The Back-Story
Episode Summary:
In this episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast, Tim chats with Casey Berman, founder of LeaveLawBehind and CaseyBerman.com. Casey shares how he helps unhappy attorneys—and now professionals of all kinds—transition out of careers they’ve outgrown and into work that’s truly aligned with their strengths and passions. From the challenges of leaving law to the joys of flexible remote work, Casey drops wisdom on how to break free from the “golden handcuffs” and build a career that fits your life.
Who is Casey Berman?
Casey Berman is the founder of LeaveLawBehind, where he has helped hundreds of lawyers transition into non-legal careers they love. With a background in law and a passion for mindset coaching, Casey empowers professionals to recognize their transferable skills and shift into purpose-driven work. His newest venture, CaseyBerman.com, expands his impact beyond law, helping people from all industries align their work with who they really are.
Show Notes
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In this Episode
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:29 Success Stories from Leave Law Behind
02:29 Challenges and Misconceptions in the Legal Profession
05:18 The Importance of Transferable Skills
07:50 Balancing Flexibility and Discipline While Working from Home
13:28 Setting Up a Productive Home Office
18:54 The Challenges and Joys of Working from Home
19:13 The Impact of Voice to Text Technology
20:34 The Importance of Delegation
21:40 Automating Business Processes
23:36 Leveraging AI and Tools for Efficiency
26:18 Creating Your Own Job in a Changing Market
30:31 The Future of Jobs and Entrepreneurship
31:38 Effective Sales and Marketing Strategies
36:38 Exciting Developments in Casey’s Business
38:38 Favorite Rockstars and Closing Remarks
Transcript
Read Transcript (generated: may contain errors)
Tim Melanson: Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m talking to the founder of Leave Law Behind. And what he does, he is, he’s helped hundreds of unhappy attorneys transition outta the legal field and into careers they love. That is super cool idea. So you’re taking them out of law and putting them somewhere where they can use transferable skills.
Very excited to repeat, rocking up today with Casey Berman. Hey Casey. Ready to rock.
Casey Berman: I
am. ready,
thanks for having me.
Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off here in a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired
by.
Casey Berman: Yeah. Thank you. Uh, well, great to be here. Uh, great. Just great podcast. Love what you’re doing and inspiring people to work from home or think differently. And I know I was inspired many, many years ago to, to do that and have been doing that for a while now, and I love it. Um, you know what really. Inspires me is to be able
to, to
help, to be of service,
you know,
to kinda witness, uh,
this great
change.
And I, I really just inspiring people to. Uh, [00:01:00] to have the courage to trust the process and to make this
change essentially.
And that change is getting out of
a job, a
lawyer job, and I help lawyers and non-lawyers, but to get out of this job that they just don’t feel aligned with, that they don’t like, they don’t care much about, you know, I, I, a lot of
people and
many people probably listening feel the same way.
Um, and so just last week I got a message on, on LinkedIn from a Leave Law behind member who said, literally. I’m quoting. I just wanted to thank you, Casey, the unique genius exercises, which I can get into
more detail,
you taught me, really helped guide me to finding my path. I’m doing things different. Um, I’m in a much more fulfilling way and spoke last week
with, uh,
with another
leave law
behind member
who was
in litigation, I mean fighting courtroom stuff, right?
Litigation fighting back and forth. And now she is in the role, a total non-lawyer job of learning and development. She essentially is
a professional
development and she helps. People in, she’s kind of a coach within the company to help people. And this is extremely important because you’re hiring [00:02:00] companies are hiring people, they’re investing in people, particularly younger people.
And the last thing you want to do is have someone get burnt out or not align with the culture. So, uh, she loves it, she loves what she’s doing. So it’s really just a privilege for me to, to play the small part and help these unhappy people, unhappy lawyers, unhappy non-lawyers, you know, find. A job they’re good
at, they
enjoy their
skills,
align with, and, and that pays ’em well.
So, uh, it, it
just was really
great getting that message last week.
Tim Melanson: It’s really cool.
Well, and you know what I mean, I, like you said, said before we started this interview that, uh, you know, you, you watch TV shows about lawyers and it seems like they’re having so much fun.
But,
uh, I imagine that there’s probably not everybody that feels. That way, and I, I probably law might be one of those, uh, occupations that maybe you get pushed into.
You think there’s a lot of money there, like how, why do you think people end up as a lawyer when they shouldn’t be?
Casey Berman: No, that’s
a great question. And let me first, by saying, being a former lawyer, let me have my disclaimers. The world [00:03:00] needs lawyers, so I’m not bashing lawyers,
I’m not bashing law or anything like
that. There are people out there, I have good friends who enjoy law. They like their law practice, so, and the world needs many of them.
We still need good lawyers who care about their clients and
so on.
That being said, there are to
what you’re
getting at,
there were
many people,
myself included,
who went to law school, not necessarily for the most aligned reasons we did it. It, it crosses ethnicities, religions, geographies, you know, it’s not just a certain sect of people.
Um, we went because we just didn’t know what else to do At age 22, 23, 24, we went to please our parents. We went because of what we saw in, in the movies. I’m 51, so you know, LA Law and all of that in the eighties, and I know every, every decade has their own. Law lawyer show that inspires people, uh, to go.
But really the law is my business partner at at Leave Law Behind. You know, he talks about how it, it’s really in many ways is glorified paper pushing [00:04:00] and, um. A lot of people just don’t wanna do that. And it’s very reactive and you’re putting out fires and there’s health issues. If you look at the stats of burnout and alcoholism and drug use and you know, for me I,
it was very
reactive and I had the job when I was in-house counsel.
I worked before working from home and for
myself,
I worked for many years for companies and it was a great, I love the company. It was a great experience. Really gained some great muscles professionally. But it was very reactive. I wasn’t really being able to be proactive, to be creative. I was just putting out fires and reacting to things, which was great.
I learned a lot, but there came that point. I don’t wanna do this much anymore. I wanna create stuff. I wanna do something else. And that was, that was just my personality. And so, uh, I realized that I just, just wasn’t aligned. And I think a lot of people go in, yeah, it’s, you could go so far as I say, they went for the wrong reasons to law school.
Uh, it was a mistake to go to law school and that’s okay. We all pivot and, and make those changes. But, um, it’s ironic that we three [00:05:00] years. Lot of money, lot of time. And it’s a decision that unfortunately a lot of early twenties, mid twenties, even early thirties, they don’t, they don’t think much about
Tim Melanson: Yeah. But
the good news, the silver lining, is that there’s a lot
of transferrable
skills that you get by by taking that, right?
Casey Berman: Exactly. And so it’s a little muddied because people have said for years, I don’t know who’s the first person to say it, but you can do anything with a law degree. And we hear that all the time. Uh, and you say, oh, okay. And a lot of people have that in the back of their mind, but they still practice for 30 years and they’re not really enjoying it.
So what does that really mean? You can do a lot with a law degree. It kind of means that. Just that, you know, you can talk, you can shift a lot of presidents or senators or former lawyers, and you’re like, oh, well look at them. They’re doing
something else.
But it’s difficult to become a senator, right? So what you really need to do is take it the next step and understand what your transferable skills are.
So. If that’s an exercise we do, I won’t get in too much detail, but [00:06:00] really it’s kind of a self-audit of your skills and strengths and so you think about what lawyers or even many of your listeners now what they do, but you know, lawyers particularly attention to detail, strategic thinking, storytelling, being the adult in the room.
I can go on and on and obviously it depends on what practice of law and what you do well. Those skills are needed elsewhere. They’re needed in sales and business development and operations and so on. So we really help them see that. The big blocker to that, unfortunately, logically people get it, oh, I can do that, but viscerally they have a blocker.
’cause there’s fear. Well, I have student debt, I have law school debt. I’ve tied my identity to be a lawyer so
much.
Really? You think that sales person that that hiring manager at a non-law company would wanna hire me? You know,
so. Intellectually,
they may understand that they’re adult in the room or putting out fire skills.
Could be used
in sales, used in operations, used in recruiting, but viscerally, a lot of the work that we do is help them, help them overcome fears and obstacles to that. Now, when [00:07:00] they make that move and they’re able to overcome or mitigate that fear, oh. Then sky’s the
limit. And
it’s great to see that momentum, and that’s where those inspiring stories come from.
But those fears and blockers, ironically, from these masters of the universe, these lawyers who are so smart and so, so, uh, motivated, they, they really get crippled by fears, unfortunately. Yeah.
Tim Melanson: Well, so on that note, I mean. Not everything is, you know, sunshine roses when you’re
running
a business and sometimes you are gonna make some mistakes. I like to talk about that because I think that what you just said is, is is common when someone’s thinking about starting a business, they’re just afraid of, of making a mistake, of failing.
And I want to kind of point that out that we, we all do it right. And uh, I’m wondering, can you share with us something that didn’t go as planned on your journey that we can learn from?
Casey Berman: yeah, sure. You know, I have just always loved working from home, uh, and. I’ve done it for many years, going back 20 years now, working for
companies that
were small and [00:08:00] distributed or even bigger companies, uh, that, that had had worked from home. And now I work for myself so I can set my own schedule. And you just get into a cadence.
You just get something that works for you and you’re, you’re, when you have your coffee, when you eat, when you walk your dog, when you, whatever it is, and, and you find what works best for you. And I love it. The issue is sometimes you can take advantage of your own schedule in some ways. And so, uh, just recently, maybe, well, maybe six months ago, a year ago, uh, I went for a run with my dog, which I do every day.
My dog needs runs twice, twice a day. So kind of a, a energetic dog and the freedom of working from home. I always need to remind myself, you know, requires planning. Even though you have this freedom, you need that, that discipline to it. And I kind of learned it the hard way because I knew I had a call at 10:00 AM.
I should have gone for the run by eight 15 to give us an hour and they gimme time to [00:09:00] shower and all of that. And I know it sounds kinda like a funny, stupid example, but let’s just say I got onto that Zoom
call at
ten oh three, which isn’t the end of the world. We’re always late. That’s fine. There’s that cushion.
But I got back, I took a very fast shower. It’s warm where I live. I was perspiring a little. I didn’t have the fan or the air conditioning. Needless to say, kind of a funny, stupid story, but I am on this screen with this, with this, uh, person and faces glistening and I’m just not prepared. Right? And he could tell and wasn’t the end of the world.
But it was fine, but I didn’t, I wasn’t the best and I felt like it was, it was disrespecting of, of his time. So again, not the end of the world, but I was kicking myself after, uh, we’re all very hard on ourselves and you know, really
the
broader picture was that this flexibility of working
from home
is, is great.
I love it. I wouldn’t trade it for a thing, but there’s that structure and there’s that discipline and you just. [00:10:00] You just need that. And then I, I want to extend that to other things, to, to deadlines or, or deliverables. You know, don’t, don’t turn it in at the last minute. Right. Give the stakeholder that you’re working with three days to look at it, even if it’s early, even if you look like a little goodie.
Two shoes, sometimes communication, right? Like sometimes I’ll go a little bit overboard now and just, Hey, I’m gonna get this to. Just so you know, I’m working on it. I’ll have it out by 4:00 PM Even if someone doesn’t, doesn’t ask for it, I want to throw
it out
there because you
never know
what people are thinking.
So that’s something that working from home, you don’t have people around you, you don’t have the office, you don’t have people looking over your shoulder. And, and I love that, but uh, that story always kind of sticks in my paw. Something where I, oh man. So,
uh, but
that, that, that’s. That’s one. And, and not necessarily that it’s a failure.
Trust me, I failed even in bigger, bigger times and
with,
with bigger ramifications. But that always jumped to me as, as really kind of core to this whole working from home thing that I, that I kind of dropped the ball on.
Yeah.
Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, it, I, it’s a [00:11:00] great story and think that anybody who’s been working from home for any length of the time is gonna, is gonna relate to, because I mean, one of the things that’s really adv an advantage, like you say, is,
is that flexibility.
Right. I mean, it was prior to
the reason why
probably most of us started our business is because we wanted to be a little bit more flexible.
But on the other hand, you know, if you don’t have some sort of routine, then. Things just kind of get away from you. And next thing you know, you’re late for all your meetings. And you know, like you said, it’s not the end of the world. You’re your own business. And people tend to be understanding of stuff like that.
But on the other hand, like you say it, imagine how much better they would think about you if you were prepared and if you did, you know, do some of the things that you mentioned. Right.
Casey Berman: And my dog didn’t care. You know, my dog had his run and her run, and
so my dog, my dog was
fine and, and it wasn’t. The more I think about it, it wasn’t that I was three minutes late
to a Zoom meeting.
That’s fine. You have that buffer and imagine in the offices when you’re walking from conference room to conference [00:12:00] room.
So that was fine. Um, eight minutes, 10 minutes. That’s a little bit too much, but we all know there’s three to five minutes. It was when I got on there, just my. My appearance. Right. I was glistening. It was, he could tell I was
doing something right up to
that and that I, that I was rushing, again, not the end of the world, but it just broader was, was teaching me that, uh, to, to literally, it’s time, just, it’s math.
Right? Just give yourself 10 more minutes. Wake up 10 minutes earlier and uh, and
you’ll be
fine.
So.
Tim Melanson: Yeah. It’s just so ironic that we, you know, like you say, we, we start, we start our business thinking that we’re gonna have all this flexibility and then we end up creating all these rules in ourselves.
Casey Berman: It’s. But the,
the interesting you just said is there are
rules right there, there are
rules. So, uh, that,
that’s the good thing I like, is that you can, you can wear, you know, your, your, your sandals in the office or you can wear a, a nice shirt with shorts on or what, jeans or whatever, whatever your stick is, they’re [00:13:00] your rules.
So that, that’s what’s
really cool about it.
Tim Melanson: Yeah, and, and that’s a really good point too. I mean, if you are the person that wears a, you know, Hawaiian shirt to every show, it’s just, that’s your brand. I
mean, you can do whatever you want. I mean, you don’t have a boss
to tell you that you can’t wear that Hawaiian shirt. You could do
whatever.
Casey Berman: Exactly.
Tim Melanson: uh, so
that’s the thing.
And then like, probably the next thing would be to lean into it, right? Why not?
Casey Berman: Yeah.
Tim Melanson: It’s your
brand.
Casey Berman: Exactly. Exactly.
Tim Melanson: So, so let’s talk a little bit about the, the home office, the jam room. I
mean, you’ve
been working from home for quite a while now, and you know, there are some challenges with
setting up a good workspace at
home.
And I’m wondering, you know, what, what do you have going on for yourself?
Casey Berman: Yeah. I love working from home, as I mentioned. I will say that based on my homes and I love, I love my home and, and the previous home that we were in, but I have never had
that.
Dedicated office with
the
mahogany desk and [00:14:00] the big window looking out and all of that. I’ve never even had the small spare bedroom where I could kind of make it, make it my own.
And, uh, we live in, in a bigger house now. And even then, just the configuration of it, I, I, I don’t have that. Um, so I would, I do think. I’d like something a little bit more dedicated in that
way. And
I think if anyone’s working from home, if you’re, if you have that spare bedroom or if you, if I’m not very handy or carpenter at all, but if you can build an
add-on or
if
you can
build maybe a mini house on your property
or something like
that, it goes such a long way to just have that dedicated spot.
Um, I do have a office I’m in right now is dedicated. I do, uh, I do have that place where I’ve got my monitor and I have everything and everything’s around me. Um, it’s a nice room. It’s not the configuration I would exactly do, but, but it works, right? So, in a way, I should stop complaining. I do have that dedicated room, but, um, it, it’s not exactly how I would build it if I could myself.
So that’s the one drawback [00:15:00] that for some reason I’ve, I’ve had maybe I need to. I need to make millions so I can buy even a,
a, a
bigger place and, and do something.
We’ll
see. But really then
I’d probably just
have more problems. So, but um, I think what’s great about it though, is the flexibility I’ve had.
So I go to my office. Uh, where I have privacy, where I can take, where I can speak to you like this without my dog or kids running in. But then I’ll tell you, I take a break, I go to the kitchen table when the family’s not around in the middle of
the day, and
we’ve got some bigger windows and the light comes in and, and my dog and cat are there and they can, they can come up, right?
And the kitchen’s
right nearby.
Um, and then there’s an outside area. And so I, I mean, I love sitting, we have kind of two decks, one on the front, one on the other side. I,
I
sort of think of like living, you know, working on this spot as my 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM and then I can come later to the spot. So I love the flexibility of.
Of moving around the house in a way can kind of get annoying because it’s like, oh, I gotta take my laptop and, you know, here’s my bag, but at the same time, and where’s the plug? And, oh, I forgot my plug. I gotta go get it. [00:16:00] But I, I really like that flexibility. Also, what it does is it breaks up the day for me, and granted, I get outta the house.
I’m not, I do leave my house, but, um, oftentimes I don’t, I’m here for a while and so, you know, I do this from 8:00 AM to 10 15. Go get a, a cup of coffee, go get a snack. Then from 11 here I’m somewhere else. So I really like that idea of kind of bouncing around the house, bouncing around your property as ways to kind of break up the day and, and give me that mental break.
And then a good 30, 45 minutes you change. Now my mind has
rested and,
and now I’m moving on to my next project I need to get done. And where earlier I was like, oh God, I gotta get that project done. Now I’m refreshed, cup of coffee, water, new environment, and I’m able to dive into it.
Tim Melanson: Yeah,
that is a, a big thing that I do too. I walk around a little bit. I don’t necessarily work in other rooms, but I like to go outside for a little bit.
So,
you know, just to break up the, the monotony of it all. Yeah. That’s awesome.
Uh, so when, uh, when you [00:17:00] did not have a dedicated office though, ’cause I think a lot of entrepreneurs when they first get started, especially maybe they, you know, they just don’t have a room that they can put in.
Like, do you have any solutions for that? Like, how do you keep the kids away from you all that stuff? When, when, when you’re in that situation?
Casey Berman: Yeah, it’s, it’s very hard. And one thing that I’ve, that has been an issue for me that is sort of
an ongoing joke
with, uh, with my wife and the kids is, you know, I’m working from home, but I am not, I’m not here to do
errands. I’m not here
to handle this. And I end up doing it ’cause I’m a nice guy. If I don’t do it, then the, the kitty litter is gonna be in the,
the foyer
and it’s gonna sneak the whole house up.
So I better move that. Right. But, um, I could
have used
another example, but that’s the first one that came to me. But yeah, it’s, there’s no way around it. I mean, if, when you don’t have that, you get, you get, uh, you got, you’re on the couch. I’ve been there where I have a [00:18:00] pillow with one laptop on the couch, another laptop.
Here, and I’m in a zone and I’m feeling good and I got my arms propped up and all of a sudden the dog jumps on the
couch, knocks
my laptop off, and, and yeah, there’s no way around it. So you want to find times during the day when kids are in school or they’re asleep or whatever it is. Uh, you want to go to the garage.
I’ve worked in the garage many a time.
Um, I’ve worked at, uh, you know,
parents’ house. Uh, I go to cafes if you have to. Um, the other thing, yeah, I mean the cafe for me, whether it’s a Starbucks or whether it’s a small locally run cafe, I mean, the cafe for me throughout the years has been, has been a second, second office, and, uh, and I’ve loved
it. Because
you have to time, you know, when you go to the bathroom, you don’t wanna leave your laptop on the desk, you gotta take it, you know, there’s their own issues there. So
you don’t get your
laptop stolen or someone doesn’t think
you paid
for something. So you have your coffee cut
there to
show people, Hey, I actually paid for this table.
But, um, beyond that, you know, the, the cafe has been a [00:19:00] great outlet for me, but it’s hard.
But, um,
when you have that passion for working from home, when you just feel that
it’s
right, you, you find a way to do it.
Tim Melanson: Yeah,
Casey Berman: I will say one other thing, Tim, that that happens for me. I know everyone’s talking about AI as this great transformation, which it is, but one of the biggest transformations for me has been voice to text, and I know that sounds kind of hokey, but I cannot tell you how much work I get done.
Literally just speaking into my phone and transcribing it, emailing it to myself, thoughts, ideas, content, and then obviously editing it and massaging it later. But that has been huge. So my office is with my dog. When we go for a walk, that that’s another place, uh, as well.
Tim Melanson: Awesome. I agree a hundred percent. I, I feel like my, my texting must have gotten worse or something because I feel like I can’t text very well any anymore now. I, I’d rather just speak into it, but I think what’s happened is it’s the opposite. The voice to text
has gotten
so
accurate that
[00:20:00] like as before, I would do voice to text and it, it’s not right at all.
I had to rewrite it anyway, but now you, you speak voice to text, it goes way faster than I can text it, so.
Casey Berman: And I’m not ergonomically, it’s better, I’m not
hunched over, uh, typing and uh, so I feel better about it and I just, you know, so I just speak in my phone. I know that’s something that you look like a grandpa kind
of talking into
your phone that way, but I’ve. I’ve written big things and
just gotten
a lot of work done,
just doing
voice to
text, so
I, I love how my office is also just, just in
the street
and on the sidewalk walking my dog.
Mm-hmm.
Tim Melanson: Right on. So, uh, one of the things that I hear from a lot of entrepreneurs, if they, you know, they think, well, if I were to go back and do something differently, a lot of them will say that they would’ve delegated faster. I’m not sure if you’re, you know, in that situation where you’ve got, you know, a van around you, but do you, and, and who, the, who is that for you?
Casey Berman: Yeah,
delegating is hard, but once you do it right, it is, it feels so good. It’s so [00:21:00] great, right? Uh, and particularly as a former lawyer, but anyone who’s a perfectionist or anybody who control freak or anything like that, uh, whether you’re a lawyer or not, uh, it’s, it’s difficult
to do
so, but leave all behind.
And then I have a new, uh, the extension is casey berman.com, where I’m taking a lot of what I’ve, what I’ve done at Leave Law Behind and, and kind of helping a broader audience. But Leave Law Behind is really a, a two-man show and, um, works really well. Uh, my business partner Adam, who’s, who’s on the East Coast and I’ve been
working together,
together for years.
Former attorney and, uh, we always say he’s like a brother from another mother. And, um, you know, over time, and really he led the charge on this. We’ve just automated a ton. Uh, so we have our website. Um, we’ve, and I can get into the marketing later about how we’ve, we’ve been able to attract people, but we just have backend systems, we have automations, we have the flows.
Where people come in and, uh, taken a lot of jiggery, we’ve tried a lot of different ways and scrapped a bunch of different [00:22:00] processes that we had because they weren’t working or people, or it wasn’t getting
the customers.
So really even going back 10 years, um, we,
and
again, he led the charge on it. Really.
We’ve used, um, these systems. To automate a lot. And, uh, so I know that sounds weird, but you don’t,
you don’t need intake.
You don’t need content creation. You, you people sign up on the calendar and I know everyone’s familiar with these now. 10 years ago these were really, were really
Tim Melanson: Cutting edge.
Casey Berman: Yeah. And so, uh, so
we’re really, so that, that’s really
helped out
a lot.
We’ve, you know, we’ve pulled on contractors. Gone to Upwork or Fiverr or, um, you know, there, there’s other ones where, where people are, are abroad in other countries. And so, uh, I definitely had them do it in the past. And, um, and delegating is, uh, you know, something that is hard to do. I’ve kind of. Kept a lot of the core, a lot of the core content.
Um, I think where I get stuck a lot, and this is [00:23:00] something just that I have as a blocker, is I just have this belief system. That stuff, sometimes that stuff is just gonna take a long time. So a notice from the DMV, for example, I sit there and go, oh my God,
I gotta
fill out a paper, I gotta wait in line. No, this isn’t 1987 anymore.
Like
the, even
the DMV has digital processes now. Like it doesn’t take that long, Casey, you know, and so it’s kind of a smack me upside the head. And so, um, content
creation with
videos is something that, okay, great. Like I’ll, I’ll shoot. Me and I’ll do a talking head video about something for, for 10 minutes, five minutes, two minutes, whatever it is.
But ugh, then I gotta edit it and add a B roll and I gotta open up Camtasia and I gotta, nowadays with ai, you and, and you want to choose tools that are right. You don’t want to choose hokey. There’s all these tools out there. So once you find the tool though, that really aligns with you. It can do it all for you.
So I’ve really seen kind of this digital transformation with systems and so on, and now, you know, AI is really [00:24:00] helping with, with some of the
things that
I know were always, uh, something that I procrastinated on. So, um, I’m going to, I’ve delegated the processes in the past and now, now I think, uh, AI or content creation or just things that are doing things faster, you can, you can really delegate, delegate to now and don’t, you don’t really have much more of an excuse anymore to not not work on your own if that’s what you want to do.
Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Yeah, and
I’m glad you mentioned it, that. Way because, uh, I, I’m the, kind of the same thing. I’ve, I, you know, I’ve gone to people
and then pulled that
back and gone to tools. Uh,
’cause
Casey Berman: That’s
a great way to say it.
Tim Melanson: you know, the tools are, are getting so good. Uh, like you say with, with AI especially, I mean, geez, some of these tools will do what a person can do.
And of course that’s freaking a lot of people out. Right.
Uh.
Casey Berman: It, it’s freaking them out. And you know, the other thing you can do is you can find a person. If you have a tool and a person like let’s to manage the tool, like that’s something also you pay them a, whatever it is, you know, you’re not hiring them full [00:25:00] time. But if you want someone to manage a tool and alright, you log into my AI tool, you here’s the video, you deal with it, you can do that as well.
Tim Melanson: yeah. Well, and
I, I think that that’s the, the, the second part of it is that, uh, you know, people are freaked out,
but
you always need a person to man the tool. And I don’t think that’s ever really gonna change. I, I don’t, I don’t think we’re gonna get to a point where, uh, the AI can just magically read your mind.
I mean, maybe it will, but, but I even still, it’s gonna have to have a person to read. It has to have direction. Right. And so I think that for us, for, for people who are self-employed, who are, you know, running a small business. It just makes you, your team grow exponentially without having to hire all these other people.
Now it’s a matter of
just, you
get a lot better at doing what
you do
by using these tools
and
it allows you to. To be on more of an even playing field with some of the bigger, bigger companies that [00:26:00] are sometimes even abusing their employees anyway. So I mean, why not? I mean, a lot of these people could just start their own business and use the same tools, right?
Like, why
are we worried about AI taking jobs when AI can give you a job? Right?
Casey Berman: Uh, I mean, that’s what I was thinking and you, you framed it perfectly.
I mean,
AI is gonna be big for the big companies and all the power to them, and that’s one thing, but, you know, for a lot of people, uh, I really think that that whatever’s come, whether it’s ai, whether it’s just technology and automation and so on, the, the new job
is working for your own,
working for yourself in many ways.
And
you, you know,
I have a friend, his, uh. My daughter just graduated high school. His, his daughter is a senior and going into senior high school, and he said, I don’t, I don’t really know what to tell her what job to pursue as she’s thinking about college and so on. And so it’s, it’s a tough, it’s
a
tough, um, shift that, that we’re going through now.
But what I really think is interesting is that now is the [00:27:00] time to really. Think about that, how you can add value through a business, through entrepreneurship, through a side gig, through a side hustle. You know, it’s not like when Earth was formed. It’s not like someone came here from some distant planet and brought everything here, brought.
Bubbly water and brought gummy bears and brought, uh, tools, and brought technology and wires and microphones. You know, it’s like, um, I love gummy bears. Haven’t eaten them in a while, but first thing came to my mind, you know, like it was all created here. It was all created out of this earth. In, in literally, or, or figuratively.
Well, so it’s not like there’s a finite number of jobs or roles or ways to add value in this world. It’s not like someone needs to
deliver a bunch
of new jobs to earth. We can create those jobs and you can create them by just kind of finding what’s, what’s important to you. Takes time. You need to pay your bills, may need to be a side gig on the side while your day job pays.
I get it like you have to go through those steps, but in many ways, [00:28:00] going through those steps over a few years is, is that way to really trust the process and, and, and to create it. But.
I,
I think you’re, you’re a hundred percent right. Like if,
if there’s
ever an impetus
to really
get people to work from home, try their own thing.
This, this time, is it?
Tim Melanson: Yeah, man. I think you’re hitting on the core of why I even created this podcast in the first place, right?
Because, ’cause I
mean, I, I remember, like I used to be in high tech, I used to work as a software developer. This was 15, almost 20 years ago. And, uh, jobs were disappearing. You know, they were going over to China and company that I was working for declared bankruptcy.
And, and I mean, so the,
the,
the situation that people are experiencing right now about jobs disappearing was happening to me then. And so rather than going to look for a job, I just created my own.
I think that’s where we’re at again, right? Only it’s at a much larger scale. Lots of jobs are [00:29:00] disappearing or just moving around and people are not, it’s just a mindset issue.
It’s just a mindset. We have to change from, oh, I need someone to help me. I need someone to do this for me. I need someone to give me this job. When you can just create your own work. There’s lots of people out there that are looking for something and
there’s.
Tons of skills. I mean, you mentioned transferable skills in law to take somewhere else.
Well, no matter what experience you have, I guarantee you, you have a skill. You have something
that you can offer
value to someone else. I, I guarantee it. Everybody does. And so it’s just a matter of figuring that out. And then getting into the next topic that I wanna talk about, which is how to get fans, right.
Because I think that what we’re all gonna have to learn how to do, especially if we wanted to get into, uh, you know, a self-employment thing is, is, is that sales aspect of it, which is not necessarily what people have been taught in school. I mean, we don’t really learn communication and sales skills in school, which we should.
Right. [00:30:00] But I’m wondering
like, what about like, what do you do? How do you get fans in your business?
Casey Berman: Yeah, and
I’ll touch on that in in one second. I just wanted to pick up on one thing
you said,
and I, I do wanna say for many people who are daunted about the entrepreneurial journey, the I. Stay at the company. Companies are great. They’re great places to work. You learn a lot. You have the security stay at the company.
Um, maybe create something on the side, a passion project, assuming that’s fine and, and cool with, with the company that you work with. Um, but there’s gonna be a lot we’re hearing about the job losses. What I really am excited about are all of the new jobs we don’t even know the titles about that are going to come out in this phase.
And, and it’s not just AI prompt engineer. There’s going to be so many different types of roles. I mean, who knew 20 years ago what a social media manager was? No, no one really knew it. Who knew what a trust and safety or, you know, trust and safety job is like quality assurance, but different. Who knew what product policy was?
There are so many jobs that in 19 [00:31:00] 2002.
19 99, 19
96, we had no idea about, but now they’re, they’re commonplace, right? Developer relations, for example, which is a really touchy-feely job because it’s someone who can, has EQ and iq.
They’re usually like a former engineer they can
talk to, to
Deb developers.
At the same time, they can liaise with the liberal arts majors
of marketing
and sales
and sort of
be that bridge. Who knew, right? But when creating technology over the past 20, 30 years, that bridge was needed. So I just wanna say for everyone who wants to work from home, but also isn’t ready to leave the W2 paycheck, that’s fine.
There’s gonna be a lot of new roles. Right? So I just wanted to, to qualify that. Um, yes, so sales. So sales and marketing is extremely straightforward and simple in a way, and also extremely different, uh, uh, difficult, you know. I, I think, uh, my business partner handles a lot of the, the, the sales intakes when people call.
He’s just great on the phone. And what’s fantastic about him is he’s really able to, [00:32:00] um, nurture conversations and get people going and talking. And then at the same time, which I think a lot of people have trouble with, is he’s able to close, like, let’s move forward with this. Let’s do this. Um, not in an awkward, pushy way. If someone doesn’t want to then, then they don’t join, then that’s fine. But he’s just really great at saying. Let’s do this now. And they go, you know what? You’re right. And so, uh, one thing we live by is that if you really believe in your product or your service, you have a moral obligation to sell it. And I know sales
has, I didn’t
say that someone else said that.
And so I know sales has this kind of reputation about it, but, uh, if you really believe in what you’re doing, you, you really need to get out there in the world. And for us, really the flow. God. Um, I started blogging in 2009, 2010. It was sort of this open journal, um, but uh, where I was talk, just talking about my path outside of the law.
And back then Google just picked us up and, uh, they liked some of the things I was writing. Uh, the media picked up on it, we were featured and the Wall Street Journal and Slate and
a number
of [00:33:00] other publications back then. And so really got a lot of tension that way. Um, about. Eight years ago, six years ago, we then looked into SEO and uh, we went to ah, refs.
Um, A-H-R-E-F-S, which is that Google scraper. There’s other tools out there as well, and, uh, figured out what, what keywords to use. And, um, now we are, we rank top for, for some keywords, uh, that, that unhappy attorneys are, are searching for. Um, SEO may shift with ai. We’re not sure exactly where it’s going, uh, but that still brings in a lot.
And then what we did not do over the years was social media. So we, I didn’t, I don’t
know, I
don’t know if I’m too old for it or what, but I just didn’t, uh, I didn’t really. Um, I still am not really big into social media and posting pictures of myself in places of the world or whatever, but what we’ve uh, recently started is posting on LinkedIn and we chose that platform.
It was most comfortable for us from a professional standpoint. And, uh, it’s been great for me because I love to write, I love to get these ideas out. And so I’ve [00:34:00] just started over the past few months to past month, uh, just kind of. Creating some kind of pity, short, uh, hopefully inspirational, uh, comments and things to think about with, uh, on LinkedIn.
Um, it’s been giving some really good feedback so far. And then from there, I really just wanna build a connection with people just like you on this podcast. Want to raise awareness about how you can work from home. I really just wanna raise awareness for people that, uh, particularly unhappy in lawyers, that you’re, you’re not alone.
That, that there are other people suffering and that there are, there is a better way. And then of course. When the time’s right, we kind of funnel them into, uh, funnel’s the wrong word. We sort of direct them and, and make them aware of, of the opportunities that we have. And then if they’re interested, we can, we can do a, a consult call with them.
So that’s kind of the flow that, uh, that, that we’ve done. We’ve tried to keep it authentic and just who we are. And I like to say a lot of the free stuff we provide is, is extremely helpful for
people as
well. That’s kind of the bar that we set for ourselves.
Tim Melanson: And, and there you go. Right? Um, I [00:35:00] mean, I’ve, I’m hearing this trend from just about. Everybody who’s been on the show, obviously, right? ’cause we’re on the show for free, right? Uh, you know, giving something out for free to get people to, to help people get to know you is, is huge, right? And I think that that’s where I do think that we have a more level playing field now.
It’s not about, you know, who can spend the most money on advertising nowadays. It’s, it’s who can, uh, create a connection with their audience,
the,
the most authentically, right?
Casey Berman: You do need a call to action. So, uh, you do need to say, Hey, click here, or if you wanna learn more, or whatever the case may be. So you do wanna be selling, because if you’re not selling something, uh, it, it’s a hobby, right? It’s not a business. So you do wanna sell, uh, it doesn’t mean you
need
to sell in every instance, or maybe you don’t sell on the platform, you sell via email.
You know, you, you do it in your ways, but you do, you do want to sell. But that being said. Yeah, just [00:36:00] creating content and getting your ideas out
there, and
particularly for people who are, who are starting, um, and again, I have casey berman.com where I’m kind of starting a new similar themes, but I’m starting a new, so I’m in that boat as well.
But you creating that content enables you to, to test and see what themes are interesting and. And is this landing and is this working? And, and get over the jitters of, of getting out there in the world. So, uh, there’s a lot of pluses to it, but yeah, you do want to always, uh, you know, always
be selling
and always be, uh, a, b, c always be closing.
Right? Um, but it doesn’t need to be slimy or pressure packed. You, you can do it in your, in a good way.
Tim Melanson: Love it.
So it’s time for your guest solo Casey. Tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.
Casey Berman: Yeah. So
what’s exciting for me is, is. You know, leave Law behind is we’ve automated. It’s, it’s moving forward. It’s, uh, uh, we’re helping people leave a law. I just got a text from, from someone I’ll check later as to, uh, uh, he was going on an interview, so I’m interested to, to see what happens there, I think with [00:37:00] Casey berman.com what I’m really excited about is that I’m actually, that I’m, I even on this podcast and, and some other podcasts that we have lined up, you know, and so when I, when I launched the site and I, I didn’t really know.
What themes I was gonna talk about,
and I didn’t wanna say it was
just leave law behind for non-lawyers. Like I, I needed something more. And so just kind of seeing the reception I’ve been getting for the idea around casey berman.com, which is to, to get unstuck
to, to really
find a career or even just kind
of a lifestyle that.
That is more aligned, more matching, more connected, uh, you know, that that feedback so far, just in the initial phases, I’m just starting it, um, has been, has been great and has been really encouraging for me. And so, so I’m really excited to take that further. And in some ways I’m, I’m even, I’m very excited ’cause leave law behind for all it is, it’s niche and it’s focused and I’ve written about it a lot.
Love writing about it. Love going into it. Now with casey berman.com, I can kind of write a [00:38:00] broader things. I can get into a little bit more of woo woo stuff, spirituality, entrepreneurship. I can kind of cover, cover a broader set of topics which I’m, which I’m very, very excited about.
Tim Melanson: That’s
really cool. So
how do we find out more then?
Casey Berman: Check me out@caseyberman.com, C-A-S-E-Y-B-E-R-M-A n.com, my first and last name. Uh, feel free to email me atCasey@caseyberman.com and, uh, I’ll be putting up more information there and, um, but that’s the best way you can find me on LinkedIn. Uh, Casey Berman SF for San Francisco, but Casey Berman SF on LinkedIn.
But otherwise, uh, casey@casey.com is, uh, would be great.
Tim Melanson: Awesome. So the
hardest question, who’s your favorite rockstar?
Casey Berman: Yeah. Wow. Uh, and, you know, rock. So answers
Led Zeppelin.
Tim Melanson: Awesome.
Casey Berman: big
Led Zeppelin, uh, big, uh, Alman Brothers. So those, those I think in a little more recent times, um, Alabama shakes, [00:39:00] love Alabama shakes, uh, white stripes obviously, but, um, you know, led Zeppelin, led Zeppelin for me is is I don’t even know of a, all the songs are great.
You know, all the songs are fantastic. So, uh,
I, yeah,
they’re, they’re my band.
Tim Melanson: Yeah. And they were, they were just so original at the time, and now there’s bands trying to copy them, right. But at the time, there’s nobody that sounded like them. It was so crazy.
Casey Berman: and you know, my, a friend of mine, Greg Schiff, he’s a, he’s a drummer on the East Coast and he, years ago, told me about John Bonum. I didn’t really know about drumming, and he just un just totally dissected
for me how
John Bonum as
a drummer was
so revolutionary and groundbreaking and one, when
I heard
that they all were, but when I just heard that it just.
Just blew my mind. I had never looked at, I was a big jazz
fan, and
so I, I knew jazz drumming, but I, I just, I had never just totally blew my mind, opened my mind as to, as to how there was this new genre, not genre, but just groundbreaking way to, to do drums [00:40:00] and then just the lyrics and, you know, they reference The Hobbit, which I’m into.
So it is just, just, just all around, just fantastic. So,
Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Casey. This has been a lot of fun.
Casey Berman: Thank you. No honor to be here and, uh, really excited about everything you’re doing and, and keep it up. I, I just think this message needs to keep getting out there and, and keep inspiring people, so thank you.
Tim Melanson: Awesome. And thanks to the listeners. Make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast.