In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Michele Wucker discuss:
- What the gray rhino is and what it means.
- Why people are hesitant to take risks.
- Risk tolerances, risk adversity, and individual risk relationships.
- Evaluating risks and understanding the risk of not taking a risk.
Key Takeaways:
- We should not assume that because something is ever present and talked about means that it is being handled properly or that you aren’t vulnerable to that issue.
- The more you take risks, the more you develop your risk muscle, and the better you get at it.
- By trying to avoid certain risks, you are creating other ones.
- There are ways that we can increase our own risk taking, such as eating spicy foods, cranking the air conditioner, or turning on upbeat music.
“People make an average, give or take, of 35,000 choices a day. Every one of those choices is a risk, and every risk is a choice. But do we think of them as constant risk taking throughout our day? If we do, we become much more self aware about the risks that we’re comfortable with.” — Michele Wucker
Connect with Michele Wucker:
Website: https://thegrayrhino.com/ & https://www.wucker.com/
Book: https://www.wucker.com/writing/the-gray-rhino/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wucker/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wucker
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MicheleWucker/
Thank you to our Sponsors!
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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
Michele Wucker [00:00]
People make an average give or take of 35,000 choices a day. And every one of those choices is a risk and every risk is a choice. But do we think of them as constant risk taking throughout our day? If we do, we become much more self aware about the risks that we’re comfortable with.
Narrator [00:25]
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 [00:47]
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I hope you’re having a fabulous and lovely day and all that fun stuff. Wow, I have just booked myself solid today. I’ve already done two podcasts. I’ve got six appointments with clients and other people. And I’m just trying to keep my energy high for Michelle, who I’m gonna introduce in a minute. But it is it is a show about being that lawyer someone who’s competent, organized and a skilled Rainmaker, and what I try to accomplish is to give you good takeaways, some good actionable items, some things to think about every single show. And hopefully that’s happening I’ve gotten some feedback recently that it is so I’m I’m I think I’m on the right track, but I am always looking for to make improvements. Before we get into the weeds further, I just want to take a moment to thank our sponsors legalese marketing, and of course money Penny, both great partners, for me helping me to grow my business, legalese through the marketing means and money Penny through my online chat. Of course, they also do that virtual reception. So if you’re, you know, tired of paying a full time person to handle the phones and or you’re looking to someone to just make sure that things get on boarded properly, and intake is done properly. Think about money, Penny. So I asked Michelle to give me a quote, and she is not a great quote, person. She’s not interested, she just Eretz like what the soup of the day. So I came up with a quote, I ran it by Michelle. And she was cool with that. So here’s the quote, that Michela love to introduce you into the show and get your take on the quote, The quote is, as Jim Rohn quote, and it is, if you’re not willing to risk the unusual, you’ll have to settle for the ordinary. And I just would love to get like, when you hear that, like what is then welcome to the show, first of all, thank you for coming. And when you hear that, quote, anything jumped to you know, based on you know, your background, and what we’re going to get into anything jump out to you that it’s like, wow, I like that quote, because,
Michele Wucker [02:39]
you know, it speaks to me, because some people are so much more comfortable with new things and change and uncertainty than others. And other people are, are much more comfortable with the usual with the normal. And people tend to equate each of those with taking more risks or taking less risks are fewer risks. And a lot of people don’t realize that, you know, the usual, counting on the usual is actually a much bigger risk than most people think it’s, it’s a case where you really want to take a fresh look, have a new perspective on on the choices that you’re making.
Steve Fretzin [03:19]
And I’m sort of in the, the risk business in some capacity, not only with the stuff I do and try like this podcast, or social media or, you know, just doing different seminars that I just kind of make up out of thin air and then decide to run, but also, you know, lawyers that work with me, you know, they’re taking a risk, they’re, they’re risking an investment of money, time and energy to work with me. And then there’s the risk of it not working, like we work together and it doesn’t work. So I think we, you know, there’s risks that we take in our businesses in our lives, and I want to get into the weeds on risk. And that’s really our topic today. So Michelle Walker is the best selling author and the CEO of gray Rhino. And I’d love to have you give your background to my audience in like, because I think you’re a unique guest on the show. You’re not like a local marketing consultant, like you’re you’re talking at some pretty high levels, about some pretty interesting stuff. So so so you know, give give that that Reader’s Digest for us. Well, you
Michele Wucker [04:19]
know, there’s, there’s not a straight line right now I work as a strategic advisor, a keynote speaker, I do trainings and, and workshops, really getting people to, to take a fresh look at risk, both at why we’re hugely vulnerable to the obvious risks that are coming right at us, but also why some of us are more vulnerable, and others aren’t. And so my work today draws on all sorts of former lives. The first one was as a financial journalist writing about sovereign debt and credit risk, particularly in the emerging markets. From there I went on to run a think tank in New York on a global policy issues, and then came to Chicago to work at another think tank and a Out Loud, it’ll be seven years this summer, I decided it was time to go back to focusing on my on my own ideas. And that’s really where I focused is on these, these big, obvious gray Rhino risks, the big scary things that are coming at you. And that work I introduced at Davos at the World Economic Forum 2013. That came out in the book in 2016. And in 2017, it came out in China, where it’s used at the very highest level, I mean, the very, very highest level to shape financial risk policy, you may have heard it in the news last fall when in the context of a real estate, but so I do a lot of speaking, I used to, in before times do a lot of traveling. And hopefully, we will be doing some more again, around the world really talking to CEOs to policy leaders, but also helping them to work with their teams to get a better risk dynamic, a better risk culture going on in their organizations.
Steve Fretzin [05:59]
And I really was unfamiliar with the term gray Rhino and how it relates to risk. And you shared it with me in our pre call interview. And I’d love for you to kind of explain that to my audience like what is grey Rhino? What why is that? What what does that term mean?
Michele Wucker [06:15]
So the great rhino in the great tradition of Esau is an animal that helps us to understand ourselves better, and to create an emotional connection to something that’s going on. And so really what it’s about is imagining a big Rhino coming right at you. It’s pulling the ground, it’s snorting, and it’s about to charge at you and it gives you a choice, you know, what are you going to do? And it was a way for me to talk about why some decision makers see big scary thing coming and do something about it, and others don’t. It has roots in my work on the Argentinian debt crisis and the Greek debt crisis, Argentina, let themselves get trampled. And Greece kind of got it together. And I wanted to know why. And so rhino is the obvious thing, you know, big scary horn to tons. And it’s great for a couple of very interesting reasons. But the first is that when you go to the zoo, when you’re a kid, you learn that there is a black rhino, and there is a white rhino. And kids get this, they go and they’re like, well, that right? It was gray. It’s not black, it’s not white, you know what gives, and it ought to be obvious that this two ton thing is gray. But instead we call it other things. And for me, that emphasizes how vulnerable we are to getting run over by big obvious thing. So we shouldn’t assume that just because something is there, we know about it, we’ve talked about it, we’re dealing with it effectively. In fact, if it’s something that’s that’s ever present, it’s something that people are talking about, then you probably really need to take a fresh look and understand your response and how you can respond better and understand how vulnerable you really are to that big gray Rhino coming at you.
Steve Fretzin [07:55]
And I’m having like a Monty Python flashback. And this never happened. But like I could see two guys from Monty Python getting in an argument about is it a gray wine, a white rhino, a black rhino, as it just rolls over them, right? And they’re just they’re talking about the semantics of the name and the color. So I get it, I get it really interesting. So I mean, we can talk about lawyers, but before we even get into them, I mean, why why are people so hesitant to take risks? What’s what’s like I, you know, I take risks every day, you know, they’re small risks, but their risks this having this conversation that could go completely south on me, is a risk. Now it’s not going to and I know that for a fact, because I’ve done this now 180 times, and it hasn’t yet. So but that’s a calculated risk. You could say something crazy, and I’d be like, Oh, my God, that’s not what I expected at all. But we’re all taking risks. But But why? Why do people take risks or not take risks?
Michele Wucker [08:51]
Well, you’ve actually illustrated a really good principle about something I call it risk muscle, like developing your muscle for risk taking, that the more you do something, the more knowledge you have about how it works, what might go wrong, and you’ve maybe had a big fumble and have recovered or, you know, didn’t recover, but realize that the world didn’t end. And so the more risks that you take, the better you get out of it. And there are really two sets of answers to that. One is, you know, people in general, are there lots of biases, we have little Gremlins running around in our heads getting in the way of dealing with the gray rhinos coming at us and taking the good risks and not taking the bad risks. And then the other part is that every single person is different. Because you bring different things to risk. Some people see risk as a positive thing. Some people see it as a negative thing. In fact, in workshops, I always ask people these questions. It’s very interesting to see in different careers. Different people have a very, very different mix of answers, but some of them tend to be very positive, like you know, adventure, gamble opportunity, and the other people are like peril, loss danger, and I’m in the middle. I’m like Well, it depends. It could go either way. And a lot of times when people are evaluating whether to take a risk or not, they focus too much on what could go wrong. Not enough on what could go right? And don’t ask them to do so themselves, okay? riskier than what. And what’s interesting is, people make an average, give or take of 35,000 choices a day. And every one of those choices is a risk, and every risk is a choice. But do we think of them as constant risk taking throughout our day, if we do, we become much more self aware about the risks that we’re comfortable with the ones that we aren’t what makes us more comfortable with the risks that we’d like to see ourselves taking what helps pull us back from the ledge, if we’re the kind of person who leaps before we look. And so self awareness about something that you do 35,000 times a day is really important. But most of the time when people talk about risk, it’s not in such a a personal human capacity. And it also doesn’t recognize the huge variability among us, each person is unique in our relationship with risk and the influences on why we make the choices that we do. And the choices that we make, tell the world who we are.
Steve Fretzin [11:21]
And I apologize for generalizing. But I My experience has been lawyers, generally are risk averse. I mean, that’s sort of one of the one of the ways they’re built is, you know, risk averse, and they’re not changes, you know, yeah, they can handle a lot of things at once and multitask, and they can, you know, move, you know, move pretty quickly. But you know, that the legal industry in general has been a very slow moving train. And I think that risk aversion to change has kept it back from where it could be in kind of where it’s going slowly. But have that been evolving? So how do you how do you kind of put lawyers and law firms into this into this space of of risk and their risk aversion?
Michele Wucker [12:02]
Well, first of all, it depends on what kind of lawyer a year contracts lawyer and your litigator, very different profiles true. So you want to know which one which one you’re talking about, then second, I have a huge issue with this, this term risk averse, and risk aversion, often because it’s, it’s applied to certain groups of people, particularly young women, and millennials and Gen Z. And risk averse basically means, under the same circumstances, you’re everything else being equal, you’ll choose the lesser risk. And the problem is that all things are rarely equal. So I’d like to think about it as is more or less risk risk tolerant. The other part of it is that a lot of lawyers try to get to zero risk on a very specific risk that they’re focused on, and completely forget that that’s creating all sorts of unintended consequences, and risks that you haven’t heard of. I mean, I’m sure everyone who’s who’s listening has has seen one of these medical dramas where the lawyers come in and go, don’t say you don’t say you did anything wrong, don’t apologize. And of course, all the family wants is an apology from the doctor, and then they don’t sue. And so there are lots and lots of different risks, you know, by by trying to avoid certain risks, you create other ones. And that’s something that I think lawyers could come to understand much, much more. And the other part is the relationship between lawyers and their clients. And understanding that each client has a very, very different relationship with risks and different tolerances, and different reasons why different things that will help get to get them to the same place where you are, and you know, other things that they’re not going to compromise on. So it’s, it’s something that lawyers should be thinking about all the time, both in their own decisions, but also in their relationships with their clients, who are really who they’re representing what they’re paid to work for.
Steve Fretzin [13:57]
Yes, the risk of the lawyer in the decisions the lawyer makes, and then the risk of the client and in the decisions the client make and how they work together to, you know, not end up with a bad situation.
[14:10]
Absolutely,
Steve Fretzin [14:11]
I was I was on LaSalle street, and I got into an elevator and the door was closing and a guy comes over and just, I mean, it was literally two three inches to close. He jams his arm in there, and it opens back up and he gets in and I look over him I pause for a second I said litigator All right. And he looks at you know, I go because no one else would have jammed their arm into an elevator like that. I certainly wouldn’t have. So but I later thought about I said, You know what, he’s probably in the building and knows like how the elevators work. And then he wasn’t going to like, literally risk his arm. But I didn’t know that at the time. So I just thought he was crazy.
Michele Wucker [14:48]
That’s actually a really good example of how you know risks aren’t always the same. You know, if you’ve never been in the building, you have no idea where the little you know, light detector is right. It would be a bigger For you to stick your arm, but if someone knows exactly where to stick your arm to get it to close, totally different risk, but it’s the same action. And so so think of risk is walking into a room full of funhouse mirrors because you change your perspective just a little bit, and everything looks different. legalese marketing
Jordan Ostroff [15:18]
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[15:39]
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Steve Fretzin [16:08]
you know, and one of the risks that I I’ll just use myself as an example. And then we can move it to the lawyers. But like, there was a time where I was working in over 50 industries, coaching businesses and their sales teams and working with all these entrepreneurs, I had a really good business going and started working with lawyers and and they got to a point where I was like, You know what, here, I’m teaching them to specialize. And I’m not pulling the trigger myself. It’s also a large percentage of my total business, I needed to like make a decision to push my chips in and focus on the legal industry, or make that a segment of professional services and stay kind of vague and all that out there. I took the risk of pushing my chips and changing my name focusing my energies on lawyers 100% best decision I ever made. But it was a risk. It was a risk I took but I felt that I had enough momentum and enough information and experience to make an educated decision and risk. And that’s how I did it. Is that the right time to make a decision? Or take a risk? Or can you do it with last? Or is it
Michele Wucker [17:16]
obviously depending it depending I use, I use that expression a lot, which I’m sure drives a bunch of crazy, but you know, it’s it’s interesting. So you know, great Rhino was about, you know, events, how they unfold and different stages of crisis tend to present different opportunities and different obstacles for overcoming it. So it’s really focused on the events. And then more recently, I wrote you are what you risk, which is about all those influences on you know, on why you do it or not. And I think that that’s, that’s the really important part of, of taking a risk or not i in workshops, I often ask people, you know, what’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken? Because that that tells people so much about who you are? In fact, it’s a great question. If you’re a lawyer, you’re trying to get to know your client, ask them what’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken. And then so all of these journalists would come back to me and I say, okay, Michele smarty pants, what’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken? And I, you know, I had it coming, right. So I would talk, I started explaining a scenario where it was, its first it seemed like a choice between my health and my career. So I started talking them through it, and realized that the risky decision which was, you know, to quit my secure Wall Street job, and go down to the Dominican Republic, and write a book and freelance, because that seems like fairly risky to a lot of people, you know, go someplace where people have a lot of guns and, and, you know, writing about taboo topics, and, but to me, that was actually, the smaller risk. The bigger risk was, you know, feeling that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do. And I felt like if I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do, I would get sick again. So I wouldn’t have my health or my career. So I started after, after, I’d ask people, what’s the biggest risk you’ve taken? Asking them? Okay, what’s the biggest risk that you passed on? That goes back to my question, you know, riskier than what, you know, are you looking only at the upside, you’re looking only at the downside, and you’re really defining what the risk is being aware of possible unintended consequences. I mean, the, if you want to take things to zero risk, that’s fine. But what other risks are you creating? So it’s, it’s a much more complicated, logical process than a lot of people give it credit for
Steve Fretzin [19:36]
is there but is there a simple way? And maybe you’ll tell me now, to figure out the risk, meaning, the simplest way like I’ll give you my thought, and then you give me what is what people really should do. But like, you know, I used to make decisions where I just take a piece of paper I draw a line down the middle pros and cons like that’s, that’s not just risk that’s also like a decision making process but There was a risk this is changing the job. This is continuing to this is my own personal thing is people are gonna think I’m weird, but like dating a girl, there was a girl I was dating and I was like, I’m right on the line, like, do I keep dating? Or do I not do a break it off? Because I’m just not sure. And I did the list. And sure enough, there were many more cons than there were pros. And it helped me make that risk or that decision. Now the next risk was how was I going to do it? That’s a whole other story. Right? But is there? Is there something you teach or talk about as it relates to how people can evaluate risk?
Michele Wucker [20:32]
Absolutely, it starts with self awareness. I mean, that list of pros and cons were things for you. But it also was a list of priorities, things you cared about things that you’re willing to lose things that you wanted to lose things that you wanted to hold on to. And understanding who you are, helps you make those choices. So if you are what you risk, I look at what goes into your choices about risk. And I use a concept called the risk fingerprint. And it’s very much like like a real fingerprint. You know, the in that choice, think of the choices you make as the imprint on the glass at the crime scene. Hopefully you’re not criminal, I found that some of them a little worried. And the prosecutors are like, Yeah, let’s go. But anyway, so So when you think about your fingerprint, though, the reason it’s such a good identifier is that there are genetically determined factors that make the world and the arches in the loops, just like your personality, it’s what you’re born with. And you can’t you can’t change it, it’s who you are, then there are things that happen in your life, you cut your knife with a finger, which is without you cut your finger with a knife, sorry, that that would have been hard to do, but you’ve got your finger with a knife. And that’s actually going to indelibly change your risk fingerprint. And it’s also going to indelibly change the way that you deal with future risks. And it interacts with your personality. I mean, some people are wired so that they cut their finger with the knife, and it bleeds and they wrap it up. They’re like, I did it, I survived. And they know that, you know, they’ll be fine. And they’ll keep doing the same thing. And other people will be like, nice, no, no, no, nice. Yeah, so some people shrink back after a risk that goes wrong. And some people treated really, really as building a muscle. So you have these experiences that happen to you and interact with your personality. Yeah, and then the third part is the most interesting. And I think it’s where we can really apply the principles the most. And that is the things that you have control of. So if you have someone who’s a manual laborer, their fingerprint is going to have calluses all over it. But somebody who uses soft, sweet, raw shea butter lotion on their hands, is also going to have a very different thing or pray or, you know, if you’re hot and sweaty, it’s going to be smudge, there’s a you got my drift. So, so in real life, that involves actually some physical environment things, there’s some research showing that when it’s cold, you’re likely to be more risk tolerant and risk seeking. If you eat spicy food for lunch, you’re going to be more risk seeking. So you know, if you have a really, really conservative client and you want to get them to be a little bit more aggressive, turn up the AC, take him to a Thai food or the spicy Spicy dish and turn on Green Day or something. You know, with you know, big, big up tempo, because, you know, the Beatles music has been shown to increase risk taking as well. So real quick,
Steve Fretzin [23:28]
real quick. I like to watch other people eat spicy foods like hot ones on YouTube. And I like to see how much they can handle. What does that tell you about my risk? I like to watch people eating foods, spicy foods.
Michele Wucker [23:41]
But you know, it’s funny. I went to high school in college in Texas and I had a housemate in college who moved from Texas to California. And you know, people in Texas kind of looked down at Cal Mex food. And anyway so she had these roommates in California and they were talking about some salsa they had Oh these so spicy so hot off. She’s like no it’s not Oh hot. Finally she takes up the bull drinks the whole thing puts it down says it’s not spicy and but that’s that’s another example of you know, risk muscle or tolerance. I mean you you’re used to eating spicy things in Texas so and you know, there are actually stereotypes about people who likes spicy food and who eat spicy food or you look at you know, like Thailand, Mexico, you know, places that have lots of spicy food. And of course spices in the beginning were were meant one to disguise the flavor if something was a little off but you really needed you to eat anyway, but also in some cases they would kill the little nasties in there. So in some ways they’re increasing the risk and otherwise they’re they’re decreasing the risk. So there’s some really interesting evolution there in how we came to stereotypes about the spicy food but but that aside
Steve Fretzin [24:51]
yeah with the with the fingerprint and it sounds like that for lawyers that want it for getting back to like the the point of the show and the moral the you know, the kind of the key Go back to what the show is. Lawyers generally are risk averse on business development, marketing, branding, they don’t put themselves out there, there’s a lot of fear and anxiety about putting your personal life business life and putting them out there for everyone to see. It could be a negative, you could post something that gets negative feedback. There’s there’s so so but but is the key then to do to do small amounts take taste the salsa, taste the hot sauce, get comfortable with it do a little more do a little more is that the way to kind of overcome the risk aversion in any specific area.
Michele Wucker [25:36]
That’s one part of it. The other part is to figure out what makes you more comfortable. So that that’s why you know, if you’re in a room with a pleasant color, you’ll feel more confident, more comfortable, the people you surround yourself with, I mean, none of us has all the expertise, we need to do whatever. Do you surround yourself with people who can give you the answers that you need that you can be confident in? Do you have a safety net? You know, do you have a rainy day fund in the bank? Or, you know, what are all the other factors? You know, what do you have to lose, there’s research showing that people who feel like they have the most to lose, and the least to lose, are the ones who are going to take the biggest, biggest risks, you know, to the outside. And your the other part is the other people in the room around you, what are they doing, you know, our peers influence the risks that we take, or, or not. So I think that’s all all of those come together. And so being aware of what’s influencing your risk decisions, you can make some longer term decisions, but you know, change some of the processes, change your social circle, hire some people fire some people, you know, change the temperature in the room, do things like that, to put yourself in the right place. And and of course, that environment is really going to depend on your personality, and the experiences that you’ve had those. It’s all three of these parts that go together. But I think also about lawyers and their, their desire to take risks down to zero. And so in the 1990s, I was a freelance journalist and dealt with a lot of writers contracts. And this was before that to cnav New York Times lawsuit, whereby, you know, a lot of writers got payouts from the from papers and magazines that had been selling their stuff to databases without the rights to do it. And yeah, I got some payouts from that, thank you, Jonathan to see me. But after that, lawyers started writing into contracts, that, you know, you are giving away rights to this in, in any media, you know, here or in the future ever known. And, yeah, imperfect, you know, so I’m like, Okay, I’m one of the squeaky wheels, just like No Not gonna happen. And when I was publisher of a magazine, many years ago, our publishing partner wanted us to do that. And I was like, No, I can’t get the writers that I want. So here’s the risks, here’s, you know, that at some point in the future, there might be some medium where you have to deal with the revenue, or you can’t get the top star that you want right now, because some lawyer wanted to reduce that risk to zero. And I, you know, actually, recently, somebody showed me a contract there, where they wanted the rights to all of the background material, to in fact, there have been a couple places with different versions of this that are presented to me, that went all the rights to all those background material of what I was presenting, unlike, that means you have you have a license to, you know, sell my book and take the royalties to sell my books and keep the royalties to use my ideas. And I’m like, no, no, I’m not gonna do that. Yeah, and, you know, so it’s very interesting to see that, that lawyers sometimes try so hard to reduce certain risks without really thinking about the probability that those are going to come come to pass. Yeah, also, you know, the cost of what they are demanding. And they’re also often demanding things that, you know, their clients don’t even really need. So if you know, it is, it is all about the people taking risks, all along the chain of relationships. So that’s why it’s so important as a lawyer to understand where your clients are coming from, where the people that they’re relying on are coming from, to be really, really aware of what’s, what’s important to them, and what’s not what risk they’re willing to take and other ones that they’re not.
Steve Fretzin [29:22]
Yeah. So I think I think at the end of the day, you know, everybody’s gonna have their own level of risk that they’re willing to take, but it sounds like there’s a number of things that people can do to take more risks, because there’s there is an upside, I mean, right, the ordinary versus the unusual that the, you know, the, the growth versus the stagnation. And so I think everyone’s gonna have a different level of their comfort with that. But the ones that can that can get there are going to end up probably in a better place than the ones that don’t that end up in that zero, that zero net gain of, of never taking a risk
Michele Wucker [29:58]
and being big Beware of it because not taking a risk is taking a risk. It’s sort of circular logic, you’re, you’re actually taking a risk by thinking that you’re not taking one there’s, there’s a bunch of stories in your universe, including a young couple, who, who took their kids, that they sold their house, which their parents kind of pushed them into buying, they couldn’t really afford it. And they had almost gone broke during the great financial crisis. And so they decided that they were going to unload the house, they had two young kids who they wanted to see the world. So they sold everything and started off on this trip around the world. In February 2020. Some things were going around around that time, I’m sure. Very interesting time to be traveling around the world, and all their family members were like, you know, what, what about the kids? Are they gonna go in school and, and, you know, my friends took off? Well, what didn’t you know, they end up in New Zealand, like the safest place in the world, for most of the pandemic, their kids were in school the whole entire time. Because they took what seemed like a really big risk, and somehow they ended up in in a much safer place. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [31:10]
Really cool stuff. Let’s, let’s wrap up on that. And I just want to mention, you know, like, with the quote at the beginning, I had asked you for for a book route book recommendation, and you were like, you know, other than your two great books,
Michele Wucker [31:24]
too risky for me, I just can’t make that choice. And there’s a lot of risks I take and I’ll tell people don’t take like think of risk taking like a portfolio, there’s some parts of your life where you take bigger risks, or it’s important and there are other parts of your life, you know, where you’re not going to be as comfortable you don’t want to get there. So I’m like, picking favorites is an area where I just do not take risks. Well, I’m
Steve Fretzin [31:46]
taking a risk right now by saying a game changing book everybody is called legal business development isn’t rocket science, pick it up on Amazon over 50 chapters of tips and ideas to grow your law practice things that you hear on the show, but in writing and you can take lots of notes so there there’s my risk of being self self promoter. Anyway, listen, I want to thank you so much for being on the show. If people want to reach out to you they want to grab your books either you are what you risk or gray Rhino or just reach out to you directly how do they get in touch
Michele Wucker [32:16]
you can find me on LinkedIn Michelle Walker, I have a semi regular column there. My website is the gray rhino.com gray with an A the E will get you there but the A gets you there faster. I’m on Twitter at Walker Wu C ke R and you know I love to hear from people I got an email yesterday from from a trader who is using a lot of my great ideas, great Rhino ideas and I was just so touched that you took the time to reach out and say that it had been useful to him. So I really would love to hear from from people.
Steve Fretzin [32:48]
Well fantastic. Well and you know, your wisdom is so appreciated. And this is just such a unique topic for for this show. We’ve never had anyone on to talk about this this specific subject I think you just absolutely nailed it. So I just thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your wisdom with my audience. My pleasure. Thank you. Yeah, everybody. Come on. Are you kidding me? This Michelle’s the real deal. We had a lot of fun and hopefully you got some good thoughts about about how you take risks or don’t take risks and up and downside of that and some really interesting stuff. Again, you know, just more ways than that not to be that lawyer, someone who’s confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Be well be safe, take care, and we’ll talk again soon.
Narrator [33:34]
Thanks for listening to be that loyal, 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