Special Episode 8 Steps to an 8 Figure Verdict

People always ask me: "How do I get big verdicts using the H2H Method?"

Well… this episode breaks it down.

No fluff.

Just the real, step-by-step story of how I used H2H to help secure an 8-figure verdict in a REAL case.

From the very FIRST consult to the moment the jury DELIVERED the verdict — this is exactly what went down.

In this episode, I walk you through:

👉🏽 What I focused on FIRST (before strategy, before storytelling)

👉🏽 The moment we THREW the closing in the trash (and what we did instead)

👉🏽 How we MADE the jury feel — not just think

👉🏽 Why “we don’t win cases, jurors do” has NEVER been more TRUE

If you’ve ever wanted a behind-the-scenes look at how the H2H Method plays out in the wild, this is it.

You’re closer than you think.

Tune in NOW! 🎧

Love,
Sari

➡️Listen on Spotify

➡️Listen on Apple

➡️Listen on the website

“We didn’t win because we had the perfect theme or the flashiest visuals. We won because we trusted the jury. We built a story that made them feel something, we showed up as our full selves, and then we got the hell out of the way. That’s the work. That’s H2H.” 

Sari de la motte

TRANSCRIPTION

Hello my darlings. This is the juicy topic. You all, this is the white whale, is it not of trial of lawyeredom, the eight-figure verdict. Either you don't have one and you think you need one, or you did get one and you want more, and it's the thing. It's the thing that we're all after. There's a reason why so many of you're here today. So many of my mastermind clients, which is what we've renamed the VIP program, is to mastermind clients. This year, I've got all women in there, very fun. A lot of them come to me because they're like, "Sari, I'm ready to take it to the next level. I've never got the eight-figure verdict or I had one. I want more and I need to take it to the next level." And many of them, if not most of them, go on to actually achieve that.

So for the first time ever, I'm going to pull back the curtain and show you the very things that we are working on in the mastermind program. Now, caveat of course, is that they spend nine months with me. They're getting coaching from me, they're getting consulting from me, they're coming out to Portland, they're working with me, and I'm going to show you the very things that I'm teaching them so that you can get started on your own path to the eight-figure verdict. All right.

First step might surprise you. This is the number one thing that I work on with my mastermind clients when they say, "I'm here because I want an eight-figure verdict," and I say, "Great." Step number one is stop trying to get one. And I think this is confusing for people like, "Why would I stop to get one if I want one?" Here's the thing, there's a difference between need and want. You can want an eight-figure verdict. I want you to have an eight-figure verdict. I want you all to have 8, 9, 10 figure verdicts. That is totally, absolutely all right with me and one of the things that we are working toward when we come together to create the compelling content and command the courtroom. It's amazing when you get those verdicts. We celebrate you even. We celebrate when you don't get to verdicts.

But when you get into a space of I have to have this, I need to have this, I'm going to pay, Sari, amazing amounts of money so that I get this. Now, we are in a danger zone. I'm going to show you why I just minute, but first let me just tell you, I mean, think about other professions. You think, "Well, for other people to succeed in their profession, they're trying, yeah, but it's not the same energy as what you all have." I mean, think about what I do.

So if my focus was on making a shit ton of money, then I would do things a little differently. I would put all my money into marketing. I would make a system that was plug and play and I would tell you all the things that you're already being told that you have to do it my way. That there's no other way to do it. That if you go even a little bit out of the framework, you're totally going to fuck up your case. I would create fear in you so that you buy all my shit and read all my books because you're so fucking scared that if you don't do what I do, then when I tell you to do, then you're going to lose.

Money is not what I'm after. For me, I want to change the world. I think that plaintiff trial attorneys are going to change the world and I need your help to do that because we're going to stand up for human values versus corporate values. So my job then is to focus on great content. Everything that I read, everything I listen to, I'm always constantly thinking about you all. How do I bring this back to my crew so that they can go out and slay in the world? Now, does that make me money? Yes, it's a side benefit. It's awesome. I love money. There's nothing wrong with wanting money, but if I'm just focusing on the money, then things get crazy.

I mean, think about doctors. Doctors are not sitting there and fretting over whether or not a patient dies. Now, that affects them a lot, but they know that they are not ultimately in control. They will be in a situation where they will get someone who has pre-existing conditions, already has five bypasses, already has diabetes, and they do the fucking best they can. And when the patient dies, it's horribly sad and awful, but they're not measuring their worth on how good of a doctor they are based on their record of how many patients die because it depends on what patients they're getting, especially if they're working in situations where the types of patients they're getting are more likely to die. Think about the cases that you take to trial. They are literally on their last legs. There's a lot of fucking problems with them in a lot of cases. Not all cases, as Jody likes to remind me, but in many cases there's an issue with these cases you're taking a trial, and yet you are thinking that the only acceptable option is to get this eight-figure verdict.

Here's why I want you to stop and let go. Let go, let go, let go. I'll tell you right now, I'm going to do a podcast with Michael Howen who just posted... He's the great trial lawyer, trucking lawyer in Texas. He's also the host of trial ordination, but he wrote in the Facebook, if you go in our sandbox and talked about how getting his first eight-figure verdict, Michael was a mastermind client years ago, and he'll tell you one of the first things that we did was say, ""Let's set this down," because one, you cannot control the outcome. You can affect the outcome for sure through your presentation, through your voir dire, through your closing, all the things you can affect it. You can't control it because those 12 or 6 or 8 individuals, they get to decide the outcome, not you. So that's one reason that you need to stop trying to get the eight-figure verdict. Okay.

Two, it's a distraction. When you're so worried about the eight-figure verdict and what it means and what it means not having it and what it means to have it and all the things, you are not focusing on what you can control right now, which is preparing for trial, which is showing up fully with the jurors, which is going all in on storytelling and doing the things we're going to talk about in today's call. You are thinking about the future, and this is what I find. It is a direct correlation. The amount of stress and worry someone has around getting a verdict, directly correlates to how well they're doing in trial. Meaning they will risk less. They will not go all out. They will play it safe.

And I'm telling you right now, those are the things that lose cases. We win cases when we take risks, when we go all out, when we're really just bringing it all. You can't do that if you are afraid that you won't get your eight-figure verdict. So that's why I want you to set it down, and this one's really important. You beat yourself up with it. If you have one, let's talk about any verdict now. If I get a verdict, in any case, I'm a good lawyer. I'm not even that. I hear a lot from you. I won the last one. It wasn't that great, but I won. Yeah, doubled the offer, but still it wasn't that great.

Why? Because it wasn't the eight figure perhaps. Yeah. You use this as this metric and when you win you're like, "Awesome. I'm a good lawyer." And when you lose, you're like, "I suck. I'm the worst person ever." But we're not going to change the world when you all are up and down on this roller coaster. We got to settle this shit down so you can focus on your job, which is not to win. Let me say it again. Your job is not to win. Your job is to fight, the end.

I had a client, a mastermind client actually, who just lost a trial that we put a lot of work in, and he said to me, he said, "What really gets me is that this client goes unacknowledged." And I said, "Where the fuck did you get that idea? You acknowledged this client. Don't you dare fucking minimize that. You went and you fought, and that means something regardless of what the jury decides." For better, for worse people, this is the job you chose. You cannot tie your worth to whether or not you have an eight figure verdict or how many figure verdicts you want. Now, in this process and all this preaching, I know you're still sitting there going, "Okay. I get it and I still want one." Great, you can still want one.

I'm going to show you the steps today of how I help my mastermind clients get them. But the first step is to stop trying so hard, to set it down, to breathe and let's continue. I want you to give me 10 reasons you want an 8 figure verdict. Go take a minute right now, write it down. I can be like because I would feel more worthy, or because it would pay my bills. I mean, put everything in anything that comes to mind. This is why I want it. I mean, obviously you all want it because you're here. So let's be real. Let's be honest. Now, for whatever reason, you can keep writing that. Keep going. I'm just going to chat at you while you do that. It has gotten out in the world that, "Sari, doesn't want you to win, or Sari, thinks wanting the figure verdict is bad." That's bullshit." I totally want that for you.

Has anybody's seen parenthood? I just love that movie so much. And the teenage daughter gets pregnant with her boyfriend who's Keanu Reeves, who's amazing, and she tells her to get in the truck when Keanu gets injured and she's like, "Mom, why did you do that?" Or the little brother's saying, mom, why did you do that for her? You didn't want her to get married, you didn't want her to have this." And she said, "Because I'm your mom. I want whatever you want. I want to get it for you." I'm the same. I'm your finished mother. You want this, I want it for you. I'll want it for your clients. I want it for the world because verdicts, I believe strongly make our world a better place because it sends a message whether they're punitive damages or not. I want it for you, but I want you to stop making it a part of your self-esteem. I want you to disconnect it from whether or not you're a good lawyer or not.

Because I'll tell you, all of the clients I've worked with that went on to get their eight or nine figure verdicts said, "Sari, this one tip right here made all the difference." It took them a while to get there, but once they were able to set it down and then get to the real work, the real job of what you all do, that's when they got it. It's like, then it dropped in. Again, you might have things like, because my client deserves it, and that's so true. But I'm not saying you're being dishonest there, but also put some selfish shit in there. Because I finally, feel like I was a real trailer. Whatever your saboteurs throwing at you, get it on that paper. You don't have to share it with anybody. All righty. Keep going. If you don't have them all yet, it's fine, but I'm going to move to step number two, which is related.

Step number two to getting an eight figure verdict is to act as if. Now, I don't mean to act as if you have the eight figure verdict. What I mean is that you have to already be giving yourself the feeling that you think you would have if you had the figure verdict. So some of my story, some of you do not. My story is that I started, I have two advanced degrees in music. So those of you who just joined be very scared. You're like, "Wait, what? Did I just join up? This woman doesn't know what she's talking about."

No. So I started in music, have an advanced degree, have a graduate degree in music. My main instrument is piano, and I taught piano for years. I worked at the university level and then my university mentor said, "You need to go to this five-day training on body language." And I was like, "Why would I do that?" And as a grad student, I was poor and I didn't have the time and I was married and I was just like, "No, I don't want to do this." Married to a different person, that's a whole other story. So I was like, "Fine," because you do what your mentor tells you to do. So I go and I'm thinking it's going to be all the body language stuff of like, okay, person crosses their legs or how to mirror and here's what this means and here's what that means.

And it wasn't any of that. It was all about how you show up nonverbal and how to be your best self and how to work with group dynamics. I was hooked. I had just finished a green music and I was ready to throw it away and go do whatever this was. So I went up to this guy and I said, "How do I do what you do?" And he says, "Well, are you a school teacher?" And I said, "I teach at the university level." And he said, "Well, I only work in schools helping teachers manage their classrooms." And I was like, "Okay. I guess I can't do this." So then I went that night and I looked on his website and I thought he was going to be in Minnesota the next day and then he was going to be in Florida two days from then.

So I came back the next day and I said, "What if I just show up where you are? Can I observe what you're doing, and I train myself?" And he said, "If you want to come on your own time, you're welcome to." So this is John Bandler's brother. So Grindr and Bandler are the ones that came up with NLP. So this is Michael Grindr, not John Grindr. So he obviously knows what the he's talking about. So that's what I did. I put on credit cards, I flew all around the world. I just followed him, watched him, took notes, took him to dinner, asked him questions, and I taught myself. I hung out my shingle and I was just like, "All right. Let's do this." And of course nobody called. So then I went and I started offering my services in classrooms, doing exactly what he was doing. I got a couple contracts.

Then that dried up. So I hired a business coach and I started doing this and one of my first contracts was Nike here in Beaverton. And then that started to grow and then the newspaper did an article on me, and a lawyer called and said, "Can you come help me pick a jury?" And I was like, "I have no fucking idea how to do that." But I said, yes, because I was interested enough and he was going to pay me. And he's again, expecting all of the body. I'm watching the jurors, and I was like, "I'm not going to watch the jurors. I'll help you because you have lots of problems." And therefore, my career was born, but here's the thing. I knew that I could achieve it, and that's all that mattered. You need to start acting as if. We all have a limited tolerance for feeling good.

Meaning, it's like homeostasis. When we start to get a little bit out of our realm in terms of how much money we're making or what kinds of social things we're doing, or even how much satisfaction we're having in our marriage or relationships, we'll do something to sabotage it and bring us back down to normal because it's uncomfortable being in this other realm. So we have to practice. This is so true. We have to practice getting comfortable being there. You have to practice feeling like the kind of person that has an eight figure verdict or many eight verdicts or nine-figure verdicts or you're never going to get one. You have to get to the point where you feel you are worthy before you have the evidence. If you are like, what the fuck are you talking about? Go get this book called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. He talks all about the upper limit problem.

Let's talk about why we have an upper limit problem. So we have an upper limit problem because our brain is fucked in two different ways. The first way our brain is fucked it's wired to resist change. Now, it's not totally. It does that for a reason, meaning any change before the brain knows what it is, is labeled as dangerous. The brain is just automatically going to make that choice for you. Change is dangerous because we don't know what's behind curtain number one, so we're not even going to peek.

Number two, the brain is wired to be efficient. Change is incredibly taxing on the brain. It doesn't want to go through the work. It's already trying to keep you alive and your lungs breathing and your heart beating and your brain working. So it doesn't want to actually do anything new. So right now, your brain is wired to not get you an eight figure verdict. Let us sit with you for a minute. It is wired so that you don't get one. Why? Because to get one is going to change things for you in a variety of ways, whether that's more social standing, as much as bullshit that is, or more money in your life or just how you feel about yourself. All of that is changed. Now, you might think but that's good change, Sari. The brain doesn't know the difference. This is brain science people. It does not know the difference. Good change. Why do they say that weddings, getting married, moving, all good things are some of the highest stressors that you can have in your life because the brain doesn't know the difference between good or bad? It just doesn't.

So your brain is wired against you, which is why we need to practice feeling these feelings and rewiring our brain ahead of time. This is what I do with my mastermind clients because it's not until they do this ahead of time. Normally they'll get their eight figure verdict one or two years later rewiring the brain now to get in the position of receiving it because sometimes it comes faster, but we got to do this work in advance. You all think, "Well, I could feel good after I get it." I'm saying, "You're not going to get it unless you feel good." I want you to go to that list that you made in the last step, and I want you to write down the feeling you believe you would have for each of those 10 things. So if you put on there, some of them you may have already put feelings, you might've put something like, "I would feel more confident, that's fine." Then that would be done for that one.

But if it's something like, "Because my client deserves it," I want you to think, "What would I feel like if I got my client that eight figure verdict," and put a feeling word next to it so it could be proud, it could be satisfied. I want you to be thinking about it. And if you are somewhere where you can Google, you can Google feelings wheel. Because if you're like, what feeling? I don't feelings. I'm a trial lawyer, I don't deal in feelings. I want you to be thinking, what would you feel? So if you put on there so that I'd be more accepted in trial, lawyered them. Okay. So what's the feeling there? You have your eight figure verdict and you're walking around strutting your shit. What's that feeling? Is it confidence? Is it worthiness? What is it?

So go back now over your list. I'm going to give you a few minutes and put down feelings next to the reasons. What would you feel if you got your eight figure verdicts for those reasons or your nine figure verdict, which we've had several here in H2H? Every single lawyer should have a feelings wheel printed, laminated, framed on your wall somewhere, not only for your own mental health, but also for when you're dealing with your clients. When you're doing some witness prep with them. I mean, this is gold and there's different versions online. They're all free. Just download that shit. Start establishing your vocabulary around feelings. Because if you look at this one, there's like six that most of you say, mad, sad, scared. That's not going to move a jury. We need some more powerful words. Okay. Let's go on to number three.

Own your amazing, this and your number. All right. We got to talk about something. Okay. We got to talk about this fucked up belief that if I own my amazing this, I'll never improve. I hear this all the fucking time and nothing could be more wrong. Listen, I struggled for years when I started my business, for years, but it wasn't because I was like, "What's wrong with me? I'm not good enough yet." My problem, and maybe this just is a lot to say about how I operate is, I am so amazing. Why don't people realize it yet? This is where you have to come from.

Now, I know you all have been talked to at death about how arrogant you are as lawyers and all the rest of that shit, you're not. First of all, I think all the arrogance that I see, I don't ever see it in H2H by the way, but the arrogance I see is a cover for the absolute fear that being a trial lawyer is because you take the most amazing, huge risks and it may not pay off, and it's hard to go and talk in front of people and then convince them that your side is right and all of the things. So arrogance is the thing that's stopping you. That's not what I'm saying. Be arrogant.

I'm saying own your amazingness because the opposite is true. The opposite is true of this whole I will never improve. I'm going to change cameras. When you consistently tell yourself that you have to earn it and all of the things, something really interesting happens. So let's do what we call a model. I'm going to talk about the model a little later in today's call, the self-coaching model. But the basic gist is this. It starts with a circumstance. Circumstances are always neutral. They're just something that happened. Then we have a thought about it. That thought creates a feeling. The feeling then causes you to act or not take action, and then you get a result. So a lot of you will say when I go, "You're amazing." You'll say, "I haven't earned amazing either to me or in your own head," and I just had a podcast on this. So Christy might upload that one there. So what that makes you feel or how you're already feeling is unworthy.

Now, here's what's interesting. When you feel unworthy, you overwork because in your mind, that's what you think makes an eight figure verdict happen. Makes trial success happen. I outwork everybody. I over prepare. I am always prepared, or I'm never prepared as much as I want to be. I can never be 100% prepared, which guess what? You can never be a hundred percent prepared. It's literally not possible. No one has ever gone into trial being like, "I'm totally 100% prepared." So you overwork yourself to death. All of you do it, and the result that you get is subpar because you're working too hard. When you're working that hard, you cannot do the cool things that trial lawyers must do. You are conduit. You are going to go in there and you're going to, you're connect with the jurors and you're going to do all of that. If you are tired and overwhelmed and feeling unworthy, you're not going to be able to do any of that.

We know for example, that you're prefrontal cortex, which is the newest part of your brain, can only operate when it is rested. When you are well fed. When things are calm the fuck down. You need your thinking rational brain and trial. But most of you, because you're overworking and you're constantly over preparing and you're up until 2:00 AM in the morning the night before trial, you're now operating on reptile brain. You're making decisions that are just coming out of fucking nowhere and that is why you're getting the subpar results. Now, when you get to, let's do another model, same circumstance. Circumstance doesn't change.

So here's the other thing is that you think it's a circumstance that's the problem. So you keep changing your circumstance. So you're like, "Well, I'm unhappy. It must be my house." So you keep getting different houses and keep being unhappy. I'm unhappy. It must be my spouse. You keep getting different spouses. The circumstance never holds your happiness, never holds the key to having a good life. Circumstances just are, and they are 50/50 my friend. 50/50, 50% good stuff is going to happen to you in your life and 50% bad stuff is going to happen to you in your life. That's just called being human. Where the true power lies is in the T-line, how you choose to think about it. So the T-line says, and here in this one I tell you, you're amazing and you're like, I'm amazing. They are right. Yes, she is. In the Barbie movie. I love that scene where Barbie turns to an older woman. She's never seen an elderly woman because she comes from the land of Barbie and she goes, "You are so beautiful."

And what does the old woman say? She goes, "Don't I know it." Or they're accepting all these awards and they're like, "Thank you. I deserve this. Thank you. I worked really hard." We're trained, especially women, not to have that. Not to have that. If I need to be some arrogant asshole, at least in your mind, I know that I'm not to prove to you that you can do it, I'm happily to take that. I think I'm amazing. I think you're amazing too. So when you feel think this I'm amazing, you're going to start feeling confident. Then the action you're going to take is you're going to start trusting yourself, trusting the process of trial, trusting the jury, and the result is going to get you that eight figure verdict. We spend so much time in the mastermind program working on your mindset and recognizing that you are not broken. You are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, and you don't need to earn shit.

That is where you start. You start at amazing. And when you actually believe that you are amazing, a really interesting thing happens. You want to work. You want to do the cool things that trial lawyers do. You will want to risk and go all in because you know that you've got your own back. That you're not having this thing, "Well, I got to prove it to myself that I'm actually good." You start good. And then the evidence comes. We want the evidence first. It doesn't work that way in the Be-Do-Have model. You guys got it backwards. So you think you have to have a figure verdict to do the cool trial lawyer shit, and then you will be a great trial lawyer. That is not how it works. If I had to have the trial lawyer clients before I could do the work that I'm doing right now in the world, I wouldn't be where I am today. It just didn't fuck work that way, and it never works that way.

The way that it works is you have to decide who you fucking are, and that in my mind is amazing. Then you'll do the cool trial lawyer shit, and then you will have the eight figure verdict and all the other things. This comes as evidence of this, not the other way around. Eight figure verdicts come to amazing people who understand they're amazing. Where did we get the idea that thinking we are amazing is somehow arrogant or wrong? I'm on a warpath with that. The world is as hard as it is. Listen, I went through cancer. My brain is telling me all kinds of shit all the time about my new body or the cancer coming back. There's enough voices in the world that are telling me that I don't look right because I don't have breasts or all of the things. I'm not going to be one of those voices. It's already happening in the world. I'm going to be for me, and you have to be for you.

I'm not making this shit up. I'm telling you, literally on my mastermind clients who go through the process with me and realize this, the eight figure verdict comes. It just does. Because I can't work with as a coach, someone who is insistent on believing that they suck and they need all this help. And we start with, you're amazing now. You're amazing now. And if you want to do amazing things, you got to start with amazing now. You don't earn amazing. You are alive and you are here. There's more in my podcast. All right. So let me ask you this. I'm going to go back and share my screen. How did I lose everything in my screen? Make that a little bigger. There we go. Getting some preaching today. You don't have to earn amazing.

What makes you amazing a trial attorney? Write it down. If you have nothing, then you can just say, because I chose to be one. Because that in itself is an amazing brave act. This industry is fuck you all. You stand behind the starting line. You don't have a great reputation in the world, all the tort referent. Just deciding to do this work makes you amazing. What makes you amazing? Now, the other thing when we're talking about how to own things is you have to own your number and what I always say is the right number is a number you can, you can say it out loud, you can be proud of that number, but that's just a little bit of a stretch. Just a tiny bit of a stretch for you. So if you're like, okay, in this case I'm going to ask for $10 million, I'd say, okay, ask for 12.

If like I said ask for 25, and you went, "God, no," then that's the wrong number. So it should be a little bit of a stretch. Steven says, I love people. Yes, that's a great reason that you're an amazing trial lawyer that you love. I don't love most people. I love you people, but other people get on my fucking nerves. So that in itself is amazing that you love people. Love it. Yeah. So why are you an amazing trial attorney and what is the number that you can own but it's a little bit of a stretch? As we know, as we at least here in H2H tell our jurors, there's no book that you can open up and go, "Well, this is how much this case is worth. This is how much a leg is worth. This is how much a life is worth." You can get to decide that, and it has to come from deep inside.

I talk about John Bailey in Texas and his recent case where it was the death of an oil rig worker, not on the oil rig. He was just driving home and another oil rig worker was driving home and he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed him and killed him. So there's no malicious intent, there's no safety rule, there's nothing. So when I asked most trial attorneys, how much do you think he asked for in that case? They'll say things like 500,000, 1 million, 5 million. You know what he asked for? 120 million. You know what he got? $120 million. There is no limit besides what you can own.

As I said, I believe verdicts change things. Can you stand behind a verdict? You are going to sit here and your saboteur's going to be all over your shit and be like, but in my conservative venue, is a brain worth less because of where somebody lives? The fuck it's not. Is a life worth less just because it's in some small town in Texas versus San Diego, California? No. This comes down to what you can get behind. You are standing on the side of the right. Now, I'm not going to shame you over your numbers, but what I am going to ask you to do is to really reach, not what can you get, but what is this case worth? What can I own? Not what can I get? That's the wrong place to come from this, because if you can't own it, the jurors will never, they'll just back away from it.

The reason John got $120 million is because he believed that that was the right number in his heart and his soul. He said, "Sari, they had 13 trial lawyers on their side. I had me and co-counsel." They had more power points than you can count. I tried the whole case on flip charts. I said, "John, I love flip charts, but I'm not suggesting you've tried the whole thing of flip chart." He's like, "I wanted to show that this was really just about people and the story and the family. I didn't want anything fancy to get in the way of that." 120 million.

So think of your next case. What is the number that you can own? That's a little bit of a stretch. So if you were thinking, I've asked and 5, ask for 7 1/2 or 10. I'm not saying you have to do it. I'm saying we're going to practice with this number right now because we're going to go into breakout rooms. I'm telling you, this is such a huge part of this is that you feel amazing and your number feels amazing.

I remember when I was out working with John on a different case, and you guys have all heard this in the podcast and ask, in that case with 100 million. See, I've created a monster. He's now gone 120, and that was for three plaintiffs, the 100 million, and we just got so used to saying 100 million that week. We'd just walk in and we'd be like, "Oh my God, it's like 100 million degrees," because it is in Texas all the time. You look like 100 million bucks. I mean, we just played with that word.

So you got to get so comfortable with who you are and that you are going to walk in and you're just going to find your people. We had Matthew on yesterday and it's part of the panel, and he was talking about in his last trial that he just won. He was like, "I just knew. It's like it was a shift in me. My people are here and they're going to do right by me." So he had this confidence of being in his own skin and asking for his number. In your breakout room, you're going to start by saying, "I'm amazing." So if you're Steven, you're going to say, "I'm amazing because I love people, and in this case." You're not going to do this in trial. You're just going to do this right here. And in this case, we are or I am asking for 40 million. Try a number out, even if it's bigger than you plan, just try owning some big fucking number and the people who are watching are going to be like, "I didn't buy it," or "Dude, yeah." All right.

So you're just practicing that statement. I'm amazing because, and in this case, I'm asking for $250 billion, whatever it is, okay? Except your breakout rooms. That's your assignment. And again, if you find yourself alone, just hang tight and I will move you around. Just a second. Hey, Ginger. About Ginger for a second. Hey, Ginger. Good to see you. Good to see you, Megan and Laura. All right. We're back. Look at that beauty, so cute. Hi, Daniel. Didn't see you there. There's people... Keep seeing...

Okay. So if I told you that thinking you were amazing would make the difference in your trial practice, would you do it because it will make the difference in your trial practice? I'm guaranteeing you that, and it's not arrogance. It's this confidence that you can handle anything. You can handle a loss, you can handle a win. You can handle whatever people throw at you. It's being comfortable in your own skin. It's not inflating your self-worth. It's not saying you're better than everybody else. It's just owning the amazingness of who you are right now, not having to achieve anything and reveling in that and being comfortable in that. That is what I'm talking about. Not telling yourself lies and pumping yourself up. You are all amazing right now as is. Start from that place. All right.

Next step is simplify, simplify, simplify, simplify. So here, what I mean by this is that if I look at my mastermind clients that I've worked with over the last several years, one of the biggest things that comes out on the other end of that is that they have now learned how to not only simplify their cases. So last week we were doing the virtual training for Wadir and I put them in breakout rooms. I said, "Come up with an experiential question for your funnel and then come back." And one group was like, "We just cannot think of one." And I was like, "Well, what's your principle?" That if trucking companies don't provide training, people can get hurt or die? And I said, "So what's the struggle? We just don't know how to get to training."

And I said, "Who here has ever shared the road with a semi-truck or a team wheeler or whatever? Everybody. What are your expectations around training?" And they were like, duh. You guys are overthinking it, and I'm with you on that. I'm an over thinker myself except for here. Right here I can simplify with you, but you're making it too difficult. My mastermind clients have the opening template down where they do have the 30 minute or less opening. They get really good at not getting lost in the minutia and trying... And the reason why we get lost in the minutia is we were trying the other side's case. So really this one itself is also mindset related. Because they start saying things to me and we get this quickly worked out where they're like, "But if I don't say this, they're going to say that or I've got to cover this because they're going to what?"

And I just keep coming back to whatever we focus on, we make important. Is what they're saying important? Do we want to give attention to that? No. Well, then let's leave it out. Or yeah, but the jury might, and I'm like, "Okay, great. So let's come down to the three things we're going to talk about to undermine the defense's case. We're not going to make, for example, the challenges section of the opening template, the longest part of our opening because if that's the longest part. Now, I've given the majority of my airtime to the defense and I've just now taught the jury that that is the most important thing to hear about what the defense is going to say." It is not the most important thing. So they simplify. They start thinking in really simple terms. They start getting out of legalese, but you know what else they're doing? They're simplifying their life.

So they're not just thinking about trial lawyering. They're like, do I have too many cases? That's a huge one. I would say most of my mastermind clients come in... If I just go back and I look at this, they come in with about 100 or so cases, maybe 200 on their caseload, and they leave the other side and here's another funnel with 10 to 20. Because what they recognize is that in order to do and have the things that they want, they got to get serious. You all are just telling yourself this lie, which is you are the problem. You're the reason why you don't have eight figure verdict. There's something wrong with you.

In the meantime, you've got 200 cases that you're trying to work at. You're handling all your shit at home, if you're a woman. Sorry, you are. In our case, it's a man, but most cases it's a woman. You're still cleaning your own house, you're trying to manage your law firm, and you're like, but something's wrong with me. There ain't nothing wrong with you. You have too much on your damn plate. It doesn't work The way they say it works. All these people who seem like they've got it all worked out, they don't. That or they've got a ton of help. So I'm talking not just simplifying your voir dire and your thinking and your opening, but do you have too many cases? Do you have too many employees? Did you hire just because you thought you did? On the flip side, do you not have enough employees? Do you need the help so you can now focus on trial lawyering?

I'm telling you, being a trial lawyer is such a specialized thing that if you do not have reinforcements, you're not going to be able to do the things I'm talking about today. If you're still trying to clean your own house, write your own briefs, manage all the people, you're just not going to be able to do it. I'm laying down the truth here. My mastermind clients hire out every last damn thing they can hire out so that whatever is left of their time is working up cases. And I mean, not doing all the piddly shit, I mean working on their voir dire, their opening and working with me and with each other and spending time with their family and their hobbies. That's it. That's the focus that they need and they simplify it down.

So my question to you is how are you making things difficult or complicated? Are you trying to do it all? Are you getting lost in the minutia? Are you doing things you shouldn't be doing and should hire out and you say, "Well, sorry, I don't have the money to hire it out." That's because you're still stuck in this. Everything I've ever done, every person I've ever hired, every person I've ever hired, I hired before I fully knew that I could afford them, but I knew that by hiring them it would give me time back that I could then bring to this program or whatever else I was doing, and it exponentially increased my revenue. Again, if you're waiting for someone to tell, you're amazing. If you're waiting until you've got enough money to do the things we're talking about, you're going to be waiting forever.

There's a time where you got to be getting serious and saying, "I want to be a trial lawyer that tries two to three big cases a year. I never have more than 10 on my docket. My team settles out the cases." That's what brings in the bread and butter because you know that's what brings in the bread and butter. I'm devoting myself to becoming a trial lawyer. You're going to have to make some big changes. You're going to have to simplify in a big, big way. So I'm saying if you want the eight figure verdict, if you want it to be the big time trial lawyer that I know you can be, you're going to have to make some changes. You're going to have step out and face and start hiring some people, whether that's house stuff or lost stuff. All righty.

Number five, which is practice. I'm going to say something that might shock you. Practice over preparation. I'm not saying you shouldn't prepare. I'm saying that in terms of where they should be in your priorities, practice should be pretty high. Most people that I know don't practice hardly at all. They just wing it when they're in trial, and that my friends is not going to get you an eight figure verdict or nine figure verdict or whatever. So if you really want to be an eight figure trial attorney, you have to practice. So what does that mean? It means getting a hot seat here. It means getting up and creating your opening, not at your laptop. It means doing it at a flip chart from the get-go, and just writing out your ideas and trying them practicing and being on your feet. It means having a group that you can test your voir dire on.

I can't imagine going into trial if I haven't run through my voir dire 5, 6, 12, 25 times. I want to have that shit so dialed in, not memorized, but that I'm just again, feeling comfortable. I think that we are putting a lot of people, or a lot of people are putting us, I should say, in this position where it's like an eight figure verdict is easy. Just go and get it. And it's like, "No, it's not easy. Not if you don't have the right mindset. Not if your life is full of shit you shouldn't be doing, and not if you're not practicing." If you're not putting in the time to do the actual skill in fact, it me off that people assume that this is so easy to do and then they're like, I'll say, and how much are you practicing? Well, not that much. Well, really? This is a craft. I have worked really, really hard to be one of the top keynoters in this space, if not in the United States. Come on now. And it is a craft that you have to work at.

If you just think you can cobble something together and run through it a couple of times and then come and complain to me or anybody else, "Well, I don't have my verdict yet, or I didn't get my verdict." What are you thinking? This is a unique thing that most Americans do not know how to do. Most humans don't know how to do public speaking or having a facilitated conversation. You should be practicing, practicing, practicing. It should be something that you are doing on the reg, if not daily, then weekly. So my question to you is, how will you incorporate practice into your schedule and what are you committing to? If you are really serious about getting bigger verdicts, write down what are you committing to make it small at first. I'm committing to running through part of my opening every single week on any case.

On even a case that you maybe haven't worked up totally yet, just start trying out an open, just get on your feet. I'm committing to getting together with some H2H'ers once a month and doing our own wider circle. I'm committing to videotaping myself once a month. Practice, practice, practice. If you are not committed to practicing the craft, which is trial lawyering and know that is not writing briefs or taking depositions or memorizing an opening, you are not committed to getting an eight figure verdict. You have to be willing to practice. Practice is essential. It is, I believe the main part of your job as a trial lawyer and the people I call trial lawyers are people who go to trial. So if you are going to trial and you are not practicing, then what the fuck are you doing? You need to practice.

Number six, which is go all in. Go all in. What do I mean by this? Okay. Number one change that I see in my mindset or my mastermind clients after we worked together in those nine months or even people who have come out for trial lab, the number one thing that I've seen is they're now more willing to go all in. So that could mean a variety of things. So one is doing the design. It sounds like a weird thing to say that's going all in, but a lot of you are scared of designing with jurors. You're scared you're going to get shut down. I'm scared that I'm giving them power, and I don't want to give the jury power. What if I have a good juror for me and they don't want to be there? Designing what the jury is going all in.

Resonant conversations in voir dire where you really aren't just like, what do you value? And they're like, hobbies. Thank you. What do you value? Family. Thank you. That's not a resident conversation. They say hobbies. You say, "What do you love to do?" And now it starts getting resident and you dig in and you're really with the people. Snarky as fuck DVAQs, but yes, snarky, DVAQs, yeah. But if you don't know what I'm talking about, you will. Just hang around here longer, you'll know what I'm talking about. Range in storytelling that you're willing to slam things together. You're willing to throw flip charts across the room. You're willing to get your voice really loud or really go all the way down. You're willing to take on different body positions. You're willing to go there and passionate closing where you're like, "What the fuck is this?" Maybe you don't say fuck, but you're angry. You are passionate. You know your jury's with you, and so you're taking them on this ride.

So my question to you is, what is your fear around going all in? Because there is a fear there. I think a lot of times people say, "I'm going to be too dramatic, or the jury's going to think I'm pushing it." I'm telling you with the thousands of juries I have put you all in front of or been a part of, they want you to go all in because what you're asking them to do is difficult and they want to see how much it means to you. And when you go all in and you're having resonant conversations and you're going all in on storytelling and you're passionate and you're closing, what you're saying is this matters. This means something to me. I want it to mean something to you as well.

In our last trial lab, why I always ask on day one, what is it that you're afraid of? Because the jury's going to deliver it to you. And one of the attorneys said, I'm afraid of getting emotional in front of the jury. Well, jury number one, he's talking to them in the damages section and he says, "So what do you value?" And this woman says, "I value family." He says, say more. And she said, "My daughter recently died." Well, his daughter died four years ago. Immediately you could see the tears in his eyes and he handled it, but the jury's going to deliver whatever is you need to learn. So you're thinking so far, man, we are what? Six steps in? And it's all just this mindset shit.

Listen, trial lawyering is a huge mind fuck. Nobody out there is telling you what this really takes. They're just throwing skills at you. They're throwing consultants at you. They're just telling you that they've got the way, it all happens in here, my friends. I'm not saying you don't need preparation, you don't need skills. We're going to talk about all that in the H2H playground. If you're new. And if you're not, we talk about that. But I'm telling you, this is where the rubber meets the road. This, because this is what it takes to win cases. All things being equal, this is what it takes to win cases. It's not preparation, it's not. I mean, again, I always use the example of Nick Rowley or Rick Friedman or all the other people who just swan in and take over somebody's case. They don't have hours and hours of preparation. They have somebody brief them and then they go in and they do awesome shit in front of a jury. We need both. It doesn't all have to be you doing it. Okay.

Number seven, on that note is manage your mind. You manage your mind. Remember, the brain is wired for fear. So we have to learn how to manage our mind. We've been talking about that here. Here are the five ways to manage your mind. There are many ways, but these are the top things that I always tell people to do. First is get a coach. I don't have a single client that went from no eight figure to eight figure verdict that didn't have a coach on some level, whether that's being here in H2H crew or an actual coach. I tripled my income in a matter of years, just a couple of years by having a coach, not a business coach, like a mindset coach. Having a coach is huge. Now, if you don't have a coach, there are other things that you can do, like the self-coaching model. It's called the self-coaching model on purpose. So you can use that as you are on your coaching journey, whether that's with a coach or with yourself.

Because here's the thing about coaching, is that coaching, it's not anything magical that the coach does. Coaching is about becoming a better observer of yourself. The more you know about how you tick and why you think the things that you think and how that gets to you in trouble, and the patterns that you have and all of the things, you will continue to repeat it. So coaching is all about getting to know you. And also when you work with a coach at least, having a bigger version or a bigger agenda, they're holding for you a bigger dream that maybe you've ever thought about for yourself. So a lot of ways that we help our H2H'ers is we offer coaching. Obviously if you want, we have it here in the crew. That's part of the tuition that you paid. There's two mindset calls a month, but you also can ask to get a coach.

We have some people that have opening. Coach K right now is completely full. Kevin just got an opening is what he is saying. Okay. Coach K rarely ever has opening. So if you want an opening with him, jump on that now. You can always reach out to Christy. But we have them journaling. So if you are journaling, we have cards. Kevin and I probably have, I don't know, 15 packs of these different types of cards. If you come out and work with me, we use the cards all the time. This one's called Awake Inner Wisdom Cards. And what these do is just a way for you to get out of your trial lawyering, cognitive brain. So you would just take one even because of the crystal, if you want this pack does. You can just take, pick a card, any card. I'm going to just pick one right now to give you some insight.

So this one says, be love, which is great. Love is one of our values here. And if you go in the book, they all come with a book. There are different kinds of cards that you can use. The Be Love Card, I would just look that one up in here. I'm just showing you how we use these and if you're like, "Oh my God, this is so..." Yeah, it is because your cognitive brain doesn't hold all the answers. Sorry, it doesn't. It's all muscled up with your saboteur. So what part of the reason use the cards and things that when you come here and work with me is to get you out of your thinking brain and get you into your body and in your intuition, which is where a lot of your wisdom lies. It says allow unconditional love to be your mode of operation.

So it has this whole thing. I'm not going to read it, but a great way to use the cars is to get you out and thinking and learning about yourself, and you can pull a card in the morning. Kevin does one every morning. I do my angel cards in the morning, which is just a word like willingness or compassion, and it's just a way to get you thinking about you and your life in a different way. The other thing that I highly recommend for all trial lawyers is to take the fundamentals of coaching class through coactive.com. That is what I and Kevin and Coach Cydia and coach Jody and June have all been through that program. Most of us are certified or working towards certification. Kevin and I of course, are certified in that, and if you just go and take the first class, you will learn how to coach yourself. You'll learn how to have a better Wadir, better family relationships. All of the things.

Coactive.com, I cannot talk about coaching enough, and again, when we go back to our theme today, which is how have most of my mastermind clients gone on to win the big verdicts? It's been through coaching. Coaching with me, but it doesn't have to be with me. I have a coach. Kevin has a coach. Christy has a coach. We're all about coaching here. Coach Jody has a coach, so get a coach. It will absolutely utterly change your life and if you can't get a coach, or even if you do try some of these other things, the self-coaching model, journaling, getting a pack of cards, we can upload some of those, the cards that we like to use. It's just a great way to tap into your intuition and get out of your trial lawyer brain and get to some of the wisdom that's hiding behind all of the junk that's in your prefrontal cortex.

Step eight, which is everyone will say this, every single person who's got an eight figure verdict who's worked with me will say, sorry, you having me? And that's why I bookended it. The first step, let go of the eight figure verdict and the last step, trust the jury. Those two things, they will come and tell you made all of the difference in their life. They let go and they trusted. All the stuff in the middle they did two, but these are the top two things. That's why I put them one and eight because they bookend.

Now, if you do not trust the jury, a couple of things are going to happen. First off, you're going to non-verbally betray yourself. You cannot stand in front of a group of people and be like, "You can trust me and I'm going to walk you through this process," and all the things you say to your jury while you're thinking, "Which one of you are going to kill me because I'm going to kill you first." You just can't do it. They're going to know something is off. They'll pick up on it. If you've ever been out here, I tell you, they see everything and you're like, "Oh my God. They see everything." They see everything. Even if they can't put a finger on it, they'll know something is off.

What you expect, you get. If you expect the jurors to be your enemy, they will be your enemy. It is a natural law. If you expect to find your people, you will find them. When you look at the jury as people you can trust, you focus your case on them. It becomes less about the notch on your belt of how many cause challenges you can get, and more about how can I frame this case so the jury really understands what it is that we're trying to do and that they really understand this is about them. You start thinking about them as friends and family, people that you are trying to protect. You're not just there for your plaintiff, you're there for your community and the jury is part of that community. So when you start to trust them and let go of the enemy mindset, you start to create a case around them and for them, and that's what wins cases.

It also allows you to form the group. We know that group dynamics and group formation are huge. They're huge in terms of trial. That's why we spend so much time in Wadir because that's where the groups get formed. If you believe the jury is your enemy, you cannot form a group because you won't want to. Who would want to take a group of their enemies and get them together and be like, "Yeah, let's get you all together and form so that you can attack me." Nobody. Subconsciously, you will not want to form them because you think they're your enemy, but if you know that they're your friends and that they are the absolute people that are going to go and fight for you in the verdict room, you're going to want to get them together as soon as possible.

Again, it's a mindset thing, but Michael Cowan, go search for his post and the sandbox. He said, "Sari, taught me how to trust the jury," and that was the thing that changed everything for him. Trial becomes more enjoyable. It is just true. When you're not there scared that these people are out to get you, they are not out to get you and you go in and you're confident and you're owning your number, and you're owning your amazingness and you know you're amazing, you know they're amazing, you know your people are there, you know stand on the side of the right. You know all these things, you are going to totally love your life as a trial attorney.

So here's what I will end with. A question for you. After learning the eight steps, and this is probably the most important thing, which is, are you willing to do these things? Even more important, are you willing to do all of these things and never get your eight figure verdicts? That is the ultimate question. Are you in this for the verdict? Are you in this for the fight? Because once you change your mindset, going back to number step number one. And you now decide that you're in this because you are willing to fight for people regardless of what the jury decides, that is when shit gets good, that is when a figure verdict start happening out of the blue and you're like, "Why did I make this so hard?" Because there's the evidence now of you getting right with you and what this is really about, and that's going to translate to the jury.

That's going to translate into your life. That's going to, I'm getting goosebumps talking about this. It's going to translate because you finally got your mind fucking right about why you actually are here and what you are here to do. And then when that eight figure or nine figure verdict comes, it's going to be like the cherry on the Sunday. Go back again and look at Michael Cowan's thing. He's like, "Once I got it, I realized it was never that important in the first place." He's been having a shit ton of fun in trial the last couple of years and not getting a figure, verdicts getting some verdicts, but not eight figures.

Once he got it... I think he had other eight figure verdict too. Maybe not. No, maybe this is first. He had some seven figures. Once he got it, he was like, "It really was that big of a deal. I've been having a time in my life regardless." When it came, it was like, "That's fun." That's what I want for you. I know you want it, but I want you to now get off of that track and get onto this track, which is what your job actually is. And my question is, are you fucking willing?

Thank you so much for being here. All right. Bye.

Have you ever wished you knew what the jury was thinking? Well, grab a pen and paper because I’m about to give you instant access to a free training I created for plaintiff trial attorneys. It’s called Three Powerful Strategies to Help You Read a Juror's Mind, and it will help you understand what the jury is thinking so you can feel confident and trust yourself in the courtroom. Ready? Head to sariswears.com/jury and enjoy!