Finding Purpose in Your Career

Additional resources

• How to set career goals
• Chasing your passion: tips for switching career paths
• Finding a job that is right for you
• Advice on how to find your best career path

Transcript

Pete Newsome  00:15
You’re listening to the Finding Career Zen Podcast. I’m Pete Newsome. And today’s guest is extra special. All of them are special. But this one is extra special because it’s my older brother Rich Newsome. How are you today?

Rich Newsome  00:27
I’m doing great. Pete, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited about today.

Pete Newsome  00:31
Well, thank you for joining me. It’s very generous of you. I know how busy you are. And I really appreciate you taking the time because this podcast is all about how success happens. 

Pete Newsome  00:41
And you’re someone who I’ve watched become very successful over the years. It’s been easy to see, but not easy to do. For sure. So I was hoping to have an opportunity to talk to you about that today. 

Pete Newsome  00:56
And to better understand how that happened. Do you know why you versus someone else? So if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to explore some of that over the next hour. 

Rich Newsome  01:05
No, that sounds great. I am looking forward to it.

Pete Newsome  01:07
So I told you before we started recording that I was not going to read your bio, and I’m not. But there are some things, it’s a very long list of accomplishments by the way. It would probably fill up most of the time if I wanted to read it. 

Pete Newsome  01:19
But I think it makes sense to set the stage a little bit with some highlights. You graduated from the University of Law School, University of Florida law school in 1989, went to work for the US Attorney’s Office, and I want to hear more about how you came into private practice and how you started your own firm. 

Pete Newsome  01:35
But just to highlight some of your accomplishments. In 2009, you were recognized for having two of the largest top two of the 100 largest verdicts in the nation in 2018. You’re a founding member of a Trial school, you want to talk about that a little bit today.?

Pete Newsome  01:54
You’ve been one of the top 100 Trial Lawyers named by the National Trial Lawyers Association for 2013 to present the summit counsel from 2012. To present US News, best law firms from 2011. To present, I could keep going that is just a few of like I said a very long list of accomplishments. So I think it’s safe to say objectively that you’ve been pretty good at what you do. Is that fair?

Rich Newsome  02:19
You know, did someone say? Yeah, but no, you know, it’s one of the things I want to talk about today, I found my “why”. And when you find your “why” it’s really, Pete, you and I’ve talked before about how sometimes some of the candidates, want to find their purpose, and that’s more important, but I think it’s not necessarily purpose. 

Rich Newsome  02:40
I would call it your “why”. And I’ll talk about that. I think if you can find that, at least for me. That’s what keeps me getting up and doing what I’m doing. I mean, we were talking about a friend of mine, I had lunch with this guy who’s like in his late 70s. And you know, he’s retired two or three times, he’s bought and sold six banks. 

Rich Newsome  02:56
I was talking to him today at lunch and like, you know, “Have you ever tried retiring?” He goes, “Oh, yeah, I’ve tried. I tried years ago, lasted about nine months, and almost got a divorce.” And he started laughing. He goes, “I love this.” 

Rich Newsome  03:11
You know, he likes doing what he’s doing. He’s the president and owner of a bank, and his friends or his clients, and it just brings him joy, watching his friends build businesses in a way that he can help. 

Rich Newsome  03:23
And that’s just one example of someone who found their “why.” He’ll never stop coming into the office because for him, it’s not work. Right? It’s his purpose. This is “why” and he just gets a kick out of it. 

Rich Newsome  03:33
And when you meet him, he just exudes good energy and happiness and just brings joy to everybody who makes you want to do business with this guy.

Pete Newsome  03:41
Sure. Well, one of the things that have become clear to me since starting this podcast, where the title, of course, is finding career zen in is that it’s not necessarily about financial reward. 

Pete Newsome  03:53
It’s not about a title or any specific accomplishment. It’s how success is a very personal thing. And it doesn’t happen by coincidence, it doesn’t happen by accident, but it has to be meaningful to the individual. And I know that sounds like what you’re describing with the guy you had lunch with today.

Rich Newsome  04:10
You know, a lot of people may roll their eyes when I say this, but I started studying. I’m a Trial lawyer, right? I talk to people for a living and I try to develop what’s called rapport with them so that you can have some level of trust so that you’re not coming across as the sleazy ambulance chaser that they sometimes look at you with the idea of when you walk into the door. 

Rich Newsome  04:33
And so I’ve studied this. I’ve studied influence, and there’s a lot of science behind the influence. And there’s a sort of this little dark corner of influence that a lot of the social scientists still frown upon. The founder was a guy by the name of Milton Erickson, who is this famous psychiatrist. I would watch the videotapes. Some of the surviving videotapes, there are not a lot. 

Rich Newsome  04:53
There are recordings of him but this guy was just a magician, and he was one of the first ones very accomplished, well respected psychiatrists who started studying hypnosis. And you know, again, this sounds kind of hokey, and it’s pseudoscience and our automatic, I can hear the eyes rolling as people listen to this podcast. But this guy was a genius. 

Rich Newsome  05:13
And he’s sort of legendary within the world of psychiatry, there’s been a lot of studies that have proved the efficacy of psychiatry and psychotherapy was combined with hypnosis, but I wanted to study this guy. So I went and I became actually a certified hypnosis hypnotist, which now has a lot of hook along with it, but there’s some validity to some of it. 

Rich Newsome  05:33
And then there was another guy who studied it and is probably the most famous motivational speaker of all time. It’s Tony Robbins. And again, I can hear the eyes rolling. But I wanted to study Robbins, I’d heard that he had studied hypnosis and had studied this stuff called neurolinguistic programming, and I wanted to know what that was all about.  

Rich Newsome  05:49
And so I’ve attended some of these courses just to witness and the guy’s super charismatic and super powerful. And when you listen to him, he just sort of gets swept away in his oratory, and this guy’s presence, but one of the things that he brings home is that he gives us a very well known course, that actually, I can’t remember the guy’s name, the CEO who founded Salesforce gives Robbins a lot of credit for helping him build his company. 

Rich Newsome  06:14
He’s been to all the Robbins stuff has been a friend, personal friend of Tony, for years, there’s a lot of other huge billionaires who are, you know, Tony Robbins, you know, guys, so I was interested in hearing about it and so I went to this thing called Business mastery. 

Rich Newsome  06:29
And it’s a five-day course, and I’m not pushing it. But one of the things that rang through and through with this whole thing was something that struck a chord with me when you’re trying to decide what you’re going to do for a career, or for a job, or for whatever it might be if you can find your “why.” 

Rich Newsome  06:47
That’s where it starts. What wakes me up in the morning, what is my purpose? What is the mission that lights me up? There’s another guy named Wolverhampton, who wrote a great book, who’s a very successful lawyer who is a mentor of mine. 

Rich Newsome  07:05
And he said, If you can find your fire, and that’s a really hard thing to do, and you have to discern, and you really have to search and try to, you know, give yourself space and time to figure that out. But man, if you can, it changes everything, then you never go to work another day in the rest of your life. 

Rich Newsome  07:21
I mean, I could retire have retired years ago, but I just choose not to, because what fires me up and gets me up in the morning, every day is my personal mission and my personal “why”.

Pete Newsome  07:31
So it’s an incredibly powerful thing if you can achieve it. Right? And I think that’s the hard part, probably. But, you know, going back a little bit. You know, when you decided to go to law school initially. Did you have that feeling then? Or were you thinking something altogether different?

Rich Newsome  07:52
Oh, yeah, it changed me when I was in law school, I thought foolishly I want to run for public office. And that’s what I wanted to do. And actually, it was, you know, our father when I was in 10th grade, so don’t think you’d make a good lawyer. 

Rich Newsome  08:04
And it was, you know, wow, my dad thinks I could be a lawyer. That sounded really cool to me, I didn’t even know a lawyer. And so that was sort of my dad’s great inspiration sort of started me down the path of, of law. And that was sort of my aptitude. I could stand up in front of a crowd, I used to, you know, the Bay Club and read a church in front of a bunch of people, I kind of enjoyed that. 

Rich Newsome  08:26
But it wasn’t until later that I really figured out what made me tick, I did figure out at some point that I did not want to run for public office, that was not my thing. But ultimately found, you know, a mission that was that ring to my values where I’d come from as a human being as a person from a family that, you know, was a middle class family, we had such great values growing up. 

Rich Newsome  08:48
And you know, our mom was a teacher, our dad was a project manager, they worked hard, and they provided we were a family’s family. And, and so for me, ultimately, I can tell the story of how it happened. But I found sort of my purpose in my why sort of going back to who and where I came from, and it just all clicked for me at some point. And you know, man, it’s been a great ride.

Pete Newsome  09:11
Can you know when exactly that happened? Or did it evolve over time?

Rich Newsome  09:15
Oh, yeah. So So I go to law school, you know, I was on the moot court team, which I realized, Oh, I think I could be a good trial lawyer. I’m really good at this thing. I’d gotten some awards in law school. 

Rich Newsome  09:26
So I thought, Okay, I want to be a trial lawyer because that’s kind of what I’m good at. And I’ll do that for a while. And then I’ll run for office after I make some money, right? So I thought, well if I want to be a trial lawyer, I want to get some experience. 

Rich Newsome  09:38
So I went to where I weaseled my way into the Department of Justice, which back then had an age requirement. And again, a lot of it is is it once you set your sights and you know, this, this manifestation thing and then again, the eyes roll right when you talk about that? Because there is, it sounds kind of silly, but I decided this is what I’m going to do and I set my mind out to it. 

Rich Newsome  09:59
I had no experience, I did not even have a law. I had a law degree. But I didn’t wasn’t a member of the bar yet, because I hadn’t passed it, I had to take it, you know, and then wait for the results. But I worked. Our family had no connections. But I had made connections through the political world. And the guy who was the US Attorney needed help from a guy I was friends with. 

Rich Newsome  10:20
So I weaseled my way in literally as a 24 year old third year law student right at a law school and I didn’t remember the bar, I’m holding down a position as an assistant United States attorney because I wanted to get trial experience. And so going back a little bit when I was in law school, there’s this. There’s a book written by this guy named Napoleon. 

Rich Newsome  10:41
And Napoleon Hill wrote this book, I think, Gosh, in the 40s, maybe, but but he wrote a book called “Think & Grow Rich”, and I read that book when I was a second year law student, and it really changed my life. And I encourage anybody listening to this, if you want to really read something that can change your path, read this book. It’s not long, it’s easy to read. 

Rich Newsome  11:05
I don’t know, maybe 150 to 200 pages. But for me, it was this thing that sets your goal. What do you want? And at the time, it’s like, well, I want to be a successful trial lawyer by the time I’m 30. So I got six years to do it. Okay, then I can have enough money to run for office. 

Rich Newsome  11:22
But what Hill said is to visualize what that feels like. What does it look like? Be tangible with it. Do you know how much money you want to make? Put a figure on it. How much do I want to have in the bank? 

Rich Newsome  11:38
What is my house gonna look like? Do I have a house, where do I want to live? Do you want to be married? Do you want to have kids? What kind of stuff do you have? Do you want to have a car? What color is it? I mean, be really granular and write it down and put a date on it. I want to buy by the time I’m 30, this is what I want to have, I still got that list. 

Rich Newsome  11:56
And I was probably gosh, 21 or 22 years old, and I read that stupid book. It’s not stupid. I’ve read it a couple of times, I actually have a stack of three or four of them on my shelf. And I give it out to young lawyers that I work with, I give it out to my daughter’s boyfriend who was asking. 

Rich Newsome  12:13
So I would encourage anyone listening to this to buy this book. It’s an easy read. And this guy’s legendary. There are blogs about Napoleon Hill, Google Napoleon Hill. Sure. And you’ll see people talking about him on YouTube. But without giving it all away, come up with something tangible, and then work backward, and your mind will figure it out. 

Rich Newsome  12:34
And so I knew that art, well, I want to be a trial lawyer, I want to make all this money. By the time I’m 30. But to do that I need Trial experience. Well, to get Trial experience, if I go to work for these big firms, they’re not letting young lawyers try cases, well, then I need to prosecute or be a public defender well, but gosh, if you work for the state, they give you lots of cases, and it’s really not a good experience. 

Rich Newsome  12:54
Unless you can go with the federal prosecutors. Oh, that’s a really good experience that makes you write briefs, you get to argue your own cases on appeal. It’s federal court, that’s real big boy litigation, great experience, but impossible to get that job to most people coming out of law school, because you got to have a minimum of two years experience, they usually hire senior prosecutors out of the state or out of the military. 

Rich Newsome  13:17
So I kind of weaseled my way into that job. Because I decided that that was the job that I wanted, I had no family connections. But I had connections that I kind of developed and worked on. 

Rich Newsome  13:27
And I’m suggesting that if you’ve got a dream job or someplace, you want to be your figure out the why first, what am I doing this for? I knew at the time, I wanted to have a certain amount of money in the bank so I could do something else. And then work backward, but you’ve got to be very granular about it. 

Rich Newsome  13:44
And start out with the “why”. And golly, if you work hard enough and put in the time and put the creativity where when you wake up at four in the morning, you’re thinking about it, you wake up in the morning, and you’re excited about it, man, you can do anything. And I know that sounds hokey, but it’s true, you really can do anything.

Pete Newsome  14:01
And I don’t think it does. And I think that you know, the books behind me here, you know, there’s some similar message in almost all of them or any of the business books that I have. And when I talk to young people, the one piece of advice that I will give is I think we’ve talked about this in the past. 

Pete Newsome  14:23
Parents give awful advice generally things like going to get a job, which is just such the worst demoralizing thing for a young person to hear. 

Pete Newsome  14:33
And you know what I say to them if similarly, I think to what you’re saying is the whatever the thing is that you wake up thinking about if you have all the free time in the world, and you can do anything that day if you can figure out a way to just go deep and far in that direction. 

Pete Newsome  14:52
That would be the best of all worlds. Now if it has to have some value in the world of course, whatever this thing is, but, you know, I’m a huge believer that youth in our world gets such bad information and bad advice in that regard because no one is thinking beyond tomorrow.

Pete Newsome  15:16
Where you really should be thinking 10 years from now or 20 years from now because it sounds to me like that’s the message you’re giving as much as anything else.

Rich Newsome  15:24
Yeah, for sure you got to reverse engineer but start with “why”. what makes your heart sing if it’s money, or if it’s owning your own business, or whatever it is write it down and be crystal clear to your brain. 

Rich Newsome  15:35
And then everything you know, one of the things to your point about the bad advice, and Napoleon Hill talks about this, gosh, in the 1940s, or whenever he wrote this darn book, he said, most people go through life, being taught, go to school, get a job, they get off their job, they work, whatever they work, they come home at 5 or 6 o’clock, they watch, I will never forget, they said they watch a little TV, and then they go to bed. 

Rich Newsome  16:02
So maybe that was in the 1950s. And that’s kind of it. And that’s terrible advice. And we’re institutionalized to that. Right? When we’re little. You go to class, you study you make good grades, and yeah, you get rewarded. 

Rich Newsome  16:15
And all that I see this in the legal industry for all the time that these law students that come through because their whole life they’ve been made, they’ve been a student, you go through law school, you’re a student, and now you get the big job at the big firm. And you become what one of the managing partners, and one of the big firms I won’t name them. 

Rich Newsome  16:32
One of the big law firms here in Florida, I mean, a giant one got taped in a partnership meeting referring to young associates as fungible production units. And they grind them into the ground and they’re miserable. And if you look at the incidence of, of young learners who are unhappy, they’re so disillusioned, like, wait a minute, I make good grades, I did everything. 

Rich Newsome  16:53
And this is miserable. Yeah, because you didn’t think about the “why”. What do I want? And so whatever it is, tangibly, and think about what is your life gonna look like? What am I going to do for fun? How much time do I want to just slog away working 70 hours in a cubicle or an office, you may have a view, but you don’t have time to enjoy it. 

Rich Newsome  17:14
And you go home, you get up in the morning, you go to work, it’s dark, you come home and start working for clients that you don’t like and really don’t care about yet.

Pete Newsome  17:14
Why do you think it’s so broken? And then as a follow up to that, what do you think can be done about that? It? I guess from a couple of different perspectives, right? 

Pete Newsome  17:32
There’s the person who’s living it and then there’s those of us who are trying to guide younger people kids, or your own children or if younger folks who work for us I think I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term that’s going around right now quiet quitting. Have you heard that? 

Rich Newsome  17:51
We had a kid who quiet quitted. This marketing director. We paid him like 160 grand a year. Ph.D. came in all fired up. And just a quiet quit on us. We found out what this kid done. And I said, “Hey, man, I need to meet with you tomorrow.” 

Rich Newsome  18:06
We’re letting them work remotely. And he’s “Oh, well, how about we do it by zoom”? Like, no, man, we need to come down and have a face to face. He goes “Okay”, so I’ll see you tomorrow at noon for lunch, we’ll go to lunch, have a whole afternoon, we’ll find out where you are. 

Rich Newsome  18:20
And all this stuff sends me an email saying “Well, I came down with COVID. I’m going to the emergency room.”

Pete Newsome  18:27
Sure you did. 

Rich Newsome  18:28
So turns out I told one of my partners to come and say yeah, he’s in the emergency room. He’s got a goofy hat on. He’s at a Broadway show in London. 

Pete Newsome  18:42
Well, it’s, you know, to me when I hear it. I was just recording a podcast last week talking about it. It’s awful and you know, actually quit if you are not if you’re in a situation where you view your employer in such a poor light. And you think your situation is so bad. Escape it immediately because life’s too short. 

Pete Newsome  19:04
There are too many great opportunities. And it really bothers me as I think about this almost obsessively these days how we got here, and then what can we do about it? Because, you know, 150 years ago, humans were working from sunup to sundown just to survive. 

Pete Newsome  19:22
We have gotten so spoiled in some respects where we think succession should be fast. It should be easy. The concept of work life balance, while I certainly support it, I think there’s a time and a place for everything. And what you’re describing and what I saw of you, I’ll just say you were in law school. I’m sorry, you were working for the US Attorney’s Office. 

Pete Newsome  19:47
You went to work there I believe. Right at the time, I was starting college and you were in Tallahassee working I was going to school there and I remember you working till you know all hours of the night to do your job and I remember thinking, man, you know, here, here’s this guy that is an attorney and you’re working in this fancy job in a really cool environment. And all you do is work.

Rich Newsome  20:13
Alright, so that’s your deal. But here I’ll make this short here’s the rest of my story and how I found my “why”. So, one of the purposes if you’re really good at something, right, if you’re a great basketball player, and you’ve got that you just happen to be seven foot two, you just happen to have an amazing three point shot. 

Rich Newsome  20:32
You may not like basketball when you started out, but man, if you’re good at it, and all of a sudden, you’re getting all these accolades, because of your personal aptitude, man, all of a sudden, you start to love basketball, and that was me in as a trial lawyer, I happened to have the aptitude to be good at it. 

Rich Newsome  20:49
And it was really cool. I came into this job to get the experience, I ended up turning out, I get to represent the United States of America, I get to be in federal court, as the young guy, having the FBI come into me for search warrants. 

Rich Newsome  21:04
I mean, I was like, you know, the US Attorney’s Office is the top of the law enforcement food chain, it was a rush, the cops lose a kid, I would work on getting on search warrants at night, dressed up with the SWAT team jumping out of vans, it was awesome. 

Rich Newsome  21:20
It was like I’m getting to play, you know, cops and robbers with these guys who kiss my butt because I could get them a search warrant. And I can do federal grand juries. It was wonderful. And so I did that for a while. And it was fun. I mean, because I was good at it, too. 

Rich Newsome  21:35
I’d get up and talk to juries. And I was never great in STEM, I was okay in law school. But I was pretty good at talking to juries, because I came from a normal family and, you know, had been taught, you know, how to be a good person. And so it kind of worked. 

Rich Newsome  21:50
And so then I go to work after a while for this giant law firm, because I only wanted to make a little more money and start to feather and none of them really great. Well, actually, there was one great offer I had I got recruited by this firm in Orlando that represented a lot of these, it was a big silk stocking firm. 

Rich Newsome  22:09
And we represent an international corporations manufacturers. It was a boutique product liability defense firm. And they represented the big automakers and the big chemical companies. And they defended them when there were allegations of defective products. And they offered me so much money because I could try cases. 

Rich Newsome  22:27
So it was taking my personal talent, what I happen to be good at, that I kind of liked and they’re gonna throw a lot of money. Now, how cool is this? So I go, I get this giant office next to the senior part because I can try cases, because a lot less money because I took a step back to get the experience. So for me, it wasn’t about the money from day one. 

Rich Newsome  22:45
And now all of a sudden, I’m leapfrogging over my contemporaries, because I’ve tried dozens of cases in federal court, I’ve argued, written briefs, and argued at the 11th circuit court of appeals, which, as a young kid, you don’t get to do that in your 20s, typically. So I got a great job as the senior partner, I hit it off, he was cool. 

Rich Newsome  23:02
He was a great trial lawyer. But about a year and a half into it. I am representing one of the major car companies and an allegation of a defective seatbelt I’ve never told you about this case before.

Pete Newsome  23:13
Maybe but keep going.

Rich Newsome  23:15
So we’re, you know, I’m still you know, I’ve been making, you know, crappy money at the prosecutor’s office, and I had student loans. We’re trying to build a house, my wife wanted to quit because we’re, I think we had just had, or she had just gotten pregnant, trying to build a house all this stuff, and money’s tight. 

Rich Newsome  23:35
But finally, I’m making a little bit of money. She wants to quit her job. She’s working at a radio station in sales. And I met this deposition, defending this big auto company for a defective seatbelt where a family had lost a two year old. And I’m begging this company. 

Rich Newsome  23:51
Come on, we need to sell this is terrible. No, screw it. We’re gonna take him to trial, Mike. All right. So I’m defending this case, representing this giant car company, against this little family that had lost their only child and I’m deposing the grandparents, they’re crying, and it was horrible. 

Rich Newsome  24:09
And I remember driving home and I called Marcy, my wife, and like, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do it. I said, I gotta enter credit, she had no clue. So like, okay, whatever. I gotcha. I’ll keep working. And okay, massive cut and pay. Because I wanted to be the guy on the other side of the table. I wanted to be representing that family and it felt dirty. What I was doing, I was using my talents. 

Rich Newsome  24:33
The other guy on the other side was a nice guy, but I was beating the snot out of him. I mean, he just he was a nice guy, but he was not an A level trial lawyer. Sure. And so I took this huge cut and paid joined a little guy and started knocking on doors to other you know, who ran the red light lawyers, TV advertisers, one in a particular guy who was actually John Morgan. Morgan Morgan was a dear friend of mine who gave me a lot. He said, Look, we don’t want to mess with these product cases. And for 15 years, I did all John Morgan’s defective product stuff. 

Rich Newsome  25:02
So I formed this little boutique firm going against these companies that I’d previously represented. And it just felt so right. And then within, you know, five or 10 years, well, within five years, I was doing really great. And then there are the giant crossroads. And the crossroads for me,

Rich Newsome  25:21
was against my client. And my, my partner had left, I was trying to buy the firm and left me in a lurch. I was buying him out in two years in the bias, and I think I’m leaving. So go to my bank. And again, now I’m probably 30, maybe 3536 years old. And the bank said, Yeah, we’re gonna stick with your old part. And look what I’ve been bringing in all the business for the last six or seven years. Yeah, we don’t care. I think my old partner had called and said don’t give them a loan. So I had no money coming in the door. 

Rich Newsome  25:54
We had just settled a lot of our cases that year in the way a personal injury firm works,  you close out the books. So I’d made some decent money but we’re starting the year and I knew it was okay. Because I had my partner had two or three good cases that were going to help carry us over why had these two massive trials both were zero offers, one of which we had a low three or $400,000. And costs were accusing Ford Motor Company of making a defective airbag that had killed the single mother and had left this eight year old. 

Rich Newsome  26:26
And to me, it was a good case before it had won that case against six other trial lawyers, the exact same theory, and now here I am. And then we had another one that was a poor guy. This labor up in Ocala, Florida, who had had his dude up in a defective grain auger again, zero offer they’re blaming my guy. So I’m like, well, that’s okay. Because my partner has these cases where he comes on January 10, after we add a bonus to everyone, so yeah, pick I’m leaving. So I’m like, oh, great. 

Rich Newsome  26:54
So I had these two massive trials coming up with every penny I had because the bank was not giving me alone, every penny I had made the previous five or six years working as a personal injury lawyer, all wrapped up in these two cases. And I remember calling our dad when I had this first big trial gets for it gets my old Managing Partner, and they had seven or eight associates on it down in Fort Lauderdale living in a hotel room. It’s like a three week trial. 

Rich Newsome  27:21
And I remember calling my dad so what am I going to do? He goes, What do you mean, I remember almost crying. I said, if I lose this trial, I’m going bankrupt. And I’m working seven days a week on this thing as well. What do you mean, you don’t know what you’re going on? So what do I do? Because just do your best. That’s all you can do. And I thought, well if I lose this, I’m lost my firm. So we went down. And again, now I was the only thing I’m good at in my life really is trying cases. 

Rich Newsome  27:51
And so we had brought in exemplary vehicles, we had the jury come down in the parking lot. And Ford’s like, No, you’re not going to do this. Well, the judge kind of wanted to hear it. And what I wanted to do was to demonstrate what an airbag is. Now, this is back, gosh, probably in 2001 and 2002. And airbags were kind of new back then. And the jury a lot of people thought that an airbag is a kind of like a big pillow. Well, an airbag is actually like a shotgun blast. It’s a bomb that explodes and hits you in the face like a baseball bat. 

Rich Newsome  28:23
And so we brought the nerd down. And we had the actual crash vehicle where this poor lady had died because the airbag deployed when it shouldn’t have it was too low of a speed. And we were saying look forward should only deploy the airbag when it’s over a particular speed. And this was way too low because it’s dangerous. And this is in the early days of airbags. And Ford’s like well Newsom is right, then they’re saying every one of our vehicles is defective. So that’s a really hard argument. Right? 

Rich Newsome  28:50
So so we’re going to demonstrate when we had a brand new vehicle there, the same model, and we’re going to demonstrate members of jury what this is like and Mr. Zim Bauer over here who was a buddy of mine, who was a mechanic we had dressed up in a nice lab coat, you know, with goggles on looking very official, he was a mechanic, but we said okay, we’re gonna blow this airbag on the count of 10. The judges there and the whole court personnel had come down to watch.

Pete Newsome  29:13
By the way, as a former technology salesperson who lives by the rule, never do a live demo. I’m cringing as this story goes. I’m picturing the scene, So keep going.

Rich Newsome  29:27
It was epic drama. I mean, now we had tested it several times before, but there was always that and you know, but look, I got nothing to lose. At this point. Of course, I’m paying for all of this. You know, for the cars for the experts. We flew this guy down from Atlanta on his course he had to fly his private jet. He was the biomechanic I mean, I’ve literally got three or $400,000 of my every penny I had in the world wrapped up into this case. And so going out in the parking lot, and you know J winks at me, right before and so the counts 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. 

Rich Newsome  30:06
And J fires it on three. And of course, it was like to a shotgun blast, it blew out, shattered the window, and you could smell the smoke. And it was shocking, the jury all jumped, the judge jumped everyone’s eyes got the biggest silver dollars, and they all cross their arms. And they looked over at the foreign lawyer with a scalpel. And the case was over. And I had gotten over Seth Godin calls that in every business venture, he wrote a great book called The dip, it’s maybe 100 pages, read it, if you haven’t. 

Rich Newsome  30:38
But it talks about this concept that as a business owner, especially if you’re in a new business, whatever it may be, maybe you’re with a startup or a new job, there’s always the initial zeal and the excitement of yay, my own thing, but there’s gonna come to a point where the dip is going to happen. And the trick is getting past the dip. And if you can get past that dip, then everything accelerates. And that’s how it was, for me. The word got out about that trial, Ford got beat on this airbag case, where I don’t know that they had ever lost an airbag case, this is again early, especially a jury trial. 

Rich Newsome  31:13
And I won the next case, the leg of the case, and all of a sudden, you know, I was good, I start was able to hire Associates, and we got all the costs paid back. And now there’s been a couple of other tests. But that was my moment. And the point being, though, what kept me going was the knowledge that this little eight year old, was dependent upon me. And I had put I had chosen to be in this position, I came from a family that cared about each other, and we were always focused on each other. 

Rich Newsome  31:42
And, and on those family values and people, not the powerful. We were never about that, not the money, not the corporations, we’re about real human beings and caring for our neighbors and our family and our friends. And so when I had this sort of the if you look at least my story arc, going from representing Ford Motor Company, in a case where a family lost a two-year-old, it felt just inherently wrong to me, it was not my place. And so I got in this other place, where I was now on the other side of the table representing a child who had lost a mother. 

Rich Newsome  32:19
What and what you know, by all accounts was, you know, almost a done deal people had written in the course, Ford’s not going to lose this. But because I had chosen to make this decision to put myself into what was a pretty risky deal. But where the why was right, for me, it’s where I needed to be based on my values, my upgrade, bringing my personal skills, and what I mean, granted, it was stressful, it was horrifying. But I got a certain joy out of cooking up this way to use creatively how can I win this it was where my strengths where it was my aptitude and I won this case because I figured out my why. 

Rich Newsome  33:05
And so I guess that’s my big message to everybody here. And if you can find that, whatever it may be, the money will take care of itself. The method will take care of yourself. Now you got to put in the elbow grease, you got to bust your ass. But if you’re if your values line up with what you’re doing, it’s not a job. No more than if you know, when I was a kid, I loved playing high school football or you love playing video games. It’s no different than that, man. 

Rich Newsome  33:36
It’s like, you know, back in the day, I used to be a gamer. Right? And I loved it. I could spend hours and if you’re in the right position, in the right place based on your why and your values, and your purpose, man, it’s no different than playing video games. It’s fun. It sounds wrong, but.

Pete Newsome  33:55
No, it doesn’t at all. In fact, it’s crazy timing. I’m listening on Audible right now to a book called The hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz. And the chapter that I just listened to yesterday while I was out running is called the struggle. And it is very similar to what you’ve just described, but he talks about it every, every founder goes through that point in their business where they don’t know if they’re going to make it and you know, very similar to what you just described as the dip. 

Pete Newsome  34:24
And you have to you don’t have to go through that. But it certainly shows you who you are. When you do it. It shows if you’re made for it, it shows if your business can survive, it’s meant to survive. But you can’t do any of that unless it has meaning to you as an individual. 

Rich Newsome  34:44
Exactly, correct.

Pete Newsome  34:45
So we come up with lots of words for it right why or purpose is it to me, it’s all sort of the same thing that you said it earlier. Are you going to wake up excited to do this or are you going to do it by choice not because you’re required to or obligated to? 

Pete Newsome  35:02
And that, to me is as important as anything and all of this is find that thing that you’re willing to go all in for finding the thing that you’re willing to take that level of risk to achieve, right? Because what more could you ask for that level of something that’s going to bring out that level of commitment? That’s when you’re going to be at your best.

Rich Newsome  35:27
So and to me, you know, sometimes it takes a while to find it, it did for me, I was probably, you know, in my mid-30s, before I really found it, it started sort of fumbling through this path of, well, this is what I’m good at. And so for some people, it could be, I want to punch out, and I need to make as much money as possible. I met a friend down the Caribbean, I, you know, now I have a boat and I sail, it’s, it’s great. 

Rich Newsome  35:53
You meet these most, most amazing people and a lot of people are young and half punched out. This guy came up with a medical company, he’s gosh, I think is probably in his late 30s super great guy. He’s sailing around the world with his family and his wife. I, I talked to him about it. And he’s like, you know, I was just done. So that could be a why. If you say, Okay, I’m gonna just kill myself. There’s, there’s a great Reddit subreddit called fat fire. I don’t know if you’ve ever been on that. 

Rich Newsome  36:26
There’s a lot of the folks on fat fire that just crushed it and said, Okay, I’m gonna give up the next seven or eight or 10 years even. And save every penny, I’m gonna be frugal. So that come this age? This is my mark in the sand. I’m done. Well, that’s a purpose. That’ll get you up. Maybe for some people. But for me, it was finding this place where I get to play Robin Hood. How cool is that?

Pete Newsome  36:51
So why do you think on that point? I mentioned it earlier. And it’s it is something that I think about a lot is this idea of delayed gratification. really needing to be embraced at some level in order to achieve anything significant. Right? You can get lucky, but you can’t count on luck. Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone. Right? What you can count on? Is the level of effort you’re willing to put forth? Right? 

Pete Newsome  37:19
And as you said earlier, you have to have a certain level of aptitude, right? If I decide to be the best ballerina in the world, that’s good. That’s an unrealistic goal. So I have to have potential, you know, in whatever it is I choose to do. But beyond that, what message do you have? Or why do you think it’s so hard for people to grasp the idea that success doesn’t come quickly, and doesn’t come easily? But all of my experience tells me it’s necessary. You have to put forth that effort over time. Why do you think that’s such a hard thing to do?

Rich Newsome  37:54
Just I don’t know. I mean, maybe culturally, generationally, there’s been a lot of, there’s a great book can’t remember the name, but it’s about the different generations and how, for whatever reason, if you look at sort of what’s been happening in society when certain people grow up, there’s the and I’m gonna mangle this, but it’s, you know, hard times make strong men strong men make good times. Good time. Good times, make weak men, and weak men make hard, tough. So I think you got it. Yeah, I think I did, which is a miracle. 

Rich Newsome  38:26
But I think sometimes generationally, we look at this, you know, the greatest generation went through the tail end of the Depression and World War Two, holy shit. I mean, our grandparents, remember my grandmother talking about shoes, making using cardboard for shoes, and, and they were a middle class family, they were normal, and rationing milk and the war and what that meant. And that was the greatest generation of all time. And today, I think we’ve just really had it easy for a long time. 

Rich Newsome  38:59
And so I think if you attribute it to that we’re at Tony Robbins talks about pattern recognition. And we’re in winter now. It starts now. And so I think, bad news, good news, the bad news, it’s winter. But the good news is, I think that a lot of the young people that are about to go through this are going to have the opportunity to turn it around, it’s going to be by necessity, just like our grandparents didn’t want to go through the Depression or World War Two. We’re going to have I think, a shitstorm. 

Rich Newsome  39:28
At least most of the really really smart people that I look up to that thing can talk about this agreement. We are at the beginning of winter. And it’s going to be I just think a royal shit show. And I think it’s going to change. So I think a lot of it is if you look at the patterns and the seasonality, we’re going to be in a season. I think it’s going to toughen a lot of people up.

Pete Newsome  39:49
History indicates that is what is coming. Right?

Rich Newsome  39:53
Yeah.

Rich Newsome  39:53
So So I think though, that to answer your question, I think a lot of it is just sort of the season that we’re in now. A lot of the young folks who are my children, I mean, granted, look, there are individuals that stand out among this. And you can always make the choice. And if you use pattern recognition, and you look at whomever you want to be like, it may be a billionaire, it may be an entrepreneur, it may be a small business owner, or maybe someone like my friend who’s now a young guy sailing around the world with his little kids on this beautiful carbon fiber, gorgeous sailboat with his lovely wife, who is a Harvard grad lawyer, doctor, whomever your role model is recognizing that pattern that almost too, I think to a person, those people all went through an incredible grind of having to give it up. It doesn’t come easy.

Rich Newsome  40:50
And I think anyone who, whoever you want to put look at Steve Jobs, look at Bill Gates, look at my Eman. Whomever it is, they’ve all bled. And most of them went through a dip or whatever you want to call it. I know, look, I’m a small boutique law firm. But you know, I look back on my list. And I don’t think that if I hadn’t been very specific with what I wanted, I had a really firm grasp on my rudder at a very young age. So I think if you if you have a handle on the direction you want to sail, you hold that rudder firm with a mission. 

Rich Newsome  41:27
And I look back on that list that was my star that written I accomplished it all by the time I was in my early 30s. Every one of them then you got to come up with a new list. So what’s next? Well now, okay, I don’t want to run for office because I just kind of grew out of that. Now I want to make I want to be like a really great plaintiff’s lawyer or a lawyer trial and I worked before who I don’t like that, that didn’t feel right. 

Rich Newsome  41:49
Let’s readjust the rudder. Now what I want to do well, I want to be the most successful plaintiff lawyer and personal injury lawyer on product liability. Is there as the country well, I mean, maybe not the but certainly one of them. If you think ask my peers, okay, check that off. Now. What? Now, what do you change again? Well, now Alright, I’ve, I’ve got enough money to retire. I’ve got a boat. I’ve got houses. I’ve got, you know, a bunch of money in the bank. I don’t have to do it. Now. What? Let’s adjust it again.

Pete Newsome  42:20
That’s so important. And I was just listening to I wish I could, I can’t recall which podcast it was within the last two weeks. And it was, they were telling a story, which really resonated with me, which was a lot of people who venture out to do something, they hit that first level goal is I want to start a business well, okay, your business survives, and you realize you were successful, and then and then you kind of stopped because you didn’t have a vision beyond that initial objective. 

Pete Newsome  42:52
And I could equate it as I was listening to this, I started equating it to so many different things in my life. One of the things is, for me, fitness related, where I wanted to qualify for and run the Boston Marathon. It was a huge accomplishment. For me personally, it was something I set out to do, I had to work really hard to do it, and it took me years to get there. And I did it and then thought, what now I didn’t have a goal beyond that, well, 10 years later, and 50 pounds later, you know, I look back and go I didn’t have a goal. 

Pete Newsome  43:26
And I didn’t have something to strive towards. And I’ve also realized that in many aspects of my personal life and my business life where I did that fire that burned to a point once it goes out that you have to find a way to recapture it and there’s so much meaning behind that and individually you know, what made me realize and I and I’ve started writing down goals since just recently for that very reason. 

Pete Newsome  43:58
I’m going to do this I’m going to do it by this date. And then I’m like you said I’m going to work backward from that I’m going to start with the end in mind and not lose sight of that. So I think it’s such an excellent point to bring up

Rich Newsome  44:14
I’d suggest a little bit different ways of thinking about this and again, I’ve become a Tony Robbins believer and I used to kind of scoff “Oh Robbins.”

Pete Newsome  44:24
You said that he didn’t become Tony Robbins.

Rich Newsome  44:27
Everybody that says that humble Valley everybody that says that never been if anybody wants to you want to get your world rocked and get some incredible Ericksonian hypnosis and NLP and just change your life go to date with destiny. There’s actually the first live event he’s you know, he’s done Tony 64 But he’s still got it. It is 14 hours a day, three or four days in a row and I promise you your life will never be the same look I’m not affiliated with him. I am not a part of the organization and then but It really helped me sort of codify a lot of these things. Because I, you know, I did all this stuff. And now I’m kind of like, well, what now? 

Rich Newsome  45:09
Do I, you know, I went, I think Pete, I told you, I was like, I’m gonna hike the Appalachian Trail. Well, I went for 10 days, and I got bored and came home. Because I could that takes six months do I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna go my business is kind of running itself. And I was like, alright, well, alright, I’m gonna go and I’m gonna sail the Caribbean for not come back for a while and just see how that goes. I got bored after, you know, 10 days. And I keep coming. So I went to this Robbins thing. 

Rich Newsome  45:34
And he talks about not just goals and dues but really starts out with, what do I want? Really, what do I want? And I think at least for me, it was in three separate areas. Your point about health? First of all, what do I want from myself in terms of health? What does that look like? And then there are exercises you can do, where you map it out in 10 years is like, if I do these things if I have a regimen if I eat? Well, if I give up alcohol, if I give up caffeine, if I eat clean food, in 10 years, I do that, and I work out five or six days a week, what am I going to look like in 10 years? How am I going to feel? What’s that going to mean? To my life to my health, to my longevity? 

Rich Newsome  46:13
And you think about that, and you visualize and there are exercises you can do to really bake it in and see it’s all about visualization. And then to the client. It’s actually there’s a name for that can’t remember, but then you say okay, you go through the same process? What if I don’t? And you come up with the worst case scenario, what am I going to look like? How am I going to feel? Am I going to die early and even map it out five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years? 

Rich Newsome  46:39
And man, when you really visualize it that way, the two tracks it, I have not missed a day working out, I’ve lost weight, I’m in better shape, okay. So that’s the first is your health, your personal health bubble least for me. The second bubble is relationships, relationships with your friends, with your wife, with your children, whatever it may be. Because a lot of times, if we look at our lives in terms of these three concentric rings, there’s your health, which is you personally, and there’s a spiritual component, it’s you to work on me, whatever your spirituality is, or meditation or whatever it might contemplation, and education, reading, health, there’s sort of you personally. 

Rich Newsome  47:22
The second bubble is your relationships, your friends, your family, your children, your business colleagues, whomever that is, and you think about that, what if I really want to improve those relationships? What tangibly do I need to do? And if I do that, what’s it gonna look like in five or 10 years? And picture some, some moment? For me? It’s like, man, what if I, in 10 years, I’m flying on a private jet? With my family and my new grandchildren? How great would that be? Sure. So that’s a relationship, but I want you to know, and then the third is your business or your work, and visualize it. 

Rich Newsome  47:56
What are some of the things we’ve talked about before? And so you do that, and you think about, okay, 510 20 years, if I do these things, I really wide it, what do I want, that’s what I want my business to be, I don’t want my health to be my relationships. And you visualize the why. And then just like I did with my first job, you work backward, and your brain will figure it out. And you think, well, if I don’t do these things, in five or 10 years, or 20 years, what is my life going to look like? And you can cut? The nice thing about that exercise is we inhuman, as human beings can really be hard on ourselves. 

Rich Newsome  48:30
And it’s really easy to visualize the negative. And so for me, it just was taking some of these tools that have been recognized. If you take the time to pause, come up with the why and what I want, and then work backward, man, it can change everything.

Pete Newsome  48:49
Yeah, that’s, that’s really powerful. And I couldn’t help but think of something that I’ve based so much of my professional life on for the past 20 years as a professional salesperson, where I don’t know if I’m qualifying for a sales opportunity I have often it’s easy to talk about what happens if you buy the thing, right, the product, the service, whatever. 

Pete Newsome  49:17
But unless I can identify something bad that happens if they don’t buy it, I don’t have a qualified opportunity. And so as you’re talking and I try to teach my my my team, the same thing, you have to know what happens if they don’t act. And what you’re suggesting is the polar opposite of how we typically think right? If I do these things good will follow, right? 

Rich Newsome  49:40
Yes

Pete Newsome  49:40
But if I don’t do them?

Pete Newsome  49:42
Oh, okay. 

Pete Newsome  49:44
That’s a different level of motivation altogether. So I think that’s a really powerful message and we’ll be sure to link the Tony Robbins information in the show notes. 

Rich Newsome  49:56
One of the most powerful things he does is programs called Unleash the Power Within it It’s the first seven is a, you know, I again, I went up and got certified as hypnosis, this guy’s the master. And if you really want to change yourself really what it is, he’s bacon, there’s a, it’s not called the Cunningham method, but there’s some method it’s like an hour and a half Group Hypnosis thing where he basically walks you through these various spheres of your life for you and yourself. 

Rich Newsome  50:27
You do some homework, and then he walks you through it and, and Tony, such a powerful presence, he puts you in what he calls state, which is basically this place where you’re ready to be open to this, there’s a physical component where you’re moving your body, again, until you go through, I would just suggest anyone it’s kind of like, you know when you’re a kid tasting beer Beer for the first time or scotch, just go with it, just taste it right or sushi for the first time. But at the end of this hour and a half, if you’re not changed, man, I think they even say, look, we’ll give you your money back. 

Pete Newsome  51:01
I mean it’s an hour and a half. That’s it.

Rich Newsome  51:04
I mean, that’s just one that that’s, that’s after like two or three days working out, they put you through exercises to get you into this place where you’re thinking about your life in terms of what you want, very, very tangible. It’s like taking that Napoleon Hill book, and bringing it to life and putting in putting it into Chroma, you know, 3d on the big screen and letting you walk into it and to step into it. 

Rich Newsome  51:30
And just, you know, it’s just transformative. And I think for, for young people, especially, to have the opportunity, because institutionally, we’re never taught to think about our lives, and how to not just make goals, but even how to make goals, right? And then what does that mean, and what goals to make foreign to duelists? No, we think more in terms of metaphor and visual. And so you create the story for yourself, and in a way that you believe it because if you don’t believe it, it ain’t gonna work. 

Rich Newsome  52:06
But once you believe that you can do this, once I believe that I can get my health back in order, I can really have incredibly great relationships. And look, it’s not all perfect. It’s a process. But I just think it’s game changing. And so even if you don’t do that, and just read the Napoleon Hill book, and not just create goals, but create them and in terms of what do I want out of it, then everything starts to flow.

Pete Newsome  52:30
So you think which I’ve never thought of this before. But even for someone who’s like 20 years old, you think they would benefit by going to a Tony Robbins class there.

Rich Newsome  52:41
I was so enthralled with this, I’ve got two kids who are, you know, just kind of about to go to work. My daughter is about to graduate from law school, and my son has just started as a real estate agent. And I am paying for them to go to the live Tony Robbins event in Miami. 

Rich Newsome  52:59
And you know, again, I say that with some trepidation. Because I know if someone had told me that before, I did it for a very specific purpose. I want to understand who this guy was and how he was doing it from the perspective of my personal craft as a traveler. I want to know how he’s using NLP and hypnosis in a group setting to influence people.

Pete Newsome  53:21
That’s why I raised that concept, right? I mean, well, you know, it almost seems hard to believe that Yeah.

Rich Newsome  53:27
And so I kind of went, I just want to see it. Like, I’m the ultimate skeptic. And I went and walked away and what I realized was just, it was Napoleon Hill on steroids and teaching these basic lessons that we should be teaching all young people.

Pete Newsome  53:43
Yeah, I wonder why it’s not more prevalent because I have some friends and business associates who have gone to similar immersive programs like that. And without exception, most people will come away from those things, feeling as if it’s a life-changing experience, as you’ve described it and so that that that can’t be a coincidence. There has to be very real.

Rich Newsome  54:09
Well, there are two studies there’s one I can’t remember who did it but at Carnegie right? Dale Carnegie was the other guy that talked about influence. his seminal book was how to win friends and influence people. And my dad gave me that book as a high school student. 

Rich Newsome  54:22
And I read it and that’s the other book that I have multiple copies on my shelf, my daughter’s boyfriend, wanted to go to lunch and he just graduated from law school pick my brain. So I gave him two books. I gave him the Polian Hill in that one, but I totally lost track.

Pete Newsome  54:43
Well what we were talking about, is not a coincidence that people come away from these things. 

Rich Newsome  54:47
So two studies. So there’s one that studies Dale Carnegie grads and their relative success in business compared to like baseline. And there’s somebody who says, Oh, well, but those are people who are motivated to actually improve them. Solve, okay, maybe. 

Rich Newsome  55:01
But it can’t explain the disparity, whether it’s right or wrong, geometrically greater performance geometrically greater income geometrically greater success for the people that just went to a Dale Carnegie course. But I’d suggest that it’s because it’s taking a step back and letting us learn how teaching us how to be more successful, beyond just, you know, going to business classes in the undergrad or going into getting an MBA, we’re never taught those human skills. 

Rich Newsome  55:33
And this Tony Robbins thing, there was another there was a Stanford study that study, he’s got another course called date with destiny. And it really goes deep on forcing you to ask and trying to find the answer, what are my values? And from those values? What is my purpose? What is my mission? And what it what do I want, and it’s super duper powerful, because it just, it’s a chance to pause, to hit the pause button with a really powerful mentor guide, and get you into the state in this place where you can be introspective and have the space to try to understand this. 

Rich Newsome  56:08
And that’s the ultimate question, right? The what, what do I want out of life, and then to put meat on the bones. And so they took and they looked at the people that had done date with destiny and actually sent some people that were clinically depressed, and there was an actual study that Stanford University did. And then they looked at the efficacy of that group compared to another group that didn’t go through it. 

Rich Newsome  56:28
And the numbers are just like, astonishing. And so something that is kind of pseudoscience, and maybe it’s placebo, whatever it might be, but I’m just suggesting that it works. And if you want to get motivated, doing things like thinking about your life, finding a North Star and steering towards it with a handle on your rudder, and understanding why you’re on that course, why am I sailing in this direction? 

Rich Newsome  56:56
How am I going to navigate the shoals now and knowing that, golly, if the wind comes up, or I get a shoal, or I get a storm, whatever it may be, I may have to adjust the course? But I still kind of know where I’m going.

Pete Newsome  57:08
Yeah, it’s everything you’re saying. It’s, it’s I think there’s it’s not just one reason, probably, because, to me, it signifies commitment, as much as anything else. Are you willing to go to those courses, and spend the time to spend the money? That’s a huge commitment in and of itself. Right? 

Pete Newsome  57:29
And are you willing to do what others aren’t? Right, the Jerry Rice quote, which he says that’s, that’s why he was successful? Because he was willing to do what others would not do. And I think that is all part of the same message. So then, yes, getting exposure to those lessons, getting exposure to the guidance and advice is, is all part of it, but you have to commit first, right? 

Rich Newsome  57:53
Let’s look at the real cost of that. So we’ve talked about this before, how much does it cost? Now, you may get scholarships to go and get a four year undergraduate education, in terms of opportunity cost, you know, if you’re gonna go out and just get a job, in terms of tuition, books, expenses, living, whatever that let’s just say it’s 100 grand, right? Number? Sure. Okay. 100, grand, and four years of your life. Okay. 

Rich Newsome  58:20
And granted, you learn some, but that’s where most people’s education ends. And I think that this goes back to your question is the notion of hard work, it’s not just hard work, it’s working smarter and working on yourself too because that’s what a lot of us focus on is like, what am I going to do at work? What are my goals at work? 

Rich Newsome  58:41
How am I going to be a better salesperson? How am I going to convert more leads, building that method, we don’t talk about ourselves, which is the most important part of this. They don’t teach you about yourself, psychology, and business. They don’t teach you how, and what kinds of not just goal setting but creating your purpose, you don’t get educated. You’re given this bullshit education. 

Rich Newsome  59:06
Yeah, you’ll learn maybe learn some accounting and some finance and whatever you’re learning in undergrad, and you’ll learn some humanities and generally get a piss poor education if you go to State University, and then you’re just kind of cast out expecting to go find a job and go to work. It’s nonsense. And so my suggestion for my children is like this, and whatever it may be, whatever self improvement you get, but a perspective to help you figure out what do I want? And how am I going to get there? 

Rich Newsome  59:32
That’s the ultimate lesson. So at least for me, one way of doing it that I think is very successful is going to a Robbins event, but it’s a chance to step back and be introspective. It could be as easy as reading a couple of books on this stuff. Read Napoleon Hill, take three days. Go sit somewhere on the beach, or on your back porch, shut off the internet, shut up the phone, get out of the yellow pad and map this shit out. 

Rich Newsome  59:59
And me In it, and figure out a way, what do I want and how we’re gonna get there. And that’s something we don’t teach, we don’t do. And I think once, once you figure that out for yourself, at least it did for me. And I think if we go back to pattern recognition, looking at other people who are great, they’ve done the same thing. They’ve had a mission, and then the work and the method come naturally. Because you’re not working you are, you’re getting out of bed to build to create, to give back. And holy crap, there’s the real one. Without question, I mean, wow, we can figure out how to do something and give back.

Pete Newsome  1:00:36
And most of the good ideas that I’ve had have come when I’m not at work, right? Why? Because when you’re at work, you’re dealing at the moment you’re dealing with the task at hand, I have much better thoughts when I’m out running. But because I am, I’ll say passion, I try to avoid using that word because it’s so cliche, but I’m so interested in what it is that I do and to be successful doing it that that is my thought, when I’m not at work, right? 

Pete Newsome  1:01:07
I mean, I’m always at work to some degree, because of that, and I and I want that for the people I care about. I want them to find something that they’re willing to put forth that time and effort into, because as you said earlier, and it’s not working at all right, it’s just a means to an end that you’re getting, if you can, if you can do it without having the financial reward in mind or any specific word other than you the benefit of doing it and how it makes you feel, right. I mean, I think that’s, that’s a really powerful thing if you can find it. 

Rich Newsome  1:01:45
I wouldn’t call it passion, either. I’d call it what do I want? Let’s be brutally selfish with this, what do I want, put it down on paper, and be as tangible as I can. And then if you get what you want, then you’re happy. And if you get it all, hope you’re happy. But if I got what I want, then I can figure out from there what I want next, and want next.

Pete Newsome  1:02:05
Well, it’s the truest thing that you have, which I think right if you say what, what is it that consumes your thoughts? No one else can determine that for you. You may not even be able, or you may not be willing to articulate it to anyone else for various reasons, right, depending on what those thoughts are. But that is your true self. That is your true interest and motivation and drive. 

Pete Newsome  1:02:29
And if you can match those things up amazing things can happen. And I don’t know what amazing thing can happen without it. Right. But maybe, but that should be when I think of careers then that that’s it, what is that thing that consumes your thoughts? Because you’re so you, it’s so interesting to you. It’s so it’s just all-encompassing, I mean that that is what I would wish for anyone who’s young in their career, that’s for sure. Right? I didn’t have that far from it. I was lost, you found that at a young age, you achieve success.

Rich Newsome  1:03:11
So really, I didn’t Well, I kind of found what I was good at. And that brought me happiness. But I didn’t really find my purpose until I was in my mid-30s. But at least I was falling what I thought I was good at and it was kind of fun. And I kind of you know, it was kind of like playing a sport, right? Going into a courtroom and talking to a jury and it’s a contest, you’re going up against another lawyer who’s trying to take you out. It’s kind of fun. I mean, but you at least for me, right?

Pete Newsome  1:03:38
If you didn’t see it, that way, you wouldn’t have put forth the effort you wouldn’t have, you wouldn’t have put that grind forward, right? You could have avoided it at all costs and still done the job. Right? I mean, you could have checked the box. But checking the box isn’t gonna achieve a high level of success. We know that. You’re right. And so, man, this has been, this has been really good. 

Pete Newsome  1:04:02
I can’t thank you enough for taking the time. I do have to ask you one final question, though. Have you found career zen? And because I’m not sure if you have I ask everyone that. It’s a very personal thing, right? That whatever that means to you. But you said you found your why, I don’t know that you’ve found it yet. You seem still motivated. 

Rich Newsome  1:04:23
So ultimately, at the end of the day, my passion is getting to play Robin Hood, to give to the poor, the people who really need it who’ve been screwed over by big corporations, and take from the wealthy people who have screwed them over and to help them and to not just and really if I had to encapsulate it is to get extraordinary record breaking verdicts and settlements to people who have been wronged or hurt or have suffered losses that give me joy and I’ve been able to do it in a way that has been fulfilling not only for my clients, but I think it’s made the world safer. 

Rich Newsome  1:04:59
We had some of the biggest recalls in history, I think as a part, not just my cases, but other people, you know, the Takata recall and the Ford Firestone recall, and a host of other recalls of products that you’ve probably never heard of that have had an impact on regular people, real people, families, and children, beyond just the clients that I’ve represented. And so now I look at this thing, and, you know, do I want to retire and go hike around the world or sale, I’ve figured that out over the last couple years, isn’t suddenly this whole sort of exciting new thing is to, we created a not for profit five years ago called trial school. 

Rich Newsome  1:05:38
And we have over 5000 members. And we basically provide free trial advocacy training for other lawyers who only represent human beings. So if you represent a corporation or a business, or the government, you are not allowed in our group. But we hold these amazing seminars, we have an online platform, it’s all free, and we give it away. And we’ve, I think, made especially the lawyers who needed the most and can’t afford it, especially in you know, small practices, people who’ve left the public defenders, or the prosecutors and young lawyers trying to start who is where 

Rich Newsome  1:06:08
I was, when I was on my own, helping those people help other people’s been great. And then also kind of how can I grow my firm, because one of the things that I see, at least in my industry, that makes me really angry, is the same thing that made me jump sides years ago, which is crappy lawyers, a lot of whom are the billboard lawyers that you see these mills, these advertisers, these TV lawyers, who have lawyers who have way too many cases, they may be decent lawyers, but way too many cases, they got them. It’s like a mill, they’re moving these cases. 

Rich Newsome  1:06:41
And these poor clients sign up because they don’t know any other lawyers, they go to these giant firms, and they are settling their cases and are having their cases settled by these lawyers for pennies on the dollar. And that really really pisses me off on so many levels. And so one of the things we’re looking at now is alright, well, how can we change that? How can I be a change agent with that, and we’ve got some creative things? 

Rich Newsome  1:07:06
But I think that’s kind my next phase is to work even within my industry, because my ultimate mission for me, is to get extraordinary results for the people who really need it as human beings. And man that’s just that’s a rush. And so I’ll probably be doing it, you know, to like, cart me out.

Pete Newsome  1:07:24
That’s a great legacy to leave no question about it. Well, so I’ll take that as a maybe, then it’s still a work in progress. You’re still at it.

Rich Newsome  1:07:34
Oh, no, no, it’s definitely I am, I am in this thing for the duration. That’s my clarity. Now there isn’t there’s no maybe about it. Plus, I have a kid in law school who’s kind of got the same passion I do. And that’s a whole different level of leaving a legacy and having fun with her and mentoring her. So yeah, so I’m in this thing for the duration. I’m having fun. 

Pete Newsome  1:07:55
Awesome.

Pete Newsome  1:07:56
Well, thank you again, I really appreciate your time. I really enjoyed getting to read your bio today. I didn’t read much of it. But I read it prior and I know you have accomplished what you are but to see it in print. It’s impressive. So again, thank you. Thank you for all your time today very proud of your success.

Rich Newsome  1:08:18
Well, thanks for what you’re doing. For all the people out there. I hope that some of the people that listen to this, I’ve given so many of those damn. books out the Napoleon Hill and the Dale Carnegie, I hope someone just takes the time and hears this if one person would just take this advice is invest in yourself. 

Rich Newsome  1:08:37
And take the time and give yourself some space to find what lights you up. And it’s a journey and you’re not going to maybe find it right away. But if you work on it and give a significant investment of your time into it, I promise you it will make all of the difference.

Pete Newsome  1:08:56
Awesome, powerful words. Rich. Thank you. All right. Thank you great rest of the day. And thank you for listening.

Rich Newsome  1:09:02
It was truly a pleasure and an honor to be on your podcast. Oh really, really enjoyed it.

Pete Newsome  1:09:06
Maybe we will get you back on in a year and follow up on what’s happened. But thank you again and thanks, everyone for listening and we will talk to you very soon. 

Rich Newsome  1:09:16
Thanks again.