Hello and welcome to Resilient Entrepreneurs Podcast. Have you ever been in a place where you'd love to be so confident in your business that you could do anything, approach anyone, dream big, ask for the big deals? Well, today we're sharing our platform with Michele Locke to talk about exactly those kinds of things, building confidence in business and in particularly, it's for women. Michele is a former family court judge and a seasoned attorney who grew up in family chaos, presided over many family disputes and is now a vocal advocate on leadership. She'll share with us how she broke through the barrier to finding more confidence and how she's shaping better leaders now.
We're your co-hosts, Vicki and Laura from Two Four One, here to support business founders like you to launch a new business or a new part of your business. It's an exciting time and one that requires a lot of support. It is our intention for this podcast to be a valuable resource for you on your journey.
Thank you very much for having me.
Yeah, thank you for joining us. Vicki mentioned just now in the intro about growing up in family chaos. And I always like to start the podcast asking about our history, our background, because it helps to define how you get to where you are at this point in your life. So if you don't mind sharing, we'd love to hear a little bit about what you mean by the family chaos you grew up in.
Sure, my whole life has been kind of designed around family law. I have lived about every aspect of it from growing up in a divorced family. I think my parents got divorced when I was in second grade. I still remember the Friday that I came home from school and my mom pulled me aside and said, dad's not coming home anymore, we're divorced. I was in Miss. Henry's second grade class at Elementary. I'll never forget that. I don't have good memories of my parents being married. The few memories I have are them arguing, fighting, her begging him not to leave. He had a multitude of affairs and then he ended up marrying my stepmother at the time. They were married for a long period of time, but they were severe alcoholics, and with that alcoholism came an immense amount of domestic violence. Including times where I remember him holding my stepmother up by her throat holding a gun to her head. My brother was beaten by my father once. I mean, some stories that most people shouldn't want their kids to have to experience. In a lot of ways, those helped guide me to where I am. My dad was a bully and at 14 years old, I was the one that had to stand up to him and tell him, we're not going over to see you anymore. And that was the last time we ever went over to see him. I was 14, I was a freshman in high school. It was after the incident where he had beaten up my brother, broken down some doors to my mom's house, gone in to get my brother. It was a pretty awful experience. But my mom, because she was following a court order, was encouraging us to go that following weekend and he came to the house to come pick us up. And my brother was hiding, wouldn't come out for obvious reasons. And I stood in the front doorway and said, we're not going. And so I've kind of in my practice really been the shield for some of my clients who suffered from either narcissistic abuse or persons with borderline personality disorder that have been just battered and beaten down for years and years and years and don't have the ability to stand up for themselves because it’s just been beaten out of them. And so in a lot of regards, I stand as a shield for my clients, male or female. Abuse doesn't go just one way.
Yeah, I can relate more than I can tell you to that story. Been through a lot of similar experiences as a single mom and struggling to protect my children in the same way. And often I feel like the courts aren't that understanding of that. I think especially with certain types of abuse that maybe isn't physical, it's really hard for people to understand it because you can't see it. It's not as obvious and it can be hidden and it can be lied away really easily.
In some ways, the bruises are easier to deal with.
Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree. And I think when you can show bruises, right, you can prove something. It's really hard to prove psychological abuse, which I think occurs far more often than people know, and I'm grateful for women like you who do stand up and take a stance. I can't imagine that level of confidence at 14 to protect not just yourself, but your brother too.
I like to think it was confidence, it may have been stupidity. I don't know which but I'll take it because it had the result that needed to happen, which was, it was not a healthy environment for us to go to. I still talk to my stepsisters that I grew up with in that house and they will always tell me that we were lucky we got out when we did. I know what they suffered was much, much worse than what my brother and I suffered. But it's okay. I mean, I am where I am today in life because of that. So everyone says, looking back, hindsight's 2020, what would you change? I don't know that I'd change anything. I don't think I'd be the, as my stepdad lovingly calls me, the bull in the china shop. He always tells me that when I'm in a room and I'm on, that I'm unstoppable. And when I'm off, I bring everyone down with me. It's because I've been through those things and I wouldn't change it for the world.
Yeah, I think that is the very definition of resilience. And I had a therapist once tell me that children who grew up in challenging environments become more resilient as adults and in a crazy way, it's such a gift for them because those who grew up with a perfect family and everything handed to them and plenty of money and plenty of everything, all the good things can really struggle when they go out in the real world and start to face real world challenges. So it can be a gift, although it certainly doesn't feel like it when you're in it. But I hear you about the not wanting to change things, but rather what can you build out of those ashes?
How can I help someone else become resilient? How can I help someone else get back on their feet and move forward? Lots of clients when they get divorced really worry about their children because everyone has this preconceived notion that kids do better in the traditional unit with both parents. I tell my clients that that isn't always the case and sometimes this kind of adversity makes the children stronger, better and more able to adapt to things that get thrown at you in life because life is about adapting. You can't be a stick in the mud, you have to learn, you have to change. If anything from COVID has taught us is, tomorrow is not guaranteed and life can change in a heartbeat. I mean, we went from, I remember being in court the Friday before, to lockdown. Everything changes and if you can't adapt, you won't survive. And adversity, especially at a young age, can help you learn to adapt much better as an adult. So I try and encourage my clients, say, “Yes, this will be tough. Yes, it can be challenging, but there are some positive aspects that your children will come out with this.”
Michele, what do you think it is that keeps you going through adversity? We can look back and say, yeah, that was a gift and I wouldn't be where I am now if it hadn't been for that. But in the moment, what do you think it is that just keeps a person or yourself, speaking for yourself, charging on?
For me, it's an internal fire. I don't know how to not move forward, I don't know how to quit, I don't know how to just say I give up. I just, you go, you go, you go. You put one foot in front of the other every single day and keep going. Early on in my practice, I'd get up and be at the courthouse at seven o 'clock in the morning waiting for criminal appointments because I was 25 years old, 26 years old, and just getting my feet wet as an attorney, but you just pound that pavement. You work hard and you keep going and when things go bad, which they will, this too shall pass and you will get through it. There will be the next day you wake up and you figure out how to solve that problem and move forward. But being a victim, having the victim mentality doesn't help. You don't regret your past, you learn from your mistakes and move forward. That's probably one of the best things my stepdad ever told me was “Never regret your past, just learn from it.” And that is absolutely true. Don't regret it, you can't change it. So why waste the time worrying about it? Just learn that I didn't like that part of me. So let's not do that again. I even take that approach with my staff, like my paralegal. If for some reason there's a mess up, which happens, I don't yell. I don't get upset. Okay, well let's fix it and let's just not do that again, and we just move forward and you just keep going.
That's a lovely attitude. Let's just not do that again.
He will tell you that's exactly what I say. I'm like, well, let's just not do that again. I mess up too. It's not just, everyone messes up. Most things you mess up are fixable., you just got to figure out a way to fix them.
Love that, there's always a solution.
There's always a solution. You just got to figure out what it is.
There was someone we were talking to not so long ago and they were saying that a staff member of theirs had really messed up, like a major mistake for the business, right? Lost a lot of money for the business and so on and so forth. And the guy really thought he was going to lose his job over it, and the gentleman we were talking to, who was the owner of the business said, why would I fire you? I just spent all that money to train you on what not to do.
That was a very valuable lesson.
Why would I let that lesson go out the door?
When I'm in trial, I always have about six different ways I can get a piece of evidence in, and that's kind of how I problem solve. Let's figure out all the different ways we can fix this and just pick the best one. Cause there's usually more than one way to fix it.
So you're still working in the court system and you're working with leaders?
Yes, this has been a new endeavor for me. So I'm a business owner because I own my law firm with my partners. But with that in my practice, I help a client at a time, a family at a time. My goal now is to have a broader reach and to help a wider group of individuals on a broader base to educate them about the court system.
The court system can be a very scary place for most people and the most often the people come into contact with court, at least here, is family court or traffic ticket court, believe it or not. I actually work on both sides of it and my goal now is to outreach and talk to people like you and other organisations to spread the word that 1) women can do it. I don't care what glass ceiling there is, you just go through it. I remember my stepdaughter one time telling me that me wearing red lipstick and wearing makeup made me part of the patriarchal society and that's why women weren't getting ahead. She was in her 21, 22 year old phase where she knows everything, I understand. And I told her it's quite actually the opposite. And I said, “Once you get into the system, then you can bust through the ceilings, but you have to be who you are to get there.” You have to be, I always talk about my authentic self. What you see is what you get. You're either going to love me or you're going to hate me, and there's usually not much in between, and that's okay, and not everyone in life is going to like you. And if you live your life to try and get everyone to like you, then you've made some errors. That's not who you are.
If you're living your life for other people to like you, you're not living your purpose, you're not living aligned with your true values, what is the point?
And that's hard, when you have teenagers, I've raised three boys and my two stepdaughters, but it's really hard to teach teenagers that - not everyone needs to like you and most people won't like you and that's okay. I mean, you're doing something, right. If you've got enemies, then you're honouring who you are and doing what you want to do and doing whatever your mission in life may be for anyone person in particular, but if you're making enemies, it means you're doing something right.
I think that's hard for people to accept sometimes. I think especially teenagers, like you said, because I too, I have a teenage son, he's 15 going 16, and he's very concerned with fitting in with the tribe, right? And I get it, evolutionarily, we needed to fit in the tribe so that we weren't getting ostracised and eaten by the lions. So it does make sense that we as humans want to fit in. And especially young people just trying to figure out who they are and what they believe and where they fit in the world. It's really hard, but I think it's hard for women as well because the patriarchy or whatever has sort of taught us our place and we got to stay in our place and threatened by women's success and confidence. But I think as a society, we are getting much better at taking up our place, taking up a little bit more space, being a little bit louder and a little bit more authentic, but it's still challenging. So if you had, say a new lawyer comes into your firm, she's young, she's just past the bar. What advice do you give her to sort of step into her confidence and her authenticity?
I actually have one at my office now who's a wonderful young attorney. Has so much ahead of her. We actually have three female attorneys in my office right now that are associates that are amazing. But what I tell them all is you cannot copy someone else's style. You have to be you. You can take a little bit from me, a little bit from the other partners, a little bit from what you see in court. But you can't ever try to imitate someone else. You have to be you. That's the only way to become the best lawyer you can be is you have to be you.
I remember at 15, I wanted to be a lawyer since I was like eight. And at about 15 years old, a very good friend of the family who was a very successful attorney and still is a very successful attorney, he told me that never forget who I am, and that never to go into a courtroom trying to be a man in that realm. He's like, you go in being you, you go in being a woman. And I took that advice to heart. And my first day of every trial, you'll see me in bright red lipstick. But that's just I very much embraced who I am as a woman in the courtroom. I tell my young female attorneys to do the same. “Own who you are.”
We are very powerful and I remember early on in my practice a defence attorney coming up to me saying, are you the probation officer? Because God forbid, I'd be the attorney. I had another judge early on in my practice tell me, “Ma'am, is your attorney going to show up?” And I was like, I am the attorney, judge. I had another male attorney call, or male judge call me the wrong name for two years. And I never corrected him. And then someone finally pointed out to him, they're like, her name's not, I think he called me Vanessa or something, I don't really remember what it was. Her name's Michelle. So he pulled me aside and apologised to me for that.
So yeah, I mean, I remember being pregnant with my second son and a male attorney asked me to come sit on his lap knowing I was married, knowing I was five, six months pregnant. So we're going to encounter those things. That's the reality of it. And how you deal with it is how you move forward. You don't want to acknowledge it. You don't give it any, you don't let it bother you. You get that roll off your back and go, well, I'm sorry you're not that smart. And just keep going, then you go in the courtroom and show them who you are, who your skills, what your skill set is, and then you teach them a lesson.
I'm so digging this conversation. I just can't tell you how much I'm digging this conversation right now. So tell me Michelle, you said you, you're who you are as a woman. You embrace who you are as a woman. Share with us and our listeners and viewers. What is that for you?
I love bling, things like that. I always wear jewellery. I always try and wear a dress. I embrace my femininity, but at the same time you hear my voice. I don't have a meek voice. So while I embrace my femininity and everything that God gave me, I come in with a very strong personality. And so it's the best of both worlds. It is, I'm powerful. I'm beautiful and I don't care what size I am. This is it and I'm pretty darn good. And that ladies took me a very long time to get to. A very, very long time. I think there was like a magic, 45 for me was like a switch flipped so to speak. And I just really embraced myself and like a better word said screw it to everyone else. I'm going to wear what I want, I'm going to look how I want, my hair went blonde, I had brunette hair forever and I said let's try something different. But yeah, I just, I like girly stuff, my fingernails and toes always match. They have since fifth grade, that hasn't changed, I'm now 47. Things like that, I'm just very much a girl in that way.
The word kick-ass comes to mind.
As my stepdad calls me a bull in a china shop and that would probably be a pretty accurate assessment. when I'm in the courtroom, you know, it's not a kind of, you know.
And I love that and I love everything you're saying and it is something about this age. I'm 48 so I'm right there with you at the same time in life. And yeah, something about your mid 40s, you just stop worrying about everyone else's expectations, concerns, and you just become your true self. I think it's a work in progress always, we still deal with imposter syndrome here and there. We still deal with weight of other people's expectations. However, coming into that level of confidence of just, you're going to wear what you want to wear, and if you want to be a girly girl, you're going to be a girly. I'm too. I wake up every morning and put on my face of makeup. I call it my war paint, and I go deal with the day. Absolutely. And it's just, this is who I am. It's who I've been for a very long time, and I'm doing it fearlessly. How do we inspire other women to get there earlier? Because It saddens me that women go through so much of their life not there. And it takes to your mid forties, do you feel that level of self-assuredness? How do we get there earlier? Like how do we help younger people just embrace that and become their authentic self when we're still working on trying to fit in and worrying about what other people think?
I think a lot of it we do by leading by example and you tell them, you get to be you I don't care what anyone says but the way to do it is for them to see it consistently from people of our generation Gen Xers still, showing them - you get to do this, you get to be your authentic self and to hell with anyone that's not going to accept you for that. You don't need them in your life anyways. You're not going to make friends with everyone. You're going to have a core group of friends. The one thing I wish girls, women, girls, ladies would do is the infighting that happens so much when you're younger is such a waste of energy. I now have a professional group of girls and there's like 11 of us on this text chain and it's all female lawyers, PhD psychologists, and it's the most empowering text message chain that I have going on because it's nothing but us promoting each other. And it's fabulous and I want the younger ones to instead of watching the Kardashians, listen to something like this and know that this is how you do it in the real world, not that. It is you have the confidence, you have the chutzpah, you have the ability to get out there and go do it and put one foot in front of another, knock down those doors. Don't just put your toe in the pool, you dive in. You take those chances. You've got to put your head on the chopping block. If you don't, get your head chopped off a few times, you're not going to learn. And you learn more from your losses than from your wins.
Oh, that's so true. Isn't that so true? Especially when you're talking about community there, like you're talking about surrounding yourself with other empowering, strong women who lift you up. And I think often we forget, we are the some of the people that surround us. So if you're in a circle of, what do they say? If you're in a circle of people who are overweight, you're going to be the next one who is. If you're in a circle of people who work out, you're going to be working out. If you're in a circle of people who are striving to more educational success, then you're going to go and get your master's degree or PhD or whatever it is because everyone around you is that. And so if you look around at your circle and you're like, Oh, this isn't where I want to be. How do you find another circle of people that are where you want to be? And you should feel like not the best in the room, right? I believe that too. Like you should feel like the not the smartest person in the room. Because if you are, then you're in the wrong room. Let's step up. Let's look for people that can bring us up to the next level in life. I think that's so important.
So it's absolutely important. So my husband's a prosecutor, has been for almost 30 years and he used to try a bunch of gang cases and in his closing arguments he'd always tell the jury, “Show me who your friends are and I'll show you who you are”, and that is absolutely true. Like you never want to buy the most expensive house in the neighbourhood, you never want to be the most expensive person in your group. You don't want to be the top of the totem pole. You want to be down at the bottom because that's how you rise. Because you rise to join your group and go join your peers and to make them your peers, but I think that's absolutely a true statement. That's why you surround yourself with good lawyers to make yourself a better lawyer. Absolutely. And again, I go back to that women's group. I had the best 45th birthday party ever.
It was, we had a local restaurant and it was nothing but women. We had 20 women, all professionals, all successful in their fields. And it was probably the best meal, it was just absolutely amazing because of nothing but powerful women and all very powerful, but in very different ways. Even personality wise, some quiet ones, but very powerful, but all very unique.
all very much owned who they are and embraced it and some of the most amazing ones I know today.
That's such a beautiful story. And one that I imagine will be such a memorable birthday. Just that sentiment, the sensation, the feeling of being at that table, the conversations.
It was absolutely amazing. And it was every kind of woman, diverse in every aspect. And it was just an amazing, memorable meal because it was really successful, powerful women. And I looked around this table and went, wow, there's a whole lot of brains at this table. And if we could all get this kind of group of women together, we could conquer the world.
Yes, that's the thing, that's the thing. And I have no doubt that there wasn't even a lot of ego at the table. You talk about powerful, but it's an inner power. It's what we're doing in the world that makes it powerful, is what I'm hearing. It's not about them thinking they were powerful, or you looking and going, I wish I could be that.
Everyone loved how everyone looked and there was all body types, all sizes. And we were just, I wish younger girls could see that because that was impressive. Young teenagers, females, they could see that. They would see this is what we can do when we put aside the silly pettiness and what is she wearing? Who's she dating? None of that matters.
Connecting, connections. Yeah, seeing each other for who we really are. That's beautiful. So talking about powerful women. Michele, what would you consider to be your greatest achievement in business to date?
It's actually the reverse, my biggest loss is my greatest achievement. So I ran a campaign for district court judge in El Paso back in 2013-2014 if I recall correctly, yeah, that's right. And it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It's also the first thing I've ever done in my life where I've put that much energy and that much money into and that much heart and soul and I lost. And I've never done that much work, that much heart and soul and not walked away with what I wanted. That was a hard pill to swallow. I moved after I lost that election. I was really depressed afterwards. I mean, it's again, never worked that hard to lose but it got me to where I am today. So I say that it was where you learn more from your losses than from your wins, and that was my biggest achievement because it humbled me. It taught me that you don't always get what you want, and it taught me to just keep working harder and so I left a judgeship at the time, left the bench and moved out to Austin, Texas from far west Texas. And I started over, knowing no one. I did the old school faxing out my resume, emailing my resume to random firms and I ended up ultimately with where I am now and where I made partner. And if it had not been for that loss and that humbling experience, you and I would not be having this conversation today.
So that is my biggest success has come from that loss. I could not be happier professionally. I'm now in a place where I can get out there and speak and help try to encourage young women to do it, to know that no matter what their circumstances are, they can get forward in life. I've tried a couple of businesses on the side, some of them haven't worked and that's okay, but we have to keep trying. We have to keep waking up and putting one foot in front of the other. And so my greatest achievement was my greatest loss and vice versa. And it's hard to accept that when one door closes, it's for a reason. And looking back now, I can very honestly say I'm so grateful I lost, because I would not be where I am today without that loss. And I wouldn't change where I am today for the world.
Yeah, so if you had won, how much different would life have been?
I wouldn't be talking to you. I'd be sitting on the bench in El Paso Texas presiding over cases and probably loving life, but I wouldn't get to do this. And this is so much better.
The impact you get to have now, the lives you get to change, even with this podcast. Somebody listening here today could be on that verge of quitting or could have just had a huge failure and just be feeling like life's worthless now. And this could be the difference of them saying, okay, well, this is just a different change of direction, right? Because sometimes the loss is just a change of direction. And if you have that grit, that resilience to just keep going, figure out something else, start emailing out resumes again or building your own business in a different way. Everyone has had failures, every major successful person ever in history has had failures along the way and everyone will tell you that story. So just listen, listen to them and take the lessons and stuff. When you do have failure, how do you process it in that moment? How does one kind of get themselves through when they're in that stuck place.
You scream, you cry. I had a therapist once tell me, and this actually was great advice. If you're in your car and you just had it, close the windows while you're driving, like grip that steering wheel and just scream, just let it out. One of my friends calls me a crier. I cry when I'm angry, I cry when I'm upset. That's how I express my emotions. Sometimes it's just as good as right up like punching a punching bag like if you've had a good set of boxing gloves. Go punch a punching bag. It's everyone has their own way to release and you need to embrace how you release because that's the only way to you've got a process that it is a it's a grieving process when you lose in a way that you did not anticipate and that comes with getting fired from a job
having to start over, but I had to completely reinvent myself when I moved out here. No one knew me from a hole in the ground, and so I had to prove myself over and over and over again that I was a force to be reckoned with in the courtroom and that took a while. I remember an attorney once, I was trying to talk to him, he put his hand in my face and turned around and walked away. He and I are really good friends now. He doesn't remember the story. I will never forget that as long as I live. And I go back to the one foot in front of the other, that's just what I did day after day after day when I first moved here and I reinvented myself at 40. You never stop learning, you never stop evolving, and you can always reinvent yourself no matter your age.
I imagine that involves confidence too, building, right? Because confidence is the evidence of what you believe, so continuously putting that foot forward and moving, builds confidence over time.
It does, it builds resilience, you know that you'll get right back up and you'll keep going. One thing that I wish entrepreneurs and women that are coming up in this modern world listen to more is their gut. Your gut never steers you wrong, and it takes you until you're about, I hate to say it, late thirties, early forties to start, oh, wait, I should have listened to my gut. Instead of blowing through all those red flags when I was dating X, Y, and Z way back when, thinking I could change them, when your gut was like, no, stop, don't do it. You ignore your gut. That's why you get divorced. But yeah, trusting your gut. That is one that I wish we could get some of the younger ones start listening to earlier because that's a huge advantage, trusting your gut. Your spidey senses are usually right for a reason.
Isn't that true? And I think you're right, we ignore it because we want it to be different. We want there to be a different outcome, because quite often that gut starts talking in times when we think everything's going smooth. Right? Especially in your dating analogy, Oh, but he's wonderful. He's exactly the right guy for me. Meanwhile, there's all these other little alarm bells going off. No, no, no, he's right, because we want it to be right. We want to believe in that dream and the same is true when you're building a business. We want to believe in the dream, but if something doesn't feel quite right, it doesn't feel aligned, it's really important to listen to that. Even if it means slowing down, delaying a launch, whatever it may mean in that case, pay attention to the small details because it saves you a lot of suffering and time and money.
And money, heartache, stress, letters that are like, if I'd fixed this before, if I had just waited one extra day, I wouldn't be dealing with this. Sometimes it's slowing down and taking a survey of everything and making sure it's all good. Slowing down is also important too, rushing never works. And that's a hard thing to learn too. When you're younger, you rush, rush, rush, rush, rush. I think as you get older, you're like, I'm going to sit on this one for a little bit. I no longer send angry emails. I always tell my clients that “What would Michele do?” When they send emails. And so if in your head you say, what would Michelle do? And you think, Oh, she's going to yell at me for this one, then don't send it. But it actually works. But they actually, like I did a "What would Michele say” and so I didn't send it. I'm like, well, thank you for listening to me because you just saved a whole bunch of heartache down the road. But yeah, so I tell my clients, if you have a what would Michelle say or do in your head and the answer is she wouldn't like this, then don't do it.
Yeah, it's great accountability. And I guess that's a part of what you'll want to be doing in your new endeavour as you reach out to people to help them through difficult times.
Yeah, it's like just have that little thing in the back of your head that says, should I do this? Or would my grandmother be proud of me doing this? It's kind of something as simple as that can make a difference.
I think that would probably help a lot of people stay out of the court system too. Just a little more careful about what they say and what they do sometimes.
You know, the younger generation and I fall to this as well, they forget that everything you put in writing is Exhibit A, and that's a really good lesson in life for all businesses. Whatever you put in writing, whatever email you send out, whatever you post online, think of it as Exhibit A. And if you're okay with it being Exhibit A, then publish it. If not, then don't.
We should put that on billboards everywhere, every one person. Yeah, and especially young people whose frontal lobes aren't quite formed yet. Those teenage boys.
How angry my kids get when I tell them, because they're boys, I have three boys, they're 20, 18 and nine. I'm like, y'all's prefrontal cortex is not fully developed yet. “Are you saying I'm stupid?” I'm like, “No, I'm just telling you that your CEO of executive functioning doesn't work right now, not in the way it's supposed to.” I said, so listen to my advice, because I'm telling you for a reason. Then at 25, they're like, Oh, you were right. Banging my head against the wall then.
Yeah. It's the parent’s job to put the guardrails out, right, for the kids and just be like, hey, this is where you got to work within folks.
I'm like, I just got to keep you alive till 25. Alive till 25 so that CEO kicks in and then we're good.
Yeah, I feel like it's set out the rules of the game and then let them decide whether they're going to play with it.
Yeah, but now they're at the age where, “Mom, you know nothing.” I'm like, yeah, I gave it about five years and I'll be the smartest person in the room again.
Exactly, exactly. I think they don't appreciate that they're living in such a different world than what we grew up in. We didn't have internet, we didn't have smartphones, we didn't have every part of our life recorded. We weren't sending angry voice notes to a friend that then gets forwarded to the person you were talking about. And like, there's things that they're dealing with that we never had to deal with and it's hard. I think it's a lot of ways it's harder to be a teenager right now than it was when we were teens. I mean, we were less supervised, that's for sure.
But we also, the technology allows them to get in a whole lot of trouble. So I see a lot of teenagers in one of my areas of practice. And the problem I'm seeing with teenagers now is the technology, including cars, is causing them to drive at extraordinary speeds that weren't even possible when we were younger. And that is becoming a real problem. And so I've had to become very creative in my sentencing when it comes to juveniles on those speeding tickets. And so if they're going 90 and a 55, in addition to making them write some essays, I'll make some of them take the bus to school. I'm like, you got to take the bus for the semester and I want a note from the bus driver for the next three months that you've been taking the bus every day. Because that's the only way to teach them, you know that there are consequences that we're seeing much faster speeds and much deadlier accidents and because the kids don't understand that, that's what I'm seeing is one of the bigger problems with technology and at least the younger kids right now in addition to they have access to too much information that they can't not able to fully process yet, and then they're open they're over stimulated with what they see. I mean there's good sides to technology, there are bad sides to technology, and you just have to be really careful with the kids. This is totally off topic with entrepreneurs, but even in the generation difference between my 20 year old and my nine year old, it's night and day difference. And what my nine year old and I have to watch with is totally different than what I had to do with my older ones.
I don't mind that this is off topic because I find this really fascinating, fascinating personally, of course. But yeah, I'm more interested in what what else do you see the future of technology causing, as someone who comes from a law perspective, we should be aware of like what's coming down the line and what kind of things are going to be a bigger issue than I think most of us are aware of, maybe as parents or maybe just as adults, this new group are coming through.
AI, and I talk about that in context with stalking. If you get involved with the domestic violence arena at all, this technology and what technology allows now for stalkers is terrifying. That's what really concerns me and we're going to have to figure out a way to get ahead of that with people tracking cars. I mean, you can now track celebrities’ aeroplanes online when they take off, when they land. That's in the court system really worried about the stalking part because I don't think there's adequate ways to stop the stalk, like the online stalking with the technology. That to me is where it's really scary. There's programs now and apps you can download, you can change your phone number every two minutes and send out text messages and phone calls. That part is terrifying to me. I think AI and technology is outpacing the amount of law and laws are going to be needed to keep up with it. It's so far outpaced the legal system, so far outpaced it. There's programs now for lawyers where we can write briefs using nothing but AI. We had a court recently, we now have to file if we use AI in any of our drafting, we have to file a certification with the courts that we use the AI and that we verified the sources. So yeah, it's revolutionising the practice of law. We never would have done Zoom trials before and it's made in some ways, the courts much more accessible. I don't know if you all know this, but there's lots of times where you can go on YouTube and watch court proceedings live. And like in Travis County, if we have a trial that's via Zoom, because of the Open Courts Act, we have to have it on Zoom or some public forum for display and usually on Zoom. So you can go any given day of the week and usually find some live court proceeding in Texas that you can watch all the litigants, you can hear all the drama, all the dirty laundry. And so what used to happen in just a courtroom now is getting broadcast all over the world and you would be surprised at the amount of people that actually watch these streams. I know I had one court, I had one trial that had over 500 people watching it all over the world. And so now, and that was a family law case, an ugly divorce, and so now all the people that watch that know, people aren't supposed to record it, but we know they do, and so they know they get sent out, but yeah, what happens in just a courtroom and no longer happens just within a courtroom anymore. I mean, I remember if you all remember the O.J. Simpson trial and that was on TV every single day. The Johnny Depp trial, you want to talk about the difference, that one was live streamed all day long. I mean, you could tune in any time and watch it, but it's just the change and what happens in the courtroom is no longer just in the courtroom, it's definitely now in the public eye. And that, I think, has become a huge change since COVID.
I'm shocked, I think I knew some of this, but I certainly didn't understand the depth of it or the ongoing ramifications that it could be.
And think about it, if you have an online protective order, and because we introduce evidence, it gets shared on the screen. So just like you're on Zoom, we share it on the screen so whoever's watching that YouTube channel sees all of it, sees the evidence, sees the pictures, sees the text messages. They see it all. I mean, there are times where we say, well, Judge, we'd like to go off YouTube because of the sensitive nature of what we're about to discuss. The courts are very sensitive to that. But the general rule, we're supposed to stream. It's supposed to be an open court because they think case law says that we violate the Open Court Act, it's an automatic reversal on appeal. And so we have to do the case all over again. So yeah, it's at least in Texas. But yeah, so the amount of information people now have is good and bad. It's good because I think it allows different areas for people to do businesses. New ideas will pop up left and right.
Whoever can get ahead on this AI, if you're talking about entrepreneurs, is going to kill it. It's kind of like whoever got on Bitcoin to begin with killed it. Whoever gets onto AI and gets on this AI train from the start is just going to crush it.
Yeah, there's definitely lots of opportunities there.
There's an opportunity to close that gap that Michele was just talking about. Make courts safer.
We've got to figure out something, if someone wants to stalk you, they're going to find you. So we've got companies that will hire to come debug someone's house, come see if there's listening devices in their house, that kind of thing, something like that. If someone was smart, would make that readily accessible to the public because you wouldn't believe how often that kind of stalking in just marriages occurs. It's actually shocking but it's not as accessible as it should be. If people really wanted to get into the entrepreneurship and figure out different avenues the court system is rife with ideas of programs people could come up with to help people and individuals.
Well, I think that's brilliant. And that's a good way to sort of wrap up this part of the conversation because there are so many opportunities in the digital space right now. If you are an entrepreneur out there and you're curious and want to learn more, get into AI and see where you can solve problems because there are going to be so many of these problems and more of them that I believe AI is going to be overall a good thing for humanity. But it's going to take a while before we clear out all the bad as well, because people are working just as fast to create the bad parts of AI, the dark web, as they are to create the good. So let's come up with solutions, there's so many opportunities. So thank you for bringing that up. That is very interesting. And it's obviously something that we would fear. As women, especially when having a conversation, three women having a conversation, you fear the stalking and all that. And knowing that people have an easier job of it now is quite frightening.
Okay, so coming up with solutions is always important and looking forward to any entrepreneurs who's listening to say if you've got a solution, hey, drop it in the comments, share your ideas.
Michele, so we love to flip the script in these conversations and give you a rest from the hot seat and offer you the opportunity to give Vicki and I a chance to have to answer a question. So if you have something to ask us, we're wide open to any question you may want to throw our way.
So I'm going to ask the same one you asked me. It was, what is your, Vicki, your greatest success?
There's so many. How do I choose?
Which one does your gut tell you to choose today?
Thank you, that's a lovely guidance. I would say my greatest success is saying yes. Yes to opportunities and the one that comes to mind is one that was formed over a coffee with my business partner Laura. We'd been working on a project together, a really big project that was important to both of us and to the organisation we were working for and we enjoyed working together so much and it felt so natural and we really just brought the best out of each other in our work and otherwise. And she said, I've had fun doing this, let's do this more. How do we do it more? And so we decided to form a business. And I'm not just saying that because Laura is sitting in front of me, but it really was a pivot point. It's been a major part of my recent years. And I think it was an indicator of I was saying yes to opportunities and then working out how and that's, if you'd asked me what advice would I give to any entrepreneur, that would be the advice. Say yes, work out how on the way. Just say yes, just say yes, even if you're not ready, just say yes. If you're not ready, go for it. Just do it. And it will create its own shape if you allow it and when you allow it.
It's something I tell my kids all the time, which is you lose nothing by trying. The worst thing that someone could tell you is no, then you just do a different approach. But that's the same thing as saying yes is just, it's going back to saying yes, putting your neck on a chopping block and diving head in instead of putting your toe in. That's all absolutely true.
Laura, I get to ask you a question, correct? Apart from working with Vicki, what is your biggest success to date?
Sure, of course.
My biggest success rolls around education. So funny thing, it's kind of like a full circle for me. When I was younger, 13, 14, 15, I did a lot of working with camps in the summertime and working with kids, and I just loved teaching. And I was planning to become a teacher until I got a job as a graphic designer and I was like, no, I get to do art and make money. This is my career. So I did that. I followed that. Became an entrepreneur in 2012 and did graphic design and Vicki and everything's been great. My biggest success is when it kind of flipped back around to education. And in 2020, Vicki and I started doing a lot of workshops and webinars on social media, marketing, helping people get online, helping people get their websites up, as retail stores closed and people had to get online, there was all that. So we started doing a lot of educating. And at first it was terrifying, got a little easier and easier over time and opportunities started to come for more of that. My proudest one was recently I was asked to be a guest presenter at Cornell University on a marketing course. It was just a one day, couple of hours. And just to be asked for that, it was such a cornerstone moment in my career. And probably one of my proudest lately is being able to do that and I hope for more education in the future. I do love sitting in this space. It makes me feel like I'm having such a great impact.
I now have a passion to educate younger people on the value of entrepreneurship. Kind of a little obsessed with that. I have an entrepreneurial son and I see the value for him. And I want younger people to know that it is, there's a lot of opportunities and there are career paths. And hey, maybe in the digital AI creating space. These kids are young and they've grown up with technology. They have no fear of it. So they should be able to create in that space faster. So yeah, thank you for asking that question. It's a great question. Thanks.
Do I get to ask more questions or no?
Yeah, go for it. If you have another question to ask us.
What did you find the most difficult and it’s a really good question to both of you, because I know Laura, you have children. Vicki, forgive me I don't know if you have children. But being a female entrepreneur and raising children, what about those challenges? Who wants to go first?
I'll definitely take that on. When I became an entrepreneur, I was pregnant with my second child, seven months pregnant, and I was made redundant. So lucky for me, I'd always done a little freelancing on this side. So I kind of figured out, well, while I'm pregnant, on maternity leave, I'm just going to keep on freelancing because getting a job at that point made absolutely no sense. So that's what I just did. And I just figured it out from there. And what you said earlier, like everything is figureoutable. And I just kind of did. And after a while I realised, Oh, I can do this. And I started making more money than I was making when I was working full time. And then I had the freedom to go to sports day without asking a boss, it's hard because you go from someone else's nine to five, where you can clock out and not think about it to the next day to like 24/7 worrying about your business and a client and a job and a project and a thing coming up and sometimes it involves working late nights or working on weekends or all of that. So juggling being an entrepreneur and being a mom and being a single mom at that has been massively full of challenges, but also majorly rewarding because I see my kids resilience that they've come through. A lot of stuff we talked about earlier, trauma and I've had narcissistic abuse too and we've been through it all and I've been through some court stuff. That could be a whole another podcast, and definitely juggling it all, balancing it all has been super hard, but having the freedom to do it on my schedule and my time has been, I think, the best thing for me. Cause I think if I had to be on somebody else's time and then trying to fit in the things of life that I needed to fit in on a daily basis would have made it even worse and more stressful for me. So while it's not easy, entrepreneurship gave me so many gifts, because I've been able to just figure it out. And I've become so resilient in the process. I wouldn't, like you, change anything in my history, because it's made me exactly who I am today. And I wouldn't be on this podcast with you had I not gone through what I'd gone through. And so much of what Vicki said about the saying yes, absolutely resonates with me too, because we just said yes. We said yes to this, we said yes to educating, we said yes to doing workshops and then now we're here on this podcast having incredible, hopefully impactful conversations for others. So yeah, it's challenging. It's difficult being a mom and doing anything. I think it's difficult, but it is worthwhile a thousand percent because my kids are turning into pretty cool people doing pretty cool things. And the best part is being on the sidelines cheering them on.
Yeah, I started my own law firm when I was seven months pregnant with my second. So I understand all too well going out on your own while pregnant, very pregnant.
I think you just have to go for it, don't you? As a woman, it's just got to keep going.
My mom thought I was nuts. She's like, why are you leaving like a city job while pregnant and you have a 24 month old at home? What are you doing? And I think she thought I was lost my mind. It was pregnancy brain, but I was like, no, I just don't ever want to have a boss again. And the only way not to have a boss is to be your own boss.
Yeah, exactly. Hey, you're going to work for yourself or you're going to work for someone else's dream. Pick one, you know? Yeah, that's it. That's the message. That is the final message right there. Yeah, you're either going to work for a boss or be the boss. So, hey, let's be the boss. Let's take ownership of life, whatever you're doing. Let's take ownership of our life. And whether you're still working for somebody else and thinking about entrepreneurship or you're just starting out and looking to launch a business or, hey, you've been in this game a really long time and you still need inspiration to keep going, that's what I hope this podcast does for people. That's what I know conversations like this can do for people because we all have been through things. We all have traumas. We all have life experiences that take us in different directions, but the journey is it. And the entrepreneurial journey for me is the most fascinating thing to talk about. No one has a straight path, no one has the same path. But that's the best part because no matter what you're going through, you can just keep going and there is light at the end of every tunnel.So yeah, I love conversations like this, Michele. I am absolutely so grateful for you joining us today and giving us your time. And what a phenomenal, vulnerable, deep, important conversation this was. Can't thank you enough for it.
Well, thank you all for giving me the opportunity to share a little bit of my story and I hope just if one young girl listens and takes away from it then it was worth every bit of it because it just takes one person to help one person to change the world
Yeah, it does. Absolutely agree. Thank you.
So thank you.
