them, that participant there participant, but so compete against yourself and just block out the noise. And the other thing too, is just go easy on yourself. You know, we we love to beat ourselves up. So just go a little easier on yourself, when you’re working out the results will be there. If you put in the effort. I went to some place last night, and I saw a quote from Vince Lombardi it says, success comes before work only in the dictionary. It’s a great quote. You know, and Vince was a great coach. But yeah, I thought about that, and you got to put the work in it. And one final thought along the same lines is, it’s like the practice of law. Steve, you can’t you can’t, you can’t cheat it. You can’t cheat, getting a case ready for trial and you can’t cheat on the fitness. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [27:36]
Well, and it’s all a package, I mean, your your brain and the way it functions, your body, the way it functions, how you’re able to do your job, it’s all connected, and we have to take care of both and, you know, sometimes we slip up I mean, that’s okay, you know, I’ve eaten things or I’ve slipped where I have to get back on track. And so, you know, my wife and I are constantly in a battle to challenge each other, whether that’s to go on the whole 30 and clear out our systems, whether that’s to get into fitness together, but it does help to set goals and helps to set schedules and helps to have a workout buddy, do it early. I mean, there’s a lot of great takeaways and you know, come up with one or two that you think could really work for you everybody and and start to take action today. I would say that as a closing point is don’t wait. I mean, it’s it’s you know, saying I’m gonna get on that next week, you might as well say next year, because it’s just doesn’t work like that.
Carl Ficks [28:24]
Agree. I just did a LinkedIn post about don’t miss the starting gun. That’s a line and a Pink Floyd song Time. And Mick Jagger sings time is on my side. Yes, it is. I don’t agree with that. Because time flies
Steve Fretzin [28:35]
well for Mick it is because he’s gold is dirt and liquids ageless.
Carl Ficks [28:39]
But lawyers need to keep in mind we are in service to others. And if we don’t show up, we can’t be in service. And the pithy analogy is the mask on a plane, the flight attendants will say put your mask on before assisting others. That’s a that’s a great one because we need to put our mask on and, and our mask is the fitness and if we are, if we can take care of ourselves, we can then be in service to others. And again, I’d like to share the link for my my 10 steps to getting back in the game if I could do that.
Steve Fretzin [29:12]
Yeah, so you want to just share it verbally. And then we’ll also put in the show notes.
Carl Ficks [29:15]
Sure. So it’s Curl Fix my website ca RL fic K s.com, forward slash free. If you go on there, I’ve got again 10 steps to getting back in the game, easy to follow, easy to digest, and they’ve worked for me and hopefully they’ll help at least one person out there. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [29:33]
that’s wonderful. Thanks so much, Carl, for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom and advice. And, again, you know, this is a not only pandemic, but an epidemic of poor health in our country. And we need every tool in the tool belt to try to get on a better track. So thanks for for sharing.
Carl Ficks [29:47]
Thank you so much again, Steve, for having me. It’s been wonderful. My pleasure.
Steve Fretzin [29:51]
My pleasure. And listen, everybody. You know, you have an opportunity every day to make things better, whether it’s business development efforts, whether it’s health efforts Whether it’s just you know, getting yourself you know, in a better mental state, take action, you know, read, listen, follow you know, you know, get help, it’s okay you know, we all need to make improvements every day I’m looking how I can make improvements. So, you know, hopefully this show is helpful to that too. If you liked today’s show and you’ve listened others you know, please like the show or give me the five stars or whatever you see it in whatever system you’re in platform, podcast, etc. I’d appreciate it. And again, we’re trying to give more attorneys opportunities to learn valuable lessons to be that lawyer, someone who’s confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker. Take care everybody be safe be well.
Narrator [30:42]
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