The "Free Lawyer" with Gary Miles - Episode 33

In Episode 33 of the Legal Genie Podcast, your host, Lara Quie of Lara Q Associates is in conversation with U.S. attorney and coach, Gary Miles. Gary has been practicing law for more than four decades. He's been a trial lawyer and managing partner, a leader, and an entrepreneur. He loves helping people solve problems. He is very passionate about showing people how to free themselves from the prisons that entrap them. So many lawyers are stressed and overwhelmed in their practice, and he provides tangible practical tools to help those clients overcome their obstacles, freeing them to enjoy the success and fulfilment that they have always craved.

Gary shares openly about his battle with alcoholism and finding sobriety. He talks about switching practice area in his 50s and finding contentment through the practice of gratitude and acceptance. 

I hope that you enjoy this episode.

You can connect with Gary Miles on LinkedIn here

And on his website here

Also:

·         If you liked this episode, please rate the show, and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts to help the Legal Genie reach a wider audience.

·         Look out for the next episode coming soon.

You can connect with Lara Quie:

·         On LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/laraquie

·         Website: https://www.laraqassociates.com

·          Or Email at Lara@LaraQAssociates.com

Lara Q Associates
A boutique business and executive coaching consultancy

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Lara Quie - The Legal Genie Podcast - Ep 33 with Gary Miles

[00:00:00] Lara Quie: Hello. And welcome to the legal genie podcast hosted by me, Lara Quie. 

[00:00:37] Lara Quie: This podcast is for anyone looking for some career inspiration and mentoring in the legal industry.

[00:00:45] Lara Quie: I interview movers and shakers with interesting stories to tell about the highs and lows of their careers. 

[00:00:52] Lara Quie: They share loads of useful advice that I hope will help you to move forward in your career. 

[00:00:58] Please rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts to help us reach a wider audience who may also find the content of value. I hope that you'll enjoy this episode. 

[00:01:07] Lara Quie: Hello and welcome to Episode 33 of the Legal Genie Podcast. I'm very excited to be with Gary Miles all the way from the USA. Gary has been practicing law for more than four decades. He's been a trial lawyer and the managing partner, a leader, and an entrepreneur. He loves helping people solve problems.

[00:01:35] Lara Quie: And he's very passionate about showing people how to free themselves from the prisons that entrap them. So many lawyers are stressed and overwhelmed in their practice, and he provides tangible practical tools to help those clients overcome their obstacles, freeing them to enjoy the success and fulfilment that they have always craved.

[00:01:57] Lara Quie: So, I'm excited to be talking to you today, Gary, [00:02:00] welcome to the show. 

[00:02:01] Gary Miles: Lara, thank you so much for having me on this is just great. 

[00:02:04] Lara Quie: It's the amazing thing about modern technology that we can connect in this way. Isn't? 

[00:02:09] Gary Miles: It really is 12 hours apart in Singapore and Pinehurst North Carolina, but it is really wonderful.

[00:02:16] Lara Quie: So, on this podcast, what I like to focus on is your career journey. So tell me about your childhood and where you grew up. 

[00:02:25] Gary Miles: Sure. So I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. I lived there my entire life. I lived in Baltimore, Maryland for 10 days, shy of 67 years.

[00:02:34] Gary Miles: I think I was so provincial. It might have been 40 years till I escaped our little state for any purpose. I always wanted to be a trial lawyer. My older brother, who is my mentor was a trial lawyer before me. I followed his path into the same college and the same law school and entered the same practice area of trial work in the Baltimore, Maryland metropolitan area, and started with a small firm [00:03:00] after clerking in federal court.

[00:03:02] Gary Miles: And that's how I began my practice. 

[00:03:04] Lara Quie: So, it sounds like your brother was a really big influence on your life. What was it that got him into law in the first place? 

[00:03:11] Gary Miles: You know, that's interesting. I'm not sure. I really know the answer for that. I think, um, Gene was always very, very intelligent, very articulate. And I think like many of us, he had a passion to make our world, our community a better place.

[00:03:25] Gary Miles: And I know I felt that in law, I had an opportunity really be a service. To people in as many ways as I could. And for me, that was a really big motivating factor. How can I serve and help others? And I think Gene came from the same, the same mindset. 

[00:03:42] Lara Quie: And so when you were just starting out and you left law school, did Gene help you get your first job or anything like that?

[00:03:49] Lara Quie: Was he an influence in helping you find a practice? 

[00:03:52] Gary Miles: So I would say not really in the sense that I've been a golfer my whole life. I learned to play golf because I caddied [00:04:00] and I caddied at local clubs at kind of high levels. I met a man there who asked me to start working in his law firm before I was in law school.

[00:04:07] Gary Miles: And I worked there all through law school and I graduated top of my class. I clerked in federal court. I could have really kind of worked anywhere, including big law, but because of my sense of commitment and appreciation and gratitude to George Baker, who hired me when I wasn't even a lawyer, yet I returned to his firm, and I really did wanna be a trial lawyer.

[00:04:29] Gary Miles: And, and my brother was, and that firm didn't really do much trial work. So after about three years, I joined a boutique litigation firm in downtown Baltimore and started trying cases there. And Gene and I initially were actually on the opposite sides of things. We had to make sure we never had conflicts because he was primarily a plaintiff's attorney.

[00:04:50] Gary Miles: And I was primarily a defence attorney, but yet it allowed for some interesting communications because I could still bounce cases off of him. And he [00:05:00] likewise with me when we were not in a conflict position.. 

[00:05:03] Lara Quie: So tell me a bit about that journey from being an associate at Baker & Baker, and then within litigation, I know that you sort of chose various practice areas to specialize in. Tell me about that journey. 

[00:05:17] Gary Miles: Sure. So when I went with a firm, which was then called Lurch and Husman, and this was a few years back in 1982, they did mostly insurance defence work. And I did that in a variety of areas, but it began to be a focus on transportation litigation. Which is a nice sounding word for, I represent truck drivers who are in bad accidents on highways and not sure about Singapore, but in this part of the world, no one likes truck drivers, maybe now with a supply chain issue, we realize how important truckers are.

[00:05:47] Gary Miles: But back in the day, everyone did not like truck drivers. So I really spent the first large part of my career doing that kind of work representing truck drivers for primarily insurance companies or for self-insured trucking [00:06:00] companies. I liked doing it. I was good at it. It kept me fairly busy, but later in my career, I decided to make a change and I felt like that kind of work was not sufficiently fulfilling for me. I loved the carriers that I represented, but there was not enough of a personal connection, enough of a real human piece to it. So if I'm representing a truck driver in a case, I may not have met him before the trial. And I certainly wasn't gonna see him after the trial.

[00:06:28] Gary Miles: And I didn't really know him that well. So it really was, it was only about money. It was sort of a game and I really wanted something more fulfill. So in about 2009, I kind of reinvented myself. I chose to become a family law attorney doing divorce cases and custody cases. I wanted to have more diversity in my income because of a small firm having primarily only two clients was a dangerous place to be.

[00:06:54] Gary Miles: If there was a change with one of them. And I really wanted to have more of a connection. So, I had a mentor. [00:07:00] He actually handled my divorce, which was fairly amicable and easy, but had been a friend of my brother Gene's. And he became my mentor in family law. Family law is pretty easy to learn best interests of the children, divide property equitably.

[00:07:14] Gary Miles: So in one sense, it's very easy. But another, it has some very, very hard questions. Your client calls you on Saturday. It's my day with the kids, my husband wouldn't bring them back. What do I do? Those kind of questions come up all the time. And I had no idea what the answers were. So Dave Silverberg was my free unpaid wonderful mentor who just out of a spirit of generosity helped me showed me, gave me forms, answered all my questions, no matter how stupid. And now I've handled. I don't know how many hundreds of cases it's, I've really grown to know like, and love handling that kind of work, because I can really help my clients where they're one of the worst places in their life and lift them and show them a vision of what their life can be like and help them get there.

[00:07:58] Lara Quie: That sounds like quite challenging work. How did you keep yourself from getting too emotionally involved? And there must have been some quite difficult cases, especially with regard to child custody and things like that. 

[00:08:11] Gary Miles: Some cases are easy and some are really, really hard. And I have one of those now it's gone on for three years.

[00:08:18] Gary Miles: It's hard primarily because the father, the other party. Is maybe mentally ill, although he hasn't been diagnosed as such, but he's just lives in an alternate reality. He's been through 14 lawyers. He attacks everybody. He calls everybody names. He hid, the kids, went from hotel to hotel. Wouldn't let 'em go to school.

[00:08:40] Gary Miles: All these kinds of things and is very, very difficult. And I've been incredibly supportive to my client and she's over the top appreciative of what I've done, but despite all that, it's not my life and not my problem. And I'm very, very empathetic with her. I'm constantly available to her, literally, anytime she wants, because I know the urgent issues in the case, but I don't take the problems to heart.

[00:09:03] Gary Miles: I don't lose sleep worrying about her. It's not my life, it's her life and I help her with it, but I don't internalize her problems that make them my own. 

[00:09:13] Lara Quie: Sounds like that's a very important ability and it must be quite difficult to be empathetic. And as you say, available and responsive in such a way when it's such a personal matter to that individual and they express a lot of anguish. So what about the way that you handle this family law practice, compared to the transport practice that you used to have? What are your thoughts on the different approaches to those and the sort of the pros and cons to each practice?

[00:09:45] Gary Miles: Sure. So when I did the transportation defence work, things fit into a certain pattern over 30 years of doing that. And I still do it today, although to a much more limited extent. You'd see the same fact patterns. You're dealing with a very [00:10:00] intelligent client. The insurance claims representative. It's all they do.

[00:10:03] Gary Miles: They know litigation, they know cases, they know values. I don't need to educate them. We work hand and glove and cases fit into certain pattern. I had the same way, pretty much of handling each case. I take a deposition, ask different questions maybe, but I mean, over the time I could take a three hour deposition with almost literally no preparation, just a few bullet points, cuz I've done it so much.

[00:10:27] Gary Miles: Every family law case is very different. Each person is different. The issues and the family are different. Our clients are not educated about litigation. They don't know family law, and they're very, very emotionally, weak and overwhelmed with either anger or fear or victimization or some sort of emotional pain.

[00:10:49] Gary Miles: And so you can't use a cookie cutter approach there and you really spend a lot of time educating your client. Maybe reshaping their goals because sometimes they, they may come from an approach. I just wanna be done with this. I'm over. Just get it over with. I don't care. He can have everything. Well, that's not really a good place to be because they're doing out of a, a place of emotional weakness.

[00:11:12] Gary Miles: And if. That was the result two months later, they'd say, how did you let me do that? You know, so a lot of it is really shaping their goals, giving them confidence, lifting them up, supporting them and painting for them, a vision of how good their life can be when they're past this overwhelming trauma. I read somewhere that a really difficult divorce is the second, most stressful thing.

[00:11:34] Gary Miles: Someone encounters in their life after the loss of a child. More than the loss of a spouse. And I don't know how someone exactly reaches that conclusion, but I think it's really appropriate that it's just a terribly stressful situation. In my trucking defence, there is no emotion to it at all the truck driver who appears in court as the defendant.

[00:11:54] Gary Miles: Doesn't really care because he has insurance and the insurance company it's really just logical and about money and what makes sense and how do we handle it. But there really is an element of educating our client in family law and supporting them emotionally, which is not at all present in the insurance defence realm.

[00:12:10] Lara Quie: So tell me about how you moved into coaching and how you are coaching your clients in the legal situation as well. But now I know that you also do coaching in another style for people who are not your legal clients. Tell me about that. 

[00:12:27] Gary Miles: Yes, that's right. So right now, I'm coaching and supporting lawyers who feel like they're stressed and overwhelmed in their work for me when I became a lawyer is one of the biggest days of my life. I know for many lawyers passing the bar and being admitted to the bar is huge. And I think in the UK, we call it called to the bar.

[00:12:49] Gary Miles: It's different, a little different, the process here is different in the states, but I suspect that the feeling is the same. That day is a wonderful day, but then 10 years later, those lawyers are stressed and overwhelmed and overworked and not happy. And that's a real problem here in the United States.

[00:13:04] Gary Miles: And I, I really have learned throughout the world as well. They're overworked. They feel like they're underpaid. They still have financial issues and I've always had a passion for health and wellness. Mental balance. So a little bit about my personal journey. I'm sober and recovery for a little over 30 years now.

[00:13:21] Gary Miles: And I used to be an active alcoholic for a period of time when I was practicing. And I've changed how I view cases. I've changed how I handle my life through that transformation of getting sober and living a sober life. and as a result of that, I have a, I've seen the law profession has scary statistics about substance abuse and even suicide.

[00:13:44] Gary Miles: We're one of the highest or lowest, depending on you look at it, professions for suicide rates. And for about 20 years, I worked with lawyer assistance committee and my state and county and chair the committee. And we would reach out to lawyers and [00:14:00] judges and even law students. Who had some mental health issue, depression, anxiety, or substance abuse.

[00:14:06] Gary Miles: And I loved helping them trouble was there weren't enough to help because so many of them said, I'm okay. I don't have a problem. What I wanted to do now is take it to the next level where an earlier level and help people before they get to the stage where the grievance commission is reaching out to them, or they need to see a psychologist or psychiatrist cuz of severe mental issues and really help them when they.

[00:14:30] Gary Miles: Just struggling and not feeling well and bringing some of the same tools I've learned from 40 years of both coaching and mentoring, and also my own work with myself to share some of those ways that they can free themselves from those mindset issues that often really make their life miserable when it doesn't have to be.

[00:14:52] Lara Quie: So what about your personal journey into alcohol? That [00:15:00] gradual slip into that and the reasons that you felt that happened and how you managed to identify and actually come to terms with that. 

[00:15:11] Gary Miles: So it is a slow process. Alcoholism is a. Progressive and to its end of a fatal disease. I believe it to be a disease.

[00:15:22] Gary Miles: I don't really know why I'm an alcoholic. I believe it's genetic or genetically based studies have shown that there were a number of alcoholics in my world. My dad died sober in recovery. We got sober together, which is kind of a beautiful story. And I don't know how I, how I got there. What happened was I realized.

[00:15:45] Gary Miles: At times I didn't want to drink anymore. I wanted to stop. I told myself I was going to stop and I couldn't, and there was almost nothing in my life that I had been unable to accomplish to that time. But try as I might, [00:16:00] every day I was gonna stop and every day I failed. And ultimately we get to the point where something happens that causes us to realize we really have to do something.

[00:16:10] Gary Miles: And for me, there was an event where I really lost my memory of something that happened the night before we call it a blackout. And I'm very bright. I remember a lot of things and I couldn't remember something really important from the night before that scared me. So that's what led to me entering a program of recovery.

[00:16:28] Gary Miles: And for me, it's been the greatest gift in my life. Really. I don't know where I would be today without it, but I'm really, really grateful for that opportunity, which I didn't deserve. I did nothing in my personal behavior. Or actions at that point to be given the gift of sobriety, but I'm very, very grateful for it.

[00:16:48] Lara Quie: We hear these days a lot about addiction and the pressures that lawyers face. What advice can you give to someone who might [00:17:00] notice that instead of coming home from work and pouring themselves a well-deserved glass of wine and just enjoying wine for the sake of enjoying wine, when that tips into.

[00:17:14] Lara Quie: Actual alcoholism. What are the signs that they need to be aware of to make them think? Actually, this is a bit more than me just enjoying a nice glass of wine tonight. Well, 

[00:17:27] Gary Miles: I think the one thought I would throw out first is that the only thing that matters is if they want to keep drinking the way they are, because I got to the point where I didn't want to anymore, but I couldn't stop.

[00:17:40] Gary Miles: And once I had that mental thought that this really isn't working for me, this isn't good for me. And I want to stop. And I couldn't, that was a warning sign. But I guess to me, the two warning signs are, if I didn't want to drink and I told myself I wasn't going to drink, but I still did. That's a dangerous sign.

[00:17:58] Gary Miles: Or if I said, I'm going to have two drinks and I had 10, that's a dangerous sign. So it's really losing the control over if we drink and how much we drink that really to me is the, the key. But I know I've spoken to other attorneys and there's so many out there who realize. This isn't really working for me.

[00:18:16] Gary Miles: And they made a conscious choice when they could to not drink. And they were able to change that. I didn't have that power at the end. I couldn't choose to not drink. And at the time I thought I was weak, I thought I was a terrible person. I was full shame and guilt and remorse. And I learned now that I really had a disease, I had lost all power over it.

[00:18:38] Lara Quie: So, what was your first step once you realized that you needed help? What help was there for you? 

[00:18:46] Gary Miles: Well, I entered a program of recovery and have practiced that program ever since. And I would say to anyone who has questions about this, uh, reach out to someone there are so many.

[00:18:59] Gary Miles: Resources available. So for me in the state of Maryland, there's the lawyer assistance committee. We have trained experts who help to evaluate and support and assist folks who need help in recovery or with any other mental health issue. And it may not be that was my journey, substance abuse, but for some it's depression or anxiety, and the most important thing I can say is.

[00:19:21] Gary Miles: You're not alone. I felt alone. I felt there's no one like me, that the world is full of people like me and together we lift and support each other. And the same, if, if your struggle is with, with depression or, or some other mental health issue, you know, it's funny when someone has multiple sclerosis.

[00:19:39] Gary Miles: Everyone is so supportive of that person and the troubles they're going through, and they encourage and lift that person. But if someone has a mental health issue, particularly if, and sometimes part of it is that we don't recognize, we have the issue. That person is subject to scorn and ridicule and so forth because he or she may be actually ways are just inappropriate, [00:20:00] but mental health is, is real. And there are tools and support out there for everyone who feels they are looking to change. 

[00:20:08] Lara Quie: Fortunately, it feels like there has been a lot more willingness to talk about mental health issues in the legal profession. And the tide is turning. People are beginning to be more open. There are more resources, as you say, more support.

[00:20:23] Lara Quie: I have heard of several people doing mental health first. Courses to really look out for colleagues. And so what would you say are some really good practices that you implement and that you would advise somebody else to do to really look after their mental health while they're practicing law? 

[00:20:43] Gary Miles: Well, I think the most important thing for me is to have a practice of gratitude.

[00:20:48] Gary Miles: There are times things don't go my way. There are a lot of times things don't go my way. People don't act towards me how they want, they don't circumstances. Aren't what I want. I may have had some reversal or some [00:21:00] failure in some way, but I always think about what I have to be grateful for. So a practice I like to use is for a month and I ask my clients to do this.

[00:21:11] Gary Miles: To write down each day, each morning when they get up three things they're grateful for for a month. And the challenge is you can't write down the same three things every time. So I can't say I'm grateful for my wife and I'm grateful for my son. I'm grateful for my daughter. That's three, but after you've done 60, then you're on a search.

[00:21:31] Gary Miles: For something in your life to be grateful for. And when we're in a search for gratitude, we can't be anything but happy, peaceful, and content. That doesn't mean everything is our way, but sometimes in life we focus too much on what we don't have instead of being grateful for what we have. We think about what we want and we don't have, or we think about how things are not our way.

[00:21:52] Gary Miles: So gratitude to me is very, very important. And the other is acceptance. One thing I've learned from my recovery [00:22:00] is that I don't control other people. They don't control me. I don't have any control over people and circumstances in my life. So take COVID. I have no control over COVID. I thought the darn thing was going to be gone in two weeks.

[00:22:14] Gary Miles: Two years ago. That's what we told us. We'd go inside for two weeks. We'll be gone here. We are two and a half year later, still we went on family vacation. We have 16 in our family. Ended up eight. People got COVID. Some didn't make it because of COVID some got it down there. We have no control over it. I used to let those things bother me.

[00:22:31] Gary Miles: I used to let people bother me. I'd be trying to please them. I'd. A nice response back. I expect if I do something nice for you, you're going to at least say, thank you. You may do something nice back. It doesn't work that way. Life isn't fair. People have their own issues. So practicing acceptance. The only thing that I can change today is me and my attitude.

[00:22:53] Gary Miles: I can't change you. I may want to play golf later. It's supposed to rain. I can't change that. The only thing I can change is my attitude towards life [00:23:00] today. What are my feelings and what actions do I want to take? And it used to be when someone acted to me in a way that was inappropriate, I'd get upset. I'd get angry.

[00:23:10] Gary Miles: Now I take a step back. I reflect on it. I realize he's going to act the way he wants to act. I can't change it, but how do I want to respond? Maybe I want to respond just by disconnecting. Maybe I want to set some boundary. So to me, gratitude and acceptance are probably the two most important daily tools that I utilize.

[00:23:29] Gary Miles: And I'm not perfect at either for sure. I mean, each of them is a once I'm in a place in my day where. Something isn't going wrong and I'm upset about it. Then I have to reflect and get back on gratitude and the third and finally most important is being of service. I don't know how many times I'll be sitting at my desk, cranky, upset over something stupid.

[00:23:52] Gary Miles: And someone calls me and asks for help or service. And I find when I'm of service to people. My own selflessness, [00:24:00] selfish attitude is washed away when I'm trying to help someone else who's in some way less fortunate, less money needs help in some way. I find that then I'm out of my own selfish attitudes.

[00:24:13] Lara Quie: These are very powerful messages, Gary. I totally agree with you. The focus on gratitude in particular, what you have not focusing on what you don't have or what you are not, and also the elements of your life. What is under your own personal control and what isn't. And especially when it comes to things like COVID.

[00:24:34] Lara Quie: I mean, we can be so frustrated with ourselves. If we think that we want to control everything. And often lawyers are people who like to have things very under control. Lawyers are often people who are risk adverse and they concentrate on the details. So we're almost kind of predisposed to a certain mindset.

[00:24:57] Lara Quie: And so I know that you talk quite a lot about people pleasing and how you used to be a people pleaser. Tell me a little bit about how you actually managed to reframe your mindset around people pleasing. 

[00:25:10] Gary Miles: So a little bit about my childhood. I had two wonderful parents. They were great, but I was very, very heavy.

[00:25:17] Gary Miles: I was really, I, I was fat to, to be honest as a kid, I wore nerdy glasses. I would be what people would call a geek. And I was brilliant. I was much smarter than everybody in my school. So I'm fat with nerdy classes. Geeky and brilliant. And that made me very, very, very unpopular. No one likes a smart kid because it makes them look dumb when they tell the teacher we can't get it.

[00:25:43] Gary Miles: What about Gary? So I was really bullied and picked on as a kid. I was mocked. I was called names. I was called Pugsley. I was called Arnold, which, and the us, we had a show called green acres and Arnold was the pig and names such as that. And so it gave me a desire to be perfect in everything I did and to win approval of other people, because I was on a search for that because I didn't get it growing up.

[00:26:11] Gary Miles: So the first 10, 15 years of my practice, I was all about acting towards Lara the way you wanted me to act. And then later acting towards Jack the way he wanted me to act to get approval. It's a very frustrating, it's not inherently bad to please other people because that person's usually nice. They're kind, they're sweet, they're helpful and all those things, but it gets to a point where you lose your own self, where you don't set boundaries.

[00:26:38] Gary Miles: You're not being true to yourself. You're acting the way other people want to act instead of the way you want to act. And it's very, very frustrating because I might try to get approval of other people, but not get it, even though I might deserve it. And so it was frustrating, depressing, and. I realized that I had to kind of flip how I look things and that the only person that I really have [00:27:00] control over is me.

[00:27:02] Gary Miles: And I have to be the best me that I can be. I should not be getting your approval, but I should be looking at how was I a month ago and how am I now? Have I improved? Am I acting responsibly? And if people don't like the choices I make, if I have to say no to someone for some reason, that's okay. And I realize now that other people's opinions on me.

[00:27:23] Gary Miles: Just don't matter. They're entitled to their opinions, but they don't control me if they think I'm this, that some negative thing. It doesn't make me that. That's just their opinion. I'm responsible for myself and my own success. And it's very freeing, completely freeing when I'm no longer worried about what other people think of me.

[00:27:42] Lara Quie: That's right. If you detach yourself from that and you look at how you yourself interpret things and how you behave, and it's only what you tell yourself, it's the inner voice. That's the difficult one inner critic. So harsh . 

[00:27:58] Gary Miles: Yes. And sometimes we are so hard on ourselves. You know, someone told me once that I should talk to myself the way I talk to my kids.

[00:28:06] Gary Miles: And some people may not have kids. You may choose your best friend or your sister but we would always lift and support those we love. But if I drop a bottle and the glass and the tea spill over the floor. I start calling myself names, but if it was someone we love, we say, oh, that's okay, we'll clean it up.

[00:28:23] Gary Miles: So sometimes we have to be very compassionate with ourselves and sometimes we are our hardest critic. And so when we start thinking about being our best selves, we have to also practice some compassion and forgiveness for ourselves because we're never going to be perfect. We all make mistakes. And we just learn from them.

[00:28:39] Lara Quie: So you mentioned the word "perfect". And certainly many lawyers are perfectionists. So were you a perfectionist? And are you still one now? 

[00:28:49] Gary Miles: I absolutely was. And I came from the same situation growing up that I described, I wanted to be perfect. I didn't want to be perfect. I wanted to show [00:29:00] people how good I was, and that I deserved their approval. I graduated top of my class in high school, college and law school. And I was very motivated. I worked very hard. The trouble with being a perfectionist is we always fail. I'm not perfect. And I can't be perfect and I can't do anything perfectly. And so it creates a cycle where even though we're striving for perfection.

[00:29:24] Gary Miles: We're failing a hundred percent of the time because we're never perfect. Today I strive for excellence. I can be excellent. Now I can be mediocre too, and that's not good, but if I strive for excellence, that's something that I can achieve. Perfectionism also leads I found to procrastination. If I'm working on a brief for the court, I can write it pretty well.

[00:29:43] Gary Miles: I can rewrite it. I can rewrite after three drafts. It's excellent. I could keep reading the darn thing, looking for one more misplaced comma or substituting one word for another, and I don't really change how good it is, but I always wanna make it perfect. So I keep reading and rereading and, and we waste [00:30:00] time and often it leads us putting off tasks we want to get, you know, we want to get done. So, you know, to me, A- work or B+ work. As a lawyer is just fine. But if we strive for A+ work all the time, we'll get very little done and we'll be very unhappy with our work product, cuz it won't ever be perfect. 

[00:30:19] Lara Quie: So thinking about advice for any young lawyers who are listening right now, what, messages have you got for them?

[00:30:26] Gary Miles: Always know that you're not alone and that it's a sign of maturity and responsibility to ask for support that could be from a family member. It could be from someone in your firm that you trust. It could be from someone outside the firm you have a professional connection with could be from a therapist or a coach.

[00:30:46] Gary Miles: But don't just let the overwhelm and stress, keep building, speak to someone in confidence and ask for support because we're never alone. And there's a world of support out there for [00:31:00] whatever it is that is causing us challenges. But too often as lawyers, we have to have all the answers. We have to be confident.

[00:31:08] Gary Miles: We have to appear very strong and it's hard sometimes to acknowledge that there's something going on, that's causing us some issues, some stress. So you're not alone. Ask for support. And it's responsible and healthy to ask for support. 

[00:31:24] Gary Miles: Very few lawyers find it easy to ask for help. And I think that is the main challenge.

[00:31:30] Gary Miles: When you reach, reach a point that, you know, actually this is beyond what I can do on my own. Especially. If you enter a sort of negative spiral, people get depressed, the work maybe gets out of control. You start missing deadlines. It quite easily begins to get out of control. Doesn't it? And people don't want to show weakness and they don't want to reach out to their colleagues.

[00:31:56] Gary Miles: That's true. And I think a lot of it has to do with what do we want our life to be. So it's very easy when we start our practice to go with a firm where we're offered huge money, but we don't like the work. The hours are overwhelming and I've talked to a number of folks who have just redesigned their life and they've either entered their own practice, or they've gone to a different kind of firm that maybe doesn't pay as much, but doesn't work folks 80 hours a week, or they work in a practice area that is more independent and more encouraging.

[00:32:29] Gary Miles: You know, money is very, very important. We need to pay our bills and to have the home and to have the life we desire. But it's okay to really think about our life. What do we want it to look like 10 years from now? Where do I want to be? And what do I want to be doing? Do I want a life where, when I'm in my fifties, I'm working 70 hours a week and I don't see my family and my kids just to accumulate more stuff? Or do I want a different way of life? And both of those are fine, but I think sometimes we get stuck. We enter the practice of law usually to be [00:33:00] of help and to be of service. Not too many people in law school say I went to law school cause I want to make money. They know that they can make money, but that's not their overriding goal.

[00:33:08] Gary Miles: Their overriding goal is to help society in some way. And so for those who are really unfulfilled in what they're doing, take some time reflect. What do I want my life to look like? And I've learned, we can really have any life we choose. We can make it whatever we want to make it. And people, you know, I transformed my life personally through my recovery.

[00:33:30] Gary Miles: I transformed my practice area to something I found more fulfilling at the age of 50ish, completely changing my practice area. And I find it so much more fulfilling. Stress doesn't bother me. You know, I finish a case and I get, thank you notes for my client from three years ago, just emailed me again, because something might be going on with custody in her matter.

[00:33:52] Gary Miles: And she began with all this gratitude for what I did for her. And that's worth so much to me to know that I really helped [00:34:00] this wonderful mom who is alone with three daughters, handle her bipolar narcissistic ex-husband. So for those who are really frustrated, realize you're in control of your life and today can be the start of whatever life you want it to be.

[00:34:16] Gary Miles: You're not trapped where you are. You can choose whatever avenue we have. Cause law is great. My wife is in nursing. Nursing's the same way. There's so much you can do in law in so many different ways. Choose your life. It's ours. 

[00:34:30] Lara Quie: I love that Gary choose your life. That's what you've done. I love the fact that you said that you were 50 when you changed practice area.

[00:34:39] Lara Quie: I think there are so many lawyers who feel stuck, they think, oh my goodness, I've invested 20 years doing this type of law. It's too late. There's always. Oh, it's too late for me now, but the reality is that you can practice as long as you want. And therefore, it's never too late to change direction and get a new thirst for knowledge to train yourself in a different area.

[00:35:06] Lara Quie: To use your brain and to love learning, to be a lifelong learner and thinking about the satisfaction that you are getting, and you just described this wonderful, thank you note and the gratitude from your clients, but the relationships that you build with those people, the tangible outcomes that you see as a result of the service that you are delivering and the satisfaction that that brings.

[00:35:30] Lara Quie: If you had never been someone to take that leap of faith to say, actually, you know, I've, I've done, a good deal of transport work in my time. But I have noticed that family law seems to be the kind of thing that I would be interested in and try it out. But if that had not gone well for you, if you had found family law to be perhaps overwhelming difficult and not a good fit. What would you have [00:36:00] done? 

[00:36:00] Gary Miles: Well, that's a good question. So it's sort hypothetical, but I, I have a skillset where I love to be of service. I'm articulate. I'm good in court. There are many things I can do with that. That could be of, of service to our community. I had a guest on my podcast, laura Frederick and Laura was in big law. And then she worked for some big companies like Tesla. She had four children and was a single mom and she changed her life. She went off on her own and created her own firm and her own.

[00:36:29] Gary Miles: Contract service, teaching people, contracts by herself and she loves the freedom that she has. And she described the fear as putting a blindfold on and jumping off a cliff. But she learned how to handle that fear of starting a new life. And she is just so filled with gratitude and happiness and peace because she has her own schedule.

[00:36:49] Gary Miles: She has her own life and she's more financially secure than she was once she had a great job with Tesla, it's just a really powerful story of how we can reinvent ourselves anytime we want and pick the path that encourages us. 

[00:37:04] Lara Quie: That's definitely an inspirational story. And I think that your story, Gary is also inspirational.

[00:37:10] Lara Quie: How you overcame addiction. You really found a very different mindset. You put yourself to the service of others. You have been someone who. Joined boards that help others, helping lawyers to get through this as well, because you understand what that's like for them, and you want to help them live a better life.

[00:37:32] Lara Quie: And then through your podcast, you mentioned your podcast. So the free lawyer podcast. Yes. Tell me a little bit about that, the inspiration for that and, and what you are doing with it. 

[00:37:43] Gary Miles: Yeah. So I started about six months ago and I had my own fears about it. We talk about mindset, but I was ready to go for about three months until I got started.

[00:37:51] Gary Miles: Because I kept saying I'm an older guy. Who's going to want to listen to me. So it was my own mindset block I had to overcome, but I wanted to do it because in my four plus decades of running a law firm, being a trial lawyer, being a mentor, I knew that I. Some thoughts that could be of help or service to other people.

[00:38:11] Gary Miles: So each episode on Monday, I will have a solo episode where I talk about people pleasing, perfectionism, managing fears, boundaries, and burnout, handling stress in the workplace, tolerance, things of that sort. And every Thursday, I have a guest who brings some unique perspective on law in their life. 

[00:38:33] Gary Miles: Either there's some way they help lawyers or something about their journey to me is instructive about how we can choose our life. And it's getting some nice reception because it's a positive message to someone who can put their airbus in and listen and get something positive when they maybe aren't yet quite ready to reach out and ask for help.

[00:38:54] Gary Miles: They can get some of that help just by listening. 

[00:38:57] Lara Quie: I've certainly listened to many of the episodes. I think I've nearly covered all your episodes. 

Gary Miles: Wow. Thank you, Lara. I appreciate that. 

[00:39:05] Lara Quie: Absolutely. You are a voice of reason and an inspiration. I love the topics that you cover.

[00:39:14] Lara Quie: Your very authentic delivery. Most of it is based on personal discovery and experience. And you share very openly about your childhood, your different mindsets that you've been through your own personal transformations. And I think that's what people need. You know, people who've been there and done that and really been through these things and mentors. You share so much great advice through those and reach so many. And, what you say just really resonates with me whenever I listen. 

[00:39:43] Gary Miles: Thank you so much. That's very kind. 

[00:39:45] Lara Quie: You're welcome. So where can people contact you after the show? 

[00:39:49] Gary Miles: So I'm always present on LinkedIn under my name, Gary Miles. I have a website, Gary miles.net, and you can always email me at gary@garymiles.net.

[00:40:00] Gary Miles: And you'll find I'm very, very quick to respond. And if any of you out there are having any challenges or struggles, just. Let's connect them a, a phone or a zoom and see what the issues are. See if we can be of help. 

[00:40:11] Lara Quie: That sounds wonderful. Thank you so much for your time today, Gary 

[00:40:15] Lara Quie: Lara, thank you for having me and be well and be safe.

[00:40:18] Lara Quie: Thank you.

[00:40:21] Lara Quie: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Legal Genie Podcast. Please leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts. It helps other people in the legal industry find the show. Until next time, have a magical week ahead.