What if the universe really is trying to tell you something—but most of us are too busy to listen? Joe Fried was a cop who never planned on being a lawyer, until a judge pulled him aside and changed his life. He walked away from a lucrative practice, burned the boats, and five hours later got a call that set his destiny in motion. In our conversation, he shares why chasing money is the wrong path, why fear can be your greatest teacher, and how specializing can make you unstoppable. What would happen if you stopped playing it safe and committed fully to one path?

And it's, that's an amazing story to me. It's just call it luck, coincidence, whatever you wanna call it. But it's almost destiny really, the way I view it.

Like, you're building a life, not just a practice.

Welcome to the Founding Partner Podcast. Join your host, Jonathan Hawkins, as we explore the fascinating stories of successful law firm founders. We'll uncover their beginnings, triumph over challenges, and practice growth. Whether you aspire to launch your own firm, have an entrepreneurial spirit, or are just curious about the legal business, you're in the right place.

Let's dive in.

Joe Fried: Yeah, I look, I look, thanks for the warm introduction. I, I I look forward to it. And this is, we, we've tried to make this happen a few times, so I'm glad we finally getting to do it. It's gonna be

Jonathan Hawkins: I, I know you're a busy guy that we were talking to before. You travel a lot, so, I appreciate taking the time, but, so I wanna go a little bit. On your background, we won't spend too much time there. I know you've talked about it in the past, but I do think it's important to sort of lay that out there.

So, like I said, you are considered one of the top trucking lawyers in the country. It's a niche that we'll get into that later. But before you became a lawyer you were in law enforcement and I'm curious sort of how did you get started there and how did you sort of make the shift into the law?

And just so happened that Fulton County, Georgia got one of the first grants to start a DUI task force in, in the country. And so they had an active DUI task force. I became I had been working for a senator as a intern and I changed my internship to go work for the police department to try to see what that was about.

And it makes it a little easier for them to get their credits. Kinda like CLE credits for lawyers. Law enforcement has to do that too. So, I've been in addition to teaching a lot of lawyers, I'm, I'm now teaching some law enforcement folks about, about that as well. So that, that's the short version with the way I transitioned out of that into law is I literally, I was plugging away doing my own thing and a judge who I was in front of a lot, asked to see me, I thought I was in trouble. And I went in and he basically said, what the hell are you doing? And I said, what do you mean? I thought I was doing a good job. He said, no, you're doing a great job as a police officer, but I'm kind of wondering what you're doing. And I said, again, I, it was lost on me what he was [00:05:00] insinuating, said, you know, you should really think about, you know, maybe, you know, going to law school.

And I, I had actually thought I'd, I'd be a doctor someday. Which it was interesting 'cause about that same time I was re, kind of blowing the dust off of how to apply to go to medical school. And I had spent a lot of time in courtrooms at that point in time, and I kind of had seen that, you know, who your lawyer is does make a big difference.

And justice is not blind. And he really encouraged me and kind of pushed me. And over the course of about a year, I got all my stuff worked out. I ended up getting a scholarship to finish my undergraduate school, which was worth more than my law enforcement pay at the time. So that's what, how it all kind of moved.

So long story, but that's

Jonathan Hawkins: I didn't know. I did not know that you've been a judge. That's, that's, that's cool. You know, it's funny when you look back in your life the moments or the people that come sort of come along at that right time and sort of push you in a way that maybe, you know, I don't know if you'd ever thought about being a lawyer before, but you know, whoever this person was really sort of put you on the path and you know, you are where you are now.

Joe Fried: Well, it's funny 'cause I, I, you know, you also don't forget certain things. So something crazy that recently happened, literally I'm cleaning out some boxes in my house, you know, I don't know if anybody else has had this experience, but you move from one house to the other house and then you kind of really never unpack some boxes.

It said, I'm gonna go to law school and I'm gonna go to the University of Georgia Law School. That's where I ended up going. But you asked me before that, I said I never even thought about it. That was not even really in my, so, you know, it's funny how the, the mind works. You know, you, you remember some things very definitively and other things may be set much earlier in life and they just come, you know, you, you, you don't even, they're not in your car in awareness.

But it was crazy. I'm reading this, reading this autobiography of myself written by, you know, a teenage version of me and I'm like, holy smokes. I mean, some of this stuff was like, I had no idea. I thought about that in high school.

Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, that's, that's a real treasure. That's cool. That's really cool.

Joe Fried: I'm gonna let anybody else read it, but it's cool.

Jonathan Hawkins: who knows what else is in there, right.

Sex while I was in high school. So there, there you go.

Jonathan Hawkins: nice.

Joe Fried: than I need to share, but

Jonathan Hawkins: We'll, we'll publish that posthumously. Uh, so I, you know, I wanna fast forward a little bit in your legal career, but I Did you start on the defense side or did you start out on the plaintiff side? Most plaintiff's lawyers.

Joe Fried: I didn't, I I, I'm, I'm the only person in my law firm who never spent any time on the defense side other than a summer internship. I, I clerked for a, for a defense firm Holland Knight. It was called a Branch Pike in Gans at the time here in Atlanta. But other than that I was in Savannah was in my clerkship.

I got a gift from the secretary, actually, who I worked with that summer. And I called her to say thank you for the gift. And she said, oh, I'm now working for this small little firm. It's great. I love it. And I said, you know, keep me in mind. 'cause someday I see myself more the small firm guy than the big firm guy.

We kind of hung up the phone and she contacted me the next week and she said, you know, there was a blow up at the firm. Somebody became a partner, somebody left. They have an opening and I've scheduled you to come talk to him. Like, what? You know, I'm like, so I went and talked to the judge I was working for at the time, and he said he did a little hunting and pecking and he said, you know, if you really, if you wanna be a trial lawyer, this is a great firm.

And so I went and met with him and once, you know, so I ended up, that's how I became a plaintiff's lawyer. Literally. I was scheduled to go work somewhere else as a defense lawyer and the universe lined up in this direction and it's been a good ride.

Joe Fried: I clerked for Avant Edenfield, who was a federal judge down there. Kind of not fairly notorious during his tenure as being kind of a tough, tough judge. And he was, he was a tough employer, also judge. But he also became a very important person in my life. Became a mentor behind both while I was there and for many, many years after.

Jonathan Hawkins: I, clerked down there maybe a few years after you did for, it was John Ningle, he uh, transferred down there from St. Louis

Joe Fried: I know, I know Kristen Denmark clerked for him. Do you know Kristen by

Jonathan Hawkins: I don't,

Joe Fried: Yeah, she was there. And yeah, he, he was a sharp dressed man. He was always dressed well. He I remember him well. He was a very kind man. I remember his pictures on his wall of JFK of him and JFKI remember.

Well, he was, he was a. Quite, he was, he, he was actually quite an amazing man. His background was tremendous.

Joe Fried: some time.

Jonathan Hawkins: such a good experience. Edenfield was, was there, I didn't, I didn't really socialize with him so much, but I was scared to go in his chambers.

Joe Fried: Yeah, I, I don't blame you. That's why I was hiding over in angles, chambers. he was, he was very, very kind to me. And I had a I had a friend who was clerking for him at the time, so,

Jonathan Hawkins: yeah. That's cool. So you started out in Plaintiffs Law. I know you, sort of started out in Med Mal but then, you know, what I really wanna talk about is sort of your journey on what you call, or what I've heard you say, sort of hyper specialization. And, you know, before you sort of did the trucking niche practice, you had a different niche practice.

So maybe take me through, you know, sort of how that sort of developed and maybe your thought process if it was on purpose or sort of by accident or maybe a little both.

You know, like when I look around this room and thinking, you know, I don't have the. Credentials, so to speak. I don't have the background that so many of these people have.

I mean, like that guy's related to the governor and you know, that guy has a billion dollar verdict and that guy's a third generation lawyer and you know, all the things that I'm not, I remember looking around and seeing that person's much taller than me and has better hair.

And that person's, you know, I mean, you know, just all the things that we, we see as defects in ourselves, I was hyper aware of. In that moment. They all kind of came together. so from that place, I remember somebody saying to me how can you be an expert in something? Or what does it take to be an expert in something?

And so I literally, within days, I went down to the CLE office for the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association. I said, who runs the CLE stuff? and I got myself put on that committee and I started learning about CLE and how, what makes a good speaker and what makes a, you know, good presenter and good topics.

So, so all of that is to say that what I've learned from that whole process was first starting out feeling like a generalist, felt like an impossible task. Like, how do I get known for something was what felt impossible. And so, so niching down what I started to realize was, okay, so it's easier to get to be remembered for something.

you zero in on something very, very specific, it's easier for them to remember you. So you're your, ten second elevator, you know, speech is, you know, I handle cases that are like the old Pinto case where somebody smacks into some vehicle from behind and catches on fire. Oh, you're the car fire guy.

Yeah. And for a long time, that was my first niching down really was I zeroed in on car fires and, and then, you know, so at that point what I realized, and I'm sort of talking over myself here, but even when you say something like medical malpractice, that's already really broad.

Now, they may have changed, but the, process of that kind of a case, you have to become an expert not only in being a lawyer, but in the underlying subject matters. And so when I did fuel system integrity cases, the post collision fire cases, I mean, it's been 20 years since I've handled one of those cases.

And I could still, you name the car, I'll draw you the fuel containment system and tell you how it protects itself, you know, from collisions. I mean, because that's what I did for a long, long time. So I feel like I have a PhD in fuel system engineering for automobiles. I feel like I have a PhD. And in birth trauma cases.

And if you're like me, and you've heard me say that my life to some degree has been an exercise in fear management, right? And I, and I know I'm, I say that and people say, no, that's not true about you, Joe. I, I know. Well, it is true about me. I may not show it now, but, but even now, I'm a scared little boy and I'm just trying to manage my way through this thing called life.

And I'm better at it now because I've had some experiences. But I, I bet that a lot of your listeners. Share that with me because I've, truthfully, I've never really met a human being who doesn't, who whose life isn't to some degree in exercise and fear management. So if you're like me and you feel like, you know, the world is too big for me to get known in one way to deal with that is to make the world smaller.

Because, you know, if I was gonna handle 10, 15, 20 cases, I needed the geography to let that happen. The cool thing was because of the specialization and, and attending. That's why I tell the stories together, the idea of teaching. Because of successes that I had as a lawyer early on in car fire cases, I got put on stages across the United States.

And even today, even, even as late as within the last week and a half, I got a phone call from somebody saying, Hey, aren't you the car fire guy? Said, no, no, no, that was me a long time ago. You know, and well, will you handle this case, this gray case? I said, Nope, that's not what I do anymore, but I'll tell you who to go to, right?

Regular people named jurors and presenting if I truly am an expert in the su, in the underlying in the underlying subject matter, whatever it is. So that's, that's how it kind of comes together.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I'm a I'm a big believer in a niche practice. Love it. And you spoke about fear. A lot of lawyers out there are scared. They're like, if I go down in too long small of a niche, I'm gonna lose all this work and I'm not gonna have enough.

He goes, yeah, but nobody, that's not gonna work. I said, okay, well if you, if you don't wanna do it, I'll do it. It's just me. I believe it'll work. and you know, here we are, you know, 20, almost 20 years later,

Jonathan Hawkins: yeah. Great, great segue. So you went from one and you said, all right, I'm tired of doing that. I'm gonna go to another one. And you know, the. Now, it seems to me and others, it seems obvious, oh yeah, trucking, everybody wants to be a trucking lawyer. But back when you did it,

it was not obvious obvi, you know, now that, you know, Goldberg was saying, don't do it. And not only that, so you went into something that was not obvious at the time. You burned the boats and started turning away the fire car fire cases, right.

Then, you know, eight or nine years later, trial, you know, later, a bunch of cases later, they called me and they said that, you know, they were gonna change the design. I knew that, 'cause I'd gotten thrown out of the Detroit auto show the week before where I climbed under the new Mustang that had the, you know, the little revolving platform with the pretty girl and the car.

And I got pulled out from under there, promptly thrown out. But I saw the design, you know, and, and so long and short of it is Ford came down and they, they resolved the cases that I had outstanding with me and, and, so it wasn't just a, a choice that I was tired of what was happening before I had accomplished what I, what I had wanted to accomplish in that field.

I handled a, a, real estate brokerage dispute case. I handled a number of things. And then for a couple of weeks leading up to a particular day, everything I saw was truck crashes. Like I literally drove by a truck crash. I turned on the news and there was a truck crash. I even got on an airplane and somebody had left a transportation topics magazine, which is like the industry, you know, rag, if you will open to a safety related issue, trucking safety. And I was like, oh, you know, I mean, what, what's going on here? You know, like, and so I made a decision late one night, literally three o'clock one morning that I think this is what I'm supposed to do. I went into the office and started what you call burning the bridges.

People thought it was totally crazy for just throwing that away. Sometimes I think it was crazy to throw it away. I should have maybe tacked this on, but for me, the commitment to burn the bridge was the commitment to success, right? Like by saying, I'm not giving myself an option to not succeed here.

You know, meanwhile, I, you know, did some truck driving school. I started studying the industry at a, as much of a level as I could, and found that it was such a unique, interesting industry, that it was the perfect place to become a subject matter expert. At the time, you know, nobody was in nobody that I knew was focused on truck crash cases.

There wasn't a single billboard out there for truck crash cases. There wasn't a, nobody was on the radio marketing for truck crash cases or anywhere. And in fact, you know, I literally, I got laughed at by several people saying, you're never gonna be able to build a practice in this area. It's just car crashes.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so

Joe Fried: process.

Jonathan Hawkins: I do wanna talk about the teaching aspect, but before we do, I, I heard, I heard in one interview that, you know, you, removed yourself, you started turning case away, telling people a truck, trucking lawyer, and then. Like very shortly after you made the decision in your mind a trucking case like

I, after the Ford stuff happened, I left my practice that I'd been with for 15 years. And so I was just, it was just me. So a, a friend of mine let me have an office in his office space, and I was literally waiting for my one person who was my paralegal slash everything person to come into the office to tell her what my, you know, latest sort of, midlife crisis was, was developing as, and the phone rang and this person asked for me by name.

I asked her, she even pronounced my name right. I asked her how she knew, you know, what had happened. And she told me that her husband had died that earlier that morning. So about the same time that I was making my decision her husband died on the side of the road involving a, crash.

There were trucking cases and it's the only thing I would take, you know, at that point I made the commitment and I took some, some of those early cases that I took, I took for the most ridiculous fee splits in the world. I mean, like, you know, I'll make 10% on your case and you can have all the rest of it.

I just want my name associated with trucking. I just want my name on trucking cases. And so it was, that's all it was. It was an effort to learn and to become associated with trucking in every way.

And that's an amazing story to me. It's just call it luck, coincidence, whatever you wanna call it. But it's almost destiny really, the way I view it.

Look forward to really being a subject matter expert in, in it. The, I promise you, the money takes care of itself. If you, if you zero in and that's a great way to live life because now you're, you know, you're, you're serving other people at the same time. You're serving your own ego, you know, in the pro, in the process. But I, I can't emphasize it enough because I get a lot of people coming to me and saying, Hey, I wanna be a truck crash lawyer just like you. And when I say, well, oh really? Just tell, why do you wanna do that? The only thing that really comes outta their mouth is some version of, you make a lot of money.

I mean, maybe that'll work out for you, but you know, it's anyway, I hope I've made my point. that it's so important to find that it's so much more important than the money.

Jonathan Hawkins: it's a great point. And I, I tell lawyers, younger lawyers, you know, it's a long career. Pick something that's gonna keep you interested for a long time because otherwise it's gonna be miserable.

Joe Fried: And I'm also proof positive that you can also reinvent yourself in the middle of success or what doesn't feel like success. You know, it's like, and one of the concepts I live my life with now is that, you know, you're, you're the central feature in your own movie, right?

You own story. You're the, you're the star of your own production, right? It's almost like we're living in a multiplex movie theater and we're sitting in a movie called Our Life. And what we don't realize sometimes until it's too late is if you don't like the, if you don't like that life, get up and get in a damn go, go, go down the hall to another movie theater.

Remember, I, I started out in our discussion saying, I handled a, a fair labor standards. That case I handled a, you know, broker liability case or, or, or broker real estate brokerage case. I, I handled a couple of business dispute case. I, I was, I was feeling my way around in those places. I was looking for what made sense to me, which was something that I could sink my teeth in that other people weren't all over already, and that I could actually go and become a subject matter expert in, in a relatively short period of time.

So I think part of this also is, do you enjoy being that person? Do you want to be the generalist? And I have a, I have a couple of good friends. I just had a, I just had a dinner the other day with a couple of lawyers. I'm not gonna mention their name only because. I, I don't have permission to do so. And, and but they're nationally known, you know, guys who, everybody would know their name.

That's what I do. And I said, all, all the more power to you. I, I like to think of myself as the gunslinger, but no, I like to have the underlying subject matter expertise. And so there's, there's not one way to do this thing called the practice of law. And that's why you, that's why I think your podcast is so powerful.

People get to see that there's not one way to do it. And, and those who are listening to this. You know, they may even some, some people may very legitimately say, that's not, I don't wanna spend 90 hours in the next 90 days. That's not what I wanna do. I'd rather spend 90 hours in the next 90 days just perfecting how to be the best cross examiner I can be.

Jonathan Hawkins: great advice.

Real quick. Thanks for listening. If you're getting any value out of this podcast, please take two seconds to hit the subscribe button and leave a five star review. It would really mean a lot to me. Now back to the show.

Jonathan Hawkins: I do wanna circle back to the, the, the speaking and teaching aspect of, of your career really. But it's also, you know, I think the act of teaching to someone else really helps internalize it for yourself. But you know, I know you do this, you said you, you give a hundred presentations a year, which is awesome. You know, how did you, especially when you switched to the trucking and you really were not an expert early on, how did you get the speaking engagements and how did you get out there?

So, by the time I came to trucking, I'd been a pretty prolific CLE person. I spoke, you know, within the first year after I started doing working on CLE, you know, programming. I, I remember, you know, being asked to speak on a, on a, I think the first one I ever did was a med mal.

Like survey of the law, you know, like the, the, the subject nobody wanted, I'll do it, you know? And then, you know, we worked into other things, so, but by the time I came to trucking, I had been on the national stage for a while in the auto product side. I'd spoken all over the place on and, you know, was put onto some pretty, pretty good committees.

You're, you're on billboards, you're on, you know, social media constantly, you're on tv, radio, all those kind of things. And you see the person who is the client. As the person who got injured in a crash, for instance, or if you're a criminal defense lawyer, the, the person who's charged with something or, you know, whatever, you're the, your actual consumer of the legal goods or you're gonna be like, me, who, who doesn't really want to do that?

Right? Competent to handle the case, has experience with the case, but it also serves the business to business side because the people who are sitting in the audience listening to you speak and teach are lawyers. So those, if you do a particularly good job, some of those lawyers are going to find a need and they call you and disassociate associate you on cases.

Hopefully that answers the question, but, but you know, I think that, you know, teaching, again, it's like the other thing. If I didn't love doing it, it should be a grueling life. I do this much of it because I love it. I mean, to me it's, it's the way that I feel like I've made the most impact, both gen, both in trucking and in just the practice of law.

And these days, you know, I've kind of become the old man lawyer now, so people are willing to listen to me about, you know, sort of some of the things that I've learned as a human being along this path as well, which I'm also enjoying a lot, you know, so it almost crossing over into coaching, but in the context of teaching, if that makes sense.

Jonathan Hawkins: Mm-hmm.

Joe Fried: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, in addition to just giving presentations, you also created sort of a national trucking association. I, I can't

What, what are you thinking? What, what would you answer to that?

We do a, we do I think, the best trucking educational programming that you can get anywhere because of it's a nonprofit. I don't make any money from it. It costs me money every year. But that's not true anymore. It doesn't cost me money anymore, but it did for quite a long time, so much so that it became part of my vernacular.

So I'm very proud of the organization. But, but so for me, you know, I, I set out at the beginning with a goal that I wanted to impact safety in the trucking world. And I saw, saw it as ripe for improvement and I saw it as not easily changeable because we don't have a law enforcement community that's big enough to change it.

This wasn't, this is not a class action ripe kind of an environment. These are single event situations. And so I fought that concept of am I just gonna teach all my stuff to other people and then they're not gonna need me? And there is, there's the allure of hoarding and saying, I'm just gonna be the expert and I'll present myself as the expert, but I'm not gonna share.

But then counterbalance to that was this internal sort of, north Star that said, look, are, is this about you or is this about really trying to impact safety? Or is that BS or is that real? And there were times when it was real and times when it was bs, if I'm really honest. Like, there's times when I'd be there.

But I knew that if I taught that I could, it's the only way if I could build an army of people who knew how to do this, then we would make an, we would make a difference. And I'm so glad that that won out because now, you know, we have this organization of 2000 lawyers. Every one of those lawyers has been taught things that I, that, that I helped at least develop, if didn't develop on my own.

And then I've learned from so many of those people also. So I don't want to. I don't want to hoard the attention for it. I mean, I've learned, I've taught, I've learned, I've taught it's iterations. It keeps getting better. At this point, it's, it's much bigger than me and any of the original people who were in it, it's now really has legs of its own.

And I've got more experience than anybody else does, and I've done it more than anybody else has. So I'm, I'm the best guy. Now, if I'm being honest, I have to admit, there are people who are at least my equals, if not better than I am in terms of, they, they, they're, they're just as creative as I am. They're just as experienced as I am.

They've been doing this now for a number of years. Many of whom have been, my, my mentees, people I've brought into the, into this and coached up and mentored up. And so I have in a lot of ways given away and I'm, I'm not shy about it. There's nothing that I hold onto as a secret sauce. If I learn it, I teach it.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, for, for anybody that listens to you talk, you know now, and, and your other. Interviews are probably on stages too. You know, it's very clear that you're, you're very introspective at peace. You seem to be at peace with yourself and really know yourself. All, all aspects of yourself, and you're honest.

Joe Fried: I got you fooled.

Jonathan Hawkins: have you always been this way or,

Joe Fried: don't feel like me at all. You just describe somebody I want to be someday. But

Jonathan Hawkins: you know, I mean, it's, it feels like you've done a lot of inner work.

Joe Fried: true.

And it's a worthy thing if you're willing to go through the process of self-exploration. You know, I'm, I don't feel like I'm, I know that I'm kind of the same human being that I was, let's say in 2002, 2003 when I really started to very actively go on this journey. But I also feel like I'm a totally different human being and, and even most, mostly in the last, let's just say four years or so of time, which has been a very concerted effort.

And, and I don't know, I, I'm losing my words to how to talk about it, but hopefully I'm making the point. I've largely lost any kind of outcome orientation, so it's not really about outcome anymore, it's about process.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, and you mentioned earlier that at least when you were younger, you were very sort of fear-based. Maybe I'm, I'm misquoting you, but you know, the inner work, that's scary stuff. How did you get over. Sort of the, maybe you did not have any fear, but you know, I'm thinking of myself. It just seems very scary that you turn inward and you, and you're looking under those rocks that maybe you don't wanna look under,

uh, and pulling it out, you know?

Joe Fried: Well, it's I'm still getting through it. And, you know, I believe now where I am now, it's, it is not really about getting over fear. It's about making friends with fear. I know that, that may sound funny, but you know, we, we, as a human animal, we're constantly looking to, you know, avoid feeling something that feels bad, whatever that is.

Well, you can change your relationship with things and they no longer feel bad. They feel like opportunities instead of feeling like punishment. Or some people who hear that know exactly what I'm talking about, you know, like where it feels like, you know, I'm reap reaping the negative consequence of some action that those are usually stories we're telling ourselves.

And who has had lessons for me to learn along the path of life. and that's true not only of fear, but all kinds of other things too. Feelings of rejection, feelings of aloneness, feelings of depression, feelings of anxiety. All of those are my friends and my teachers. Now, they're not things I look to avoid.

Jonathan Hawkins: so I wanna uh, I'll tell you about a fear that I have. I wanna get your, your point of view. So, you know, to, I mean, you've had a ton of financial success. You know, you've hit big verdicts, all these sorts of things. And you've got kids. And so, you know, a fear that maybe I have and I think others have is, you know, how do you instill in your kids the grit or the whatever and not. Spoil them and all these things when they're exposed to perhaps things that, you know, we didn't have as kids or whatever. I don't know.

Do you have any thoughts on that or any advise.

And your concept of what it is to be a dad and what the duties and responsibilities are of a parent. And all of that is a story that you tell yourself right about. So you, you could change your relationship with that because what you're, what you're really trying to avoid is something that feels like screwing up.

And it's gonna continue to reinforce this impossible thing that you're trying to create. I mean, 'cause the, the, the sort of nature of life is uncertainty. And yet there's this part of all of us that above all else, wants to create some kind of certainty 'cause it feels safer. And you know, what my coaches would say is you're not really afraid of the unknown.

You're afraid of the story that you're putting into the unknown, which is you're later in life screwed up kid who, who's looking back at you and saying, if you didn't put me in first class when I was nine years old, I wouldn't be like this right now. Which of course is the story they're telling themselves.

And have you had, have you seen kids of parents who totally went the other way? They, restricted everything from their children and they came out all screwed up. And of course, the answer to both of those is yes. And it just shows you that we're only a piece of the puzzle in this. So to me, what's more important than whether you give to your children or you don't give to your children is can you truly model unconditional love for your children so that they have a sense of what that's like?

But we're, it's really about teaching our kids to. Not, it ke to me it's about, at this point I know how to say this, I'm kind of talking all over myself. It's about like, I'm gonna go back to another coaching lesson that I took me a while to accept. And that's the idea that to the degree that you require external validation is the degree, the degree to which you require external validation is the degree to which you're not really free, right?

Because, so e, even in this case, when you say, I've gotta have my kids turn out a certain way in order for me to be okay, it's not for them to be okay. It's actually for you to be okay so that you don't feel like a shitty father you need. So you're putting this pressure on yourself to be this perfect father.

I'm going to think about this, I'm gonna talk to my significant other about, you know, these kind of things. And then we're just gonna, we're gonna do the best we can with what we do, and sometimes we're gonna screw it up. Probably what, you know, and, and that it's okay. I hate to say it that way, but you know, like who do you get to be if you can let go of this worry and just be in relationship with your child?

Does that make sense?

Jonathan Hawkins: it. Does it, and I'll, I'll say this maybe to your point a little bit. So I have twins. So they, they're, they come from the same gene pool. They grew up in the exact same what's that?

Joe Fried: They're totally different though,

And so, you know, definitely you give yourself some, some grace and you're like, yeah, it's, it's not all my fault. So

Joe Fried: no,

Jonathan Hawkins: they're gonna be what they're gonna be.

Joe Fried: it's really almost none. Now, that doesn't mean you don't pour into them, but you know, so like the real, at the basic, basic level, you know, what's the most important way to, to, like, I really believe like, you know, when I mean our kids, we teach our children to be externally validated. We teach them from the time they're little kids.

We teach them, you're only as cute as your mommy says you are so act cute. You're only as smart as your, your parents or your teacher says you are. You're only as likable as your friend group says you are. You're only, as you know, everything is based on an external validator. And, the most healthy human beings I know are people who are the most internally validated.

So, I imagine what life can be like if you don't need the external validator in order to feel okay, to feel worthy, to feel smart, to feel pretty, to feel whatever it is that you feel deficient in, what if you stop putting it on the world to make you feel one way or the other and just create the internal.

Way of feeling that way, right? I mean, I know this, it's a radical way of thinking, but it's actually not any more radical than the way been, we've been doing it all along and it goes back to the parenting thing now. It's just about just be the best you that you can be and be an honest relationship with your child, including accepting that you don't really know how to be the best parent.

And if we made the wrong decision, how are we gonna define it as wrong? Maybe we made the wrong decision so we could both learn something from it so that next time in a really important situation, we handle it in a different way. So I have a crazy thought and that's that you've never made a mistake in your life.

And like fear management, my life has been an exercise in managing anxiety as well, which is another form of fear, right? So, but anxiety can't, can't really live in a place where you release the need for a specific outcome. if you acknowledge that you really don't know what the best outcome is, even though you may want one outcome, then life changes.

Because you're, before we started, we talked about this idea of the universe is conspiring in your favor, not against you. If you believe that in the core of who you are, that that's true, then what are you worried about the outcome for? You don't know. You don't even know. You don't even know when you don't, when, when something that feels horrible is happening.

Jonathan Hawkins: I like the framing that's, that's really powerful stuff. I do. We've been going and I wanna respect your time. But there's one question to shift topics completely and you don't have to answer or whatever, but all the rage now is, you know, private equity coming into the law firms or non-lawyer ownership in Arizona and all these things, and you travel the country talking to a lot of folks.

I'm just curious what your thoughts are, if you have any thoughts on sort of the money that's coming in. I know the money's big money's been there floating around, but now it's sort of really getting into actually owning law firms. Any thoughts

Joe Fried: Yeah. So in keeping with the last topic, I'm saying the universe is conspiring in all of our favors, even when it feels scary like it does in situations where change is coming, whether it's AI or money pouring into this industry. And you know, so my thought is that I'm an observer of how this is gonna go and we will evolve in whatever direction it's gonna change things.

And are you gonna be open to the possibility that change requires things to be worse for you? Or are you gonna be open to the possibility that change may level playing fields that don't feel very level right now. For a lot of people that change, that changes that are coming are changes that may be better for us over time. And they're gonna be different. There's no question Life is uncertain. Life has changed. So, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about this because I'm closer to the end than the beginning.

But I've got a daughter who just graduated law school. I've got people who I've helped bring up in this practice who would like to see the practice live out, live longer than I will, you know, and all those kind of things. I think about it in those contexts, and I'm excited about what the future has to hold.

And, the people who are looking at this only as a business and primarily as a way to just, it is all about the money. Well, first of all, it's, it's not who I am. And some people say, well, of course that's not where you are. You can say that from a place of not needing money. Fair, guilty, thankfully guilty, but, I really still believe it to be true. It's gonna change. The world's gonna change That anxiety that you feel about it.

What if you changed your relationship with it and said it's an opportunity. And can we just go day to day with that as an opportunity and not get so worried about when we live with anxiety about the future is gonna be terrible. Then you're living that future right now. Today you're living in, in what feels like terrible.

You have all the tools to change with it. That's my thought about it.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I think that's a good place to end. That, that was, that was good, Joe. Thanks for coming on, man. This has been real fun. I know it, it took a while to get, to make it happen. For people out there that want to find you, get in touch with you, what's the best way I

Jonathan Hawkins: brave man.

Brave

Joe Fried: I really do. For, for those of you who are, for those of your listeners who something resonated in what I said and they really would like to have a conversation with me, please don't think I'm not accessible.

Like one person success does not have to be the only, you know, path to it. And I think you're holding a great mirror up to for all of us to, to keep that in mind. That the, the people who are most successful, I've noticed this in listening to, to different people on the. Podcast is there are people who find a way to be them and also be lawyers, right?

Jonathan Hawkins: Joe, that's awesome. Thanks again, man. Enjoyed it.

Joe Fried: Appreciate it. Thanks.

OutroUpdatedWebsite-1: Thanks for listening to this episode of the founding partner podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to stay up to date on the latest episodes. You can also connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn and check out the show notes. With links to resources mentioned throughout our discussion by visiting www.lawfirmgc.com. We'll see you next time for more origin stories and insights from successful law firm founders.