8. Integrity: Hiring Automation and Living Your Values

Jennifer Gore (00:00):

You need to treat your hires like you treat your leads in your law firm and you need to have an applicant tracking system. If you’re not really intentional, your culture evolves-

Maria Monroy (00:11):

It grades itself.

Jennifer Gore (00:11):

Yeah. And I kept hiring people that I was like, “These are not my people,” is what I kept telling myself in my mind, I’m like, “We don’t share any of the same values.”

Maria Monroy (00:21):

And I think a lot of moms have guilt of going and doing and fulfilling their dreams, but I think that almost makes a worse parent.

Jennifer Gore (00:29):

Okay, so you can’t say to your kid, “You can go live your dreams,” if you’re not living your dreams. I’ve always been an achiever, an ambitious, driven person and it was hard being a little girl because you were told your whole life you could do anything, but then when you actually go do it, I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to do it, I’m going to go be a lawyer, I’m going to go own a company.” Then you get a lot of resistance.

Maria Monroy (00:55):

In law school attorneys are taught to challenge everything, tear things apart, break them down, but the qualities that make lawyers great can be the worst for running a business. At every stage of growth, running a business and practicing law can feel overwhelming. And what happens when you try to add life and family to the mix, it can feel nearly impossible. You don’t have to do this alone, I’m

Maria Monroy, Co-founder and President of LawRank, a leading SEO agency for ambitious law firms. Each week we hear from industry leaders on what it really takes to run a law firm from marketing to manifestation because success lies in the balance of life and law, we’re here to help you tip the scales.

(01:37):

Jennifer Gore-Cuthbert is an absolute powerhouse, owner of Atlanta Personal Injury Law Group, her firm has grown 7,200% since opening. It is on the Inc. 5000 list and has no plans on stopping. I sat with her live at the Brain Trust Legal Conference. We sat together to discuss treating your hiring process like a lead pipeline through automation and tracking, why she had to spend a year fixing the culture at her firm and how she mirrors the values of her business in her home life.

Jennifer Gore (02:14):

Hiring is a real problem for so many law firms out there, especially in this environment, but hiring in general has been a challenge for women law firm owners especially. But I think the key for hiring in the future is automating your hiring.

Maria Monroy (02:34):

And just to give people context, you have grown by how much since you opened?

Jennifer Gore (02:40):

7,200%.

Maria Monroy (02:42):

That’s amazing. Congrats and you made the Inc. 5000?

Jennifer Gore (02:46):

Yeah, we made the Inc. 5000 this year and we’re just trying to get to a certain level as fast as we can.

Maria Monroy (02:55):

And I know this has become a theme on our podcast, but Jen also does TikTok and all the social media platforms. I encourage you to follow her because she does an amazing job and I would’ve loved to talk about that, but I want to stay focused on this hiring thing because I think hiring is so difficult. It doesn’t matter what you do, where you are, men, woman, I think it’s very difficult and if you hire the wrong person, it’s so expensive.

Jennifer Gore (03:23):

Yeah. And I want to say that I’ve listened to some podcasts and some other amazing attorneys that would say that they’re incredible at hiring and what made me disheartened was that I realize that some of them would say, “Even though I’m incredible at hiring, my batting average is still at 50%.”

Maria Monroy (03:45):

That’s intake. Everyone’s intake is great and then you secret shop them and it’s not great.

Jennifer Gore (03:50):

But if 50% is good in hiring, then wow, hiring is really difficult. But I think what also you have to do in hiring is be really resilient in hiring. So you make a bad hire but then you just get right back up and go again, I think-

Maria Monroy (04:05):

It sounds like dating.

Jennifer Gore (04:06):

Yeah. People get really demoralized when they make a bad hire and I think that can also be really problematic.

Maria Monroy (04:13):

Yeah. It’s literally dating.

Jennifer Gore (04:14):

Yeah. You get burned and then you have to get yourself back into the mode of wanting to hire someone, but you just have to basically just keep going and it’s like a numbers game too.

Maria Monroy (04:28):

And you talk about automating your hiring. What does that mean? Because that’s so broad.

Jennifer Gore (04:33):

So you need to treat your hires like you treat your leads in your law firm and you need to have an applicant tracking system. A lot of personal injury lawyers and other lawyers I know have a system for dealing with leads in intake.

Maria Monroy (04:47):

Correct, like Lead Docket or something similar, yeah.

Jennifer Gore (04:50):

And we previously, a couple years ago, didn’t have an applicant tracking system, which is an ATS, that’s what it’s known as. There’s a couple softwares-

Maria Monroy (05:00):

Which one do you use?

Jennifer Gore (05:00):

We use Wise Hire.

Maria Monroy (05:02):

I can’t wait to get back and try it.

Jennifer Gore (05:05):

So it basically takes candidates and it funnels them through the hiring process and so it posts your ads on ZipRecruiter, Indeed, a ton of other sites. And then you just basically pay $400 or $500 a month and it runs all those ads. We were spending thousands on Indeed-

Maria Monroy (05:25):

We spent thousands on Indeed.

Jennifer Gore (05:26):

Thousands. And literally my mind exploded when I found this, I was like, “Hold on, I just pay the $400 and then they have this deal.” So they must have a deal with Indeed, I don’t know. So that changed our ads because I run all the ads for all the positions in the firm, pretty much evergreen and I never turned them off and we told our staff we’re always hiring.

Maria Monroy (05:53):

And when do you know it’s the right time to bring on another hire?

Jennifer Gore (05:57):

When you have a pain point.

Maria Monroy (05:59):

So you wait for the pain point?

Jennifer Gore (06:01):

No, I mean when you know need to hire, I mean, you should be proactively hiring.

Maria Monroy (06:04):

And are you proactively hiring?

Jennifer Gore (06:06):

Yeah, I mean we have a hiring plan.

Maria Monroy (06:08):

Wow. A hiring plan? Put on paper?

Jennifer Gore (06:11):

Quarterly, yeah.

Maria Monroy (06:12):

Okay.

Jennifer Gore (06:13):

If you’re going to go do some marketing and you’re going to increase your case load, you can predict the hires you’re going to have to make.

Maria Monroy (06:19):

So start looking for them now?

Jennifer Gore (06:21):

Yeah. Because otherwise you’re not going to be able to keep up the quality of your work. If suddenly you have all these cases and you don’t have the staff to support them, then you risk being fired.

Maria Monroy (06:32):

Absolutely. Because we learned the hard way at some point, we’re always a tiny bit overstaffed.

Jennifer Gore (06:40):

Okay. So we started this position called a floater. I know it’s a crazy name, I don’t know.

Maria Monroy (06:46):

Yeah, that’s what it’s called.

Jennifer Gore (06:49):

And right now we currently don’t have our floater because invariably they get sucked into a part of the firm, someone’s like, “We really need that person.”

Maria Monroy (06:58):

And they keep them?

Jennifer Gore (06:58):

And they keep them. But then I’m like, “Damn, I’ve got to get out and hire another floater.” And they’re like a gap filler and it stops the bleeding so if you have to let someone go or someone quits, you can put that person in so that team doesn’t collapse because people get really stressed out when someone on their team.

Maria Monroy (07:19):

Yeah, it’s like a substitute teacher. I love it.

Jennifer Gore (07:21):

Yeah. And I think the cost of an administrative floater, it could potentially save you hundreds of thousands of dollars because it’s almost like insurance a little bit. You’re thinking more clearly when you’re a little overstaffed, you’re not in panic mode and it just buys you a little time to make the next hire. But if I could just get 5%, 10%, 20% better at being a little ahead of those, I mean, I think it’s a game changer for sure.

Maria Monroy (07:55):

And you definitely have that mindset of you’re always learning, always trying to get better, you’re very humble about that. You’re like, “I need help, I need coaches, I need mentors, I’m going to join Masterminds, I’m going to go to conferences.

Jennifer Gore (08:08):

Oh, I’m obsessive and I get so excited when I meet someone and they’re doing something on a high level and I’m like, “Oh my God, you’re so smart. I need to breathe your air, I need to chat with you.” That’s what excites me. When I found Wise Hire or when I met somebody and they’re doing something incredible, I get so excited.

Maria Monroy (08:32):

Oh, I know Daryl was like, “Don’t use your phones during presentations.” And you’re like, “Wise Hire.” And I’m texting my husband, “We’re going to start using Wise Hire, look it up.” And I’m putting my phone away quickly before I get yelled at by Daryl. But I’m super excited about it because if you guys know what a pipeline is, it looks like a pipeline so you know what stage each candidate is in.

Jennifer Gore (08:53):

Interviewing, did their questions. But then the other thing that it does is if you have an HR director and they’re really managing it or you have someone assisting you, they can put all their notes in and then when I log in, I see all that person’s notes. So I felt like the ZipRecruiter and Indeed and all those other ones were very disjointed and it was like we were always corresponding about candidates via email, which is not efficient at all.

Maria Monroy (09:18):

Slack, email, they’re great for certain things but-

Jennifer Gore (09:23):

And, think about this. There’s HR issues that you need to have data on how you’ve been doing your hiring. If someone was to ever say, “You were discriminating on someone in hiring.” Where are you keeping all your data on hiring?

Maria Monroy (09:40):

Interesting. I never thought about that. And tell us a little bit about how it works. So you have this pipeline, I assume you have a section for resumes and then somebody goes in and goes through the resumes. When do they get a set of questions that they answer? Is that before or after an interview? Are they pre-screening questions? Are they doing videos? Are they doing a task? How does it work?

Jennifer Gore (10:00):

So these candidates come in, let’s say you post a job for a receptionist, then it sends them an automatic reply and says, “Thank you for applying.” And then you can build it out to either send your pre-interview questions before or after or you can do them manually if you are not sure you want to send them to all candidates. But we have built out templates, the five questions for a receptionist. And so one of mine is, “What do you think are the qualities of a great receptionist?” And we want to get the vibe of, A, is the candidate going to answer the questions? B, are there answers at all good? And so it’s all automated and you can create more sequences then you can just go ahead and schedule them for an interview, a phone interview is usually what we do, and then if they pass that, then an in-person interview or a Zoom interview. And then the other feature which we didn’t talk about is that as soon as they complete their application, they personality profile the person.

Maria Monroy (11:02):

DISC, right?

Jennifer Gore (11:03):

It’s DISC.

Maria Monroy (11:05):

We do DISC as well.

Jennifer Gore (11:05):

And we were spending so much money on DISC-

Maria Monroy (11:07):

We are spending so much money on DISC.

Jennifer Gore (11:10):

Maria, it’s all in the software.

Maria Monroy (11:10):

No.

Jennifer Gore (11:11):

It’s free.

Maria Monroy (11:12):

I can’t believe that.

Jennifer Gore (11:13):

We DISC profiled our entire staff. I could DISC profile you in my Wise Hire account.

Maria Monroy (11:20):

I’m the same as you, I’m DI.

Jennifer Gore (11:21):

Of course, you are. Hold on, were you shocked by this?

Maria Monroy (11:25):

No, I was like, “Of course she’s DI.”

Jennifer Gore (11:26):

The day I met Maria, I was like, “She’s going to be my friend, I like her.”

Maria Monroy (11:31):

Likewise. It makes sense now.

Jennifer Gore (11:33):

Yeah. So I go through and I would get all these candidates and then you can put in there, on your ad, if I’m looking for a personal injury attorney, you can put to tag if the person has personal injury experience and they speak Spanish and they have five years of experience. So all the candidates that come in that says they have the match of the DISC profile, they have the match of the personality, they have five years of PI, they speak Spanish, those people will get brought to the top-

Maria Monroy (12:10):

That makes sense.

Jennifer Gore (12:11):

… and then you’ll be able to go through, you get 30 applications, okay, I’m only going to talk to these two.

Maria Monroy (12:17):

I’m so excited. What we’ve implemented is we wrote a book called Who and I love it, it’s literally saved us from hiring people that we should not hire. The very first question that you ask on the very preliminary interview is what are your career goals? And it’s so interesting because if you’re hiring someone as an assistant or a project manager and they’re like, “Well, my career goal is to go back to school and be a vet.”

Jennifer Gore (12:42):

You need to know.

Maria Monroy (12:44):

You’re like, “Well, this is not going to be a long term…” It’s the trickiest question. And then it’s like, what are you really good at professionally or really like to do? And then the opposite of that question. It’s really interesting because if you’re going to hire someone that has a repetitive task, I get people that are like, “Well, I don’t like to do the same thing every day.” And automatically you’re just like, “Okay, you’re not going to be a good fit.” And you can just end it. It’s the best thing ever.

Jennifer Gore (13:09):

Right in that moment, I give the person permission, “Well, we really want people to live the life of their dreams and I looked at this position and I really don’t think you would be happy in this position.”

Maria Monroy (13:21):

Yeah.

Jennifer Gore (13:23):

So it cuts all the nonsense. You’re wasting time trying to put somebody in a role that’s never going to work for them.

Maria Monroy (13:33):

Oh, absolutely. And then you train them and then five months later they’re gone, you wasted all those months training. What we’ve gotten really good at is we use something called Trainual, so all of-

Jennifer Gore (13:44):

We use that too.

Maria Monroy (13:45):

Of course, you do. So we don’t have to keep training people.

Jennifer Gore (13:48):

The onboarding university.

Maria Monroy (13:49):

Yes, it’s amazing

Jennifer Gore (13:51):

There’s a video, “Welcome to Atlanta Person Injury Law Group.” And then it’s a video of my story so I don’t have to say that. I’m sure you have the same?

Maria Monroy (13:58):

Yep.

Jennifer Gore (13:59):

Because it can be so repetitive and Trainual gives you the ability to see their progress through the course. And yeah, I think we could build out Trainual way further, I don’t know how far you’ve got it built out.

Maria Monroy (14:15):

Everything’s on Trainual.

Jennifer Gore (14:17):

I feel like some areas are super built out and then there’s areas where I’m like, ‘We don’t have that in Trainual, we need to put that in Trainual.”

Maria Monroy (14:25):

I mean, we’re always finding things that should be in Trainual but we’ve been doing it for a long time and this is all Mariano because he’s just amazing. He’s all about processes and systems. And in SEO there’s so little that you can… I mean, you still need to have so much creativity in every project and every market’s different that whatever you can processize, you must processize. And I think part of the difficult part about bringing on new hires is training. So if you sit down and you take the time to do the Trainuals and it’s very corporate so I worked for AT&T forever and you always have those corporate trainings and videos and tests at the end. If you take the time to do those, yes, it’s going to take you more time than training an actual human, but then you never have to do it again.

Jennifer Gore (15:10):

Your freedom.

Maria Monroy (15:10):

So you’re hesitant to hire someone because you’re like, “Oh God, now I’ve got to train them.”

Jennifer Gore (15:16):

You actually get anxiety on the training. And also we used to literally cry when we would hire somebody and we would spend all day training them and then they would quit the next day or something or that we would need to fire them and they’re not a good fit. And I’m thinking of all the hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Maria Monroy (15:34):

Exactly. And with Trainual, you minimize, I don’t know, 80%, 90% of that. Obviously there’s still the human element and them being part of your culture or whatever, but it does help so much. Now, let’s talk a little bit about managing people, both adults and children. But let’s start with adults. What’s the culture like at your law firm?

Jennifer Gore (15:59):

The culture at my firm in 2018, we spent a whole year just focused on the culture because I had a horrible culture.

Maria Monroy (16:08):

Wait, let’s talk about that, what was the horrible about the culture?

Jennifer Gore (16:10):

We had no dedicated culture, I thought people knew the culture, but if you’re not really intentional, your culture evolves.

Maria Monroy (16:20):

It grades itself.

Jennifer Gore (16:20):

Yeah. And I kept hiring people that I was like, “These are not my people,” is what I kept telling myself in my mind I’m like, “We don’t share any of the same values.”

Maria Monroy (16:30):

Did EOS help with that?

Jennifer Gore (16:31):

It was before EOS.

Maria Monroy (16:33):

Interesting.

Jennifer Gore (16:34):

I was in another business coaching program and they kept telling us culture is everything and there was all the books on culture. So I sat down and I worked with my coach at that time and we wrote down everything we stand for and everything we stand against and we published it. And our firm is very modern, tech driven, very OCD-ish, organized, polished, accountability is huge, efficiency is huge, data is huge.

Maria Monroy (17:09):

You love data?

Jennifer Gore (17:11):

I love data. So if I hired a paralegal that’s 65, that hates data, hates tech, hates being organized, their every day at my firm would’ve been hell because that’s the exact opposite of what I stand for.

Maria Monroy (17:28):

Absolutely.

Jennifer Gore (17:29):

We hired these paralegals, they only liked paper and they would not change. I’ve been a paperless firm since 2018.

Maria Monroy (17:37):

That’s amazing.

Jennifer Gore (17:37):

So the people that we hire now, they will say, “Everywhere I worked before I thought I was OCD and now I feel I’m where I belong.”

Maria Monroy (17:49):

You and my husband would get along because he’s so OCD.

Jennifer Gore (17:52):

Yeah, everybody likes a nice, tidy office and we like data, we like systems, we like accountability. I say all the time, “I am not perfect, I make mistakes.” But I will admit it so other people can.

Maria Monroy (18:08):

And it’s okay to make mistakes, the issue’s not making mistakes, in my opinion. It’s like, “Okay, you made a mistake, how do you make sure you don’t make that mistake again?” How do you learn from the mistake versus being so afraid to make a mistake that you just keep everything so safe and there’s no growth if you’re afraid of mistakes, in my opinion.

Jennifer Gore (18:27):

You can’t have growth without mistakes. But there’s certain mistakes that are catastrophic, we try to avoid those. But we have to give a level of some creative freedom or people won’t want to work there at all if it’s so constrained. I would say, if we’re talking honestly, culture is still an ongoing challenge because if you go and hire five more people, then the firm is always changing and always growing and there’s new personalities coming in and one of them could be very dominant and then the culture has to be a constant-

Maria Monroy (19:05):

Says the DI.

Jennifer Gore (19:07):

Yeah. So you bring someone in that could be super seasoned and then they could change your culture and it could be for the better or the worse.

Maria Monroy (19:18):

Yeah. Definitely.

Jennifer Gore (19:19):

But I don’t think culture’s ever done.

Maria Monroy (19:21):

No, it’s like intake. If you just stop working on it, well good luck.

Jennifer Gore (19:27):

Working out is the same thing.

Maria Monroy (19:28):

Yeah, it’s working out. Which sucks. How cool would it be if we worked out for six months and then we’re set?

Jennifer Gore (19:34):

Yeah. But then I think it would be easy and so then it wouldn’t be as much of a challenge.

Maria Monroy (19:41):

You like the challenge, huh?

Jennifer Gore (19:45):

I like a little bit of a challenge.

Maria Monroy (19:46):

Me too. I love the gym, I’m going to start posting videos like you do.

Jennifer Gore (19:49):

You know what? We want to see your videos, we’re waiting.

Maria Monroy (19:51):

I know, I’ve been-

Jennifer Gore (19:52):

I’m always giving you shit on social, I’m like, “Where’s your video, Maria?”

Maria Monroy (20:00):

I’m your number one fan.

Jennifer Gore (20:01):

Well, we always chat on Instagram.

Maria Monroy (20:04):

I know and Facebook.

Jennifer Gore (20:05):

Because I love your stories.

Maria Monroy (20:07):

I love yours.

Jennifer Gore (20:08):

You’re always so honest about parenting and your struggles and you’re very candid and I think it’s good.

Maria Monroy (20:17):

I think it’s really detrimental to use social media and not be honest. I think if you’re only going to show the good, you’re contributing to the problem that social media causes. Why are you laughing?

Jennifer Gore (20:32):

Because I do agree, but I’m always the person that wants to be positive.

Maria Monroy (20:38):

You don’t always share super…. You’re pretty honest.

Jennifer Gore (20:42):

I share a lot of stuff but I also try to always see the glass half full. So it’s such a struggle for me, I hate the victim mindset.

Maria Monroy (20:51):

Oh no, me too.

Jennifer Gore (20:51):

So I always am like, “But I’m so grateful, why am I complaining?”

Maria Monroy (20:59):

No, I feel you. Do you know what’s also really interesting is, it was maybe one week where I was posting, “I’m struggling with this move to Mexico City, now there’s an earthquake.”

Jennifer Gore (21:09):

People panicked.

Maria Monroy (21:10):

People were so fucking worried. And I was like-

Jennifer Gore (21:15):

I didn’t send you any messages on that.

Maria Monroy (21:16):

You did not. And I was like, Okay-

Jennifer Gore (21:19):

“Do need a therapist? Do you need help? I’m really worried.”

Maria Monroy (21:22):

That’s what I was getting.

Jennifer Gore (21:23):

Because the moment you put out something that’s like, “I need help,” the rescuers of the world and the people who have the victim mindset, they come out in full fledge.

Maria Monroy (21:34):

But it was crazy. And I think some people-

Jennifer Gore (21:36):

They truly want to help.

Maria Monroy (21:38):

I think some people were honestly just like, “Hey, this doesn’t seem like Maria, I’m just going to make sure she’s okay.”

Jennifer Gore (21:42):

Because you were being vulnerable.

Maria Monroy (21:43):

But do you know what it is too though? The opposite is also true, if you’re only posting all these happy stories, people think your life is amazing. But if you’re only posting negative things, people think your life sucks. And I was like, “I’m just giving you a moment in time.”

Jennifer Gore (21:58):

5%.

Maria Monroy (22:00):

Yeah, I’m a little depressed because there’s no sun and I have seasonal depression and yeah, I haven’t been working out because I don’t have a car that works in… But because Mexico’s driving me insane. But I’m still super grateful and so happy I’m here and enjoying my children and-

Jennifer Gore (22:15):

You just had a little vent.

Maria Monroy (22:15):

I know. And now I feel like I can’t freaking vent.

Jennifer Gore (22:19):

It’s such a fine balance, but at the end of the day, I think it always goes back to just do what you want to do.

Maria Monroy (22:26):

I mean, I’m just me and I don’t know how to not be me.

Jennifer Gore (22:29):

Yeah. And I think over time the audience comes to know who you are.

Maria Monroy (22:33):

Yeah. My friends were not panicked at all, my friends didn’t even message me. They’re like, “She’s fine.”

Jennifer Gore (22:40):

“Oh, she’ll get over.”

Maria Monroy (22:41):

“She keeps it real.”

Jennifer Gore (22:43):

We’ve all had that. I think it’s harder to go on there and talk about your struggles.

Maria Monroy (22:50):

I think it’s the same.

Jennifer Gore (22:52):

You think it’s the same because you do it every day.

Maria Monroy (22:54):

Yeah, I don’t care. If I got engagement off of that, I would literally share the most mundane things ever, like, “I’m eating an apple with peanut butter.” But obviously that’s not going to… The alcohol tends to get a ton-

Jennifer Gore (23:07):

It really triggers people.

Maria Monroy (23:08):

Wow. Some people are like, “That’s dumb, you shouldn’t be drinking.” Some people are like, “Just get over it. You’re fine, you only live once.” I’m like, “You’re just projecting. Okay. You just want to feel good about the fact-

Jennifer Gore (23:22):

She calls everyone out in her stories.

Maria Monroy (23:25):

Some people hate me.

Jennifer Gore (23:26):

Do you know what? If you don’t have any haters, what are you really doing here?

Maria Monroy (23:29):

You’re just not yourself.

Jennifer Gore (23:33):

What does Mike say? “You can’t be vanilla, you’ve got to be Cherry Garcia.”

Maria Monroy (23:36):

Well, you do. I totally agree. So let’s talk about parenting.

Jennifer Gore (23:41):

Our favorite topic.

Maria Monroy (23:42):

No, not my favorite topic. The most common topic.

Jennifer Gore (23:48):

It’s such a pain point, I feel like in your story.

Maria Monroy (23:50):

It’s such a pain point. I mean, obviously, and I hate that I even have to preface this, but obviously I freaking adore my kids.

Jennifer Gore (23:55):

It’s obvious-

Maria Monroy (23:56):

I adore them, but I did not understand how tough it was going to be. Nobody said to me, “Wait, it’s actually much harder than you think it’s going to be.” And I was 27 when I had my first kid, I think you were pretty young too.

Jennifer Gore (24:12):

Around the same age. But see, were you the oldest or the youngest?

Maria Monroy (24:15):

The oldest. I was dying for a child.

Jennifer Gore (24:17):

Yeah. I was a babysitter and so when I had kids I knew it was going to be really hard.

Maria Monroy (24:24):

Oh, you knew?

Jennifer Gore (24:25):

I knew.

Maria Monroy (24:25):

I thought it was going to be the most beautiful, chill… Okay, you’re under slept, but I had no idea that they were going to trigger me so much.

Jennifer Gore (24:35):

Yeah. I actually wasn’t sure I wanted to have kids before I had kids because the responsibility of having kids was so heavy to me. It was so heavy.

Maria Monroy (24:46):

I think I’m codependent, I really wanted kids.

Jennifer Gore (24:49):

I wanted them. I remember waking up one day when I was 27 and I was like, “I want to have a baby.” It’s a true biological clock. I literally woke up and was like, “I want to have a baby.” And it was the craziest experience, I was like, “Why am I randomly just wanting a baby?

Maria Monroy (25:06):

I always wanted a baby. When I was 15, I would beg my mom because she-

Jennifer Gore (25:07):

So you had really fantasized it?

Maria Monroy (25:09):

I had.

Jennifer Gore (25:09):

I hadn’t done that.

Maria Monroy (25:10):

I really fantasized it.

Jennifer Gore (25:12):

You thought it was going to be this glorious-

Maria Monroy (25:14):

Yes.

Jennifer Gore (25:15):

I was in pure dread, I was very worried.

Maria Monroy (25:18):

Oh no, I think the craziest thing about it is the worry once they’re born that you’re like-

Jennifer Gore (25:26):

Your heart is living outside of your body.

Maria Monroy (25:27):

Yeah. And the thing is, initially when I first had Sebastian, I looked at Mariano, I’m going to cry, and I was like, “I need to have another because if anything happens to him-

Jennifer Gore (25:36):

It’s soul crushing.

Maria Monroy (25:37):

… I can’t live anymore.” But then I had another and I was like, “Well this sucks because now if one thing happens to one, I can’t kill myself.” And Mariano was like, “Holy shit, you’re right.” And we were like, “Why did we have two?” And then once we had two, it was like-

Jennifer Gore (25:52):

I know. These are the irrational things you think when you have a kid and nobody that doesn’t have a kid could actually wrap their mind around it. So it’s the highest highs and the lowest lows.

Maria Monroy (26:05):

It is. And I feel like I’m super grateful that I have tons of help, I know you have tons of help too and that’s really made all the difference. But I went through a dark period where I had no help and I was a stay-at-home mom. But now what I really want to talk about is you have a parenting coach?

Jennifer Gore (26:22):

Yeah. I’m a crazy person that goes and gets coaches for every single thing.

Maria Monroy (26:27):

See, I feel like I’m very more organized and very business minded but when it comes to the kids, it’s a shit show. Whereas you have your life together on both ends.

Jennifer Gore (26:37):

Well, because I kept waking up and literally thinking, “My home life should be similarly run.” Even with the executive assistant, I think your home should be run as well as your business.

Maria Monroy (26:51):

So I agree with you and I have somebody that does everything from paying every bill to grocery shopping.

Jennifer Gore (26:57):

Because it’s an operation, right?

Maria Monroy (26:59):

Totally. But the kids.

Jennifer Gore (27:01):

But I was like, “The values I believe in business and life, I’m not reflecting those in my kids.”

Maria Monroy (27:07):

So how did you start implementing that?

Jennifer Gore (27:09):

Well, I just knew internally that I needed to find a coach because everything I’ve ever wanted to do, the hack is find the person who knows it, who can teach it to you. And so I started doing research online and I found a lot of the parenting coaches didn’t align with my values and so you have to find something that aligns with your values. And the first time I heard this coach, I was like, “That’s it. That’s what I’ve been looking for.” And as soon as I hired them, I was nine months pregnant with my third child… Oh, that was another thing, I knew I was having a third child and I was like, “I can’t let this keep going. We’ve got to get this under control.” So I was nine months pregnant with my third child and it was three months before the pandemic.

Maria Monroy (28:00):

Jesus.

Jennifer Gore (28:01):

So I hired him and it was the most perfect timing because you know how everyone was struggling with their kids during the pandemic? My kids were doing incredible, it was the most incredible time of our lives.

Maria Monroy (28:14):

So it’s been really good to have that structure for them?

Jennifer Gore (28:17):

Yeah. And one of my favorite books is Think and Grow Rich, I know you love that book.

Maria Monroy (28:24):

It’s my favorite book.

Jennifer Gore (28:25):

And so a lot of our parenting is very connected to that book and that book is the root of some of the values of the parenting coaching we do. It’s a lot of cultivating entrepreneurs and in Think and Grow Rich, they talk about creating a vision and if you constantly tell your kids what to do all the time, you crush their ability to create a vision. So our biggest initial thing was to stop telling them what to do all the time and speak to them in a way that taught them to think. And that-

Maria Monroy (29:02):

Can you give me an example?

Jennifer Gore (29:03):

Yeah. And how I’m going to describe this is the idea when you hear someone say, “There’s no bad dogs in the world, there’s only a bad dog owner.” You’ve created that out of control pet. Any issue with your child is from the environment you’ve created for them. So if your kid comes home and you say, “Put away your shoes and put away your hat and put away your gloves and your jacket.” You’re just dictating, you’re a dictator. If you come home and you say, “Hey, what do we do when we get home? Where’s the best place for your coat?” They engage with you in conversation and they think. And then they don’t resist you because they’re like, “Oh, I put my coat right here.” And it’s not a battle.

Maria Monroy (29:53):

Do you want to be my coach?

Jennifer Gore (29:55):

Well, I went through weeks and weeks and I had to relearn how to speak to my kids because I was just basically a dictator. And this also applies to employees. If you’re constantly having to tell someone what to do, you’re going to get completely different results than when you ask them questions.

Maria Monroy (30:11):

Oh, I’m always like, “What do you think we should do? What do you think the next steps are?”

Jennifer Gore (30:15):

But why haven’t you done that with the kids? It’s so obvious.

Maria Monroy (30:19):

I do it sometimes and it just depends-

Jennifer Gore (30:21):

It’s time consuming.

Maria Monroy (30:22):

I have one kid that literally takes up 90% of my energy.

Jennifer Gore (30:25):

And everybody does, every single family.

Maria Monroy (30:27):

You have one of those?

Jennifer Gore (30:29):

Everybody does. And you know what? They’re your greatest challenge and they are the kid that will… I always tell my daughter, she’s the one for me. I’m like, “You’re so powerful.” That child is calling you to be a better parent.

Maria Monroy (30:43):

Oh, they’re your greatest teacher. And that’s the thing that kills me, I’m like, “Shouldn’t I be teaching you? But here you are teaching me patience.”

Jennifer Gore (30:53):

They are the vehicle for how we learn our greatest life lessons.

Maria Monroy (30:59):

And I totally agree. Now you posted a video of, I believe, your middle child, your son?

Jennifer Gore (31:05):

My son.

Maria Monroy (31:07):

And he was to fold his laundry, and tell me if I’m getting this wrong because this was months ago, he was refusing to fold his laundry and you were basically like, “Okay, you can come out of your room when you’re done folding your laundry.” And he was there for hours.

Jennifer Gore (31:19):

Hours, yeah. It’s the struggle. So the other thing that it’s all about is stop overcompensating for your kids. If you overcompensate for your kids and you do stuff for them, you rob them of their motivation.

Maria Monroy (31:33):

But my 10 year old can’t fold, are you telling me your kids can fold?

Jennifer Gore (31:36):

My kids can all fold.

Maria Monroy (31:37):

No. Neatly?

Jennifer Gore (31:39):

Well, okay, the first time they do something, just like employees, are they going to do it good?

Maria Monroy (31:44):

No, it’s such a pain in the butt.

Jennifer Gore (31:45):

So one thing that the program-

Maria Monroy (31:47):

I’ the most impatient person.

Jennifer Gore (31:48):

I’m so impatient, I’m right there with you. But you know how you were talking about you put in the time and then you buy your freedom?

Maria Monroy (31:55):

I want to do Trainuals for my kids.

Jennifer Gore (31:57):

So during the pandemic when we were home, we did training days.

Maria Monroy (32:02):

No.

Jennifer Gore (32:03):

We did full training days. When they first learned to empty the dishwasher, the first time they did it, they put everything in the wrong place.

Maria Monroy (32:10):

Of course.

Jennifer Gore (32:11):

But then they got better and then they got faster and then we gamified a lot of stuff.

Maria Monroy (32:17):

Oh, my husband always talks about that. Because we do that and he’s like, “When you build a Trainual, gamify it.”

Jennifer Gore (32:24):

Yeah. And then the other thing we do is we have music all over our house, in the kitchen or whatever. And so I always taught them when I have to do a task that I don’t want to do, I will listen to music-

Maria Monroy (32:37):

We do the same thing.

Jennifer Gore (32:38):

… or a podcast. So my son, I got him doing his laundry where he listens to motivational speeches.

Maria Monroy (32:45):

Oh, that’s so cute.

Jennifer Gore (32:46):

So it’ll be like, “Never give up.”

Maria Monroy (32:49):

He’s folding the 100th shirt.

Jennifer Gore (32:51):

He’s like, “You don’t want to work? Your work makes you better.” So I’ve taught them little hacks, I mean, some of it is not perfect. One thing when they do their laundry, I’ll be like, “Okay, you’ve seen seen how to fold laundry, how would you grade yourself on your folding?” And they’ll be like, “Five.”

Maria Monroy (33:12):

Do you yell?

Jennifer Gore (33:13):

No.I mean, I really tried. The greatest thing the parenting coaching taught me was you have to have self-control.

Maria Monroy (33:23):

See that’s my biggest issue because I grew up in a Latin household-

Jennifer Gore (33:27):

Very loud.

Maria Monroy (33:28):

It’s just very loud and there was a lot of yelling from my grandmother to my aunts, to my mom, to my stepdad, uncles. They get pissed and they yell.

Jennifer Gore (33:39):

I used to yell.

Maria Monroy (33:39):

And I always yell and then I feel guilty about it.

Jennifer Gore (33:41):

And that’s why I stopped yelling. The more control you get over yourself… Now my kids will have a massive tantrum and I’m just standing there and I’m like, “I’m here when you’re ready.”

Maria Monroy (33:53):

I mean I have days where I’m like that and I’m very calm and I’m like, “When you’re ready for a hug, I’m here.”

Jennifer Gore (33:59):

Okay. Because if you give in the reaction, the tantrum goes on more.

Maria Monroy (34:04):

And it feeds it.

Jennifer Gore (34:05):

It feeds it, they get what they want.

Maria Monroy (34:06):

What do you do if they’re violent though? My daughter will start scratching and kicking me and I hold her down. I don’t hurt her but I-

Jennifer Gore (34:11):

I do restrain my kids here and there, if they do stuff like that, but there’s consequences. So if you choose that, I’m like, “Oh-

Maria Monroy (34:19):

What’s the consequence?

Jennifer Gore (34:20):

… Wow. It sounds like you want to give away your iPad for a week.”

Maria Monroy (34:23):

That’s just mean.

Jennifer Gore (34:25):

No, I do.

Maria Monroy (34:26):

Oh no, I have consequences too.

Jennifer Gore (34:27):

Yeah, it’s like, “I understand you’re not really interested in watching the movie Friday night.”

Maria Monroy (34:32):

Oh I tell them, “Look, television and iPads, they’re a privilege.”

Jennifer Gore (34:35):

You have to know the things that are motivating them. I think people that can’t get their kids to do the things they need to do, the basics, it’s because they don’t have an idea of what’s driving their kids or the kids have too many privileges for free.

Maria Monroy (34:49):

And see, we always practice attachment parenting so my babies never cry, they co-slept with me. The problem with attachment parenting is that it very easily leads into permissive parenting.

Jennifer Gore (34:59):

100%.

Maria Monroy (35:01):

And for a long time I was like, “I don’t want to punish, there should just be natural consequences.” But then that’s really difficult and then I realized, “Well-

Jennifer Gore (35:08):

How does life really work though?

Maria Monroy (35:10):

Exactly, there are consequences. And my point to them is, “Look, all these things are privilege. I work for these privileges, I work so that you can have an iPad, I work so that I can pay for Netflix, I work so that you have your own room. If you can’t contribute to the family life in a meaningful way, then you’re not entitled to the privileges. You want ice cream today? How did you behave at dinner?”

Jennifer Gore (35:34):

So we pay our kids to do their chores. They all have little debit cards and they get 25 cents a chore or whatever and so we incentivize them to do their chores. I would say parenting is incredibly challenging and I definitely am not perfect at it, I’ve come a long way. But I feel like the parenting I’m doing is strategic and I have a plan, I know what I’m doing and I went and did something that’s in line with my values so all the guilt and when you’re not really intentional about what you’re doing, it makes you always feel bad and you have guilt. And so I feel really an integrity with what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Which gives you a lot of confidence.

Maria Monroy (36:19):

So you’ve read, what’s her name? Brené Brown.

Jennifer Gore (36:22):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (36:23):

Because she talks about-

Jennifer Gore (36:24):

Living in integrity with your values, wasn’t that the conflict you were talking about in your parenting? It’s like, “I believe in these things, but at the home front I’m not showing it. I believe in accountability, but I’m letting you get away with doing whatever the hell you want.”

Maria Monroy (36:38):

Yeah, I think that raising children is way more difficult than running a business.

Jennifer Gore (36:44):

Because you’re dealing with people who are not fully emotionally developed.

Maria Monroy (36:48):

I know. And then for me personally, it’s like all of my triggers from my childhood pop up. And I think that’s what’s been the hardest and if somebody said to me, “Hey, when you have children, they’re going to trigger you from childhood.” That would’ve made me stop.

Jennifer Gore (37:04):

I knew it was going to trigger, I knew that.

Maria Monroy (37:06):

See, I didn’t know any of that.

Jennifer Gore (37:07):

See, I feel like my childhood was great, but there was a lot of hard things and I was thinking, “Oh my God, I’m going to mess up my kids.” That was my greatest fear. It was like, “I’m going to damage these kids with all the emotional baggage.”

Maria Monroy (37:23):

Yeah, I feel the same way.

Jennifer Gore (37:25):

But then my coach for parenting always tells me, he’s like, “You’re in the 2%. Most parents aren’t doing anything, they’re not going to coaching.” So he is like, “You’ve got to give yourself a break at some point, everything isn’t going to be excellent all the time.” But one thing that the coaching has done that I’m so grateful for is it’s really healed my relationship with my kids. We have such an incredible bond because I see myself more as their coach than their enemy. I always tell them, “I’m here for you. You chose me to be your parent-

Maria Monroy (38:09):

You’re going to make me cry.

Jennifer Gore (38:10):

Yeah. We believe that your kids chose you and that I’m the greatest person to teach you life’s lessons and what a gift that is to be able to be that influence on someone’s life. And I’m like, “I’m your coach, I’m your guide and I’m here for you, ride or die for life.” That’s amazing.

Maria Monroy (38:34):

You’re the first one to make me cry. You get that?

Jennifer Gore (38:38):

I get it. Because I know that’s how much you love your kids, it’s so obvious. And so many people are suffering in parenting because they want to do it so good.

Maria Monroy (38:53):

It’s really hard. I really think it’s the hardest thing ever.

Jennifer Gore (38:57):

Do you feel like you’re too hard on yourself?

Maria Monroy (39:00):

I’m too hard on myself, period. Yeah. One of my friends a few years ago was like, “Maria, you’re such an overachiever.” And I was like, “No, I’m not.” I really was like, “No, I’m not.”

Jennifer Gore (39:12):

But then you realize, you think everyone else is like you.

Maria Monroy (39:17):

No. And then I realized one day I was like, “Oh shit, I think that, that’s accurate.” And I just hadn’t realized it because I’ve always been very go from such a… I moved out when I was 18, I lived in a-

Jennifer Gore (39:31):

Me too.

Maria Monroy (39:32):

Yeah, I lived in a-

Jennifer Gore (39:32):

It’s the same pattern.

Maria Monroy (39:34):

And I lived in an environment where I would consider it toxic.

Jennifer Gore (39:37):

Your upbringing?

Maria Monroy (39:38):

Oh, totally. Very toxic.

Jennifer Gore (39:40):

But I think that was for me similar, but it’s the greatest motivator to move out.

Maria Monroy (39:45):

It is. And sometimes I also think about that, I had adversity and obviously I was an immigrant and there was just so many things. And, I mean, nothing super awful, but it just wasn’t a healthy environment.

Jennifer Gore (40:00):

You knew it intuitively?

Maria Monroy (40:01):

Oh, very intuitively. I always knew this is not good.

Jennifer Gore (40:05):

I was always fighting with my parents, always clashing with my parents and I think that’s what scared me to have kids because I was thinking, “I don’t want this to be me.” And truly hiring the parenting coach, I was like, “If this buys me where I don’t have that same dynamic going with my kids as adults, it would be worth every penny.” And even there was a period of two years where I really didn’t talk to my parents-

Maria Monroy (40:28):

Oh, I have taken some serious breaks from talking to my mom.

Jennifer Gore (40:32):

But the thing is, you have to self-preserve yourself sometimes.

Maria Monroy (40:37):

Absolutely. And I talk to my mindset coach about this, I’m like, “How do I know where it’s a boundary versus avoidance?”

Jennifer Gore (40:47):

And I think you can forgive things that have happened, but if the damage continues in every interaction, you have to limit it. For me, what I did was I reestablished my boundaries with my parents because I think your parents, if they haven’t done a ton of personal development, they put you in the role or the box that you were in as a child and you can never break out of it.

Maria Monroy (41:12):

Absolutely. And I had to do the same exact thing.

Jennifer Gore (41:15):

But here’s the thing, if you didn’t go through what you went through, would you be the parent you are today?

Maria Monroy (41:20):

I don’t know. I mean, maybe intuitively I would be less reactive and maybe I would be better. If I had, had better parents, I probably would be a better parent. Now, would I have had the drive on the business side that I have now? Probably not. And I think about that, am I raising privileged kids with no adversity?

Jennifer Gore (41:40):

That’s my greatest fear. Our coach always says, “If you died tomorrow, how prepared are your kids for the real world?”

Maria Monroy (41:48):

Holy shit, mine are not. I mean, they’ve never cleaned for starters. They haven’t even cleaned.

Jennifer Gore (41:53):

And I say to my kids, “You don’t have to clean when you can pay someone to clean.” That’s the truth of life. But you have to do it till you can pay for someone to do it.

Maria Monroy (42:07):

Totally, I mean, I had to clean from 18 to, I don’t know, 30 something. And I hate cleaning so this was a big fight between Mariano and I.

Jennifer Gore (42:17):

I hate cleaning, if I never cleaned again it would be too soon.

Maria Monroy (42:21):

Oh, Mariano and I, he jokes-

Jennifer Gore (42:23):

I hate laundry-

Maria Monroy (42:24):

Me too, I hate it all.

Jennifer Gore (42:24):

… I hate cooking.

Maria Monroy (42:25):

I hate it all.

Jennifer Gore (42:26):

I was not meant to be a domestic mom.

Maria Monroy (42:28):

Neither was I.

Jennifer Gore (42:28):

And I always knew when I was a little kid, I used to tell my mom… Well, my parents made me do chores.

Maria Monroy (42:33):

So did mine. I think that impacts it.

Jennifer Gore (42:35):

I used to tell my mom, “One day, I will hire a cleaning lady.” And my mom has never had a cleaning lady to this day and she’ll be like, “I guess you got what you wanted.”

Maria Monroy (42:48):

Yeah.

Jennifer Gore (42:49):

But you know what? That’s not a good use of my time.

Maria Monroy (42:51):

It’s not. But I also want to address something that I think is important. I think being happy in general and for you, obviously, having a business and having your firm and being successful is important. And I think a lot of moms have guilt of going and doing and fulfilling their dreams, but I think that almost makes a worse parent.

Jennifer Gore (43:13):

Okay. So you can’t say to your kid, “You can go live your dreams,” if you’re not living your dreams. It just doesn’t have the same resonant. I know there’s a lot of parents out there that will say that, especially in the immigrant community. My grandparents and my great grandparents were immigrants as well so I understand that, they want to come here and set you up. But kids follow what you do, not just what you say. So when I go somewhere, I’m always telling my daughter and showing her, I bring her to work with me, I bring my son to work with me and I’m like, “Oh my God, look at this. I built this company, this is so amazing, I get to live my dreams.” And it gives them permission to do the same. “I resent my kids because they’ve held me back.” There’s a lot of people out there that are like, “I live for my kids.”

(44:05):

I live for my kids, I love my kids, they are everything, but I also have a purpose in the business world. I have so many other parts of my personality that I get to express in different arenas. And there’s this book by Eve Rodsky, which is called Fair Play and it talks about this concept of unicorn space and every human needs unicorn space. Its the time when you get to do the things that make you come alive, your passions. And it’s pervasive that women don’t really have unicorn space, men often have golf or stuff they really truly just love to do and they create a lot of space for it. But there’s this idea in our culture that women shouldn’t have anything other than children as their passion and I think that’s wrong.

Maria Monroy (44:52):

And I’m sure some women, they love being a mom and that is their unicorn. I’m just not that person.

Jennifer Gore (44:59):

But why is it so taboo to say, my purpose is more than just parenting? You never hear that from for a man.

Maria Monroy (45:09):

I have no idea. Even for instance, my grandma, she doesn’t understand why I’m so busy and finally one day I said, “Just pretend I’m one of your sons. How do you treat them?” And she’s like, “Oh well, they’re busy.” And I’m like, “So am I. It’s the same exact thing, I work a man. In your brain, just think of it that way because that’s the only way I can explain it to you.” And I was really annoyed, I’m sure you can tell and she was like, “Oh shit, okay.”

Jennifer Gore (45:37):

Do you feel like the culture is, men are treated very different than women?

Maria Monroy (45:44):

So I think in Mexico, we’re 50 years back. So I haven’t really experienced that as much in the States. For instance, you and I are in a male dominated industry and I personally don’t have many issues with that. Neither have you?

Jennifer Gore (46:04):

Yeah. I mean, some of our closest friends are men, they’re amazing, they have treated us well, welcomed us in, no issues. So, I mean, I am more about people. If you’re an amazing person and you inspire me, I don’t care what you look like, what your gender is, whatever. I’m attracted to people’s energy and being around people that are high achievers and people that have huge visions and that’s what I care about. There’s men that are like that, there’s women, there’s people of all different color, that’s what it is, it’s the person.

Maria Monroy (46:43):

I agree. It’s just in Mexico, again, it’s like we’re 50 years back.

Jennifer Gore (46:48):

But I just wonder, I feel I’ve always been this way in my soul, who I am and I’m sure you probably feel the same way, I’ve always been an achiever, an ambitious, driven person. And it was hard being a little girl because you were told your whole life you could do anything, but then when you actually-

Maria Monroy (47:08):

I wasn’t told that.

Jennifer Gore (47:11):

See, I was told that. I think it was during the ’90s where it’s like, “Women can do it all.” And you’re told that.

Maria Monroy (47:16):

I don’t remember being told that. But again, I had-

Jennifer Gore (47:19):

A different culture.

Maria Monroy (47:20):

I had a different culture.

Jennifer Gore (47:21):

Well, I feel like we were told that we could do a lot of things, but then when you actually go do it, I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to do it, I’m going to go be a lawyer, I’m going to go own a company.” Then you get a lot of resistance. And so even in your case, you’re going and doing things and people are like, “Oh, this is so crazy.” And it’s my essence of who I am, I’m not going to suppress that.

Maria Monroy (47:44):

So one time my kids had swim lessons and something happened where the swim instructor grabbed Sebastian too rough and left a little mark on him. And I called my mom basically in tears and I was so upset and her response to me was, “Well, you should be the one taking them and not the nanny.”

Jennifer Gore (48:04):

So whenever people say stuff like this, I think about their own issues they’re projecting out onto me and it’s a little pseudo, they want to cut you down. And I’m like, “Okay, I see your mindset.” That’s how you have to think about it because everybody’s criticisms are like, “You travel too much.” They have a story in their mind that there’s a certain amount of travel that’s acceptable and beyond that, you’ve got a problem.

Maria Monroy (48:36):

Yeah, something’s wrong with you.

Jennifer Gore (48:37):

That’s a limiting belief.

Maria Monroy (48:38):

Totally. Oh my god, we could have totally had a whole episode on limiting beliefs.

Jennifer Gore (48:42):

Yeah. And so I always try to catch, what’s their limiting belief here?

Maria Monroy (48:47):

Absolutely.

Jennifer Gore (48:47):

Her limiting belief in that was that you have to do it all, nobody can assist you in anything with your kids.

Maria Monroy (48:54):

I think our limiting belief is that moms can’t work. And I had to work through that because I remember when I first started working at LawRank full time, I was going through these meditations that are for limiting beliefs. And one thing that came up is, you can’t be a mom and work. And I was like, “I don’t believe that.” So it was totally super subconscious and I had to work through it.

Jennifer Gore (49:20):

When I first became a mom, when my daughter was only a one year old, I remember having crushing anxiety about working and being a mom because I had that same belief. And it was really confusing for me because my dad was an entrepreneur and then my mom was a stay-at-home mom and I was very similar to my dad, I was very entrepreneurial, but then I grew up with a stay-at-home mom. So I was getting two messages because my dad was always telling me, “You should rule the world, you should own a lot.” He was always my cheerleader to do anything I wanted. But then my mom was always like, “A really good mom makes handmade Halloween costume.”

Maria Monroy (50:01):

Oh my goodness.

Jennifer Gore (50:02):

And it’s like I was getting such confusing messages and then one day you have to decide, I sat down and I wrote down, what do I believe it takes to be an amazing parent? And then when I created my own definition, I was able to break free of everybody else’s. Because that’s, again, going back to being in integrity with your own values. Half of us are working off values that we inherited from other people that we don’t even fundamentally agree with. That’s why you have decide one day to take control of your own life.

Speaker 3 (50:35):

[inaudible 00:50:35] as much of the hiring process as possible, creating systems that might take a lot of time in the beginning, but will buy you freedom down the road. If you plan to market and increase your caseload, know what key hire you will need, set up a quarterly hiring plan to reflect your growth and hire before there is a pain point. Every firm has a culture even if you didn’t create it, be intentional and hire in alignment with your values. And remember, if you want your kids to live their dreams, you have to live your dreams as well.

(51:07):

Thank you so much to Jennifer from Atlanta Personal Injury Law Group for everything she shared today. If you found this story valuable, please share it with someone you want to see succeed. Subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave a five star review, it goes a long way to help others discover the show. Catch us next week on Tip The Scales with me,

Maria Monroy, President of LawRank and hear how the best in the business broke out of limiting beliefs, overcame adversity and built a thriving, purpose driven business in the process.