Bypassing the Plateau
Before the merger, growth had begun to cost more than it returned — a signal that integrity, not scale, had to lead.
The concept of the American Dream is interwoven with the spirit of entrepreneurship, and is something I get to see played out on the world stage every day in my clients’ work. In essence, it’s the idea of overcoming the odds stacked against you through grit, hard work, and perseverance; a story of finding (or creating) opportunity against all odds. It’s a concept personified by stories of rags to riches, of gumption, grit, and ingenuity. A concept we usually see brought to life by through the stories of the American West- such as the Dutton’s journey to Montana through the 1883, 1923, and Yellowstone series.
The “second chapter” to the concept of the American dream isn’t spoken about as frequently. But essentially, begs the question- what happens when you’ve created the opportunity “against all odds”. What happens when you have “arrived in the West”?
The American Dream isn’t an idea that just occurs once, like a lightning strike. It’s the fuel that allows you to take a “delusional idea” and turn it into that business or product that people are in awe of. The American Dream isn’t a one-time ignition — it’s the recurring spark that dares you to build what doesn’t yet exist. It’s the conviction that evolution is the only antidote to complacency, and that risk, taken with purpose, is the heartbeat of progress.
I see the flame of the American Dream snuff out in many businesses once it’s time for a business to grow/scale. It’s not like someone sends you an email one day and says “it’s time to scale!”. Those decisions are the result of various pain points applied along the natural growth of a company, but can oftentimes lead to a plateau. For example, continuing to hire so that you can “delegate more”, but then winding up in a self-imposed managerial role. This is precisely what my merger with Winters & King represents — evolution in motion, strengthening both my practice and the entrepreneurial ecosystem it’s always been a part of.
When you hit a plateau, there are two options: allow it to become the shelf that allows your American Dream to sit and collect dust. Or, allow the American Dream to be the fuel/ driver that propels you to start thinking asymmetrically about how to scale. This is precisely what my firm’s merger with Winters & King has accomplished for my own legal practice, and represents — evolution in motion, strengthening both my practice and the entrepreneurial ecosystem it’s always been a part of.
Integrity as the metric for growth.
The ebbs and flows of scaling a company don’t come with announcements; integrity becomes the internal barometer that tells a founder whether they’re truly growing or just getting bigger. The thesis of my life’s work is to find a “richness of life”, yet within the last year, I realized that my words were not aligning with my actions. If I’m being radically honest, not only was I not living that ethos, I realized that I had allowed too many conversations began with “I’m sorry, I was so busy ___” or “I don’t have time” to my friends and family, or just simply having to miss out on life in order to handle the client workload it requires to provide salaries for 3+ families.
Of course, I made micro (and some not so “micro” adjustments) over the years, but none provided the necessary recalibration to align my actions and words. This is the “plateau” point of scaling a business (that I wish was talked about more), but was the point where I realized I had created my own set of “golden handcuffs”. And that was out of line with my integrity. Integrity is what ensures evolution doesn’t become erosion.
This merger was never about expansion for its own sake, but about continuity — carrying forward a legacy built over decades while modernizing how that legacy serves today. One of my personal pet peeves is having to repeat something more than twice. Simply put, absent exceptions, it’s just not something that should regularly happen.
The same applies to my own personal integrity: if I repeatedly say I’m going to do something, but don’t actually create change, that feels like words without actions. Ie, out of integrity.
Something had to change, and it wasn’t walking away from my vocation. The opposite; it was redefining what integrity within my vocation actually meant in this season. It was not only time to stop carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, but I also sensed that there was a way that I could even enrich the way in which I practiced for my clients. I couldn’t continue doing the same thing, day in and day out, and wonder why I wasn’t achieving different results. It was time to call this what it was: call it a plateau…..and look at it as an opportunity to do something radically different.
American Dream propelled by mini-renaissances.
The American Dream is propelled by mini-renaissances. A renaissance isn’t a season — it’s the discipline of realignment.
Meaning, this “heady” term” isn’t so much about seismic shifts in a business journey- it accrues throughout the micro-adjustments throughout the way.
“The Renaissance of the fifteenth century was, in many things, great rather by what it designed, than what it achieved.” Walter Pater.
Did you know that appx. 45% of businesses close up shop before the five year mark, and 96% of businesses don’t make it to the 10-year mark?
To be completely candid, I see so many business owners choose to pursue a different path (curiously, most clients who have done so did so between year 5-6), and so many mergers and acquisitions, the 10 year statistic wasn’t entirely surprising.
When it’s sink or swim, you learn how to swim-fast. And you’ll find yourself jumping off the deep end over and over again in business.
I’ve always leaned into pairing context with strategy when building businesses, and examining the questions around expansion. With all of the statistics around the number of small businesses that don’t survive the first 5 years, and then the even smaller number that hit the 10 year mark, it’s clear that it’s not simply a matter of intelligence or amassing more knowledge. There are plenty of resources out there on strategies for building a business, etc. Instead, I’m more fascinated by the way in which some founders have found ways to flip hardship into completely new paradigms that disrupt industries.
Something to the effect of: These cycles of risk and reinvention are what every founder — myself included — faces.
After 8 years of being an entrepreneur, it’s eye-opening to realize how many of the colleagues I knew in the beginning of my career who are no longer in business; particularly in the last 5 years. There are certain times when only a year’s worth of change happens, and other times when it feels like a decade’s worth of change gets packed into a single year. The past 5 years are definitively in the latter category. Between the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical earthquakes, and economic crises all unfolding simultaneously are reminiscent of the tumultuous years surrounding the 1970s oil shock, which took approximately 20 years to regain stability. This time, can we expedite the authorship of a deeper, fresher narrative of stability, and progress?
What has emerged from this new epoch? It is an inherently distinct paradigm, intertwined with a renaissance of sorts. Simultaneously, we observe a remarkable duality between progress and a resurgence of foundational principles. Culture now draws upon historical roots as a pioneering force for the future, transforming adversity and unrest into innovative creations. These cultural shifts reflect a multitude of present opportunities, while economic trends reveal that traditional work structures have given way to a vast array of novel prospects.
In other words, the shift and new Renaissance has caused a redefined American Dream, indicative of the societal trends, and an indicator of trends to come. The same pattern is what we’re seeing in business today — when the economy constricts, innovation expands. And while that means that the time is ripe for the entrepreneur, it also means that the entrepreneur’s advocate- the lawyer- must recognize the same.
The Renaissance took a time of darkness and created a turning point in history due in large part to the ripple effects of the progress/ focus on art, architecture, and science within a society. Similar to the “Original Renaissance”, what we’re currently observing is a return to pulling art and beauty from the doldrums of absolute darkness. In the last half decade, we’ve survived a pandemic, a global shutdown, plenty of political upheaval, all while watching a brand new world unveil itself with the advent of AI. Despite all of this, there was not a return to the safety zone. Instead, the opposite- a surge in entrepreneurship, and blazing new trails in lifestyle. A renewed focus on being visionary, paired with a remembrance of “the good stuff”. Most importantly, we’re witnessing a reminder of the ability to thrive in difficult times. The return of the pioneering mindset, in conjunction with the renewed pursuit of an artful and art-filled life; and recalibrated focus on building our lives has brought on a new Renaissance.
What we are witnessing extends far beyond a mere continuation of another business cycle. The amalgamation of cultural transformations and economic patterns designates this emerging era as a genuine renaissance, surpassing a mere identification of the subsequent era. For business professionals and entrepreneurs, it is crucial to recognize that what has been effective until now, both in recent times and the past three decades, will not persist. However, the encouraging news is that history clearly demonstrates that turbulent economic times often become the playing ground for the strategic entrepreneur, as evidenced by shifting eras in the last century. For example, following the 2008 recession, there was a 17% increase in entrepreneurship. After the dot com bust of the late 90’s, a similar spike.
In the same way this era of innovation is an invitation for the entrepreneur, it not only means the same holds true for law firms- it requires innovation. In order to be the most effective advocates possible for our clients, we must also think asymmetrically. The status quo of the way in which we supported our advocates in the past no longer exists, and a “legal renaissance” must occur simultaneously. Working in tandem with Winters & King while continuing to build my own entrepreneurial portfolio is going to add a certain twist of innovation that I cannot wait to bring to my clients.
Similarly to the way in which Michelangelo is an example of flipping the script during darkness into the Renaissance, recent history showcases the way that entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to pull economies out of recessions. Not only that, but recessions are a proven breeding ground for startups. The multifaceted reasoning behind this can be boiled down to simplistic takes: first, what’s working now; what’s worked for the last 30 years, is no longer going to work. Therefore, innovative new takes on business will rise to the top. Second, the difficulty of the endurance test that was the era of 2020-onward changed people’s mindsets (similarly to how you see the mark of new eras following major historical events).
While it’s absolutely natural to wonder if it’s too risky to start something new when it feels like most are buttoning down the hatches, history proved the opposite to be true. In the midst of others hiding from chaos, the innovator can boldly step out and deliver true value to the world. And often, creating this value directly affects an economy’s recovery from financial turbulence.
I believe that learning how to automatically reframe the difficult/”pits” of my career into golden opportunities to be dynamic/think asymmetrically as not failures or hardships, but instead, opportunities to experience a “mini Renaissance” has been the most invaluable lesson I’ve learned in my entrepreneurial career. Every founder faces pits; the art is turning them into renaissances. I’ve come to understand that what defines a founder isn’t the absence of difficulty, but the ability to turn difficulty into design — to treat every so-called “pit” as the beginning of a new renaissance.
My own journey
The concept of a Modern Renaissance is heady, and while I do strongly believe that we are currently experiencing just that, a Renaissance is difficult to identify in real time. A mini-Renaissances can be easier to spot if you know what to look for. Learning how to automatically reframe the difficult/”pits” of my career into golden opportunities to be dynamic and think asymmetrically as not failures or hardships, but instead, opportunities to experience a “mini Renaissance” has been the most invaluable lesson I’ve learned in my entrepreneurial career.
For example, within about 6 or 8 weeks of opening my firm, I split the company in two, and opened the Creative Law Shop®. The Creative Law Shop® is a contract template shop with about 90 contracts I’ve written for myself or my clients. I did this for a myriad of reasons; particularly the fact that because I came from a background of contract litigation, I knew that many of my clients were on the “newer” side of business. They didn’t have the 5 figures, or the time it takes for an attorney to draft from scratch. Additionally, I wanted to build an intellectual property law firm. Some business owners know they need trademarks; many, unfortunately, have to learn the hard way. However, I became the lawyer they already knew about in the back of their minds.
I’d like to say that diversifying this was a stroke of some genius, but honestly, it was just a linchpin; a greenlight solving both mine and my customers’ needs. Little did I know, this would be my saving grace through a turbulent 5 years of 12 surgeries, including spinal fusions, etc. When I had to step back from business, I still had a liferaft.
These economic tides are the same forces that shaped my own decision to merge — evolution made tangible. In the same way, in 2023, I recognized that with the advent of AI, I knew that likely, in the not too distant future, customers would turn to ChatGPT for the product we were selling, and would likely do so until they learned the hard way. The Creative Law Shop®’s business model didn’t serve business owners as effectively as it once did. In this new era, the scales of justice shifted against entrepreneurs. There was a widening gap between the increasing legal needs that come with clients who are more willing to negotiate, etc, but that didn’t make legal support more accessible. A tool is only as effective as you are capable of utilizing it, and the “one size fits all” model isn’t as effective as it once was.
So, I tore down every contract I’ve ever written for a creative entrepreneur, identified triggering events, cross-referenced those triggering events, and built a brand new platform operational from that knowledge, with the additional asset of a custom-coded GPT to assist with negotiations and common questions. The platform is the byproduct of my identification and implementation of the appx. 900+ triggering events that play into every “creative law” agreement. And with that, the Creative Law Shop® became the Creative Law Foundry™.
Adopting the mindset that difficulties/tough times are actually the breeding ground for opportunity (in other words, dark times lead to mini-Renaissances) is one of, if not the most important lessons that entrepreneurship has to offer. This concept that has led to the Creative Law Shop®, Creative Law Foundry™, and now, this merger with Winters & King.
Renaissance as the art of aligned reinvention.
Like the entrepreneurs I’ve served since 2017, businesses and firms are meant to evolve — carrying their essence forward while expanding capacity for what’s next. Evolution doesn’t erase a legacy; it extends it. We’re writing the next chapter.
I have the unique benefit of getting to “peek behind the curtain” every day with my clients: A great business (successful in every metric that shines on Instagram), but who knew there was a way to outsmart the plateau of growth that was likely ahead; whether that be from competitors or a bored market ahead. Instead of trying to recreate the “marketing wheel”, or spend all of their energy and money hunting down copycats, they turned instead to a licensing model. Cease and desists turned into offers to license; each licensing deal led to new markets, and stripping down and securing the intellectual property at its core allowed them to permeate entirely new markets. Within 6 months, they have created multiple new streams of income, and have substantially increased their monthly revenue-all actions that have allowed them to dedicate more time to the visionary side of their business. Soon, they’ll be releasing a brand new product to the market.
All of this to say, ebbs, flows, and plateaus are all entirely normal in business. What defines a founder isn’t the absence of difficulty, but the ability to turn difficulty into design — to treat every so-called “pit” as the beginning of a new renaissance.
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