Ida Abbott: Realigning Your Values and Considering Your Retirement

In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Ida Abbott discuss:

  • Realigning your values and your work.
  • Developing and retaining talent.
  • Challenges lawyers face when considering and thinking about retirement.
  • Examining who you are by choice, not by default.

Key Takeaways:

  • People want to feel a sense of belonging and community in their firms.
  • Loyalty is earned and ever changing. It needs to be constantly developed and the relationships maintained.
  • 65 is an arbitrary number decided by the social security system. Your retirement is your own and you can decide when is the right time for you.
  • Keep a personal interests list. Figure out what is interesting to you now and when you get to a point where you need to decide what you are going to do, you have a list of things you already are interested in.

“It’s a lot of internal investigation, self exploration, and then recognizing the myths and the misunderstandings that hold you back. Retirement means it’s the end, if that’s what you believe. I ask you to reframe it. It’s not the end. Think of somebody you know, who’s retired, who is doing something cool. And if you don’t know anybody personally, start looking around online, they are everywhere.” —  Ida Abbott

Connect with Ida Abbott:  

Website: https://idaabbott.com/

Email: ida@idaabbott.com

Book: https://idaabbott.com/books/retirement-by-design/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ida-abbott-9a0736

Twitter: https://twitter.com/IdaOAbbott

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sponsoringwomenbook

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Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

Twitter: @stevefretzin

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Email: Steve@Fretzin.com

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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

lawyer, people, firm, retired, life, calls, thinking, legalese, retirement, talent, legal, book, helping, ida, point, law firm, listen, talk, offered, spent

SPEAKERS

Ida Abbott, Narrator, Steve Fretzin, Jordan Ostroff

 

Ida Abbott  [00:00]

So it’s a lot of internal investigation, self exploration, and then recognizing the myths and the misunderstandings that hold you back. You know, retirement means it’s the end. If that’s what you believe I asked you to reframe it. If it’s not the end, think of somebody you know who’s retired, who is doing something cool. And if you don’t know anybody personally start looking around online, they are everywhere.

 

Narrator  [00:31]

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  [00:53]

Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I hope you’re having a lovely day. I’ve been absolutely slammed today, I think I’ve had about eight or nine meetings already. And I’m wrapping up my day with a friend and with someone I think you’re going to really enjoy listening to. It’s Ida Abbott. And I’m going to introduce her in a moment. I want to take a second just to thank really thank my sponsors, legalese marketing and money, Penny, both terrific companies, great strategic partners. We care about each other, we work together, I’ve got money penny on my website, doing live chat, I’ve got legalese handling all my marketing. Oh, my life is so easy, because I have these two great partners. So check them out online in the show notes. And on my website, I’d love for you to talk with legalese marketing and money, Penny, and it gave me a great quote, I’m gonna read the quote, and I’m gonna introduce it. And the quote is from one of my favorite painters, Pablo Picasso, and it is the meaning of life is to find your gift, the purpose of life is to give it away. And then I added with profit, don’t give it away. No. So Ida, why that quote, that’s a wonderful quote that you that you sent me, and I’m what does that quote mean to you?

 

Ida Abbott  [02:05]

And welcome, first of all, thanks, Steve, for being on here. And I’m glad you talked about your sponsors, being partners and making your life easier, because I have something to say about that, too, when we get into our discussion, awesome. The reason is that, I mean, there were a lot of reasons for it, I think, especially in the legal profession, we think a lot about talent and gifts, and what and the fact that we are a service profession, that’s what we do. So in a way, we’ve been giving of our gifts for a very long time. But not everybody thinks about what, what the purpose of what they’re doing, really is, I mean, sometimes it’s you have to make, you have to support a family, you have to pay off your student loans, right? Essentially, we can understand it. But it’s a really hard profession. And if you’re doing well at it, and you’re successful, it’s taking an awful lot of your time, a lot of energy. And so if, you know, if you don’t know why you’re doing it, you’re going through the motions, the chances are, the chances of burnout are a lot greater, the chances are dissatisfaction are going to be a lot greater. And so understanding what is really important to you the values that really are most important to you, if you’re going to continue to practice law, make sure that you’re in alignment, so that those values, the work values, and the values that are more meaningful, are aligned. I mean, what’s more, better than being able to do the work you love, for the, for the reasons that make you happy. And when I deal with people who are retiring, for those who have not been in alignment, this is a wonderful opportunity to start exploring how to realign Yeah, the work into the work values, and the more the deeper values.

 

Steve Fretzin  [04:05]

Yeah, and I think there’s a saying, you know, if you find what you do, if you love what you do every day, you know, that’s, then that’s great. I added something to it. I was like, you know, if you love the work you do, you’ll never work a day in your life or something. And it’s, I love to help others as I love to do what I do, but I love to do what I do for others. So, you know, I could go out and just be a sales man, I could go out and just sell whatever. But I’m teaching lawyers how to create business and how to do it more efficiently and enjoy a balanced life because they have the ability to make it rain. So that gift that I could just use for my own selfish reasons. And by the way I make I make okay dough, right? But I’m able to give it to them and then let them enjoy and reap the rewards of what I’m doing. So I think lawyers, to your point, just need they need to find what they’re passionate about what their gift is, and then if they have a way of sharing it, whether it’s staying in On whether it’s owning a business or maybe being a part of someone else’s business and, and helping run, you know, their their legal counsel or whatever, just being being an entrepreneur, I just think it’s a great quote. I don’t know about the giving it away part. But you know, look, let’s all be reasonable. Well, you gotta pay bills as you

 

Ida Abbott  [05:17]

get older. You’ll have enough. The question is, when is it enough?

 

Steve Fretzin  [05:21]

Now? when is enough enough? Yeah. You know, at

 

Ida Abbott  [05:24]

some point, the money becomes less important. Hopefully, if you do it right. And you save right. Yeah, we it’s not the most, the most important driver.

 

Steve Fretzin  [05:35]

It’s interesting. I just Just to add on what you’re saying. And I’m going off on a tangent here, but I really just don’t know if this is me just sharing too much. But, you know, I would drive around a neighborhood and I would see the biggest, most beautiful house in the neighborhood, I’d say, that’s the house I’m gonna have I’m gonna make so much money that I’m going to have that house. Now. It’s it’s i How much can I sock away? It’s, it’s how can I like, do I really, I don’t want that house. In fact, I would downsize like I might, my whole value system has shifted. And it’s just, it’s just odd how I don’t know if that’s just me being more mature. I mean, I’m in my early 50s. So I think the way I saw things in my 30s. And the way I see things in my 50s are just very different. And I don’t know if that’s values, or what that would be called?

 

Ida Abbott  [06:17]

Well, first of all, you’re just a kid. Okay, so you’re gonna have more shifts as as time goes on. All right, because Sure, I mean, especially once you achieve a certain level of success, you start to wonder how much more of this is going to make me happy? Or is there something else that could add to my happiness change? What makes me happy? Make me really pay closer take a closer look at what makes me happy. You the older you get the closer you get to the point where you start giving yourself time or you ought to be giving yourself time to be thinking about that.

 

Steve Fretzin  [06:55]

Yeah. Well, hey, everybody, you’re listening to Ida Abbott. She’s the author of retirement by design. She’s also the president of Ida avid consulting. And I’ve been I’ve been hanging out together on a once a month for the last six months or so maybe longer in like a little, you know, lawyer coaches group that we informally or formally put together. And, and I just think you’re terrific. And just for the for the purposes of setting up, our conversation is going to continue down. What’s your, give a give a little bit of your of your background, because it’s pretty, it’s pretty deep and heavy in the legal space.

 

Ida Abbott  [07:29]

I don’t know how to tape it me it is. Now in fact, I was a litigator for 20 years, I spent most of my career at a wonderful firm, Keller. ermine was a large firm that, I guess went bankrupt in 2008, after 100 plus years, under 20 years or something. But it was a wonderful place to practice law that I realized in the early 90s, that I was doing more and more talent development in my firm, which was way ahead of most other firms in that regard. And that there was a tremendous need out there. As firms were getting larger and more diverse and opening more offices, they really didn’t know what they were doing with all the associates they were bringing in. And I saw, I had a level of expertise in this area, because I’d been doing it. And I thought, well, here’s a need, there’s no demand, because nobody knows that they can have somebody help them. And I saw that as kind of a fun challenge and started a consulting practice focused on talent development, talent development, and Talent Management. And I have been doing that, since like 1995, or six or something. And most of my work has, has been in the legal field and legal talent management. I’ve written multiple books about that. And in the last few years, started to narrow my focus and stop doing the broader aspects of it focus just on mentoring and sponsorship, which is has a lot to do with diversity and a lot in the just the whole dei space, but mentoring and sponsorship generally and then started focusing on retirement, because so many of my clients were looking for advice and direction. And this was both individuals and firms. So that’s what led to my book and what bring what brought me to you.

 

Steve Fretzin  [09:31]

And I think where I’d like to take things and help them that thrown this out at you. Because we kind of talked about what we’re going to talk about and now I’m going in a different direction because I suggest there’s there’s things going on in the marketplace right now that are sort of unprecedented. And people some people are calling it the great resignation. There’s never been such a shortage of talent and lawyers in the marketplace right now. People are jumping ship left and right for various reasons. And one of the questions that keeps popping up with a lot of the managing partners that I work with is how do I retain talent? How do I if they’re being offered significantly more to go to some other firm? How do we keep them because losing an attorney right now could absolutely crush and has been crushing, you know, different practice groups within these firms? So what are your two cents on that? Before we get into into the kind of the latter stages of things? Let’s talk about some middle stages?

 

Ida Abbott  [10:24]

Well, you know, it’s interesting, one of the first articles I wrote when I went out on my own was in the late 90s, it was the first great resignation of law firm associates. And that was the first time actually now, the Oregon legal organization, published a study called keeping the keepers in the late 90s. That was the first time anybody had looked at attrition, because it had never been a problem before. Yeah. And one of the articles that I wrote started out, people ask me all the time, hi, you know, how do we keep these people? You know, why are they leaving? And I would always answer, why should they stay? You know, what are you offering them other than money, if you offer the money, the big boys down the block can always offer more. And that’s the thing, it’s a revolving door, that is unprecedented in terms of scope, and frequency. So you know, what matters. People want to feel a sense of belonging that there’s somebody in this organization, who cares about me, and who is investing more than simply a paycheck. They want to see me succeed, because I want to be a great lawyer. But I don’t know how, if I knew how to write on my own, or I’d be someplace else, but I need to know lawyers don’t. There’s no requirement of an internship. You know, if you go to a manicurist, they’ve got to have some supervised practice before they can go out on their own. But you can give somebody all of your legal problems. And it’s somebody who’s never seen the inside of a courtroom or never negotiated a deal or never represented anybody. And so they come to you with this great need and desire to learn what it is to be a great lawyer. And if you can give them that, and keep them believing, because you do believe it to that they have the talent, the potential, you’re going to give them the opportunities, and you care about them as individuals, then they’re going to develop I will, we used to call it loyalty. I don’t know if that word exists anymore, because it’s not like the law firms have ever been loyal to their employees. I mean, it started when they started treating them like cogs. And I think

 

Steve Fretzin  [12:39]

it’s more of a myth now than it’s ever been that that loyalty exists. I think loyalty is earned. And it’s in it’s it’s never ending, you’ve got to continue to develop, that only the relationship, but the culture and how someone feels about the firm, how they feel about you, as a mentor, to where when they’re offered 30% More, they would just laugh it off, because I would never release

 

Ida Abbott  [13:02]

30% more, maybe more than, you know, more than I

 

Steve Fretzin  [13:05]

know, somebody who was offered 50% More, and then went back to his existing firm and got that exact raise because he was able to leverage I mean, it’s it’s going on right now. I don’t know how the firms are going to handle it when the smoke settles.

 

Ida Abbott  [13:19]

Right. It’s quite easy. And that’s there’s going to be fallout. But yeah, a lot of what’s changed is is going to be permanently changed. I think that we just don’t know which parts or how, to what extent, but you really you know, people still it’s hard. It’s harder today than it’s ever been. It’s hard for me for everybody at any age, at any stage of development. But it’s it is especially hard when people are looking for guidance, and they’re desperate for for it. They’re desperate for somebody to understand what they’re going through and to help them out.

 

Jordan Ostroff  [13:50]

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[14:14]

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Steve Fretzin  [14:39]

and I think it’s a law firm leader challenge that needs to be, you know, accepted and handled, that your culture isn’t as good as it could be. Your di isn’t where it needs to be. You’re you’ve got to get creative and I think this is where mentorship comes in. Right? This is where it advisory comes in you’re you’re, you’re you’re you’re on an island and you don’t know how to keep people? Well, you better start looking for some answers. Right? You know, and I think that the failure to do so and just trying to try to throw bigger bonuses to keep people it’s not going to stick? No. So so let’s let’s move on to the neck, I mean that we did a bunch of stages between where we just were and where we’re going. But one of the things that you focus on quite a bit, and I want to get into and we haven’t really talked about this on the show at all, is what do lawyers find most challenging about either thinking about retirement or considering retirement? It’s changed a lot, hasn’t it in the last number of years, the way people think about it,

 

Ida Abbott  [15:43]

I don’t know that that what they think about has changed. The nature of retirement has changed well, okay, people are living much longer. You know, we’re talking today in terms of 100 year lives, they say that half of the five year olds in kindergarten today will live into their to be over 100. And if you’re in your 60s, now, you probably have a 50% chance of living well into your 90s and maybe reaching 100. Especially if you’re a lawyer, because people who are well educated and have access to health, good health care, tend to live longer. And so given that you’re going to live longer, you know, one concern, of course, is how are you going to finance that? But that’s a big social problem we have to deal with. But also, what are you going to do all those years? That’s a long time. If you’re 60, and you’ve got another 30 years, that’s half your life again. And so people are thinking, you know, a lot of people also worry because it makes you face up to mortality. So the word retirement suggests all these negative images for many people, right? It means withdrawal cessation, the end, for other low, other people, and it’s also cultural in Spanish, I understand the word is who the last young, which is jubilation, it’s a freedom, I finally can leave all that behind and move into something new. And so if you start out with a mindset like that, it becomes much easier to start thinking about God, what am I going to do next? Because there are so many possibilities, as opposed to oh, my God, I have to give this up. What am I going to do with myself? I don’t know anybody, I don’t know anything. All I know is law. I’ve built this practice, I built my firm, I can’t possibly let it go. Because nobody can function without me. Nobody can do it as well as I can. And so that makes it really, really hard for people to especially lawyers, because their identity is so tied up in what they are, who they are, what they are tends to overlap so much what they do. And so it makes it very tough to start thinking about that. I can for some people, by the way, it’s not tough at all. They’re in that first camp of Yeah, I can’t wait to get

 

Steve Fretzin  [18:04]

  1. Yeah. Where do I sign done?

 

Ida Abbott  [18:08]

For many, many people, it’s hard. Yeah.

 

Steve Fretzin  [18:10]

I mean, my father retired from law 65 to the day, I mean, he was done. And I honestly, I think he may have done some mediation for arbitration for a few years after that. But I don’t know. I feel like maybe he threw it in a little too early. Because that’s sort of what was done. This is back in the 90s. So but now he’s like, I mean, I’ve added up the number of hours, I calculated number of hours that he plays solitaire a day, and it’s mine by two years of his life. He’s now spent playing solitaire, and I think his brain is is atrophied a little bit. I mean, he’s still he still has moments of hilarity and sharpness. And there’s other times where I have to explain things two or three times. So I just I don’t know, I feel like that that was a decision he made based on sort of the norms of society, because he did be he loved being a lawyer. And I think he could have gotten another five or 10 years without batting an eye.

 

Ida Abbott  [19:02]

Well, you just raise what actually inspired me to do this work. A group of my clients who didn’t know each other, but they were mostly lawyers. One was a business woman asked me similar questions, and I brought them together and talk to them about what they wanted to know, what do we do next? In our careers, they were in their mostly 50s, late 50s and 60s, and one of them told me that her father was a serial entrepreneur who had been very successful. And he was now 75. He did the same thing your dad did. He retired at 65. And on his 75th birthday, she said, how are you and how are you enjoying and how have you been enjoying this retirement? And he said, Well, I worked so hard my whole life, to make sure I earned enough that you and your your mom and your siblings would all be taken care of financially. And I succeeded. I was proud of myself for doing that. And then I retired to 65. Because that’s what you were supposed to do. And I’ve spent the last 10 years bored out of my mind. Yeah. Right on. And, you know, she said, I don’t want to be that. And I said, Well, you don’t? Why do you think you have to be. And what we are seeing that’s a much healthier attitude today is that there is no number, there’s no pull by date. Some people want to retire, I talked to people in their 30s, who are planning multiple retirements. Because they see they’re going to live long. They want to make sure that they have careers that satisfy them. But they don’t expect to be in the same one for a long time. That’s very good a difference. That is, when we started. And I started long before you, you got into a job and a career and you stay there your whole, you know, for your life until you packed it in. And 65 is just kind of an arbitrary number devised by the Social Security system. So in fact, when Social Security started, the average age, the average life expectancy was something like 62, and social security kicked into 65. So most people never even reached Social Security. Today, you know, the numbers don’t mean anything. Some people want to keep working and do keep working for decades longer, and other people want to do something completely different. And they can, yeah, if they if they plan for it, and don’t let it just all happen.

 

Steve Fretzin  [21:36]

Right, right. And I’ve told my wife in no uncertain terms, I’m never going to retire, there might be a point where I decide to slow down, and, you know, so many hours, or we want to live somewhere else, or what I mean, we can live anywhere at this point, but I just don’t ever see a time where I’m not gonna love to do what I love doing what I do. So why would I stop doing it? Unless, of course, at some point becomes not fun. But I don’t know. I just I just

 

Ida Abbott  [22:02]

it’s too much point. At some point. If it isn’t as much fun. Yeah, you change. Yeah, you move on. But keep in mind, this is we’re talking about a major life transition. And for lawyers, the issue comes up with who am I. So you’ve got a lot of stuff going on, you’ve got a lot of different ways you identify yourself, for a lawyer whose whole identity is, I am a lawyer who helps my clients, I do X, Y, and Z, that’s your elevator speech. Right? What happens when you don’t have that to say anymore? And you go to your first cocktail party, and you know, you’re facing somebody, maybe one day, hopefully, soon, we’ll be able to do that again. And someone says, What do you do, and you say, I’m retired, for I used to be a lawyer, you know, a lot of people start yawning, and shake your hand and move on to the next person. And even if they don’t you feel, many individuals feel that they’re not important anymore. They’re not vital or useful. And so that’s the part that makes it really hard. That’s why one of the first exercises in my book is to read is to write a new elevator speech about what you’re going to do or what you’re planning or what you’re thinking about, or the fact that you are a work in progress, something that makes you feel more interesting. And that will allow other people to see you, as somebody who’s still got something to say, right, but you know, you’re the same person. You’ve got the same talent. How many people do you I know a number of people, because some of them are my clients, who represent companies where there’s a legal officer, General Counsel, say, who retires, the new person comes in, and they want to bring in their buddy who’s 35 years old. And you’ve been doing this work for 25 years, you are the world’s leading expert. And this is somebody who’s wet behind the ears never did it before, but they’re the general counsel’s buddy. And that’s who they want to be with. And it doesn’t matter what an expert you are. And the first time that happens to you and you have you’re blindsided or you have no recourse and no other sense of who you are and what you can do. It can be devastating. Yeah. So that’s what I mean by you know, not waiting until you’re retired by default. Because it happens to you. You want to start thinking about, if I’m not doing this, what else might I be doing? Yeah.

 

Steve Fretzin  [24:45]

And is that is that to some degree, part of the things you talk about in the book is really helping people with strategies to figure all this out and and really get their act together as it relates to how they feel about it and how they’re going to manage that. transition and all of that. Yes. Okay. Is there a point like you mentioned in your book, or I think it’s called design thinking, is that what is that?

 

Ida Abbott  [25:09]

Well, I’ll explain that briefly. But that I want to point out the book is a workbook, I don’t tell you what to do or how to do it. What it does is ask you questions that help you figure it out for yourself. Because the things that I might advise somebody without knowing them, may be all wrong for them, even if though they’re right for me or for somebody else. So it’s really a matter of helping people figure it out. Yeah. And it can take some people a few weeks and other people a few years. And design thinking is a way of approaching a problem that is much more creative and versatile than what we usually do. As lawyers, you come up with the problem, you identify a solution, and then you set out a plan to get from A to the end of the solution. With design thinking, you start out by looking at yourself. This came out of product design, by the way. And then some folks at Stanford started a course there for undergrads on designing your life that basically applies the principles to taking a look at who you are, and what might be meaningful for you. And and it’s sort of become a thing that I just applied the concepts to retirement. And so it starts out who am I? What would what are the things that are important to me? What have I always wanted to do never had time to do? What do I regret? What was I best at what was what were the greatest moments in my life. So it’s a lot of internal investigation, self exploration, and then get recognizing the myths and the misunderstandings that hold you back. You know, retirement means it’s the end, if that’s what you believe, I asked you to reframe it. If it’s not the end, think of somebody you know, who’s retired, who is doing something cool. And if you don’t know anybody personally start looking around online, they are everywhere. So you know, some of it is that and then you start, I suggest that people start making lists. And they start out with one list this minute to anybody who’s listening. That’s a personal interest list. And you write down somewhere, keep a track, keep track of anything. That sounds interesting to you. And that could be something you read in a book or a newspaper, or listen on a podcast, you know, maybe somebody wants. So being a podcaster. That’s interesting. You just write it down. And then when you get to the point in your life, when you need to sit down and actually start thinking about what am I going to do, instead of pulling things out of the air, you’ve got a list of 10 things, 50 things 1000 Things that at some point in your life interested you. And then you can go there and start looking for patterns. And so we also start looking for patterns. And then you set some priorities. And then you do things. You spend a lot of time and exploring and doing things, trying internships, trying to as a volunteer, talking to people, interviewing people, what you’re doing is a great way of investigating what’s out there, and what possible, interesting things might resonate with you, and you try them. And then to the extent you can try them out without making a full commitment. That’s great. Not everybody can do that. But when you can, it allows you to test against the theory against the reality. And I say plan with a calendar, put it up there and move things around to come up with what is a great life for you. But this all may sound kind of loosey goosey especially for for lawyers. But I, when I tell you before the pandemic, this book came out just the launch was a week before everything shut down. But we did have a lot of live events. And there were lawyers who I have who are willing to draw pictures of an ideal retirement and show them to each other. Once they get over this reluctance to face up to the fact that this is you know, this is good. This is it can be fun. It can be creative, it taps into, you know, a part of you. That may have been dormant for a while. Right? Anyway, I’ve babbled on,

 

Steve Fretzin  [29:32]

you know I mean everything you’re saying is totally resonating with me and it actually my mind drifted off from not not away but just off about my family member of mine who is retired and I feel like she’s lost like she’s just she has no passion she has not there’s nothing that she’s really doing other than just kind of taking care of her husband, who’s a big curmudgeon II You know guy so like, it’s just, it’s just like this. I’m just thinking about all the things you’re saying and like, How can I help her because I really care about her. And I want her to be happy and enjoy. You know, like you said, I mean, she’s, you know, she’s she’s, she’s not that old and she’s got a lot of time left and how is she spending it and keeping her mind active and, and keeping active and things that she can find a new passion?

 

Ida Abbott  [30:16]

Well see if you know what you first thing to do.

 

Steve Fretzin  [30:19]

Introduce you to you. Oh, look, well, that I would Yes, that would be it. That would be an I’m definitely going to do that. 100% I’m going to do that. There’s no that

 

Ida Abbott  [30:28]

online dating is, you know, as you get older, there’s different kind of things because there are people who, I don’t know, they do a lot of things without realizing, yeah, they get interested in things. They don’t realize that they might apply to them.

 

Steve Fretzin  [30:44]

Right, right. And listen, okay, buddy, we have to wrap up, I was going to do the three best stuff and I think I’m going to change it. I’m gonna you’re gonna be the first person and we’re gonna keep this fairly brief because we’re running out of time, but I’m going to change it from the three best stuff to your joy. I just came up with this on the fly outside of your business and helping people and doing what you do every day. What’s your joy?

 

Ida Abbott  [31:08]

It’s so easy. I have one grandchild. He was here yesterday for a few hours. Yeah. And you know, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the greatest joy of all.

 

Steve Fretzin  [31:18]

That’s it. I have a teenager and I am waiting for him to get get older, move out, get married, have a kid and then I can do my I’m trying to like Rush. I’m trying to rush. Can I just cut through the teenage years and go right to where he’s got a grandchild for me? Is that Is that too much to ask us a lot of good stuff in between. Right? All right. That’s true. We do we do a lot together actually. Well, listen, I this has been fantastic. And I just appreciate you I appreciate you spending some time on on my show and sharing your wisdom. If people want to reach out to you too, for your consulting to get your book. What what are the best ways for them to to get in hold a hold of you.

 

Ida Abbott  [31:55]

They can reach me at either abbott.com My website there’s a lot of information there and a lot of free resources articles and different and other podcasts and webcasts and classes and stuff. And then Ida at Ida abbott.com

 

Steve Fretzin  [32:10]

That’s it. Okay, well, listen, I do I will follow up with you separately. I’ve got some things I want to talk to you about. But I just appreciate you being on the show. And again, sharing your wisdom and you know, maybe we’ll do this again soon.

 

Ida Abbott  [32:24]

I hope so. Thank you very much for having me. I’ve really enjoyed it.

 

Steve Fretzin  [32:28]

Good good. Me too. And hey, everybody, listen. It’s all about being that lawyer someone who’s confident organized and a skilled Rainmaker whether you’re from cradle or near that near to the grave, whatever the case might be a lot of life to live and you want to live it right so so you know take take heed the conversation I’ve had today with IDA that you know, you’ve got you’ve got options, and there’s a lot of things you can do and really enjoy what you the time that you have. So, everybody take care be well be safe, and we’ll see you again and talk to you again soon.

 

Narrator  [33:03]

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