[co-author: Roy Sexton]*

Taryn:

Hey podcast listeners. I’m Taryn Elliott, Director of Client Success + Marketing at LISI and I will be your host for this episode of LISI’s All the Things podcast. I’m joined on this month’s episode of One More Thing by Roy Sexton, Director of Marketing at Clark Hill Law, and an old friend from my early days with the Legal Marketing Association. Roy and I got together to talk about what he hopes to accomplish next year during his term as the 2023 L.M.A. International President. Knowing Roy for as long as I have, I knew this conversation was going to be fun and I was not disappointed, but we touch on some important topics as well, including volunteering, self-care, acknowledging our differences, and how to amplify yourself along with the work you do. Here is One More Thing, this week’s episode of LISI’s “All the Things” podcast. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Taryn:

Welcome to One More Thing, glad to finally have you on.

Roy:

I’m excited to be here. Thank you.

Taryn:

For those of you who don’t know, Roy and I know each other from way back when.

Roy:

We were in preschool together.

Taryn:

Yes, L.M.A. preschool together. To be honest, I can’t even remember exactly when we met. I’m sure your larger-than-lifeness of Roy probably hit me before I actually met you.

Roy:

That’s very graciously put. Thank you for that. I wanna quote you.

Taryn:

That was a compliment.

Roy:

I appreciate it. I’m taking it as such.

Taryn:

Yes. And we spent probably at least four or five years serving on the L.M.A. Midwest Board.

Roy:

And you were president. You did a wonderful job.

Taryn:

Thank you. Yes, President, during part of that time.

Roy:

Didn’t we have a cooking class together during all of it? We made pasta and I didn’t know what I was doing.

Taryn:

Yes, we did. We had a board meeting and then they decided that team building would be fun, and we went in, and made pasta from scratch together.

Roy:

Of all the activities to pick out of a lineup. I don’t know that I’d picked making pasta, but you know that ended up being fun and I learned pasta is just like eggs, flour and I don’t remember what – my pasta was inedible. I kept losing interest and I think there was a lot of liquor being provided so that may have affected it. I’m not a craft, I’m not an arts and crafts person. I’m not a cooking person. It surprises people I’m sure. I lose interest very fast. But I was trying. I tried but it was fun. Yes.

Taryn:

It was. I remember it being fun. I remember there being a lot of laughs. I remember there being wine as well.

Roy:

Yeah. Thank goodness for the wine.

Taryn:

And I do feel like there were probably a few people who might have looked over and been like, if we’re going to eat, we all have to participate in this.

Roy:

You probably said that to me. Roy, if you want to eat you better make some of this pasta. I was like, oh hell.

Taryn:

Yes. I had that recipe in my recipe book for a really long time and then I thought, nope, I’m pretty sure I was a one-and-done make-your-own pasta kind of person.

Roy:

That could be the name of your memoir. “I was a one-and-done make-your-own pasta person by Taryn Elliott.”

Taryn:

I have been waiting on a title for my memoir. I think that’s it. You heard it here first, folks. Well speaking of our time in L.M.A., I was just a mere regional president, but Roy has moved up and has taken his experience from the region and you laugh but I’m blown away because I don’t know that I have it in me to do that. I love that you’ve served as L.M.A. treasurer and everything that goes along with that. And I was a regional treasurer so I have at least. I enjoy that kind of thing.

Roy:

Yeah, I think it’s punishment. They keep making me take these treasurer roles. I was regional treasurer, elect-treasurer, and then International Treasurer. I’m like why? I was an English and theater major – who is thinking this is a good idea.

Taryn:

Well, at least they have some outside help. You don’t actually have to keep books yourself.

Roy:

You do have great support and I would say, dirty secret, the treasurer job is actually one of the easiest jobs because there is an infrastructure and it does free you up to look at things objectively and say, is this what we should or shouldn’t be spending our money on and are we getting the outcomes we want? So treasurer, actually, I’ve really enjoyed that role. I dreaded both times I had it. I thought this is a terrible error but I learned so much about, you learn a lot about the organization as well. You can’t help but learn the ins and outs of L.M.A. and how robust everything is until you start seeing the revenue flowing in from events. Well, what was that event? Why did we do that? How engaged are our members in this? You can tell that by how many people attended. So there’s a lot you learn about the organization by taking one of those roles on. And I would say to anybody who’s interested in volunteering, whether it’s at L.M.A. or somewhere else, don’t be scared of the treasurer role cause it’s a very instructive one. So I’m glad. I forgot we had that in common. No wonder we’re just so amazing. We’ve both been treasurers.

Taryn:

Yes, well and I agree with you on that point. I think as treasurer, because you’re in charge, you’re the steward of one of the biggest assets of the organization or your region and that’s the finances and there’s a lot of ins and outs in it and if you are, now that we’re in region, it’s like you have to deal with everyone in all of the different cities and you know need to ask questions and there’s not too much that happens that isn’t somehow financially impacted.

Roy:

No. And everyone has an opinion about it and I think again, we’re kinda going down to a deep well of treasurer roles but I think for me in the path I’ve been on at ultimately and I’m really grateful for the community and what it’s provided. Friendships like this one and I do, before, I don’t say this cuz I want to get this across, you were a fabulous regional president, did a wonderful job. You did think about things like how can I get this board together to build a team to do better work and provide service. And you are always leading with those questions. How can we give back? Are we adding value to our members? I mean you were one of the first people that I heard say that over and over and so I keep that in mind and it is, you have influenced whatever famous last words you’ve influenced anything I have ahead and I appreciate that that influence you’ve had.

But on the treasurer side it’s been interesting to be a regional treasurer and then also be at the international level because you start to really see patterns. You, you’ve worked at the regional level, the challenges that that’s a far more operational role cuz you are approving expenses and things for our city groups. But you then step into the international role and you start to see all the regions and for all the cohesion we have and we have a lot of cohesion, there’s a lot of variance as well in those regions. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but how can we start to lift up everyone and make those volunteer jobs easier for people? And we’re putting some processes in place under Brenda Plowman’s leadership this year that I’m really excited about that I think are going to make that regional lift that much easier. For those listening, that may or may not know, we are a 3,500 member organization.

We’ve got ambitions to grow that even more. Eight regions and Europe just started last year, we’re in continuing this growth mode. But as you grow and you lift up your volunteers, you want them to focus on things that bring them joy, bring them value, help them in their careers. That’s important to me, that if you’re gonna give your time to L.M.A., you get those skills you can bring back to the office that benefit you. So freeing people up from, and we see it with those of us who support lawyers, they wanna go deep dive, how are the napkins folded? What crudite did we order, what not? Nobody cares. They want, did they have a good experience? Did they get education? Did the people attending the event feel engaged? And are you furthering the community? So if we can free our volunteers up to focus on those things and true education for our members and stop worrying about oh my gosh that invoice was paid two days late and while we’re always gonna have a little bit of that but get out of the weeds of things and provide infrastructure to allow our volunteers to really fly.

That’s passion. That’s a passion point for me.

Taryn:

Well and I think everyone approaches their leadership roles with L.M.A. or their volunteer roles and leadership roles differently, but lowering the barriers of entry, yes, is helpful. And by that I mean there are probably people who think I would love to volunteer but that seems like it takes a lot of time. Correct. And I know I was very strategic when I chose to take on the board roles I chose to take on based on what I had going on in my life. Like I said, one, I was like this isn’t a me decision, I had two small children so it was a family decision but two, I said I’m gonna do this now when my kids are little and they’re at home because by the time I’m done they’re gonna be in school and there’s gonna be other requests for my volunteer time. That would make doing both hard.

Roy:

And that’s what I love about your approach. I’ve always been struck by this. You have a real intentionality around what you do and don’t do and that whatever you’re volunteering is, I mean we probably lost the viewers or listeners after the first three minutes cuz we geeked out on L.M.A. stuff. But that is an association that brought us together and has created these really important bonds professionally and personally. And you do learn from one another. I learned from the way you approach things, that thoughtfulness you always had because prior to the pandemic I said yes to everything. This experience pandemic has been horrible but it’s helped me actually be more selective about the things I do and don’t do. And if you’re thinking of volunteering, whether it’s at the Legal Marketing Association or your parent-teacher association or your church or your softball team, whatever it is, approach it, and this is one of the things we have a leaders’ conference we’re preparing later this year for folks who volunteered and are in leadership roles and one of the first things I get to do is incoming president is kind of set the stage for that.

And I’ve said to many people, and what I hope for anyway is if you’re volunteering we suddenly it’s, it’s like you’re never allowed to talk about your paycheck with your boss. But the only reason I’m at work is so I could get a paycheck. Why am I not talking about this with you? And as a leader and a volunteer leader, we suddenly get ashamed to say, I’m doing this somewhat for my ego, I’m doing this for my career, I’m doing this because I want people to know who I am and I’ve left something behind. But we’re like, oh we can’t say those things. It doesn’t sound altruistic. We’re volunteering. Well, you can do both. Both things can be true. You want to give back. I do want to give back to Legal Marketing Association because it truly, over the decade I’ve been part of it, has helped so many people like you and Nancy Myrland, Heather Morse, Gina Rubel and Laura Toledo and Gail Lamarche, Lindsey Griffiths, I could say a million names, they’ve all been there for me at different points in my career to give me advice, to help me along, to help me up a path that’s the informal culture of L.M.A., but the true culture of L.M.A. and why people like us keep coming back to it.

So I’ve gotten a lot out of it. I wanted to be on the regional board because I knew that would get me credibility back in my home office. I wanted to go for international board because I knew that would make people at Clark Hill sit up and take notice and go, Wow, he’s a leader in his industry. It’s okay to say that out loud. And so I wanna arm our volunteer leaders to know it’s okay to be a little selfish while you’re giving back at the same time, selfish isn’t the right word of course, but think about yourself and where you can put time and where you don’t put time in. So as I’ve been tapping people on the shoulder saying, Do you wanna lead this, do you wanna lead that? And it’s been such a lot of fun. I’ve said, and I said this to you in the green room, your family is first always put as much of your time there second or maybe parallel as you and your health and your wellness take care of you.

Exercise, which I don’t do. Get out. Your work is right there next, you know, gotta collect a paycheck. It is your priority. Remember that if something conflicts with L.M.A., I’m not gonna get mad at you. You got to keep your day job healthy and then your volunteering is somewhere far behind that. And I think we get excited to be together in the Legal Marketing Association. We get excited to be together and then we tend to bring forward the nitpickiness that we ourselves face maybe in our day jobs. And we turn on each other and we, we can make it something that’s not fun. It should be fun. And the minute you’re volunteering activity starts to eclipse the other parts of your life or make you feel too stressed or make you feel miserable, stop doing it or change the interaction with the person who is bringing that energy your way because none of us, again, church group, P.T.A., L.M.A., whatever it is, don’t do it unless it’s refilling your well, helping you with your career. And when you’re helping yourself, you have the energy to help other people. We’ve always had this equation all wrong. It’s like giving till it hurts is a terrible expression because you need to be in a place of abundance so you can help other people out. Terry Isner will say, he uses a phrase, put your, I would say gas mask is not right. Put your oxygen mask on first. Yes. Got that a little mixed up.

Taryn:

A gas mask too if you’re in that situation.

Roy:

Depending on what kind of day you’ve had. And then put the oxygen mask on for the person beside you. And that’s true. And so you know can tell one of we’ve, we’ve landed on this word amplify for our annual conference next year. I’ve gotten the privilege with Jennifer Manton and Deb Scaringi who’ve invited me with Michelle Murray to facilitate Northeast Bootcamp on Halloween, October 31st. And your colleague Robyn Addis is on the committee, is on the panel. And I put some notes in here because I didn’t wanna leave anybody out and now of course I can’t find them. Oh, here we are. I can tell you the other names, here, are on the bootcamp of the panel. I’m so prepared. Can you tell Robyn, Audrey Callahan, Michael Coston, and Melissa Ertek. So we’ve got a nice range of people that are in-house and service providers and it’s kind of almost a precursor to what we’re gonna do next year at the international level.

It is really talking about how do you lift yourself up, how do you own your own brand while helping attorneys promote themselves. And again, so much of what I’ve learned from marketing, I’ve learned from promoting community theater and doing local stuff and working in a healthcare system. And you talked about that your son is doing musical theater and you can’t help but bring your marketing chops. I mean yes those are great learning labs to pull things in. So again, I’m making a muddle of my message, but at leaders conference, at this boot camp next year, at annual conference in Florida, it’s very important to me that our volunteers and our members all feel like they’re getting material that will help further their careers. Why else? Being a professional association. So if you don’t know how to do a press release for yourself when you take on a volunteer role, we’ll teach you.

If you don’t know how to use social media to let people know and amplify the good work of the organization you’re volunteering as a part of, we’ll help you. If you really wanna know as a member of the association, how to celebrate your own work within the firm, we’ll help you. We need to arm our own folks to be their own advocates because that’s how we’ll continue to legitimize this profession. I think it’s important. And so I do feel very passionately about that and it’s probably where much of my energy will go. So any of you listening out there who wanna bring complaints about other issues, I don’t care. I know I care, of course, I care. I’m, I’m trying to launch the Impeach Roy campaign by around March if I can. But I really, my energy, I wanna bring it back to over and over – Are we adding value? And by value I’m part of a professional association because I want to get a raise, I want a new title, I want a new opportunity, I want new experience. That’s what we should putting all of our energy into in the Legal Marketing Association. In my mind. So sorry, that was my stump speech. Are we outta title?

Taryn:

I don’t think we explicitly said, and were getting there, we got sidetracked, not shockingly, and then we like skipped it. Roy is the L.M.A. president-elect. So in a few short months, Roy will be the LMA International president for 2023. And I love what you talked about in there. The first thing that I love is that it’s a very much a top-down message we talk about in our organizations all the time. If you’re gonna say you’re, for instance, a family-friendly organization, then you can’t just provide it lip service. The C.E.O. or the president or the managing partner or whatever also needs to be the person who takes two weeks of paternity leave or set the example, all of their vacation – six weeks vacation time because that’s what they have or whatever it is. They’re the ones who are going to the events and interacting with all the people. Like it has to start at the top. And I love that you are bringing that to L.M.A. in both of the two things I heard you talk about. One is that this is a volunteer position and this is a volunteer organization and we understand that you have other priorities in your life. Yes. Because I think I’ve seen from my experience that sometimes other parts of people’s lives suffer because they’re so wrapped up in what they’re doing when they’re volunteering

Roy:

And it doesn’t, I’m gonna say something, my mom passed last year and she would say this over and over rather cynically, but I don’t think she’s wrong. And I hope I phrase this in a way that doesn’t offend anyone listening. Don’t put so much of yourself out there thinking you’re going to get some return on it from humanity because you won’t. They’re just gonna be busy with their own lives. She would say it in a way that, really, she was upset. I think toward the latter years of her life – she’d written all these columns for free and written these books that didn’t really make any money and done all this stuff that, in her lifetime, she felt no one was there for her. No one had seen her, no one acknowledged her. In her death, what was both wonderful and sad, all of these people came out of the woodwork to me.

People I didn’t know, people around the world. “Your mom was so helpful to me at two in the morning I chatted with her on Facebook. I was having trouble with my animal, my husband, my this, my that.” And my mom had left a really profound legacy. But she didn’t feel it in the moment because she never turned this spigot off. She just kept going and going and giving and giving hoping for some material reward or some acknowledgment. And I’m trying to avoid that same path. And I think sometimes it makes me a little sharper when people come to me with something. I had a couple of people at the Spring Annual Conference give me advice on how I should dress and how I should be and you need to be more presidential. And I shot back and I’ve used it on stage almost in a roast fashion, a couple of people and I think they’re mad at me still about it.

But knock that off. Nobody needs to hear, I don’t like your shoes or I think your hair should be this, or – knock it off. All that does is make that person feel self-conscious and unwanted. And if you feel like you’re not getting perfect service from some aspect of the organization, think about before you send that angry email escalating things up the chain, what’s actually going on there? Were you communicating well with one another? And I do hope I still have some friends at the end of next year, but I’ve seen enough volunteering in my life and not just at L.M.A. I’ve been on community theater boards, I’ve been part of the Ronald McDonald House, I’ve had been part of Mosaic Youth Theater and I’m proud to be part of all those things. But there is a tendency for volunteers to eat themselves alive and start really slinging barbs and arrows at each other and sending emails and saying things you can’t ever take back.

And unfortunately, I tend to meet that energy with a sharpness – that I need to learn, that’s my challenge. We take these things on to challenge ourselves to be that next level. I wanna be a chief marketing officer someday or I wanna be a consultant. I’ve got some rough edges that I need to work on and I know I’m not perfect – by far. My husband will tell you, oh no he ain’t. And next year I’m gonna screw up more than I get right. Show me some grace. Just cuz someone steps into the role of international president doesn’t mean they know all the things and they’re in command of all the things and they have it all down pat. I certainly don’t. And I don’t expect that of anybody else. Listen, learn, have a moment, breathe. And I think that’s the lesson in life we need to carry because I don’t want to end my life like my mom who had all these accomplishments and had done so many wonderful things but didn’t feel like any of it mattered. We can’t do that to ourselves.

So, I don’t know, I’m probably to hippy-dippy, existential for this industry, but slow down, take a pause and focus on what matters, which is the relationships we are building. Maya Angelou has done this. Whenever I’m feeling passive-aggressive, I post things on Facebook that people are like, What do you mean by that? And there was a quote from Maya Angelou I stumbled across and it was, I’m gonna bo, I’m gonna biff it. I’m like George W. Bush or Yogi Barra. People won’t remember what you did though, but they will remember how you made them feel. And that is a damn truth. If you lose your mind or act a fool in front of people, they’re years later, they’re not gonna remember what the thing was. They’re just gonna remember you acted like an ass.

And I think that’s important in work and in life and in volunteering wherever you are. And I’m saying this, I’m gonna play this recording to myself later when I’m torqued up about something. But you’ve got to pause because people are gonna remember how you behaved and if you got on a high horse, they’re not gonna wanna work with you. I mean that’s the other part of this. You have ways people wanna work with you.

Taryn:

Cause there’s a positive to that too. And I think, I love you and I love everything you said, but I think one of the things you missed in that is that people will tell you you’re doing it wrong and really you’re just doing it differently.

Roy:

Yes. Beautiful. Yep, I agree.

Taryn:

I think that goes along with, kind of, your message of amplifying yourself as well. I took a couple of years out of legal and I learned a lot. And one of the things that I learned is that we all approach things differently and we all bring a different set of skills to the table and we need everyone at the table in order to most effectively meet our members.

Roy:

I love what you said and I often say don’t coach people for style. Coach’em for outcomes. And that leans into wellbeing and D.E.I. and all those pieces. Having that cohesion and a space where everybody feels like they can contribute their portion, you come to a better solution. But if anybody feels marginalized or alienated, and it could be in very subtle ways. I had a conversation at our board retreat with one of our attorneys. We were all wearing these green shirts as a staff team. I hated them by the way. But I wore my shirt and this attorney came up and started teasing us and making fun of us for the shirts. I’d also gotten a very, very large shirt cause I feel very fat coming out of pandemic and I’m about that. And he was making fun of the size of my shirt and I looked at him and I’m like, how I have a job. I don’t know. I said, you need to stop doing that. You’re triggering me right now. When you tease someone about their clothing, you don’t know how they feel about their physical body. You don’t know how they feel socioeconomically. You don’t know how they got where they got or why they’re wearing what they’re wearing. But if they put it on put on for a reason and to make fun of them for it, you’re stepping in a whole host of issues. And the outcome of that is they shut down, they pull away, they don’t want to contribute. And that’s the worst crime of all.

When we make people feel like their voice isn’t important because we’re poking at one thing. And this makes it sound like I think it should be anarchy for all. There should be standards. We need to follow a path, we need to be professional, we need to do good work. But find that moment. And I loved what you said when you’re reacting to something you think is an error, is it an error or is it just different than the way you would’ve done it? And find your voice for how you approach that person. And often it’s simply, I love your energy, I love where you’re going with this. This is something that worked for me in the past. It may work for you.

Think like an educator, think like a coach because those are the skills that will stick with people then they will leave that opportunity, that volunteer opportunity, or whatever it might be, and they now have a new skill that they’re gonna carry into other parts of their life cuz someone helped them maybe learn something new but didn’t shame them into learning that thing.

Taryn:

And I think it’s also important to realize, you are I are at a place in our careers and in our lives when we can say that for two reasons. One, because we’ve been doing the work of getting to know who we are and what we stand for, and how we interact with the world around us. I mean how you personally go forward, but also what I said earlier, doing the work to, it takes a while to understand that we’re all different and we all react differently and we all think differently. And sometimes things that we say or do are just a product of that and we need to take a step back. But also we’ve built up some of the capital or maybe just some of the life experience. Well life experience to be able to say that’s not right. I’m not just advocating for myself, I’m advocating for all the other people who can’t or won’t. Yes, yes. And because you can’t have a marketing coordinator who’s 24 who’s gonna say that to a senior partner, it probably won’t go well. Whereas you are in a position or I would be in a position to be like, You know what, I’m gonna say this and if this creates a huge problem or a huge rift, that was just a sign for me that this isn’t the right fit.

Roy:

And I can probably weather that storm better than either. Either because I have the political capital or it won’t eat me alive the way it might someone who’s early in their career. And I think one of the things I learned early on from exec, I’ve done a lot of executive coaching, I’ve worked through a lot of leadership programs. It’s all benefited me because as an actor I like notes in the rehearsal process. You sit down with a director after every run through and they give you notes. Some actors fight the notes cuz they want a perfect, perfect performance. Even rehearsal, I love the notes, you should love the notes, you should love. You’re always in a path of learning. You’re always in a path of growing. You don’t do everything perfect all the time. And that’s why I’m so ouchie, I think when other people, and one of the things we learned in the stage is actors don’t give other actors notes.

The director gives those notes cuz they’re looking at the holistic piece. So that’s why I get a little touchy when people are like, You’re doing that wrong? Well maybe I am, maybe I’m not. But let’s have a conversation. Don’t decide for me. But to your point about being that advocate for others when they haven’t yet found that voice part of this whole way, I want us to work next year and think next year because I have had people be that person for me in my career. And it means a lot that they have taken the time to see where you are and what your experience is and what your challenges are. And they are speaking on behalf because, not because they’re being your hero, but because they’ve, they know where you are and you’ve given them permission and agency like please on my behalf, that’s an important piece in this.

Cause sometimes people just jump in and they’re like, I’m helping you. And you’re like, I think you just made things worse for me. But thanks. But one of the pieces of leadership, leadership guidance I got early, early on was don’t be afraid of making yourself obsolete in your own role. Good organizations will find something else for you or you will find something, don’t feel like you’re at the pinnacle and you need to keep the rest of your team squashed down and stay in your roles and do what you want, create your replacements when you’re building a team. And that’s been important for us at Clark Hill. We launched our brand last year. We’ve built a team. We’ve been virtual since the time I got there four years ago because we’re all over the country. So it was very easy for us in pandemic just to kind of lean into that.

I feel like we did some of our best work in pandemic because we weren’t distracted by other things that I think get dreamed up in the back offices. But it’s been important to me and I’m sort of painting myself as a savior figure that’s not anything, would be farther from the truth. I’m sure the team with a couple cocktails would go, We love him, …. But. It’s been important for me to say, what are you passionate about? What are you excited to do? I inherited an org structure. It looks completely different four years later. I started with all these marketing coordinators that were trying to do all the things for five or six offices each. And these are, like you said, people in their twenties just got outta college. They didn’t pick legal marketing as a career path. But they’ve ended up there and somehow the attorneys expect them to know web development and event planning and PR and media and to do it for five different, it’s an insane model.

And so last year, because the pandemic sort of cleared the decks, I surveyed all of ’em and said, What are you passionate about? What do you love working on? And how does that line up with the needs of the organization? And we went to a functionally based model where I’ve got one person doing all the onboarding/off-boarding of all the new attorneys and cause she’s a great front of house person and she knows how to get the bios, the photos, get them feeling good about where they are. I have one person that’s doing all the D.E.I., all the social media firm-wide, one person doing all the events, doing a beautiful job. It’s probably a very tough job because people still wanna hang onto the way they used to do things. And we’re finding again, patterns region to region and learning best practices because we got one person working all that stuff all the time.

And so we did that because I want them to have that deep well of skillset and experience that when I win the lottery, Clark Hill has a lot of options to think about who should be in that director role, who can lead the next charge. And I can get things where I can get them and then I hit my point of irrelevance and someone else can take it to that next level. We have to get comfortable as leaders knowing we’re going to be put out to pasture at some point. It’s okay, you did the best work you did while you were there and I feel good about what we’ve done at Clark Hill. I think we’ve built a good team, a sustainable team, a structure that can withstand any of us coming and going. I learned that in healthcare and that’s why I love that you worked in other industries.

I think many of us in legal could benefit from going and working some other places and seeing how they do the work. One of the best things I learned in healthcare was sustainable processes that withstand people coming and going. So we built that for, built a brand for them, and the brand was built through intentional integration of every voice in the firm. We did a survey of everybody, attorneys and people who didn’t go to law school. I never say non-attorney. And we found out what do you feel is important. We, we’d come together as an organization of component parts like many firms do through acquisition. But we needed to knit all of that together. The new culture needed to reflect all the elements in the best of the old. And we did that through the pandemic and we came, we used video to tell stories like you guys do, you tell stories so well through your organization. And it was important for us not just to come up with a new logo and a look and feel and a more functional website, but that it was rich with culture stories and values. And so that’s how I’m wired. That’s what I do in my day job and I hope I can bring some of that to LMA next year.

Taryn:

Well and I think all of those things, it really comes down to one thing, whether it’s being a leader, whether it’s being a manager, whether it’s creating the culture in your firm. We’re all different people. We all approach things differently as I said. But you need to ask people what motivates them, what’s important to them, how they feel. Because you can’t make assumptions.

During my time out of legal, one of the things I would always talk about is what’s the pool in your backyard? Sometimes managers tend to think everyone on my team is working so I can put a pool in my backyard.

No one wakes up going, I’m gonna go to work today so I can work so my boss gets to go to Europe or puts a pool in or buys a Porsche. Everyone is waking up saying, I’m going to work today because I wanna take my mom back to Ireland where she’s from. Or I want to take my kids to Disney World or I want to buy a new house or buy a house cuz I’m renting. Maybe it’s like I wanna pay off student loan debts. It could be anything. And we’re all different people and especially when you go to different places in your career and people doing very different jobs, different both for what they want personally outta life and what they want professionally outta life. And if you don’t ask the questions you don’t know and it’s a lot easier to say, Hey let’s work really hard on this because I want you to advance from a coordinator to a manager. These are the milestones you need to hit. I know that you’re not doing it because maybe you’re not doing it cuz you wanna make more money. Maybe you’re doing it because it’s a step to something else.

Roy:

Well that our bootcamp with the Northeast has elements of that and kind of talking that through so people can say there are many paths ahead and not everybody wants to be a chief marketing officer. That’s okay. And you can’t impose the path you followed on other people. You can merely offer it by example and say this is what worked for me. You’re gonna have your own experiences. But the other thing we’re gonna do next year for the annual conference, EJ Stern who’s an executive coach and Bobbie Conklin who’s in house at Steptoe are co-chairing a precon. In the past, this precon has been leadership. And I got a little twitchy about that. I’m like, what does that even mean? The leadership always sounds like trust falls. And so I said we need this to be a career development workshop for people. And one might ask, Well gosh, why would I send my person to that? They might go to learn to find a new job. That’s not the point. The point is to have a day of conversation where you can think and hopefully in conjunction with your boss back home, what are your goals for yourself?

What is your pool in your backyard? I love that. Where do you wanna be either from a skill development perspective, a resource perspective, What is your end game? And then back into that and say okay, here are the kind of projects you might wanna work on to get there. Here are the kinds of experiences you might want to have. Here’s the kind of mentoring you might wanna have. And I love EJ and Bobbie are putting a great curriculum together for the day. So anybody who has that kind of mid-range person or even new person that really would benefit from a career conversation can go attend the day, come out with a plan and then attend the rest of the conference and go to those sessions that align with, okay, what I need to work on a brand project and launch a podcast and I’m gonna attend those sessions cuz they line up with what I learned in the precon.

So I was a liberal arts guy, I went to Wabash College down the road. And so I’m always about, and God loved my parents, they never said, What is your career gonna be? It’s why they have no money and I’m never gonna have any money. But it was just what is going to bring you joy? What is gonna fill your well? Lean into those experiences and map a path for yourself that works. And what I’ve admired about you and love about you is you are willing to step off the path. We talked about that in the green room. You’re willing to say, you know what? My kids are the priority right now. Or you know what? I don’t want the stress of the volunteering right now or I don’t want the stress of being in-house right now. I wanna do something else. I want to put other priorities ahead.

Cuz that’s what you’re gonna remember in your life. That’s important. And so step off the hamster wheel, everybody, every once in a while and think about where do you wanna be and where do you wanna put your energy? And you’re gonna solve it one way and a few years are gonna go by and you’re gonna have to re-solve for it. Cause if you’re like me, you tend to accumulate things and commitments and then you have to step back and go, okay, I don’t like the Marie Kondo stuff. It bugs me cuz I like stuff. I don’t wanna get rid of anything. But I get the concept which is declutter, step back, let go of the things that aren’t bringing you that joy anymore. People will forgive you. And if they don’t need to be in your life in the first place and really every couple years step back and decide is this where I wanna put my energy in, my time. Because otherwise you stay at one place too long or doing one thing too long and you end up resenting them and yourself.

Taryn:

Yeah, and I think I’ll say for me and for my experience, and I know you touched on it, I started in legal that first year. I was like, I am gonna be a C.M.O. and that’s really what I wanted. And then a bunch of things happened in my life and I was like, you know what? That’s not what I want today. And honestly, who’s to say in five years or eight years, I might not be like, you know what I do wanna see if I can still make that happen or maybe pursue that. And these are the experiences that I’ve had up until then. But for those of people who haven’t had this, especially for maybe some younger listeners who are newer to not even just legal marketing, but being a professional, any opportunity you get where you’re gonna get coaching or somebody to workshop with you, what your career development might look like or leadership training or any of those things, you know, take it if you can.

If it feels like something that would be helpful to you. Because as I said, we’re all different. So I should say maybe there are some people who are like, that’s not for me. But not only that part of it, going back to what we talked about in the very beginning for me when I started in legal marketing, I was in small firms. I’ve always been in small, maybe mid-size firms depending on the city you’re in. And there just wasn’t like the marketing department-wide leadership training or mentoring that some people have. And I chose to get involved at the level I did with L.M.A. because I saw that as an opportunity to grow in my career. And so I also recommend that for people who might be in that situation, consider that as well. And there’s this, I forget who brought it up, but it, I’ve been thinking of this the whole time we’ve been talking, there’s this theory that all altruism doesn’t actually exist.

That it’s all very, everything we do is selfish because people say, But I volunteer at the food pantry and that makes – I do that. I don’t get anything from it. Well, but you do, it makes you feel good. And I think acknowledging that, like I volunteer for L.M.A. because it was important to me to give back, but it was important to me because other people did it and that made me feel good and I wanted to make other people feel good, which made me feel good and because professionally I thought it would help. Or because of networking or because I got leadership training out of it.

Roy:

There’s so many things I, I’ve really come to say this over and over the last couple years, many things can be true at the same time. You know you can be giving and generous and kind. But we are, whatever you subscribe to, whatever your philosophy of life, we are wired to react to stimuli that make us feel good. We’re hungry, we eat. I’m not hungry anymore. I’m tired, I sleep. I’m not tired anymore. I want belonging. I volunteer. I get that back. The very nature of existence is transactional. Okay? And I do think we get wired at a certain early age that you’re not allowed to admit that and oh whoa, no, that’s not why. Well, be really, really honest with yourselves. Unless you’re Mother Teresa or Jane Goodall, chances are good you’re doing some element of this for yourself.

Know, knowing that is important, taking that inventory is important because then you put time into those things that matter to you and you will be successful in them. And just as I said earlier, put your oxygen mask on for somebody else. If you are refilling your well with an activity that provides you meaning you are living in a place of abundance and then you can help other people by setting an example, by offering advice, by putting a, whatever it might be, you’re in a comfortable place when we’re anxious and stressed and we can’t even keep our thoughts together as was much of my morning. You can’t help anybody else. I’m not in a good place. So I think where we’re netting out from all of this is we talk about legal marketing association a lot and always kinda sounds like a cult.

But there’s E.L.A., there’s C.L.O.C., there are other organizations. If you’re in the legal space there, if you’re in healthcare, I was part of the Michigan Society of Healthcare Planners and marketers, chances are good, there is some association or group of people that you can commune with. Find out what their shared experience is, learn from it and grow yourself in the process. And if you’re crazy, I shouldn’t say that. If you’re a little overcommitted like Taryn and me, you might take on leadership roles. You might take on more because you want that stretch, but you don’t even have to do that. Sometimes the best thing you could do is just attend the monthly luncheon and have a sandwich and have a small group of people that mean something to you. And I think that’s what’s important. Wherever you put your time and energy even in the workplace, make sure some element is refilling your well.

Taryn:

Yeah. And that, I know we talked briefly before this call, your personal life as well. It’s all about finding that balance and better to be really good at a couple things than overextend yourself and everything implodes.

Roy:

Amen. We should do a self-help Ted talk or something. Maybe write a book.

Taryn:

We should.

Roy:

Don’t make your own pasta title sounds better and better all the time. And actually aligns quite well with, cuz I don’t want to get a box of pasta and if I’m even gonna do that, I’d rather go to a restaurant cuz I wanna put my time into something else. But if it brings you joy to make your pasta, you make pasta all day long. But don’t make me do it. Oh my gosh. I think we’ve created a great analogy.

Taryn:

Perfect. Because I feel that – one day I was making spaghetti sauce and my brother’s like, Why are you making spaghetti sauce? You can just go buy a jar of it. I’m like, first of all, it came from an Italian woman that I met through a legal association and second of all I enjoy it and I think it tastes better. But I will come to your house and eat your jar pasta, too. I’m not judging.

Roy:

And this is a great point to end on because it does, It’s so funny. It does bring everything full circle because the people that drive us crazy are the people who go, I make my own sauce. You don’t know my circumstances. It’s sauce. Are you getting fed? Are you enjoying my company? Shut the hell up. But if you like making sauce, make sauce, my husband loves making sauce, it’s a hell of a mess. There’s tomatoes everywhere. And I’m like, I’m in the other room. That looks like nightmare to me. But he enjoys the process and it does taste great. It does taste better than jarred sauce, but not that appreciably different for me to matter. But it matters to him. Again, find out for yourself what matters to you and have the empathy and the sense of mind to understand everybody is coming at this for different reasons. And yes, it makes the conversation more complicated, but it also enriches the experience. But we’re good. We ended up somewhere by the end of this thing.

Taryn:

I feel like we just brought it all together. We talked about a ton of things and a ton of really, really important things. And I’m really thankful that we did have this opportunity as you move into your L.M.A. presidency to talk about, to really talk about not just what L.M.A. has brought us, but our careers and just the experience of life and to clearly see how you are taking that into 2023 to positively impact.

Roy:

I hope so.

Taryn:

I hope so. Yes. To hopefully positively impact, if not every L.M.A. member’s life, that I know that is the goal.

Roy:

But everyone in the universe.

Taryn:

But like we said, everybody’s different. So we don’t wanna dictate that it has to be everyone.

Roy:

We’ll be happy, I will make you happy,

Taryn:

But that there will be some positive change. And it really sounds like you are the right leader for what L.M.A. needs and probably really broadly what we all need right now.

Roy:

I might need a quarterly check-in where you go, hey, you remember what you said? You ain’t doing any of that.

Taryn:

You could come back on One More Thing once a quarter.

Roy:

And you could call me out like, no Roy, I know what you did last month. Do you think that’s what you had in mind? It doesn’t seem like it to me. I, I’m open, like I said, I like notes, I’m an actor but don’t make one of my shoes. I’m picky that way. Yeah,

Taryn:

There’s that famous quote that when you’re a leader doing what’s right and doing what’s popular aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Roy:

That’s a damn truth. So I’m getting less popular by the minute.

Taryn:

And the thing that really strikes me is I’ve heard you say things like that a couple times – and sometimes we just have to remind ourselves that it’s the people who are most unhappy that scream the loudest. And there could be other people whose lives you are profoundly impacting that you were having a greater impact on their lives positively than you are negatively impacting the people yelling at you. And they might not say anything maybe cuz they’re not in a place to or they don’t think to or they don’t have the opportunity to.

Roy:

Can I leave you with this, this self-serving anecdote, This is one of those, this is those Lord of the Rings movies. Everyone’s like, they’re ending now. Nope. No, there’s more. No, there’s more. But I do wanna leave you with this anecdote and it sounds self-serving and I don’t mean it to, but it’s exactly to the point you’re making. And I think we as leaders have to understand the quiet observers are the ones we’re having the biggest impact on. So I was at L.M.A. in Las Vegas in the spring and I’m because you’re in this president-elect role or president, I’m sure Brenda would feel the same way. You’re like Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, you run everywhere up until doors here, come here, come here, go there. And I don’t do well by that. I had a breakdown actually in Brenda’s room. At the end of it I’d be like, I can’t do this. And she’s looking at me like, oh God. But I was, it might have been Midwest reception, come to think of it, and standing there kind of chatting with people and then going, How can I extricate myself? I want to go lie down. And two young people came up to me and they said, Are you Roy Sexton? And I thought, Oh God. I said, yeah, you have a complaint? And they said, they brought me to tears in a good way. They said, We really appreciate you. I said, Well, tell me your names. And they did. And of course, I’ve forgotten. And they said, We just appreciate that you’re saying things that other people don’t say and you’re putting them on LinkedIn and you’re putting them out there and it really feels like you are a voice to help us. I could cry again, be better at our work and also be more appreciated. And I was exhausted at that point and I just started crying. I said I can’t tell you what a gift that is to hear because I often think I’m a pest, I think I’m a menace and I’m posting too much. And that people are out there going, Oh, there’s Roy posting another thing. And they might be, but to your point, the people you don’t know who are benefiting from that are the reason you do what you do.

What I would say to my mom and I saw it evident after her passing, Don’t worry about the people in the moment because you are having ripples through the world that are making things better, that are making people feel seen and heard. And that’s why we are here on this planet. So I’m grateful that I have this moment and opportunity to do this. Hopefully, I’ll do a reasonably good job. But those two kids that came up to me, and I hate to say kids, but literally they were, I’m 50 in December and they were decidedly not 50. It reminded me, and I keep thinking about that on bad days. What I hope I can continue to have that impact. So Taryn, thank you for letting me blather on for, we’re supposed to be a 20 minutes show. And what are we at like 50 minutes at this point?

Taryn:

50 minutes. Okay. Well, thank you for joining us. Good luck next year. I know you will be wonderful and that this time next year there will be a whole group of people who are like, yes, this is the positive impact he has had.

Roy:

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Taryn:

Well, thank you everyone for tuning into One More Thing. We will be back in a month with our next episode.

*Clark Hill Law