Attorney and Author Neal Goldstein

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:15] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon, and today’s episode is brought to you in part by the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors program. For more information, go to Main Street Warriors dot org. You guys are in for such a real treat. This is going to be a fabulous conversation. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast. Author, Speaker, Attorney. Mr. Neal Goldstein. How are you, man?

Neal Goldstein: [00:00:48] I Stone How are you doing down here in Georgia with you? And I’m doing great.

Stone Payton: [00:00:52] I am so delighted to have you in studio. Neil and I were talking on the phone several weeks ago, and my original intent was to team up for a virtual version of the high velocity radio show, which many of you have tapped into. And he mentioned he was coming to town and suggested that we get together in the studio. And I am so glad that he did. Neal, I got a thousand questions. We’re not going to get to them all. But but I’m thinking a good place maybe to start is could you maybe articulate what you and your team are really out there trying to do for folks at this point in your career and your practice?

Neal Goldstein: [00:01:32] Yes. Stone So, you know, probably about five years ago, I started thinking about writing a book, something I’ve actually wanted to do my whole life. And I felt at some point I wanted to leave my kids a legacy more than just photographs or money or whatever. You know, I wanted them to see what my life was like and some of the lessons that I learned along the way. I grew up in a very, very challenging environment, very difficult. And I said, you know what? I want to do this for my kids. So about two and a half years ago, I started writing, and along the way, some people said to me, you know, some other people might benefit from your book as well. And that’s when I said, You know what, maybe I should do that. If somebody else could get something out of this, I want to do it. And so that’s really what the the whole the initial driving point was my kids. But then I expanded it to everybody who wants to read it. Anybody wants to listen to my book. Read it, whatever they want to do.

Stone Payton: [00:02:40] So in putting the book together and trying to commit your ideas to paper, did you find that some parts of it came together fairly easily? In other parts you struggled with a bit.

Neal Goldstein: [00:02:51] It’s a great question because the answer is not so easy. I’ll try to be as succinct as I can. When you write a book about your life, especially about some very personal moments, life changing moments, some dark moments, those types of things are, on the one hand, easy to write because you know them. They’re in your brain. So it’s easy to put pen to paper. What’s not so easy is. Especially when you’re in the editing process, you say to yourself, Do I really want to let the world know what I did? Or if I want to be honest, shouldn’t I tell them about this also? So yeah, it’s it’s not easy. You’re bringing other people into the book. And some people say to me, well, you know, you think some people are going to get mad at you? The answer is not really, because the hardest I the hardest I was was on myself in the book. So it’s not easy, but it is.

Stone Payton: [00:03:59] So the title is Who’s in the Waiting Room? Yes. Talk to us about the structure of the book and maybe give us some counsel on how to get the most out of it if if we’re reading it individually or maybe there’s even an application to to, to read it as a group and come talk through some of these ideas.

Neal Goldstein: [00:04:17] Yeah, it’s it’s kind of a fusion between a biography and I guess self improvement book or a business book was not easy to do because, you know, a biography you would go in chronological order. And while some of this is in chronological order, there are stories about my life and it’s based on relationships. And that is the the whole intent of the book is to try to let people know that. Genuine and authentic relationships are the keys to being truly successful because I had no genuine and authentic relationships in my early life. I grew up with a mom who had a debilitating case of multiple sclerosis and an abusive father, and I had no real relationships in my life, quite honestly, sucked. When I developed genuine relationships and I go through the stories of how that occurred, my life became very different and I would never have imagined where I am today back then. And so I think if I can if I can basically tell people, if I can explain to people how vital it is to have these relationships, how to unlock them in a in a meaningful way, not in a cunning or underhanded way. This is not when I’m talking about a machiavellian maneuver here. These are true, genuine relationships. I think most people will find that their life gets much, much better.

Stone Payton: [00:05:50] In my experience, at least initially, it seems cleaner, more efficient to just, you know what, I’m going to do this myself. I know exactly what I’m trying to do, how I’m trying to do it, even why. So I’m not going to try to get too many other people involved and maybe I’ll start inviting them into my circle later on during the process. And I got to say, in the same breath, it almost never works out well when I do it that way. Is that your.

Neal Goldstein: [00:06:15] Experience? Well, I’m a big believer in self-reliance and self responsibility. There’s no question about it. Yeah. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be here. That said nothing. Nothing replaces genuine and authentic relationships. We are not we are not born into this world to be alone. And so we should never find ourselves without other people who are truly willing to be there.

Stone Payton: [00:06:44] So I am personally so blessed, particularly so, and maybe more so since Holly and I moved to Woodstock and I’ve really immersed myself in this local community here in Woodstock to have what I would characterize as just fabulous relationships. But I must confess, I, I don’t know that I can take any real credit for it because I did not have any discipline, rigorous structure to, okay, I really want to build a solid relationship with with Sharon Klein, who was here earlier hosting one of our shows. Yet we have a terrific relationship. And I don’t know if it’s because Sharon is really good at building relationships or if I accidentally did some things that maybe you would have coached me to do on purpose.

Neal Goldstein: [00:07:29] Well, well, listen, you know, we were speaking for a bit off mic, and I could tell and I’m not just saying this because I’m here, I could tell that you are open. Let’s start at the beginning. You’re you you acknowledge that that genuine and authentic relationships are needed in your life and you’re willing to embrace it. Now, it doesn’t take a you don’t have to be a casino manager to know that. You don’t have to have that personality to to to be to embrace relationships. You don’t have to have the personality of a movie star. Anybody can say. I think relationships, genuine relationships are important. And I and I embrace them. They’re important in my life. And clearly, when I talk to you, I could see that you have that attitude. So, you know, you may not see it within yourself, but it’s there. And if you have those relationships, at least in part, you’re responsible for that.

Stone Payton: [00:08:32] Well, thanks for the compliment. And I do want to continue to get better and better at not only cultivating the relationships, but holding up my end. Right. In terms of of cultivating new relationships. Are you finding that there are some maybe it’s a little too stringent to say do’s and don’ts, but maybe some things you ought to consider doing and some things you may want to not do?

Neal Goldstein: [00:08:58] Yeah, well, you know, I’ve. I talk about this all the time on my my Instagram, you know, my Instagram channel and certainly in my book that there are things that somehow we were taught when we were younger that many of us have forgotten, things that I’m almost embarrassed to say are really basic. And these are not ideas that were born from me. These are ideas that that circle around humanity. As an example, when you meet somebody, you shake their hand. Right. That makes sense when you meet somebody. And of course, we’re assuming that this is a person you want to have a relationship. You meet somebody, you look at them eye to eye. When you meet somebody, you smile. Why? Why? Those three things that I just said important. Because it sends messages immediately to the other person. It sends messages about trust, about wanting to be where you are at that moment and wanting to engage in a long, genuine and authentic relationship. People have forgotten to do those things, and I know those things sound so simple, but you can only imagine. Stone How many people don’t do those things.

Stone Payton: [00:10:14] I got I got to make another confession. You’re like, you’re like the priest. You’re drawing all this out of me. I read somewhere, you know, like, you know, if you’re going to be a good person and it may have even been good man. One of the things was stand up when you greet someone and shake their hand. And I caught myself at a at a thing called Young Professionals of Woodstock, a gathering. I caught myself sitting down and shaking hands with Randy Beck, but at least I had the self-awareness because I had read that, okay, Stone, don’t do that next time. So comes over here. Even if you’re seated, you’re comfortable, you got your coffee, you’re ready to go. Somebody comes over and sticks their head out. You stand up. Just little things like that can mean a lot, can’t they?

Neal Goldstein: [00:10:56] 100%. And you know, when it comes to building a client base in your life, in business, because all the rules that I’m telling you now, or many of the rules that I talk about and I don’t even want to say their rules, it’s humanity. Many of the things that we talk about when it comes to humanity, well, it makes no difference between business and your personal life. It’s one life. It’s 24 hours a day. That’s it. And so there’s really no no difference. So, for example, I have a client who we resolved her issues maybe about a year ago. And six months ago I found out that her husband passed away. Now she’s not my client anymore. But guess what? I felt this was a this was a good client. She’s a nice person. We got along really good. I went out to visit her. We had a cup of coffee. I sat down in her living room for an hour and a half. Why wouldn’t I do that? She was a decent human being. And you know what? The next day, all of a sudden, I’m seeing on social media, she’s telling everybody, My lawyer went out with me what a nice man he was, and I did not do it for any reason other than, you know what? This is the right thing to do. And sometimes when you do the right thing and you don’t worry about, well, what am I going to get in return? Is this a person that could bring me a business? No. You just do the right thing and it will come your way.

Stone Payton: [00:12:22] Amen. So I can tell. I can hear it in your voice. I can see it in your eyes. You clearly. You really enjoy the work. What are you. What are you finding the most rewarding at this point in the work?

Neal Goldstein: [00:12:37] I think I think the most rewarding for me is honestly is having is talking with young people. Young people really are my forte. And it’s it’s great having young people come up to me and say, you know, what is it that I could do to try and better myself when it comes to business relationships as an example, how do I do it? I have people come to me and say, you know, I’ve been going to this civic organization all the time and I really hate it and I’m not getting any clients there. And I said, You know what I say to them, Don’t do it anymore. Don’t go to civic organizations. Don’t go to a place that you really don’t want to go to because you know why they will see that you’re not you don’t really want to be there. Go to a place that you have a true interest in. So, for example, if your interest is stamp collecting, you may not think that you’re going to get clients there. But if that’s what you’re really interested in, then do it. My mom had multiple sclerosis, so I was very involved with the Multiple Sclerosis Society, not because it was going to bring me work, but because I was passionate about it. And the people that that that were with me, my multiple sclerosis community friends, they knew I was passionate about it and they liked me. And guess what? People want to do business with people that they like. So if they see that you’re passionate about what you’re doing. That’s where you belong. Not in the civic organization. You want to throw away a hundred business cards, go to waste, go to a civic organization meeting. You want to get real long term clients. Find a place. Find your people. In fact, that’s one of the names of the chapters in my book Find Your People.

Stone Payton: [00:14:21] So I got to say, one of the things that that my business partner, Lee Kantor, was able to impress on me pretty early on in our work together. And I think because we had the gift of this platform that is that has helped me continue to learn and relearn the lesson. There is such a distinction between listening and waiting, and now it’s so easy to identify when someone’s really listening to you or they’re just waiting for their turn to talk. Can you speak to that? Is that consistent with your experience?

Neal Goldstein: [00:14:53] Yeah, Well, you’re picking out all the chapters in my book. It’s one of the things that I teach people that you have to do in order to start building a trustful relationship is you have to listen. And most people I forgot who who? It’s not my quote, so I’m not taking credit for this. Most people listen with the intention to talk. When you listen, you have to listen. So my rule of thumb, I’m giving something away here is if you want to try an exercise with another partner, have them talk to you for 2 minutes and after and you don’t say a word. And after the 2 minutes are up, you have to regurgitate everything that they said to you. Listening is important. Listening means eyes focused on the other person. Listening means with your heart and your soul. Listening means wanting to help that person with unconditionally. Unconditionally. It is essential. Essential for a trustful relationship.

Stone Payton: [00:15:48] So the title, what’s the genesis of the of the title is in the waiting room.

Neal Goldstein: [00:15:53] So when I was 16, my brother, who has since passed, was always my tormentor, always teasing me. He threw me in the bushes, split my ear open. And. And I had to go to the hospital. And, you know, in the hospitals always I always had a fear of hospitals. I didn’t go again until I was, you know, a little sometime after that, I had I had a horrible accident in my hand and I needed surgery. So my mom and dad weren’t around and. Then after the surgery the next day, it wasn’t an in-and-out operation like it would be today. Next day Nurse comes into the room and says, Okay, you seem okay, you seem fine. I think we could let you go today. I said, Great. She says, She said, Turn around. Said to me, Who’s in the waiting room? And I said, Nobody. And there was nobody for me there. And she says, Oh, that’s okay. She tried to, you know, brush it off. And back then, we’re talking about a long time ago. They actually released me without anybody. And I remember and I only I only lived about five blocks from away. And I’m walking home and I said to myself, you know, this is crazy. How can I live like this? There’s nobody there for me. And that’s where the title came from, because my my early life has had such an impact on me as a human being today that I wanted to give the title something that made an impression not only on me, but hopefully will make an impression on other people.

Stone Payton: [00:17:38] Yeah, well, I think you did it. So let’s talk about the work a little bit. There’s the book and it’s it’s a more of a precursor, and I think it’ll serve a lot of folks and maybe help them even get more out of out of your work. What does that look like, particularly early in the in the process when you begin to coach, consult a counsel with your clients, what are some of those activities and exchanges? What do they look like?

Neal Goldstein: [00:18:03] Well, I think, you know, what’s important is, you know, when I speak to a client, let’s say somebody asked me for some consultation. What I like to find out, I first get a holistic picture of the person, what are his relationships like? In fact, at the end of each chapter of my book, I go through a list of actions that people should take in order to assess their own level of relationship skills. And so I go through that very carefully with with, you know, with potential clients to see what are the relationships in their life. Who? Who? Who are the most important people in a life? What’s what’s their history been like with relationships? And then we kind of take it from there. What is what is the end game? Why are they coming to me? Are they coming to me Because they want to get more clients. Okay. And then we start breaking down based on the all the items that I talk about in my book and I see, I say to myself, okay, where are they stuck in Which area do they seem to be stuck in? And we start working on and breaking down very carefully in detail. How are you trying to create relationships? As we said before, you’re looking to go to the next neighborhood association and you’re you know, you’re pulling your teeth out because you don’t want to go. That’s not how you’re going to create relationships. If you like to make jewelry, that’s where you go. That’s that’s how you make real relationships. Are you when you meet people, how are you greeting them? Show me how you’re greeting them. We talked about that.

Neal Goldstein: [00:19:47] That’s important. All of these things send messages to people and you want to send messages of of of trust, authenticity. You know, let me let me tell you this one last story. I know I tell a lot of stories. When I was when I was young, I had a dentist. He was very nice guy. I used to go to him all the time when I got married and I moved an hour and a half away. I still went to him. Still drove an hour and a half. Why would I drive an hour and a half to see this dentist? I’ll tell you the answer. The answer is, first of all, that I know if he was the best dentist in the world. No. Do I know if he got an A-plus in pulling teeth? No, I don’t know that. He was obviously somewhat competent. The answer is he made me feel good. So when I used to sit in a chair, he would ask me about my grandmother. He would talk to me about my mother. He he talked to me in a way that made me feel like, hey, you know what? This guy really likes me. And I really believe he did. I don’t think he did it in an underhanded way. And I like him. And that’s what it’s all about. That’s what we have to remember when we’re either, you know, either on a personal level or a business level. You want to be with people. You want to be with people, whether it’s personally or through business, people that you like, people that like you, people that you’re comfortable with, people that you trust.

Stone Payton: [00:21:18] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for someone like you, a practice like yours? Like how do you how do you get the new. The new.

Neal Goldstein: [00:21:29] Clients? Yeah. Well, look, you want to spend $10,000 a month on Google AdWords, $100,000 a month. $1,000,000 a month. Go ahead. You’ll get clients. There’s no question about it. I’m not going to tell you that they’re going to be the most loyal clients because they may just go in the next time around. If they need somebody, they’ll go on the on the Web and do the same thing. And I’m not saying there isn’t a you know, there isn’t a purpose in doing those things, but if you want long term. Genuine and authentic relationships. It requires a longer term investment. It requires investing in human beings. You know, digital is a great way to introduce people. It’s a good way to meet new people, but it’s no way to deepen relationships. And some people get upset when I say that. But that’s really the truth. And that’s okay. If a lot of people have walked away from that type of thinking because I guess it just leaves more clients for me. Right. But but, you know, that’s that’s you know, that’s really what for me as a lawyer and when I used to get clients, that’s what I would do when I would meet a client. You know what? The first thing I would ask them is I’d say to them, Don’t tell me about your case, what you think your case is. We’ll talk about that later. Tell me about you. And they get surprised because I’ll bet.

Stone Payton: [00:22:54] I bet. Yeah.

Neal Goldstein: [00:22:55] Yeah. I said, tell me. They said, What do you mean? I said, I don’t know. Tell me about your family. What do you like to do? You know? And you know what, Stone, I. I swear to you, every time a client talks to me about their life within, I don’t know, within. Within ten sentences, I find something that we have in common, and I’m again, I’m doing it in a genuine way, in a trustful way. I’m doing it because I like the person. If I didn’t like them, I wouldn’t be there. And so I really try to take a very holistic approach to these things. I have a system to call the system haywire. It’s very simple. How are you? What does that mean? In my office, I don’t wait for a client to call me. Are you kidding me? I call them, and when they get a call from us, they’re surprised. Why? Because lawyers in general have a reputation. Of not calling back their clients ever. Well, what happens when you take when you leverage the weakness in your occupation and you turn it around? And all of a sudden you inject a level of humanity into it. Then all of a sudden a client sees something completely different. My my lawyer calls me. I don’t have to call him. And I think that’s really important. And it absolutely I could tell you it quantifiably has made differences in my practice.

Stone Payton: [00:24:25] I’ll bet it has. The I can’t remember what book or what talk, but. But this idea of the law of contrast and you obviously. Right. Have created that right when you as you say, you capitalize on on a weakness that you’re well aware of in the arena in general and then you turn around and utilize it as.

Neal Goldstein: [00:24:46] I think one of my biggest YouTube videos was when I first started doing video, so there was nothing really unique about the video. It didn’t have a lot of special effects in it. The title of it was Why doesn’t my lawyer call me back?

Stone Payton: [00:25:03] That’s great. I mentioned earlier in the conversation, your passion. It comes through and I knew this when we talked on the phone several weeks ago, and I know our listeners can hear it, and I know that you’re human. You’ve got to, from time to time, run out of gas. The batteries got to run a little bit low. Where do you go? And I don’t necessarily mean a physical location. Where do you go for for for inspiration to to kind of recharge and be ready to to to go after this pursuit again?

Neal Goldstein: [00:25:38] Well, the inspiration is similar to the inspiration for my whole pivoting into helping people create relationships. And that is I go back to my life, the life that I had without any kind of relationships, the life I had when I dropped out of high school, the life I had as a poverty stricken young boy who had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and nobody to speak to. And my life is completely changed because I embraced. Relationships. I embraced other people. And so my story is not about me, it’s about other people. And so when I get down and I do, and when I go into that black place and I do, those are the things that I try to think about. Yes. And I think about my kids. And I want them to to understand the lessons that I had to go through. So maybe they don’t have to go through that. Yes, they’ll have to go through their own stuff. And so maybe they can use what I’ve learned to navigate.

Stone Payton: [00:26:48] You have been so transparent, so open and authentic. And I would even venture to say willing to be vulnerable during the course of this conversation. I have every reason to believe that’s the way you conduct yourself In most, if not all, conversations, have you discovered that you actually are deriving a benefit of some sort by sharing your story like you do?

Neal Goldstein: [00:27:13] Yeah, 100%. Because, listen, when I was younger, everybody I remember a lot of kids used to make fun of me because I was a sensitive kid and I was I was always a sensitive kid. I kind of felt like I was the weak guy or whatever. And then at some point after meeting a few people, I realized, wait a second, this sensitivity works. It works, It works. Some people actually like it. And as you get older, obviously more people like it. And yeah, I think my sensitivity has helped me as a lawyer for sure. If I go into a courtroom, a judge sees my passion. I’ve had to have judges tell me, calm down, clients see my passion and they love it. You know, most people I know who know me, they see the passion and I think they know that it’s real. It’s not fake. And of course, you can’t be that way all the time. There are moments you’re less passionate. I don’t want anybody to ever call up and say, Hey, Neal, you really are not a passionate guy. So it absolutely benefits you. And again, find some weakness in your life and turn it around and it becomes your strength.

Stone Payton: [00:28:27] All right. Let’s make sure that our listeners have a very easy path to connect with you if they want to have a substantive conversation with you or someone on your team. I want to make sure that they have easy access to the book. So whatever coordinates you feel like are appropriate website, email, LinkedIn. Let’s see. I just want to make it as easy as possible for our listeners to to connect with you and tap into your work now.

Neal Goldstein: [00:28:53] So yeah, I’m on a few different platforms very easily. On Instagram, it’s Neil Ni a L, a Goldstein one, the whole word. Neal Goldstein. My website is Truth in Success. Truth in Success. You could see where my book is right there. Or if you just want to go on to Amazon, the name of the book is Who’s in the Waiting Room? Who’s in the Waiting Room? And and if you connect with me, let me know that you’re connecting with me somehow. There’s a million ways to do that on my website or Instagram, and I’ll chat with you and we’ll talk.

Stone Payton: [00:29:26] Well, Neal, it has been an absolute delight having you join us on the program and particularly having you in studio. Thank you so much for investing the time and energy to share your insight and perspective. You you’re doing important work, man. And we we sincerely appreciate you.

Neal Goldstein: [00:29:44] Thank you. Stone It’s a pleasure being here.

Stone Payton: [00:29:46] Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Neil Goldstein and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.