There are three little words that NEVER fail to strike fear into the hearts of plaintiff attorneys.
And if you think I’m going to say, “We the jury…” or, “Objection, your honor!” you’re wrong.
The three scariest words I can say to y’all are:
YOU ARE AMAZING!
Seriously.
Do you have any fucking idea how fucking amazing you are? (Yes, I said fuck twice in one sentence, but I say it way more in this episode, so consider yourself warned.)
If you do not know how amazing you are, today’s episode of the FHTH podcast is probably gonna be uncomfortable for you, which means you better go listen to it.
Like now.
I mean it!
Love,
Sari
P.S. I love you.
"You do not have to earn amazing. You know why? Because you can't. Amazing isn't something you earn. It's something you are. Period."
sari de la motte
EPISODE 226 TRANSCRIPTION
Well, hello everyone. I am so glad to be back. Did you miss me? No, because I kept podcasting. Well, last week was a rerun, but I got most of my podcasts done in advance, and so yes, I have been off for a bit and I'm now back. I've always feel like the beginning of... Well, the fall is the beginning of the year ever since school. I don't know, September feels like the beginning of the year to me, so I'm glad to be back with my crew. I'm glad to be back podcasting and today is a big one, so I'm going to jump right into it. Today we're talking about the three scariest words for plaintiff attorneys.
The three scariest words that you could ever hear is not, we the jury, because you know the verdict is coming, right? And that's scary. It's not even, objection, your Honor. Or it's our anniversary when you totally fucking forgot. Not that I've ever done that because we got fucking married on the 4th of July. Who could ever forget that? I hate that we got married on that day. Not that I married this man.
But you want to know what the three scariest words are for any plaintiff attorney? You are amazing. Those are the three words. Because those three words are fighting words for y'all. Because that's what you do when I say it to you, you fight me on it. You want to convince me that I am totally incorrect. In fact, it doesn't quite start that way. It starts with this look on your face when they say, "You're amazing." Like if you're here in my studio and first the look is confusion, then it's kind of like amusement like, "Oh, you're just being nice to me." And then when I continually insist, it's almost like you get offended. I'm not joking.
This has happened so many times for me, for Coach Kevin, for all the other people in our membership when we're telling y'all that you are amazing, we get this back every single time. In fact, just recently I said this to someone here in person and they pushed back so hard that I knew I was on to something. So I want to unpack this a little bit. So there's several reasons why I believe that this is happening, why you're fighting me and the other coaches in our program so hard on that you are amazing. The obvious one is that you don't believe you're amazing. I mean, I might as well be telling you that you're a unicorn, will mean the same thing. First you'll be confused. Then you'd be amused and then you'd be offended if I continued to insist that you in fact, were a unicorn.
But my question is why don't you think that you're amazing? And that really comes to the second point, which is you think that to be amazing, you need to earn it, right? So you don't have enough verdicts. You aren't one of the "greats". You aren't on the speaker circuit. So let me ask you this. How many verdicts will you need before I can call you amazing? How will you know when you've become one of the greats? How many speaking engagements will you need to do every month before I can say that you're amazing? Yeah, that's what I thought. Because even attorneys who have all of those things don't want me to call them amazing. So this is like industry-wide y'all. Even the greats have a problem when I tell them that they're amazing, because here's the thing, it's never ending. You're going to get your first eight figure verdict and then you're going to be like, "Shit, how do I ever do that again?"
Or now it's going to be, well, now I don't have the nine figure verdict. So it's not until I get the nine figure verdict, then I can really be called amazing. It's never fucking ending. I may have spoken in my state, but not until I speak in all 50 states. Not until Rick Friedman sends me a letter on his letterhead, then I can be called amazing. I'll tell you, even if all those fucking things happen, you still wouldn't let me call you that. This is a fundamental problem. It's like the preparing. Y'all think that you win cases because you prepare so much. Preparation. Preparation. That's what I hear all the time. Do not get me wrong. It is very important to prepare. That is not what I'm saying, but you believe that that is the reason why, if you are in fact winning cases, why you win. And you all are chasing, again, this thing you can never actually get or catch, which is a hundred percent prepared. It's this carrot that's dangling in front of you.
Same thing here with this idea of being amazing. It's something out in the future. You can't really define it. It's out there, but you don't have it yet. You haven't earned it yet. It's out there. You don't know exactly what that would be, but you know you don't have it yet. Listen, how do you pick your number, for example, in trial? I mean, we tell our jurors, look, when we're talking about especially the non-economic number, there's no book you can look in. You can't look in this book and have it tell you how much a leg is worth or how much a life is worth, but you're willing to come up with that number. You come up with a number out of thin fucking air, right? You decide on 5 million or 10 million or a hundred million or 120 million or all the different kinds of verdicts that we've gotten, right? Not just at H2H, but in the world, the plaintiff world at large. Somehow you're able to do that. Somehow you're able to stand behind that, and there's no nothing that earned that number.
We know that two attorneys on the same exact case, could ask for varyingly huge different numbers. One might only have the courage to ask for 5 million, where someone else would ask for 120. Same thing goes here. There is no universal thing that says here is what makes you amazing. You just decide, just like you decide your number. You do not have to earn amazing. You know why? Because you can't. Amazing isn't something you earn, it's something you are, period. You know I looked up the definition because you know I love to do that. And there was two, you know how sometimes they have this and this? So number two actually, of the two things was the one I think most of us think of when we think of the term amazing. And it said excellent or wonderful. The first one though is what I loved, it said, "Causing great surprise or sudden wonder." And then I looked up wonder and it said something strange and surprising. Here's what I can tell you for sure. Y'all are fucking strange and you surprise me all the God damn time.
So right there by the dictionary definition, y'all are amazing. But here's what I want you to really get. Do you have any idea what an absolute miracle you are? An absolute miracle. Kevin and I could have taken two different planes and never fucking met. If you don't know our story, you're not on our newsletter list, because I'm writing that shit every Thursday to y'all. I'm not selling you anything. I'm just telling you things about me. And I've talked about how Kevin and I met. We could have never met and Elena literally wouldn't have existed. I had three miscarriages in my life, two before her and one after. Why she's here? Who the fuck knows? She's a God damn miracle and so are you. I don't care how you came about. I don't care what made your parents bang on that particular day, but you are a fucking miracle.
And if you're asking right now, I sent Kevin laughing with that one. What the hell does this have to do with anything? It has everything to do with anything, okay? Amazing is your God damn motherfucking birthright. You listen to your Finnish mother, you reject it. And here's the horsiest horseshit that ever horsed reason of why I think you reject it, because I've heard, it's not even what I think. You believe that if you accept and own your amazingness, you'll, wait for it, not work as hard. What the hee-haw kind of horseshit is that? Okay, one, you shouldn't be working as hard as you are currently working, but that's a whole other podcast. We'll talk about that later. I've already talked about it. But two, which I think is more important and particularly true for today's podcast is the opposite is true.
When I own my amazingness. When you own your amazingness, I'm just talking about me though here for it. I want to do my work in the world. When I feel amazing, when I know amazing, that I'm amazing, I want to do it more, not less. And guess what? Your work in the world is not to work yourself to death. That is not your work in this world. You've heard me say it before. I believe that y'all are healers, that you are going to change the world. I just was interviewing somebody today for my personal assistant. Can you imagine that job, running my errands for me? I'd be a nightmare. No, I'm not a nightmare boss. At least I hope not. But she said, "What is the culture like at your firm?" And I said, "Well, we like to get things done. We are all remote. And although we are very productive, but I think the reason why we're productive is because we all believe in the mission."
And she said, "What's that?" I said, "The mission is we're going to change the world with trial lawyers." Plaintiff trial lawyers are going to change the world. I know it's hard to believe for someone who doesn't understand what they do, but they're going to change the world. And we are all so 100% behind that mission that we all want to do our work, not just get it done, but we love our work. The reason, the very fact that we believe we are amazing is what makes us want to work even harder. I mean, this is the thing. Your work is to stand up to bullies that have more resources, have more time, have more money in front of an audience, you're standing up in front of these bullies, that has been manipulated by their lies, which means that you take enormous risk, which only sometimes pays off.
And if you think for one measly minute that you are more equipped to do that, if you tear yourself down and reject the label of amazing, you've got it all wrong. Amazing people do that. Amazing people take on bullies. Amazing people own their shit and use their own money and take big risks and suffer losses and keep on going. You are amazing because amazing is what you have to be to do this kind of work. And the sooner you embrace that, the easier this is going to be on both of us. So I don't have to keep fucking reminding you, but I will. Listen, attorneys who own their amazingness try new things. They are open to being vulnerable. I was just talking with a group that was here and we were talking day one, and I said, "What do you hope happens? Why are you here?"
All the things that we do on day one. And one of the attorneys said, "Well, I'm afraid of getting too emotional in front of the jury." And a bunch of other people, or the other two said other things that we're different. And I said, "Here's the thing. Whatever it is that you are afraid of, the jury's going to deliver it to you." I remember years and years ago, I was speaking at Rick Friedman's event, Take Back the Courtroom down in Florida, and someone came up to me and they said, "I want to work with you because I have a problem with anger and I get angry at the jury so often, and I just really believe you can help me." And I said, "Great, why don't you come out to our next event?" And so he did. And we had two mock juries, which we still do.
And after the warning jury... Excuse me, he gets up, he's got his coat on, got his briefcase, and he says, "I'm leaving." And I said, "Why? Why are you leaving?" And he said, "Because this jury that..." And he was all pissed off. And I said, "What did you say to me? You said that juries make you angry. This jury made you angry. What a fucking gift. Now, sit your ass down and learn how to deal with it just like you came here to do." See, you can't be of weak heart coming out here to work with me. And sit down he did, and he did learn how to deal with that.
So in this case, this attorney was afraid of being vulnerable and thinking that he was going to get too emotional in front of the jury. And so what happened in one of the very first juries, he was talking to the jury about loss, and he chose one of the very first jurors to talk about it. And she said, "Well, last year I lost my daughter." Well, this particular attorney had lost his daughter three or four years ago. And in that moment he went vulnerable and he didn't get too emotional, whatever the fuck that is, and he handled that shit because the jury is going to deliver that. Attorneys who own their amazingness do things like that. They're available to their vulnerability. They can communicate with authenticity, which by the way, these are the things that wins cases. They're not worried about the results. I mean, yes, of course everybody wants the result, but in the moment they're focusing on what they can control.
So can we stop fighting about this? Please? Can you at least believe it in your heart? Try it on, maybe accept that you are amazing and see what kind of results you get. You don't have to tell anybody. You don't even have to tell me. Just try it on, because here's what I know for sure. In all the years that I've done this and all the clients that I've worked with in my mastermind program where they've worked with me for nine months or years and we worked together, one of the first things that I have them do is not learn what is your skills, is not learn how to put an opening together. I have them learn how to accept the amazingness that they are. And I say that is the place that we are going to build from. We start there because I know that that is some of the hardest shit that I ask you to do because you've bought into all this other bullshit, that you haven't earned it, that if you own it, it means you'll work less. That's laughable. And again, you should be working less.
When you really own your amazingness, you will be able to show up in front of a jury the way that they need you to show up because you will have let go of the outcome knowing that you're not trying to earn it anymore, and that the outcome is going to be the outcome, whatever may come, but you get to stay amazing, win or lose. We got to take the sting out of these three words, you are amazing, because you are amazing. Try it on. You'll see. I love you.
Simon says, "Stop working so damn hard." Simon says, "Book yourself a vacation." Simon says, "Listen to, Sari." I am thrilled to once again invite y'all to join us in the H2H Playground. Come and be a part of the only online working group where plaintiff attorneys learn and practice proven trial skills in a safe place while having fun. Simon says, "Become the lawyer you were born to be." Visit sariswears.com/play and join the waitlist. Ready, set, go. Wait, I didn't say Simon says. Just checking to see if you're paying attention. But for real, go to sariswears.com/play now.
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