Episode 113 - Losers are Winners: The Success Trap That Caught Aaron Hall
Episode #113 | Losers are Winners | The Success Trap That Caught Aaron Hall
Aaron Hall built a successful law firm, ended up with 45 employees, and discovered that “making it” didn't feel much like making it at all. He and Mark Williams get into burnout, lawsuits, the danger of chasing money and fame, and why entrepreneurs need to know when to put down the problem-solving hat and just listen. Plus, a little Mr. Miyagi wisdom, some dad-level relationship advice, and a reminder that sometimes the best legal strategy is calling your lawyer before everything catches fire.
About The Curious Builder
The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. Williams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.
Support the Show:
-
Aaron Hall 00:03
I have another client, really smart. He has decided I'm going to avoid fame. He runs a very successful company, but you can barely find him on the internet because he learned early on what looks glamorous and it looks amazing in the movies. It looks like wow, that person has arrived, and yet we realize once you achieve those pinnacles that, oh, it's empty.
Mark D. Williams 00:30
Welcome to Chris Burdar Podcast. I'm Mark Lynch, your host. Today I'm in studio. I've got Aaron Hall, got a lawyer in the studio. Losers are winners. Aaron, thanks for coming in.
Aaron Hall 00:38
Great to be here, Mark. Thanks.
Mark D. Williams 00:39
You're a Minneapolis-based lawyer that essentially helps entrepreneurs and CEOs. What else? Conflict management. What are you? What are you doing? There's such a huge gambit for what law can do for us.
Aaron Hall 00:50
I love working with business owners, and so it's really helping them stay out of trouble, and when they get in trouble, helping them through that. So that includes deals as well as litigation.
Mark D. Williams 01:01
Yep, it seems like so often you don't get the call till you're already, or someone you know. In my case, the builder's already in trouble. It's kind of the classic announcement prevention's worth a pound of cure.
Aaron Hall 01:11
Right. That's very true. You wish that you could get ahead of it, but I know even with my accountant, I don't call him until I have an issue. I don't call him ahead of time and say, "Hey, let's plan out some things because we're all so busy. We're all already taking care of our money goals, our marketing goals, our people goals. That to sit and deal with something technical like legal, it's not fun. Most entrepreneurs don't do it preemptively.
Mark D. Williams 01:36
That's true. About I don't know how many years ago, maybe four or five years ago, I I think I had my banker on, and we talked a little bit about like, you know, when you need money, they don't want to give it to you, and when you and when you do need the money, they're happy to like here, sign here, you can have as much money as you want. Like, well, that seems weird, and so I actually have it now, where once a quarter I meet with my lawyer for lunch, my banker, and my CPA, just like a 20 minute check in for those guys. The lawyer-he's funny, so he's my one guy I'll have lunch with. But basically, it's just to do that. What's going on? Because if you're not communicating, how are you supposed to know how to stay out of trouble?
Aaron Hall 02:11
That is a fantastic idea. I wish more people would do that, even just quarterly, like you said, for 20 minutes, a quick spot check to see what's coming up, what do we need to prevent? How do we get on top of it before it blows up?
Mark D. Williams 02:24
Well, and also, I mean, I'm asking my banker, like I'm not the only builder he works with. What are you seeing out in the community? Or my lawyer? Hey, what other example? Or what you and I are going to talk a little bit about today? Like one of the huge benefits of the losers are winners is you know we learn a lot from our own scars, but we learn a lot from the scars of others too. So that's
Aaron Hall 02:43
one thing I love about your podcast. Here is it's very expensive to learn mistakes in your own life, but if you can learn it from others, you can leapfrog ahead of people. You can get so much further ahead. So this was a valuable podcast. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams 02:57
appreciate that. How, out of curiosity, how did you hear about it?
Speaker 1 03:01
I don't recall. It's a theme that matters to me. Business owners being real about problems, and then what did I learn from that? What do I take away? How do I prevent that? How can I share that with others so they can avoid that pain?
Mark D. Williams 03:16
Yeah, yeah, no, it's great. Well, with that in mind, how long have you? How many years you've been practicing?
Aaron Hall 03:21
It's been about 20 years now.
Mark D. Williams 03:22
So a couple decades. What are some memorable stories of either client failures or even some of your own? And what was kind of the lesson you learned through it?
Aaron Hall 03:31
Do you ever remember that game Careers? It's a board game. Growing up, we would play it, and it was kind of a simple game. I grew up with eight kids here in Minneapolis, and we would sit around the carpet and we'd play careers. And one part of that game was, you get you have a score ahead of time, which is 60 points, and you can decide are you going to go for love, fame, money, or a combination of those. And often we would say, hey, we're going to try to get equal amounts of each. The lesson and the mistake I made was not thinking about what my scorecard was in life. Instead, I kind of played it like careers, but at the game. And instead of thinking about it, just randomly picked, "Hey, I want some love, I want some fame, and I want some money. Well, as I went through life, I built a law firm kind of by accident. I hired a friend of mine who was a really smart lawyer, and she was looking for work. So we grew. Then we needed an assistant. Then we said, "Hey, let's add another lawyer, and we just kind of accidentally grew until I found myself with 45 employees in a downtown tower, hating what I was doing. I would walk in every day, and there would be a line of people bringing me their problems. And I made a lot of mistakes along the way. One of the mistakes was not having solid systems and leaders in place who would. All these problems coming up to me, but regardless, I realized that I had been reckless in identifying what scorecard matters. Am I going to chase love? Am I going to chase fame or money? And at a time when, on the outside, it looked like things were going great, I was hating everything I was doing. I was being taken away from my four daughters and my wife because I'm spending so many hours at work. I was under enormous stress every time on the on the way into work. I dreaded what I'd have to do that day, and I reflected on that and realized, oh, I never really thought about what is the scorecard I'm going after. I just kind of said I want it all, and that's reckless. Life is full of trade-offs, and so I took some time, probably six months to a year, to really reflect. And as a Christian, I realized I really made a mistake. Jesus talks about lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where moth and rust don't corrupt and thieves don't break in and steal, because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I made a big mistake where I was just trying to acquire treasure that didn't matter, and what I found is that very quickly money can go away, fame they'll turn on you. Ask any big star. Likewise, with love, divorce is common. In other words, there are all these things in life that we think matter when we're young, and they're frivolous and they they flee away. And so it was a my mistake was not saying what do I really want as my scorecard, what is the goal that I want. So I spent some time rethinking about that, and I realized
Mark D. Williams 06:55
what what age were you that you had this sort of epiphany that you were going the scorecard was maybe adding up to a number that you because a lot of times we take our decisions without conscious thought. You know, it's you know we're going somewhere that it's like nobody plants weeds in the garden; they just grow. And so, when did the self awareness kind of come to you?
Aaron Hall 07:15
I was about 40, and so that was approximate, little over 10 years ago. Yeah, and what then happened is I started making plans to unwind the firm, and people went off different directions, and finally I was able to move back home, back to my home office where I had started doing what I loved again: spending time with my family, caring for clients, and not dealing with all the the infighting that we had found in a large firm that was grown too quickly without good processes in place. So that was one of those failures, and at the time, it was very painful to go through all of this. But as you mentioned early on, we learn from our mistakes, and the the tip I have for others is to decide now what is it that really matters to you. And admittedly, sometimes we don't know. Sometimes we think one thing matters and then it doesn't. I have some clients who are very famous, and then when they got that fame, they realized with it comes stalkers, fake friends, people who just keep pitching you for opportunities, and and discomfort in relationships around them that for years had been very comfortable. People start acting weird about someone when they're very famous and popular, and there are a lot of demands for their attention, and so I have another client, really smart. He has decided I'm going to avoid fame. He runs a very successful company, but you can barely find him on the internet because he learned early on that what looks glamorous and it looks amazing in the movies. It looks like wow, that person has arrived, and yet we realize once once you achieve those pinnacles that, oh, it's empty. In fact, the comedian or the the actor Jim Carrey, I love him. You know, from Dumb and Dumber and all the the different movies he's done. I remember one of his great speeches. He got up and he said, "You know what? As I receive this award, I wish all of you could experience what I am. And you can look this up on YouTube. It's one. It's a great speech. He says, "I wish you could you could experience the success and the money and the adoration that I get here, because then you would know how fleeting it is, how meaningless it is, how still I feel sad. I feel depressed. I feel anxious. Even though I thought I arrived, it didn't deliver all those things that I thought really mattered. And so, as a person following Christ, I look back to the things that really do matter are available to all. Of us, or we can get distracted by all these things that are glamorized in the movies.
Mark D. Williams 10:12
This episode of the Curious Builder is brought to you by Olivin Vine Socials. If you're a builder, a designer, or an architect looking to grow your brand without dancing on TikTok or spending your whole life on social media. Listen up, Olivinvine Socials specializes in Pinterest marketing, blogging, and email strategy for luxury home brands. They help you turn your beautiful work into a strategic SEO-driven content that drives real traffic and connects you with your ideal clients without burning you out. Ready to grow smarter and not harder. Visit oliveandvinesocials.com and tell them the Cures Builder set to you. Just so you know, I've been working with Alyssa over at Olivinvine for three years. She helped us launch the podcast. She's helped us grow our brand at Mark Williams Custom Homes. I could not do what I've done without her help. This episode is brought to you by Pella Windows and Doors. I've used Pella for 21 years as the exclusive window company on every one of my builds. When people ask me who I trust for windows and doors, it's Pella every time. Their craftsmanship, their innovation, the top-tier service make them a no-brainer for any custom home builder or designer who demand the best. Whether you're designing something bold or building something with timeless elegance, Pella has you covered. They're also the only window company that has a lifetime warranty on all of their windows. I've gotten to know all their people at Pella Corporate as well as locally here at Pella Northland. I'm proud to call them our partners and our friends. Visit Pella.com to learn more and connect with your local reps today. Also, for more information, you can listen to episode one where I interview their founders, as well as episode 109, where we talk about the innovation at Pella. Your story reminds me. I had Paul Kramer was his name. He's, I think, he lives in ian. He's an author, and he wrote a book called Peanut Butter Toast. I haven't read it yet. It's next door. I'll give you a copy. I think I got three copies. But he went through burnout, so your epiphany came about halfway through your career, 10 years in, and he said, "I confuse proximity with presence. He was speaking about his family. You have four daughters, and you know it's it's. I've shown up to any entrepreneur can relate to this. You show up to the dinner table. I've got three young kids. You know, you you come in flying by the seat of your pants, and you know I do. I like to think I do a pretty good job of of what time we have dinner and all those things. Boundaries are really important to me, but inevitably there's a lot on your mind. You sit down, you're eating dinner. The kids are doing the rosebud thorn, and you've got the dad. You've got the 1000 yard stare, and your wife is saying, "Excuse me, hello. We're having dinner. Would you like to join us? And you're like, "You're so lost. And
Aaron Hall 12:39
and sometimes you justify it. I'm a visionary. I'm thinking ahead. I'm a forward thinker, and yet those are all excuses for not being present, and they can tell.
Mark D. Williams 12:49
Yeah, and I think everyone has different. I know one person that everyone has different capabilities and things that bring them peace. Some people can handle more capacity. Whatever. Everyone has to find it on their own, but I know some people that they'll drive home and they sit in their garage for 10 minutes before they. It's like a mental checkdown list before they go into the home, or you know, wouldn't even be the worst thing to come home 10 minutes early so you can walk around the block. Or there's a number of different things you can do, but I think the first thing is you have to realize what you're doing. That
Speaker 1 13:20
is so good. It's a battle of the mind. I love the book Atomic Habits, which talks about being mindful in setting up these processes, so you can be present, so you can achieve your goals, so you can determine what's important in life, and keep that balance.
Mark D. Williams 13:36
Did you find so now as you? How often? I mean, a lot of what you're talking about as an offshore, as a person, self-discovery. What, how often do you have these kind of conversations with your clients? Because I think it's almost like more of like a, you know, it's mr. Miyagi, it's the beard flip, it's the it's more, you know, it's more philosophical. It's like, well, hey, Aaron, I called you for some legal advice. You're like, actually, I'm giving you life advice. That's way, and because here's what I'm not even charging you my hourly rate. This is free.
Speaker 1 14:07
It's a tough one, so I struggle with that because I worry that, just like you said, they may think that's not why I hired you, and also they're not looking at me as an expert in life values, it is in the law, and so when I get out of my area, that's my wheelhouse. They may, I'm worried that they may discount what I'm saying, and so I think I, to be honest, I'm pretty hesitant about it, and yet there are times that you can tell when someone's going through one of the worst legal situations in their lives. That we need to care for them as human to human, and step away from some of the legal, legal and technical topics, and just say, "Hey, how are you doing? How are you sleeping at night? How are you navigating the?" Stress here, because my clients are going through sometimes the worst situation of their lives. They may talk to a spouse, they might not. They may have others in a community they can talk to, they might not, and they might be dealing with a lot of people look to substance abuse. They look to errors that they think will just give them temporary reprieve, and later that turns out to be a big mistake. So it really calls on the character of a person when they go through a tragedy. And you're absolutely right. Sometimes we need to step away from our technical expert role and just say, "How can I help you as a person? How are you doing?
Mark D. Williams 15:38
That's so funny you say that. I um I can do this with my sister, and I'm self aware enough to know this. I for some reason can't seem to do it with my wife, even though I know this. And where I'm going with this is just this weekend I was up in the Bondarage with eight buddies, a couple cousins and family, and one of their spouses. When her kids come to her, and this is something I need to do as a as a husband and as just a person, but like, do you want me to listen or do you want me to solve your problem? And I know I've done this with my sister, and 99% of the time she just wants me to listen. And this is what I was saying. I should, I wish I could remember to do this to my wife, but some that's a black hole of. We'll avoid that one for now. The point being is, like, I've never thought to do that with my kids before, and oddly enough, Ben, my cousin, he said his wife probably 80% of the time, the kids just want their parent to listen too. So it actually starts younger, and so obviously you get paid for your. I mean, I guess it could be that would be quite a lawyer and therapist. Like you know, in some ways they kind of go hand in hand. But like, there's a lot of counseling that goes through with it. I mean, I've been in a few legal situations, and I certainly appreciate the technical skill that the lawyer has that I work with. But like, I appreciate honestly more the humanity, the humor that is honestly more stabilizing than I think the other is just the ante to the table. You're not even going to be there if you know how to do that. And so that it's like any of our businesses, hospitality, it's how do you make someone feel in the journey? I think I'd like to spend more time talking about that. If regardless of what you do for a career,
Speaker 1 17:08
yeah, that you know, you raise a great insight. My wife came to me; she's very wise, and she said one time when I was sharing something, she said, "Do you want me to have my problem solver hat on or my empathy hat? And I thought about it for a second. I thought, I think I want some empathy. Like I can probably solve this later. Right now, I just I want to know that I'm not alone in this, and want to talk through an orally process. So I love that idea of being aware enough in our relationships to ask people if they want that, and also humble enough to realize, hey, we as humans, we need both. That's an important part of that human experience.
Mark D. Williams 17:46
One thing I've never thought to ask. So I've been in two legal lawsuits. They settled in settlements, I guess. And another builder one time told me this was like three, four years ago. He said, "Well, you're way overdue. Because I said, "Man, for 20 years, he's like, "Oh man, you're way overdue. Anyway, the point was, and I had to go through it, was, and there was nothing to run from, so there was nothing negligent, nothing bad, or anything like that. But it's it took like three years, yeah. And what I don't think people talk enough about is the toxicity of that. Whether you're right or wrong, yeah. I know when you have your reputation, or you did right. You want to be proven right, great. But what you're not considering is you might be three years of just thinking about it, invading your thoughts, affecting your sleep. Speak a little bit of that. A both as you know, as a lawyer, this is your profession. I've always been curious: are lawyers less affected because it's your job, and have you ever been sued, and therefore you can relate to it? Like, is that a unique? Have you? I assume other people have mentioned this before, but like, give us some context about that.
Speaker 1 18:51
Lawyers are less affected because it's not happening to them.
Mark D. Williams 18:55
Yeah,
Speaker 1 18:55
but there is an old saying: if you represent yourself as a lawyer, you have a fool for a client, meaning never should you represent yourself. It's like a doctor doing surgery on themselves. You can't do it because you're dealing with the pain at the same time, and so by being one step removed, it helps a person think more clearly. So lawyers are able to think a lot more clear than the client, not to mention all the legal background that's there, and you are absolutely right that a lawsuit is one of the most distracting aspects of a business. Because imagine now, you feel an extraordinary sense of injustice. It's constantly invading your thoughts, and it's not empowering and exciting. It's toxic thoughts, and so instead of having creativity about how can I grow my business, how can I do this, how can I do that, it's I can't believe they're doing that to me today, and I got to write another check to deal with this thing they did. Let's get them back, and it's all this negativity. It is a horrible. Distraction, but I have found that as much as you'd like to share that with builders ahead of time, usually it takes getting burned in a lawsuit before they realize, okay, it is worth spending the money to prevent this from ever happening again. It's almost like we all have to have that experience now. Hopefully, they listen to a podcast like this and they learn from the mistakes. There
Mark D. Williams 20:21
are some things that you have to experience to some level. You know, part of it, I think, the hardest part. I don't know. I'd be curious to see your take on this. Is I think that there are people, not a lot of them, that they use your humanity and your good nature against you because it's you're not. I'll just speak for myself because I know how to make it a third person without it sounding weird. I'm a positive person. I would prefer to have a good reputation. If a client continues to sort of weaponize that against yourself, we don't. People that think like I do don't have a lot of weapons against that, because it's not that we're afraid for ourselves. It's more like we want to just we want we we are just wired to do the right thing, and it's hard when someone wants to do the right thing and you have a bad actor in the party, and that is where you do need advice, people on your team, lawyers, or whoever to kind of give you sound counsel because left to your own devices, the problem is we don't usually call as we said earlier in the podcast, we don't usually call till things have gotten pretty far down the road. We've already been dealing with this for a year or two. I mean, I think the ability for entrepreneurs to suffer is pretty high, and I think it, and that's okay because I think it's like a marathon runner. You have to be willing to suffer a little bit to make it past mile 2021, and then you get within the end and you get there. Not every mile is going to be super enjoyable. That's true of entrepreneurship. It's true of life. It's true of most things. What would be your response to that about people using sort of your good nature against you?
Speaker 1 21:48
You're absolutely correct. In fact, Professor Adam Grant wrote a book that addresses that. Really, I think the book is titled "Give and Take, and he talks about how in the world there are givers, and givers get ahead, but they also attract takers. And so you'll find many builders are thinking about how can I build and give value to people because that's how we earn money. You give and give and give, and eventually there's a return on that. And so builders often have a propensity to give of themselves, give of optimism and hope and vision and jobs to people, but as givers, you attract those takers, those psychopaths, they the leeches, and so you become a target. And so Adam Grant's book, which I think is titled "Give and Take, talks about how do you protect yourself and be on the lookout for that. And it's hard because you don't want to be distracted. His conclusion is, it is better to give generously, even though occasionally the leeches will come and attack you, because in the end, you still win, and you've had a better life.
Mark D. Williams 23:03
You know that that's funny. Reminds me a minister that I knew years ago as a young man, maybe 910, years old. I'll never forget what he said. Someone accused him of being too lenient or too kind or too merciful in a situation, and he said, "At the end of the day, when I'm before God, he goes. I'd rather be known for too much mercy than not enough mercy. It just reminded me of that comment you just made. That yes, someone might take advantage of you, but at the end of the day, your your generosity towards others, if someone takes advantage of that a little bit, it's not the worst thing in the world.
Speaker 1 23:40
It's a better way to live, and and love is the number one quality that we need here as humans. It makes the world so much better. We're quick to judge. We're quick to criticize. That's easy, that's human. But to forgive and to love, that's what's divine. That is higher thinking. So I think takeaways from today. I've loved this conversation. It is identify what is your scorecard, what really matters to you, and don't just pick what the movies or the world presents, but really think about it. Go to people you admire, who you trust. Look to your faith and say, try to find that truth. What really matters, and and then live boldly, love boldly, but still meet with your advisors. Still watch out for yourself. Take care of yourself because there's a plenty of analogies about how the wool, the world is full of wolves, and they'll come after you, and so you still have to regularly armor yourself, despite generously living and living in love.
Mark D. Williams 24:49
Yeah, I think that's well said. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Hope you enjoyed this episode of Losers Are Winners, and stay tuned. Mondays are full hour episodes with founders around the country, or in this case, the world. We just interviewed a couple from Belgium this morning, and Thursdays are 20-minute segments: losers or winners. If you want to reach out to Aaron, we'll have everything in the show notes. Thanks again for tuning the Cures Builder podcast. Thanks for tuning in to Cures Builder podcast. If you like this episode, do us a favor: share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends, like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in.
This episode is sponsored by:
