Of all the posts, this one caused me to stare at a blank page longer than any others. I reworked the drafts because the first one read like “let me tell you how great I am” and the second read like a kindergartener book with three-word sentences. So, I will just jump into how the lesson was learned:

As I was working on a matter, the client made a very casual, off-handed remark. While I was focused on the legal issue, she mentioned that when she had surgery, my office didn’t check on her. Oh, I felt convicted and hypocritical. The one thing that I was charged to do, to care, I dropped the ball.

Different story, but same lesson. A client called me while I was in Connecticut attending a dear friend’s wedding. He had a legal situation, and despite being hundreds of miles away, over the next two days, we got it figured it out. I’ll never forget what he said when I gave him the news: “I trust Jesus Christ with all my heart. Brian, you’re second.”

The point here is two-fold: 1) You (yes, you reading this) matter way more than you ever know to those around you. I think we all engage in a lot of negative self-talk (“I bet I’ll mess this up”, “I’m no good at (and impose your own limitations). But, you are depended upon and trusted way more than you think you are.

Second point, I will bet that anyone reading this can stop, and remember that kind word, compliment, or encouragement that someone’s given you at one point in your life that you can still hear. I’m not talking about the auto-reply “You’re awesome”, but that genuine human-to-human compliment when someone told you “we couldn’t have done this without you” to something as simple as “that’s a great haircut”, especially when you were feeling self conscious.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world” sounds like a saying that would need some Herculean effort of community service to accomplish. But, here’s what you need to know: you are already the world to so many people. So, in changing their world, all it can take is a simple, personal, kind compliment for it to be forever changed for the better.

If you provide any type of services to individuals as a profession, you may be able to relate:

You’ve gone towards the proverbially edge of the cliff, laid on your stomach, outstretched your hand, waving it to the person below the cliff to take it. The person below sees your hand, looks at you, and then gives you a high-five! Um, no, we weren’t doing this to give you a high-five, we were trying to help you.

Lesson learned: the help that you think you are giving may not always appear that way or even be able to be received by the person you are helping. You’ve got to be able to meet them where they are at – emotionally, physically, psychologically.

It’s a bit of a two-step process. First, check your own default settings. No two people are the same, so throw out a-one-size-fits-all approach in helping. By their own definition, accidents do not discriminate and happen to anyone no matter who they are. While I have handled hundreds of car accidents, each one is different because the person involved is different. Get to know the person and take an inventory to try and get on the same page with them. If I can see that I am not able to land the plane, I try a different approach. Trust me, it’s not about volume or repeating the same thing again. If you are the person trying to convey a message, than it is up to you to say it in such a way that the person can’t misunderstand it. It’s not their fault if you aren’t clear.

Second step, and I’ll start by saying what the lesson is NOT: some people can’t be helped or they need to help themselves. Wrong! That is not the lesson. Everyone can use some help. But the lesson is finding out what are they capable of and determining if you are the right person to help?

For instance, and this is a real example that a colleague passed on. In a wrongful death matter, the attorney got to work, put it together, and then put it all together where the family would be able to resolve it and move on. Nothing happened. The family was still grieving and were not in a position to do anything.

Experience helps recognize how to get on the same page, but there’s no specific recipe in figuring out how to meet people where they are. The lesson learned though is recognizing that if you truly want to help people, you just have to know it’s not all about where you are, but where those in need are too.

For those that did not live in Western North Carolina in 2024, the devastation from Hurricane Helene cannot be understated. It turned WNC into a third world country – no running water, internet, cell phone service – for a significant amount of time. While you could ask anyone “how’s it going?” you knew that everyone was going through something, even if they replied with a rote “good.”

I already had a previously scheduled telephone conference set the week after Hurricane Helene. When opposing counsel called they just launched into business as usual, I was just aghast at the unawareness. But, how would he have known?

Which, we all don’t know what storms are going on with someone that’s on the other end of the telephone, behind the email, or in the text thread. It’s easy to get lost in on our own business and trudge like an elephant through conversations, without just checking in on the other person. I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, but life-changing accidents and sorrow do not discriminate. You don’t get a t-shirt to wear if you’ve survived trauma. That husband who just lost his wife and mother of his children in an auto-accident a year ago, can look like anyone else. You really don’t know what a person is going through. So before launching into whatever it is you need or want from someone, take a moment, and ask how they are doing. It may turn out that you can be that shelter from the storm, even for just a little bit.

“It’s all Jesus. Not me, and anytime someone tries to give me any credit, I say it’s all His.”  Steve Aceto sat across from his beautiful desk and remarked those word in response to my questions “how do I get where you are?”  His response, while I completely understood as a fellow believer, also left me at a bit of a loss as I was looking for a recipe or at least a grocery list in order to start a career.  At that time, which was 2014, Steve was an excellent attorney and earned a stellar reputation and had a beautiful blue house as an office.

Jim Siemens was kind and gracious enough for me to rent space at his Patton Parker House from 2017-2021.  It was a wonderful experience but he had given me a heads up that this wasn’t going to be forever house, so from about 2018 on, I had my eyes peeled for a house, weekends booked for randomly driving around, and my real estate agent, Greg Palombi, scouring the internet.

I had a couple of visits over the years, but nothing seemed to stick.  Then, in 2021, my friend and mentor, Steve had listed that beautiful big blue house for sale.  He put in our local bar briefs that he was calling it a day and retiring.  He and I stayed in touch over the years dealing in various cases and contacts.  I reached out to him, and he politely thanked me for reaching out, but said that all questions should be sent over to his realtor.

I talked with Greg – and put together as much as I could to make Steve an offer that he definitely could refuse but was the best I could do.  Greg submitted the offer, which was met with a thank you, but we already have several others higher, but Steve would think on it.  A couple days later, Steve sent an email out to all buyers.  “Please put your best, final number and I will make a decision.”  I read his email and thought to myself – Hadn’t I done that already?  We emptied the couch cushions and cobbled up some more money, and sent Steve an email with not just the best number, but a number I could only dream of.  He accepted my offer.

At the closing, I asked Steve about accepting my number when there others more competitive and he said – “we’re all just renting here anyways – this was never mine.”  Again, my jaw dropped.  The consistency of a man who had made those same remarks years ago and then to actually see them lived out in front of me was glorious to witness and be a part of.

As I write this during the holiday season, it reminds me of going to the mall and trying to find that good parking spot up front – and then you see it only for it to be taken away by a minivan at the last moment, don’t you feel robbed?  Robbed of a parking space that was never yours anyways?  Or when you go to your restaurant, and the table you always sit at, someone’s there – and you just want to say “excuse me”?  We have a undeserved sense of entitlement.

To gain the perspective that it was never yours to begin with, but just a blessing for the moment in time when you got to hold it, that is the lesson.  Over the course of my career, I can say that horrible, unexplainable things have happened to really good people.  Guaranteed that anyone reading this can relate.  When you can appreciate that if a good thing happens is an undeserved blessing, and that when something bad happens – well that’s just the tax you pay for walking on this Earth – that’s when you have at least an attitude of gratitude that will help you stomach these problems and endure this time.  In Steve’s perspective, he wouldn’t call the perspective one of gratitude, but of the eternal perspective one has when they have faith that a guy named Jesus Christ took all your faults, bad deeds and mistakes and paid for them with his own life, instead of yours.  When someone’s already paid the bill, you can live rent free.

In Spring of 2020 (and anyone over the age of 8 likely knows what happens next), I was fortunate enough to be able to coach little league with Jim Taylor which was a dream come true. Jim is an excellent baseball coach and he shared my kumbaya coaching philosophy. As we prepared for the draft, I created a multi-sheet excel spread sheet with about every statistic or comment I could think of on the draft ability of 10 and 11 year olds. I shared it with him like a kid showing their mom what they did in art class. His poetic response: the best laid plans of mouse and men often go awry.

In April 2019, my firm expanded and brought along Chad Donnahoo, an attorney with a decade of experience in practicing law and was as smart a person as I had ever met. We were all set – with ideas of opening offices in Burnsville and growing practice areas. Little did anyone know or expect that the world would simply shut down in March 2020 and for the next year or so and go through a pandemic. Throw plans out the window when folks are ordered to remain indoors for 3 months, flatten the curve, and mask up.

Skipping ahead, in Fall of 2024, another unpredictable, cataclysmic event happened in WNC – Hurricane Helene. Our house was without drinking water from September 27 to November 18. Instead of checking in with clients for case updates, we were checking in just to see if they were alive and okay.

What’s the take away? Don’t make plans because you never know when a Hurricane will wipe things out? Certainly not. What those events have taught me is that while you should make plans, even be excited about them, you don’t have to worry yourself to no end about them happening or not. There’s a sense of peace knowing that while we can put forth our best effort, we can just be a day away from flushing toilets with 5 gallon buckets in a blink of an eye or locked down at home trying to teach our kids math because of the plague. Man made plans after all are just that – man made in a world that man didn’t make. Of course they may not always work out and that’s okay.

“Fair only happens once a year by the Ag-Center” I remember my kindergarten-age son responding back to his younger brother in one of their never-ending disputes about something that would be forgotten in about 15 minutes.  I had never heard the saying in my life and paused my mediation efforts to find out what he meant.  My son told me that when someone in his class would say that what was happening wasn’t “fair”, the teacher, lovingly, would try and teach them at that very young age, that unfortunately, fairness isn’t a guarantee in life.  Actually, the only time you can count on “fair” is in September at the Ag Center when the WNC Fair comes to town.  She had distilled one of life’s complex lessons into a saying a kindergartener could understand.  Life isn’t always fair.  (Ironically, one of the cases that I’ve had the opportunity to work on involves injuries at the fair.   

https://wlos.com/news/local/new-case-of-legionnaires-reported-possibly-connected-to-quilt-show and workers’ compensation cases aren’t fair).  

In my career in working with individuals and families in personal injuries and workers’ compensation cases, I’ve learned that accidents don’t discriminate.  They can happen to anyone without rhyme or reason.  It can be absolutely heartbreaking. 

But, along with learning that life isn’t always fair, and that bad things happen to good people – I’ve also seen clients find a silver bullet to defeat their tragedy and be able to continue to live their life.   Clients that are able to walk away with a perspective of “well, it could have been worse” or “there’s something larger at play” are able to move on.  Even if they missed their ticket to the fair, they find a way to move on.   

This post falls on Thanksgiving, which was not by design, but could not have been more timely.  Despite the cumulative unfairness of life from year to date, Thanksgiving forces you to stop, shift your attention away from what went wrong, and focus on what are you thankful for, and there’s always something to be thankful for (see this wonderfully, funny clip from Mike Godwin (https://youtube.com/shorts/DKYy2ze2_l0?si=u9mF4wb9Kvcv2oS) –  Even if you missed the fair, give thanks.  It will make life a better ride than any at the fair anyways.