Lesley Wallerstein: Confidence, Adaptability, and Embracing Discomfort

In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Lesley Wallerstein discuss:

  • The relationship between creativity and crazy.
  • Networking as an introvert.
  • Understanding what you have to offer.
  • Finding a networking system that works for you and your personality type.

Key Takeaways:

  • It isn’t about what others can do, it’s about what you can do better than others.
  • It takes confidence to go out on your own as a solo. You have to be willing to talk about yourself and put yourself out there or nobody will know what you do.
  • You do have a value to add to the marketplace, but that value means nothing if people don’t know you.
  • Get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable and it will get easier.

“It was do or die. I realized the only way that I could make this work is if I open my mouth and start talking about what I do, because everybody else in the room is doing the same thing. My voice counts just as much as everybody else’s.” —  Lesley Wallerstein

Connect with Lesley Wallerstein:  

Website: https://www.wallerstein-ip.com/

Phone: 847-912-3553

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-wallerstein-632750a/

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

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Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

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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

people, business, attorneys, thinking, lawyer, firm, clients, love, call, leslie, steve, patent attorney, years, offer, life, legalese, providers, talk, solo, book

SPEAKERS

Lesley Wallerstein, Narrator, Stephanie Vaughn Jones, Steve Fretzin, Jordan Ostroff

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [00:00]

It was Do or die. It really was, I realized that the only way that I want to make this work is if I open my mouth and start talking about what I do, because everybody else in the room is doing the same thing. So my voice counts just as much as everybody else’s. And I have a service to offer. Not everybody’s going to want it and that’s okay.

 

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, we’ll 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  [00:49]

Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I am Steve Fretzin, the host as the announcer just mentioned, and it is another beautiful day here in Chicago. Finally, we’re in the summer, we’re getting into the good weather, you take walks outside, it’s just absolutely beautiful. And it’s another opportunity to be that lawyer, someone who’s confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker, we know that there’s a lot of pressures on you, as a lawyer to Bill ours, we know that there’s a lot going on in the world, there’s a lot going on, at your firm, et cetera. And so it is a lot about being focused and trying to just make sure that you’re utilizing your time in the best way possible, free time for family and friends and all that and work time business development, billable hours, etc. I’m going to introduce Leslie my guest today in a moment, I do want to thank my sponsors, legalese, marketing, and money any more about them in a little bit. And Leslie, thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate it. Nice to have you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. And also, I just want to bring up your quote of the show, which I love. The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do none other than Steve Jobs. So why why did you submit that quote, as the quote of the show,

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [02:00]

because every client comes to my office and thinks they are embarrassed about telling me what they invented. And they always preface it by saying it’s a blessing, you’re gonna think this is crazy. But the reality is, in my world, the crazy the crazy inventions are the most patentable ones. Yeah, just, and the ones that are probably going to be the most successful in in the marketplace. So this is a good thing. Yeah, it’s something that my clients, I encourage my clients to embrace the crazy.

 

Steve Fretzin  [02:38]

Yeah, I think it’s amazing, you know, the creativity that goes into inventing something, and that could be, you know, a product or a service either way, you know, there’s there’s creativity involved. And there’s motivation and commitment and Steve Jobs, sort of, you know, he’s, you know, he’s the man. In fact, I watched him do a college, I don’t remember what school it was, but a commencement speech. It’s on YouTube, it’s about 10 minutes. And he mentions, like, the three lessons of life and it was really I want my teenager to he’ll never listen to it. If I tell him to listen to it, maybe I’ll trick him to watching it. But it was really, really good. And, you know, it’s all about just look, you know, you got one life to live and you better live your best life. And sort of he had a bunch of stories around that, but really good stuff. Um, you are a patent attorney. You’re a MIT grad. You’re a former patent examiner. So you’ve got quite a background. Can you kind of walk us through the Reader’s Digest version of how you came to be?

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [03:36]

How I came to be actually goes back much further than that. Well, it goes

 

Steve Fretzin  [03:41]

are you are you are your prenatal? How far back do you want to go? Lastly, we’re going to,

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [03:46]

we’re going to talk about career day. Okay. At Kennedy School. There we go. in Highland Park. Yeah. Where are one of my classmates father is he actually retired very recently. But he came in and talk to the class about being a patent attorney, and explained to all of us eight year old minds now what’s the difference between what he does and what other attorneys do? And that that really planted the seed and in a nutshell, because we’ve got only 30 minutes, I I’m a science geek, I’m a card carrying geek. I wear it proud. I went to a tech school right out of high school, did science and went right to law school after that, and did other legal work and to make a long story short, a no I, I’ve missed being around science at that point. And I got a teaching degree to teach science. I could talk about science a lot more than I was and then I found that I missed I missed the practicing of law and I found this this path examining job in 2006. At that time, the United States Patent and Trademark Office was piloting a program where they were, were hiring people around the country to work remotely. And that was one of the first programs of its kind. And did that for five years. I was a patent examiner for five years. It was fabulous training. Just fabulous training. I love it because it married everything. I got to write about technology. I got to read about technology. I got to be on the cutting edge and seeing what people were creating it before anybody else got a chance to see it. Yeah, that’s really cool. Cool.

 

Steve Fretzin  [05:45]

I love that. I love that. Just this is an off the off the wall. Quick. Are you a fan of The Big Bang Theory? You ever see that show?

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [05:52]

Yeah. Um, yes. I loved it. Yeah, that’s it one was on.

 

Steve Fretzin  [05:57]

Okay. Yeah, I watch. I’ve watched each episode at least three times, because it’s just so well written. And I just love the geeky side. Because I also I mean, I had different groups of fry with Highland Park High School, just like you did shout out to HP HS folks listening. And I had my sports friends, I had my theater friends, and I had my nerd Science, Math friends. And they were also into music. And I just loved that I could move from like group to group to group and I could get nerdy and play d&d. With my nerd friends, I could go over and play soccer with my sports friends. Like that was kind of a, I don’t know, it’s kind of like a, like a traveller around different groups of people. But it really brings me back to a lot of those wonderful times I had with science experiments and nerding out with my nerdy friends. And back then they you know, it wasn’t cool to be a nerd. Now, it’s like, the most cool thing you could be is a nerd. So it’s interesting how, how times change. So let’s talk about your movement, then from that patent examiner space into Then did you go into private practice after that, or did you

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [07:04]

join a firm? No, I opened up my own practice. Okay, when was that? It was 11 years ago.

 

Steve Fretzin  [07:10]

Okay. Okay, so you’ve been running your own firm, and you’ve been skew stata solo this whole time? This whole time? Okay. Okay. Now, that isn’t easy to do. So how did you get the sort of gumption and sort of the, like, how did you make that work? Because a lot of people get into being a solo and realize it’s not for them, they either go in house, or they eventually get gobbled up by a firm that makes, you know, takes all the stress of that solo practice off their backs.

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [07:34]

Well, if there was a challenge, just the challenge of can I make this work? I had been on a law school at that point, several years, I had not, I have lost contact with many of my classmates and the attorneys that I used to know when I was first got out of law school. So it was it was a it was just, well, can I make it work? Can I make it work? And I had written I read hundreds of other people’s patent applications. And I thought, well, I can I can do this. Yeah, I can I can do this better, I can do this better. And I took I flew out to San Francisco to take a patent application, drafting bootcamp class, through the practicing law Institute, I got myself a scholarship, but I flew myself out there to take this class and kind of get hit the ground running. It was that was one of the best things that I did. And that gave me the confidence to go out and start pulling myself out as a, as a patent attorney.

 

Steve Fretzin  [08:47]

Okay, and then how but that sorry, so knowing the law, obviously, baseline stuff, you got to know the law, you got to have experienced some experiences, you have that. But then there’s the other side of it, which is my jam, right? The marketing the business development. So how did you get the clients in the door to get things off the ground and then to continue to build a have a sustainable practice? 11 years is you’re not doing that without having some sustainability.

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [09:12]

It took time. Yeah, it definitely took time. I started by going to, I mean, I because I had not any. I didn’t know how to market a business. I had never owned a business before. Sure. So I live in the north suburbs. So I did. The only organization that I knew of was a Chamber of Commerce. So I started going to the local Chamber of Commerce meetings. Yep. I actually got a client one of my first times going nice, which one was at the Northbrook Highland Park, which was went to the Highland Park Chamber of Commerce. Yeah, two or three years I joined the Lake County Bar Association to meet other attorneys. So I’m trying to think of I joined the Chicago Bar Association and people started taking notice, and there was an organization out there called North Shore law to the Association of Women attorneys in the north suburbs, they were looking for a patent attorney. And somebody somebody had heard that and said, You’ve got to call, so on, so on, and so on. So, and then introduction led to other introductions led to other networking groups. I mean, I had yet to understand that when I’m working for the patent office, I have no no concept of a networking group. I never did any. When I was, first out of law school, I worked for a sole practitioner, who didn’t was all word of mouth. So he did no formal business development in the sense that you and I would consider it. So I’m learning everything as I go.

 

Steve Fretzin  [10:51]

Were there any were there any mistakes that you made along the way that you recognize now or that you recognize as you were doing it that you go, Oh, my God, I wish I hadn’t done that. Or I wish, you know, I had, you know, never walked into that situation or anything that you can that you can remember that stands out? No,

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [11:11]

not in terms of marketing, because everything was a question of how many more people can I meet? Who else can I meet? I looked at and I tried to spend everything positively and think well, let me try. I’ll try this for a year and see if I get a return on the investment. Is this the right book for me? Is that the right fit for me? Okay, got it.

 

Steve Fretzin  [11:29]

Got it. And, you know, you mentioned that you’re a card carrying geek, you’re also a card carrying introvert because you told me that and I sort of picked up on it when, you know, you came to were in both improvisers together, you came to the group and I could kind of see that, you know, you were being very thoughtful about like, who was I going to talk to? And who where was I going to go? And how was it was gonna spend my time. And I was, I was just like, I was intrigued to just kind of check out how you were gonna play it. And I watched you kind of push yourself a little bit to go out and like, you know, get into into conversations, even when other people were talking and you weren’t a part of it. So how does that being an introvert and knowing that you have to network and keep out there? How easy or difficult did you find that?

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [12:12]

Oh, at first, it was Do or die? It really was, I realized that the only way that I want to make this work is if I open my mouth and start talking about what I do, because everybody else in the room is doing the same thing. So my voice counts just as much as everybody else’s. And I have a service to offer. Not everybody’s going to want it. And that’s okay. I don’t necessarily want all the services that other people are offering in any given day. So we all have something we’re all part of a larger community, we all have something to offer. You look reminding myself.

 

Steve Fretzin  [12:48]

Yeah. So that sounds like a great kind of mindset, though, to just just say, Look, I get who I am. I understand how I’m built. And this is a do or die like this. There’s no option here to just sit in my office and stew about it. I have to get out and meet people, I have to introduce myself, I do have something to say you have a value to add. You have a value to add in the marketplace. But that value means nothing if people don’t know you.

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [13:13]

I agree. But it’s taken a long time for me to get my sea legs. Yeah, that’s my mother would say,

 

Steve Fretzin  [13:19]

Right. Right. I get that. I get that. So, you know, there’s patent attorneys, IP attorneys, if I just want to talk more generally, that have found specialization and becoming known for something within the space is an avenue to be remembered and to be thought of and then referred. Is there something you did with specializing that you found really helpful as it relates to how you,

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [13:45]

you know, get referred. It didn’t come intentionally but it happened and unfolded more organically that after maybe five or six years in practice, I saw that I was attracting a lot of clients who are in hard technologies. They are metal fabricators. Plastics fabricators. If you ever see me in an online meeting, I will often bring these crazy crazy props you’re holding up to the screen. Yeah. So people make and I use the use the word crazy. very lovingly. But I play show in town. I love playing show and tell Steve and I love I have a shelf right next to me with all the toys. Yeah, I get all the toys. It sounds good.

 

Steve Fretzin  [14:33]

But it’s a great way to sort of explain what you do. And so is it more that you’re working with inventors and people that have metal and in different products versus you know, biotech or other types of, you know, there’s people that just do everything and there’s people that focus in a particular niche and that’s it. Is that where you’re saying you kind of did?

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [14:53]

Well, I do. In reality, I handle all sorts of technology. Okay. except for software, I do not I do not do software. There are I have got a great guy in Boston awesome improvisers who, who I collaborate with on software. Okay. Anything else? If you can see it, touch it, move it, I can patent it. Yeah, that’s wonderful.

 

Jordan Ostroff  [15:17]

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Steve Fretzin  [15:39]

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Stephanie Vaughn Jones  [15:43]

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Steve Fretzin  [15:56]

I did not know that. That’s a lot of business going away right there. Let’s cut to the chase. What are you prepared to do for my listeners?

 

Stephanie Vaughn Jones  [16:03]

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Steve Fretzin  [16:17]

Very cool. Thanks. So let me ask you this. I mean, as it relates to lessons learned, okay, because you mentioned that it was a it was a marathon, not a sprint. And you didn’t say that. But that’s kind of what I’m thinking like it took the time to build up your reputation to build up your specialization to build up kind of so what are some things that you learned along the way that you double down on or things that you learned along the way that helped you sort of get positive about what you were trying to accomplish?

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [16:48]

There? What aware do I even begin? I won’t, but you just said it. I mean, but you said it, you said it’s, it’s a marathon, and slow and steady wins the race. I think, I mean, I’ve grown my business, but I’ve grown it at a pace that I can keep up with. And I’m minding my clients, keeping them in the loop, treating them well. I am managing my, my husband, my my daughter, my home. I’ve keeping, you know, taking care of the people and the things. My own health, it’s taken care of the things that matter, it’ll alongside going my business. So it’s It feels very organic to me. Well, but it sounds

 

Steve Fretzin  [17:36]

like is that you figured out a great balance, you’ve got the work, you’ve got regular business coming in and allows you to have this other you know, the life that we all talk about, right? I want to be able to spend time with my wife and my son and go fishing and I want to do all that stuff. Yes, it’s about making money. But it’s but more it’s about living a life. It’s not just about the money.

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [17:55]

It’s all that. Yes, it’s a business. But yes, it’s part of a whole time. Got it?

 

Steve Fretzin  [18:02]

And what kind of advice would you give? I’m going to ask this two different ways. So so bear with me. Okay. Number one is what advice would you give to lawyers who are listening to this show, who are also introverted and uncomfortable with networking, uncomfortable with business development, the stuff that I teach every day? They’d rather hide under their desks than go out and do it? What would you say to them to kind of give them some good vibes about it? Because you did it?

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [18:27]

And are doing there were two parts of the question. That was the first question I’m gonna come back with, Oh, okay. It’s going to be hard, just to recognize that it was going to feel uncomfortable at first and to get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. And it gets easier. It definitely gets easier when I don’t bat an eyelash at me, I go to a lot of networking events in person on Zoom. And I feel like I can hold my own, I have my own, you know, I’m not, I’m not going to be the life of the party. And that’s okay. Because I would seem very strange to you. If I came in and just put out a different fates. I’ve feel like I can go and be offensive to myself. And that’s fine.

 

Steve Fretzin  [19:18]

I think in the military, they say embrace the suck.

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [19:22]

Yes. embrace that. That is a good way. That’s

 

Steve Fretzin  [19:25]

one way to put it. I would I try to work with a lawyer just to share I mean, I work with a lot of introverted IP attorneys. And right now, like I run a class every Tuesday and today’s Tuesday, so I have my class. I have four IP attorneys from around the country. Not all of them are highly introverted, in fact, ones like museo keyboard player who plays 80s He played 80s cover band music for like 10 years. So this guy is not an introvert. He was a former pen examiner though, like you. And so the, the thing about introverts they love generally process They love process, they thrive on process and structure. So when I talk to them about networking, it’s not in broad terms go out and go out and do it just get out there. They don’t want to hear that. You’re saying that because that’s what you did. And you didn’t have a coach at the time, you just kind of did what you did. But for the for the people listening, there is a system to follow to go out in network, right? So it isn’t just going out anywhere, it’s it’s selecting the groups where you’re going to get the best that may be more comfortable. So like I’m even as an extrovert, I don’t like to go to big parties. I don’t like to go to rooms with 100 people, right? You probably don’t either, right. But I but I’m very comfortable in a room of 10 or 20, or 30. Like, to me that’s much more intimate than 100 people drinking and talking and schmoozing in a big room. So it’s finding the right types of events where the right kind of people are going to be there meaning people that are aligned with you. And then when you get there, what questions do you ask and what? So I’ll give you an example like a good questions are, you know, what brings you here today? You know, are you a member of this group or a guest? Things like that, that gets you into a dialogue, and then it’s just about keeping all of it on the other people. So I’m not talking when I’m in a networking group. Very rarely am i doing much talking? I really do especially with new people. I try to just ask questions, ask questions, introverts can thrive on asking questions more, so then, you know, sharing all the details about their life in their business, which actually makes them better. networkers is just asking questions, because then you can identify, oh, this person is an insurance salesman, who’s very salesy, run away, right. Get out of there fast, right? This person is an attorney who seems very thoughtful in in does trademark stuff, not patent stuff. Oh, there might be something here, there seems to be a connection. I’m going to stay here with this person. So do you have any like things like that, that you’ve come up with that sort of work for you?

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [21:56]

You’ve covered a lot of bases there. So can you clarify what you then just saying,

 

Steve Fretzin  [22:00]

like, you’re out and you’re on networking, and you figured some things out? You know, you didn’t you’re not the same networker. I hope that you know, 10 years ago that you are today, right? That you’re doing things differently today, what have you, you know, what’s something that you do when you go to an event to get you know, maybe a next step out of it? Or get, you know, identify who are the best connections for you that type of thing.

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [22:20]

I mean, sometimes some of them some event organizers give you a list in advance of who was going to be there. Okay. So I if they do then I will scan the list and see and make a list of who do I want to find nice and introduce myself to improvisers does this provider sends you guests, then they give you the opportunity to pick if you want to, you can either be randomly assigned to people to talk to after the big meeting, or you can email the meeting the we call them Troika, yeah, Troy organizer, and say, Hey, I would love it. If I can meet these specific people. And you can be proactive. I like to be proactive about it. And for those of you who are

 

Steve Fretzin  [23:03]

listening, you know, you’ve heard me talk about providers quite a bit. I’ve interviewed a ton of providers folks. And Mark Hanken was on the show not so long ago. He’s like the king of providers, for people that have been in in a while. And it is a 7500 plus national networking exchange, have home groups in Chicago and LA and, and all over the country. And they’re expanding, I think, in Baltimore and Philly right now. And Miami and Fort Lauderdale. But it’s not for everybody. But for someone that’s been in their business for 10 years. And that’s in professional services. And lawyers in particular, it’s a really, really good group of people. And everybody kind of gets it and gets how to network and tries to be a giver and help everybody else out. So that’s that might be something if you’re if you’re interested, you can you can go to providers.com. And check that out. Now free plug for providers to who to thought. So Leslie, let me ask you as it relates to where you’re taking the business where you’re going to go from here. Are there any any plans to change anything up? Or do anything differently for the future? Are you just kind of content staying that staying the course of where you’ve been and what you’re doing?

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [24:06]

I’m always I’m always evolving in small ways. So I’m never going to be totally staying the course I’m I’ve been a member of pro advisors as an example, for four years, and it’s working really, really well. It’s really, I’ve gotten to meet some people who are just really at the top of their game. And that inspires me to do better and in all sorts of even intangible ways. Yeah, so

 

Steve Fretzin  [24:33]

go ahead. Yeah, no, I was just gonna say that’s great. I mean, it’s it’s very sort of either reassuring or just just, you know, kind of powerful to hear you talk about how you’ve built where you where you’ve gotten to where you are today. And then you know that you understand that this is never the every year is not the same that you have to keep evolving. You have to keep learning. And I believe that I don’t know how you how you feel about this, that there’s a big recession coming and it’s not Not a scare tactic. It’s just looking around me and observing what’s going on. Whether it’s gas prices, food prices, you know, interest rates, you know, everything that’s happening around the world, it’s not leading to good stuff, it’s gonna lead to some rough stuff. So, you know, I think if you if you’re not thinking about the future, then you’re not thinking.

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [25:20]

And not only thinking about the future, but also being adaptable. And being able to change when the beauty of being kind of growing slowly is if I if I do need to make a change, it’s going to be a small change, rather than a drastic change. So I feel like I can adjust better and more readily. Yeah.

 

Steve Fretzin  [25:43]

Are you content and set to stay a solo for the rest of your career? Do you think if you were offered some big dough to go into a firm that you you’d be open to that? I’m just curious, like, some people are just like me, it would take some insane, insane situation for me to ever stop doing what I’m doing the way I’m doing it, because I’m just so happy with my clients and how I’m working with them and how I’m running my show and all that stuff. And I did get an offer by a firm a big firm, big, big firm years ago. And I the number that I thought in my head they would have to offer me was so ridiculous that they never would have gone for it. So but it never came up. Because we just I just kind of came botched it from the start. But I’m curious what your are you just really happy in the solo role? Is that kind of your jam?

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [26:27]

Well, I had an interesting you say that because I have a similar thing happened to me last year, I have what you would consider a legacy. Intellectual Property Law Firm contacted me, unsolicited. Yeah, I talked to them a few times. And I was thinking, that very question that you just raised? How much would it take for me to give up the freedom? The autonomy, that I’ve got to go work for somebody else? Yeah. And it was the number was just, I couldn’t even think of a number. That was fair. Yeah. And I said, No, I really, I got a good gig going here, Steve. Yeah, really good. It’s, it’s, I’ve, I’ve got my daughter just turned 20. And, you know, and I’ve been working from home since she was four. So I’ve been able to be a really active part of her life, and then pick her up from school she used she did all of her elementary school is walking distance. So I got to be really involved in her life. And if I had worked in a law firm, I would have missed out on all that. And I don’t know, I this was the right decision. For me, at this time in my life.

 

Steve Fretzin  [27:45]

Well, it sounds like an amazing journey. And it’s not over yet. But I appreciate you, you know, sharing your story and some of your secrets. I love the you know, the confidence and then the pushing yourself. I think you said the doer die attitude about, you know, look, I have to make this work. And I’m going to make this work. And you did. So I think that’s very inspirational to people, especially the ones that are maybe in a grind at a at a law firm, and then never thought they could go out on their own. And now they’re saying, Look, you know, Leslie’s kind of telling me, I could do this, too. It’s not an impossible situation. So thank you, and let’s go to game changing books. And the book that you send me is give and take by Adam Grant. So tell me about that book and why It’s Your Game Changing book.

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [28:28]

I’m gonna plug providers one more time, because that’s the book that they gave us they gave our home group when we all joined. Okay, so it talks about how that’s a long term philosophy of just building relationships with other people, not just your clients, but your but your peers, too. And how people will remember you, if you think you’re you should always be thinking about how can I help the other guy? Have that going, go into a relationship, go into a conversation, always thinking about how I can help them not the other way around?

 

Steve Fretzin  [29:06]

It’s interesting, because there’s books that just talk about the gift they don’t talk about the take in this book has both words in it. So I’m just curious, like the Go Giver doesn’t really talk about taking this book is called Give and take. So there must be some element of give to get or give to take or how that plays out. I’m not sure I don’t think I’ve read it. So getting memories about that on that book, or

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [29:28]

I’m sad. If you give enough or give over a longer period of time, you will get back in return much more than if you had approached the relationship from a taking perspective. And what’s in it for yourself rather than being more. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar is what it is.

 

Steve Fretzin  [29:51]

Yeah. I mean, I probably give five to 10 times more introductions, referrals, etc than I get, but I’ll tell you what I’ve got so much karma built up, I could float to the sky with with, you know, if I had wings. And I’m not saying that as a brag I’m saying that as I happen to have a wonderful life and I happen to have a wonderful business and career and I get to help lots of wonderful attorneys. And I don’t think that’s by accident. I think that there’s definitely been that element of how you give, whether it comes back directly or comes back indirectly. It just comes back and in the way that life treats you that that positivity, in that that helpfulness adds up. So I think that’s really an important takeaway from a book like give and take or go giver any of them. Leslie, thanks so much for being on the show and sharing your wisdom. I appreciate if people want to reach out to you to refer you to network with you. How do they get in touch

 

Lesley Wallerstein  [30:44]

my website, while are seeing that ip.com or

 

Steve Fretzin  [30:49]

by phone or by phone and you’re on LinkedIn, we know that LinkedIn, there you go. Okay. Well, thanks again. And I appreciate it. And hey, everybody, thank you for spending some time with Leslie and I today again, I think there’s a number of things that can be taken away from her story and her experiences and in our conversation today. So you know, hopefully it helps you to understand that you can be that lawyer someone who’s competent organized in a skilled Rainmaker. It just takes you know, time thoughtfulness, patience and hard work and go to attitude and do or die as Leslie said, so whatever the case is, you got to you got to get out there and be active no matter what otherwise you’re, you’re just in the weeds doing work, and it’s not necessarily the life you want. It also may not necessarily be going to set your future up properly, especially with a recession coming or with your firm getting bought or any of the number of things that can interact with your life and your the way that you’re running your world right now. So take care everybody be safe be well, we’ll talk again soon.

 

Narrator  [31:53]

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