Find Your Detox with Marcie Roth

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Welcome to the Mighty MERP podcast. I'm here today with Marcie Roth, who is a lawyer, a mom, a entrepreneur, and a two -time cancer survivor. And we're going to talk today about her career and her new business. And I guess I should tell everyone that I've known Marcie since she's six years old, which means I know all her secrets. But...

She's also known me since I was six years old, so she knows all of mine.

Welcome. Thank you, Melissa. So, you are a full -time practicing attorney, right? That is correct. Am I being cross -examined right now by you or? Not yet. Not yet. Yes, I am a full -time practicing attorney. Did you always know you wanted to be an attorney? Definitely not. It was...

It was not on the list of things I ever thought I was going to do until senior year in college when I said to my parents, I don't know what I'm going to do next year. And my mom said, what about law school? So here we are. What did you think you were going to do? Oh, at that point in time? Well, I guess before the senior year, like when you want college to begin with. Well, up into that moment, I thought I was going to become a doc.

Um, and spent three and a half years of college preparing myself for that. Um, but then in the middle of first semester, senior year, I decided it wasn't going to happen. And so what's the next best thing to a doctor? So I went to law school. I guess for, for a Jewish mom, that would be the second best thing, right? Exactly. I mean, I think today there's so many other careers and even then there were so many other careers, but.

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I needed to know, which is why I'm counseling my daughter who's graduating college. She doesn't need to know yet. How's that working for you and her? It's good. No, it's good. It's a constant communication for doing well. That's the mom's side. I mean, I always say that I think our kids can only imagine the jobs that are very, I mean, I have creative kids, but they still think in a very,

concrete. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And, and there are so many jobs out there that you don't, that don't fit into this concrete, uh, job world, you know, and, um, and, uh, they can't even imagine it, you know? So when Ellie, my oldest graduated, she said, I think I'm either going to be a teacher or a lawyer. Hmm. I wonder why those are the two things that she thought.

But they have so many resources. I just see them as they read through LinkedIn. There's so many job postings. And I just said to my daughter, just keep reading. Anything that looks interesting, send your resume. You never know. Through college, you've developed skills and talents, and you have no idea where they may be applied the best. So just send your resume out to everything that looks interesting. So, yeah. agree. I'm going to ask you to hold on.

Cause I have, I'm recording from home, which I never do. And I have a whiny dog. I'm going to fix the dog on the couch and be back. So just hold on. Sorry, Tom. So you decided to go to law school. Did you go straight from college to law school? I did. Yes. I went straight to law school and I found the perfect area of law for me. Um,

Ultimately, at the end of the day, whatever career I wanted, I know this sounds so corny. I just, I wanted to help people. I wanted to be a doctor because I wanted to work with the elderly and help people. So I found the area of law where sometimes, you know, I don't feel so much as a lawyer as I feel like a family counselor or a social worker, but I get such a sense of reward.

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When family comes in and they're very anxious and they're very stressed about, you know, someone is sick, someone's in the hospital, they're considering nursing home, or you have a young couple, they just had a baby and they're figuring out who the guardian's supposed to be. And when they leave the office, they just feel more relaxed. They know that there's a legal solution, there are papers and documents and things that they can do to just make their life a little bit easier. And so...

It's a great area for me because I always say I'm not like a lawyer's lawyer. Um, don't talk to me. Don't talk to me about criminal. Don't talk to me about corporate stuff. I'm not interested in bankruptcy. Divorce, forget it. Um, but my little area of law in trust in the States and elder law and really working with families, it's just, it's great. It's really a nice, it's a nice place. And you've been doing that from the beginning.

Pretty much. I mean, it's been 27 years. I was doing the math earlier in case you asked. But yeah, it's been - Actually, you're approaching 28 years just to let you know in May, you would have graduated 28 years. Yes, true. I was going from when I was admitted. So I was admitted in December of 96 in New Jersey and January of 97 in New York. I only know that because I took it.

a year off between college and law school. Right. And you went straight. So you graduated. A year after. Okay. I won. You did win. You beat me on when we finished law school. I think your viewers should know, if you don't mind my divulging, Melissa and I have been competing since we're six years old. And

In certain competitions, there's no competition. She's a much better athlete than me. I could never beat her, except for the time I beat her at bowling. I think I beat her once at tennis. Not an official game, just a after lunch game or something. But there's always one thing, man. I think you have a pool or ping pong win as well. I think pool. I'm not good at ping pong. I can't do ping pong. It's too small.

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I have no eye in coordination. Right. And every time you have won anything athletic in our 45 plus year friendship, you have never let me live it down. Is that fair to say? Correct. And I'll even bring up the time that you felt the need to beat me by one second in a half marathon. We can go back there.

We could discuss it. I did. That's so funny. We just said it. Just that much quicker. I know, but I did beat you because it was at the end of the half marathon and we were sprinting. But I did help you get a PR on that race. Yes, you did. And then you beat me. I didn't know I was going to beat you. I just thought we were sprinting to the end and that's what you did.

Yes. He sprints a little faster than I do. All right. Well, that's why I'm a criminal lawyer is I'm competitive. I know that's like one of the things that, you know, motivates me. I don't like to lose. Right. Which listen for your clients, that is perfect. You shouldn't lose. Yeah. I'm just teasing you. It's okay. So you, um, you're an attorney, you have your own law firm.

Um, yes, I work with my husband. You work with your husband, which I always, I mean, I love your husband, but I always find it amazing when people work together and are married together. Cause I think like they're just two different worlds. It's a lot of time together. Yeah. I try to walk to work alone. It's a little space. Um, so.

Aside from being an attorney and I did mention it in the introduction and you have a new business or a pretty, I'm going to say a pretty new business. Tell me about your business and sort of how it was kind of. I was going to say how you, how it was born, you know? Yeah. So I think for me, it was an aha moment of.

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Um, okay. So backtracking, I used to always, um, I used to always think about like, is there a passive income business that we could come up with to just make life easier, to just have that extra income stream? So that was always been in the back of my mind for awhile. So totally unrelated. Um, in 2014, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

And so I'll give the short long story. So I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014, had a mastectomy, had chemotherapy. And in the summer of 2015, I was going to dinner with some dear friends that I've known since I'm around six, seven, eight years old. And I was walking with a friend who shall remain.

I don't know, shall I say it was you or should we not mention that? No, it's I was saying how my doctor was telling me how it was kind of time I needed to start to do more exercise for my cardio health. Yoga was good, but I needed to do more than that. So we go out to dinner and we're all having a really nice time. And someone says we should all go away. I that this was the end of this. This was one of the, this was like really the start of this. So.

someone says we should all go away together. And I said, ooh, a yoga retreat, that would be so nice. And I think it was Melissa, oh, you, who said, oh, I think we should run a half marathon. And I said, I don't run. And that competitive spirit inside Melissa obviously turned my competitive spirit on. And she said, oh, you could do it. And so we started in July.

looking for a destination half marathon. And so from July until February, I learned how to run by walking a block and running a block and finding a training plan online. And the goal was, I think it was like February 4th in New Orleans. And five of us ended up going and whether we were going to run, walk or crawl, we were going to cross that finish line. And so.

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Um, we did, we went and it was, it was incredible. And it was an incredible experience because the whole process of training for the half marathon at that point in my life was very similar to the process of chemotherapy, where you have a calendar and you have all of your dates and there's a whole frequency to every week after you get the treatment and the steroids and then you crash and then you get better and then you go again.

And so it felt very familiar to me and I really took to it. So this started the running bug. So now we did that, signed up for a few more and over the next, I don't know, year and a half. So this was 2016. Yeah. So the next two years, um, ran a couple more half marathons. And then in 2018, I went running one day, I fell and I fell on my hands and my shoulder started hurting me. And I thought it was because of the fall.

And in the end, it turned out to be lymphoma. So now I was starting again with chemotherapy and radiation. So, okay, knew what I needed to do. Had already had the program. So was going through that. And after that, a friend's sister said to me one day, you know, when you're done with this radiation, you really need to detox your liver. I was like, okay. Like I didn't know what my liver had to do with anything at that point. I was.

eating healthy, but I guess I hadn't gotten to the purpose of the liver yet. So I have this - freezing of detox, it was sort of like a new phrase, right? Yeah. I mean, she was basically explaining to me that your liver is what filters your body. And so all of the toxins in your body, I think it comes out in sweat, it doesn't really, it goes through your liver and then it gets sent out.

Um, so I kind of had that percolating in my head, but I didn't really do anything. I think you're supposed to eat like grass or something. I don't know. I just, I, I, I didn't get into that, but then, so now a couple months later, it was August. 2019 I was in Nantucket where I go with my family at the end of every summer since I'm like eight years old. And I went for a run and it was a.

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gorgeous, perfect day. Which Nantucket is always perfect, either perfectly rainy and foggy or perfectly sunny. And so I'm sweating and sweating. And all of a sudden I was thinking to myself, from what she was saying about detoxing, running is my detox. And it's not that I was detoxing my liver, it was detoxing me. When I run, like my thoughts,

are like a little bit clearer, the garbage in my head disappears. Either I come up with ideas like this or I solve problems at work. And it just, I realize like there's something about this. And so I went running back to the house and I said to my husband and my kids where they are waiting for me and I was like, running is my detox. And they're like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, no, this is it on every t -shirt.

It's going to be running or yoga or meditation or tennis, like the sky's the limit. It could be everything because we all have something that helps us just like disconnect from life so that we can just like clear our heads a little bit more. And that was like the beginning of my desire to spread this message to the whole world, but everybody needs to find their detox.

And so the name of your company is? Find your detox. Find your detox. I agree with you on running. Like when you describe, you know, the first half mile or mile sometimes is I don't want to do this, but then as I continue to run, it just clears my mind. I'm able to, I can come up with, you know, answers to trial issues or case issues. I.

It really helps me put pieces of a puzzle together in my head regarding anything that's like been bothering me. I don't have to think about it. It almost not thinking about it is what helps me relax. Um, and I'll, I, I'll tell you like when I, there are times when I don't run and I'm really stressed and my kids would say to me, when was the last time you ran? You know, where I say to my kids, did you drink water? Did you eat?

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Did you go to bed at a good time? Like all of those things that help keep them mentally healthy, they would say to me, you're a little, you're a little cranky today. When was the last time you ran? Cause for me running is my detox. Um, and so, um, so did your, what did your family think when you're screaming running is my detox? Oh, here goes mommy coming up with something else again. You know, it was like,

First I did yoga and I used to, you know, I found these lunchtime classes. So for like, I don't know, five, seven years, I was like leaving work at noon, going to a yoga class, coming back and I was all about yoga. And then I bought a bicycle. So then for the next couple of years, I was getting up in the morning and riding through Brooklyn, around Prospect Park, back to my apartment. And then the running started and they're like, oh, here's the next thing. Like she, you know.

And I realized like it seemed like every seven years there seemed to be something new. But the interesting part is as I've like, so I've started to like read different studies about that really support the whole idea that running that, that whatever your activity is, and I'm, I'm putting together a blog. It's going to come out and probably in the next couple of weeks, we're going to start publishing it, but it's like dancing is a detox. Um,

There's so many studies that support that dancing helps with anxiety. It helps with depression. It physical exercise. So it's good for your body. So I feel like a detox is anything that helps with your physical health and your mental health. It doesn't have to be both. It could be one or the other. Um, my daughter was making an argument the other day that candy crush is a detox because it's better than TV because she's more active.

in using it. I beg to differ. I call it a tox. I think that video games, Netflix, anything where you're a lump on a log, so I guess I do put a little emphasis on the physical, is a tox. Alcohol and drugs are a tox. I agree with you, but you have reading as your detox and that's a pretty long True. So I'm going to defend your daughter right.

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I'm going to defend your daughter. I think Candy Crush is a puzzle solving game, which you have to use your, uh, you have to be able to look at the screen and potentially solve a puzzle. Okay. I don't think there's anything wrong with Candy Crush. I know, and I'm going to make the comparison to I play solitaire on my phone because I think it just helps me not think.

for like a few minutes, it settles my brain sometimes. So when you're doing two to three hours of any of that activity, that it's a tox, like anything, exercise can be a tox, if people are over exercising and doing it. Yes. Yeah. So I defend your daughter on this, she's right. Okay, fine. I'll let her know at dinner tonight. I do, I mean, the other part of it is that to me, yes, I agree with what you're saying, and I play games on my phone also.

But when you cross that line between solving the puzzle to just one more, just one more, just one more, and you like, and time is fleeting, then it's really, it's not doing anything good for you. So we might not promote that one unless I find a study that supports playing games on phones. Who knows? Maybe, maybe that it exists. Right. So find your detox is a website.

Has your story on it. Um, and it also has what I like to call. Merch, but you know, I call my merch Merp. I like that. But, um, you have some amazing stuff, which includes reading as my detox. And I know that cause I got a nice mug for Ellie and, uh, the hiking and camping is great for anyone who.

hikes or walks. I think what's great about what you're doing is that they're just, I think that especially over the last few years, like the level of stress and through, I don't know if you've listened to the podcast this whole season, but we've focused a lot on mental health issues and sort of kind of burnout among lawyers and just a lot of professionals generally to find that outlet that's a healthy outlet.

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which is truly a detox and not something that becomes addicting or not helpful in the end, whether it's video games for 10 hours or alcohol, drugs, or just burnout from our profession. Because even with what type of law you do, it's still stressful. We're dealing with clients' lives and their stresses. And being a small firm, there's a lot of pressure.

because it's all on your shoulders. I think one of, it's interesting because, so now when I go running, as much as I'm going to run, I'm constantly stopping because I'm thinking of ideas about detox and either recording them or sending them to my, you know, like my assistant, my designer, my creative side, who's not me. And a big part of what I'm learning is that,

It's nature has an incredible, is an incredible component to all of this. So I mean, I've never really run on the treadmill. I think because at that dinner, we were talking about it and someone in the group, I'll just, I won't say the name, but someone in the group said, I only like to run outside. Uh, I don't like to run on a treadmill. It's different. And I kind of took that to heart and felt like I have a beautiful place where I live.

down by the river to go running on the piers. And so I should take advantage of that. And so other than ice and a little bit of rain, I'm not a big fan of running in the rain. Although you have pushed me to do it over the years. And it was fun actually. You don't remember that? Well, I know when we ran the half marathon, it was a, it did rain and then it rained a little. Yeah.

Where were we ran Atlantic City? Oh, you kicked my butt in that half marathon though. I did. So yeah. But I guess my point though is that it's being your nature that is really, really important. So even if like you live in the city, like I do, there's so many pocket parks or just, I mean, even these past couple of weeks since the last snowstorm.

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The little flowers that are starting to poke up around the trees as I walk down the street, it's, I mean, it's literally like four square feet of nature, but it's still nature. And it's still like stirs something inside of you that gets you excited. And I think that people who go to the office or work from home, they never leave the house. They never go outside. They never breathe fresh air. It's like work, work, work. And even if they're not working, they're cooking, they're doing the laundry, whatever it is.

You've got to get time outside. You've got to be exposed to nature. Um, I mean, listen, you could go on a hike once a week and go into the forest. That would be amazing, but just a little bit of nature is really, really good for you. Right. And there are a lot of studies that show that just getting outside and doing some walking can help with depression, anxiety, overall mental health. And, um, as I say, I, I say to,

my family, my children, my friends, if they're feeling blah or they feel that they're not at their best. I do go through my list and it's always, did you drink enough water? Have you eaten today? Are you going to sleep at the same time? And have you gone outside? Have you walked? Have you done anything? And I think, yeah, I definitely agree with you on that. I will say that I think it was pretty unanimous that everyone

pretty much didn't love the treadmill. I don't love the treadmill. I do call it the treadmill, but sometimes in the morning during the week, it's just easier to get up and jump on my treadmill than to go outside and to run. But yeah, so I definitely get, definitely understand that. So I love the idea that the detox isn't just about, you know, about getting it out of your, sweating it out.

It's about anything that's going to help you be able to, I refer to it as breathe. Right. I mean, my sister loves needlepoint and she's made some incredible pillows and projects. That's her detox. I haven't made merch for her yet. We're working on it. I have some ideas in my head. I just have to figure out how to - too. That's how it was for my mom.

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I think knitting we did. But yeah, knitting and it's the creative side. It's relaxing. You can see something. You could see the fruit of your labor afterwards. And I think all of that has a positive effect on you. You don't have the socialization so much. I can say that when we're all sitting around together, having a conversation and my sister's needle pointing, she might not be as communicative with the rest of us. But...

You know, again, like there's a time and place for everything and you can have more than one detox. You don't have to just choose one. You can have a few in your life. So, and when you're running for the most part, other than when you're doing races, you don't really run with people. Do you? I don't. I, it kind of, I think it started with my need to get up and go and not stand on a street corner waiting for someone. Um, I've, I,

Every once in a while I'm a little envious when I see groups running together in the park. And I know that there are some clubs around that I can easily join and be part of a group, but I don't know, I haven't done it yet. So there's something about being brave about like joining a group of runners that you never have run with before. I know. Like, what if I don't run fast enough? And that's always been my fear, but everyone says, everyone says not to worry about it.

Um, but it's interesting. I mean, listen, I saw when you and I ran last last a year ago, just about a year ago when we did that half, it was, I don't know, because, because my training up to it was not what I wanted it to be. I would not have been able to finish the way that I did if I didn't have you running beside me. Um, so there is something to say about doing it with someone so that you can coach and urge and.

and work together to get to the end. So. Yeah, I mean, I train all by myself. And I do that because of the, because it does relax me and it like, it gives me time to be with my thoughts. I don't usually like to run, but there is something fun, especially in races when you're running with someone else.

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My cousin and I, Hope, just ran the Princess Half Marathon and I helped her get a PR too. And when we were like a mile and a half out, we were together and she said something to me like in a full sentence. And I was like, if you can talk in a full sentence right now, you are not running fast enough, Hope. Which only someone you're running with could actually say it to you. You're never in your head gonna be like.

thinking that, right? So that's my new thing. I'll help, I'll help runners get their PR. And I say this with a caveat. I am not that fast. I'm not that fast of a runner. I was just a little faster than you and Hope. Right. Just right. That's interesting. It's interesting. So I was going to, I was going to mention it to you. Um, when I was walking home today, I checked my email and I noticed.

that the New York City Marathon opens today for applications until March 6th. It's a lottery. You may not get in. I don't know. It kind of got me thinking again. Are you ready? Am I willing to commit my summer? I don't know. I'm going to discuss it with my family at dinner tonight. All right. Well, you can let me know. That's a lot of detox. So...

Um, that's a lot of detox. So, um, we both ran a full marathon, uh, in October, it'll be two years. We both ran one full marathon. I, and I, I feel peer pressured that I was peer pressured by you to run one. Okay. That was your own competitive nurse that pressured you. I just told you I was doing it.

Yeah. And I said, I would train with you because that's what I do. Um, so it's funny because I was thinking, um, we both didn't run the times that we thought we wanted to run. We didn't run the same race. Marcy ran the New York city marathon and I ran the Atlantic city marathon. And, um, for different reasons, Marcy, uh, the weather was really hot when you ran it. She was so hot.

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It was 75 degrees November. Crazy. When I ran it in Atlantic City, it was really windy and rainy. And I am not good with the wind. I feel like I should apologize to everyone in Atlantic City whenever they run a half or full marathon and it's raining. It's always rainy and windy. I am always running it. When I don't sign up for it, it's like a beautiful day. And when I do, it's like a guaranteed brainstorm.

And I'm like, oh, I might be ready to run another one. And I think I could do it because all my kids are going to be away this summer. And my mom has moved into an assisted living. So I will be for the first time this summer, a true empty nester for eight weeks. So I think I could train. That's a good sign to get started. I don't know. Let's both talk about it. We could talk about it off camera.

Well, I'm going to ask you, we talked about a number of different detoxes that we mentioned that are not all running, knitting and needle point and books and reading. What has, um, you say that like you stop running sometimes to like call your creative, uh, I'm going to call her a creative director, um, of the company. What are the new detoxes that you're creating and then you're creating merchandise with it? So I have a.

I have a short list of the next few that we're going to put out, but right now we're focusing a little bit more on our blog and really supporting the information. I was so excited about having a shirt that said, running is my detox, that I just figured the entire world would want it too. But no one knows what it means. So.

I almost had to take a couple steps back and say, okay, what is this? Why should anybody be interested in finding their detox? What does that mean? And so I've been working on the blog to use studies to support the argument that different activities are a detox and to show people why they need to.

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figure out a way to build this into their life. With that being said, my mother -in -law has been waiting for Mahjong for quite some time. People have told me they'd like to see pickleball, which I think is, I think that's a detox. It's fun. I'm trying to think. You gotta get into the pickleball now and you know.

between your Brooklyn community and my Cherry Hill and down the shore community. I think Marjan will do pretty well as well. Yeah, Marjan would too. And I get that. I mean, and then I was thinking, I mean, listen, for me, the ultimate detox of all of them is Shabbos, which is the Jewish Sabbath, which is coming in about an hour and 15 minutes. Don't worry, we'll be done. Okay.

But for me, this is, you know, as I've realized it, this is the ultimate detox of all of them. And I've got like designs in my head. I haven't, I haven't quite gotten them onto paper and figured out how to unveil it. But the whole idea of taking a day, 25 hours, little before, little bit after, to just disconnect.

is so, so important and not to get like too religious, but obviously I am, um, observing in my religion. I believe that God created this, the, the, has given us rules to live by. And so if the world was created in six days and on the seventh day we were told to rest or so why did we have to rest? Well,

because we all need to detox. We all need to take a day and disconnect. And every, I mean, there are other religions in the world that have a different day of the week. There are people that don't believe in religion. That's fine. They could still take a day of the week and let that be their detox day. And as the world becomes more digitized and more technology, I think that everyone needs to have a day. And I've noticed people have their digital detox.

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where they go off Instagram for a little bit. And I think that it's very healthy, you know, for young kids to have a day where they disconnect and they learn how not to have a fear of missing out, that it's okay. Yes, life will go on, but you'll catch up because it doesn't move that fast that you won't know what's going on. And for adults, you know, it just gives you a day without the phone, without the internet, without your emails.

to just spend time with friends and family, talk about things that are important, go for a walk outside. I mean, there's so much that you could do. And I think that that's really super important. Yeah, no, I agree. I think most people, whether they're religious or not religious, believe in the kind of unplugging. And I know that that is the non -religious way of saying, you know? Right.

Right, I mean, you get into like, you know, the question of, okay, you don't work, what is work? Why is, you know, so many questions with it. But, you know, taking it out of the religious and into the secular, it's just disconnecting. It's going for a walk with your family and leaving your phone at home because you're with your family, you're with your partner, you're with your children. Who's going to call you? What is so important? I mean, I have to say,

Maybe it's not the majority of my life anymore, but I grew up, you know, we didn't have a phone with us. I didn't have a phone until after my first child was born 22 years ago. I think when I was pregnant, my husband had a beeper and the whole plan was I was going to call his beeper to tell him I was in labor. I'm telling people how old we really are and it's just me. But yeah, I think I got a self. Barry and I,

got our first cell phone when I was about eight months pregnant with Ellie. But so you have a website, you have merchandise. I'm gonna sort of say, what do you think is the hardest thing about launching a company? And then I know what the hardest thing has been, which is launching the company because of social media kind of.

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getting your name out there, right? It's hard. It's hard. I mean, I think, you know, one of my primary weaknesses is the fear of not doing something right. So when it comes to my law practice, I do what I do. And because I'm very comfortable in doing it, I understand it and I know I'll do it right. But if you ask me questions outside of the box, I get, I get uncomfortable.

And so unless I can research it and be very comfortable, I'll refer to another attorney. And so starting a business, it was putting yourself out there. I mean, you asked me to do this, I don't know, a year or so ago. I mean, it's been a while, but it was that fear of, of, of being recorded and not saying the right thing. And I, I shied away from Facebook around when I.

was diagnosed with breast cancer. So that was in 2014. I didn't want pictures of myself. And when in 2018, when I'm looking at everybody's family pictures, I couldn't produce that because once again, I was bald and wearing a wig and didn't feel like myself. And so this whole idea of putting yourself out there and that's what you're doing when you have a new business and it based on.

your excitement and your passion, you have to put yourself out there. So it's been a slow build getting comfortable and making mistakes. Hold on. My dogs are excited. I'm thinking that Ellie, no, it's too early. I'm podcasting. Stop interrupting. Um, I don't think she's going to listen. That's my Shira. So.

Are you done? Okay. So what I was going to say is that it is hard because you're putting yourself out there and you have to share your excitement and you're not sure if it's going to be returned. And you also, which I said was, so I, I think they, I,

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I'm good at promoting and I think I make it look easy, but I have a lot of the self doubts in my head as I'm doing it and it's uncomfortable. And so I feel like I'm also trying to promote it like I'm an outsider, like, you know, about the law firm and, and whatever the success is to celebrate it like that. And so I would suggest with your business,

even though it is personal, try to promote it as more of a newspaper headline or something that you would excite you to see or click on if you were just a consumer. And it's hard because it definitely is. Even though people say it's business, I would say it's personal. It's personal when you're so excited about what you have out there.

Right. I mean, it's interesting. Our library down in Brooklyn Heights is, I guess, the official business library. And they just redid it. And when I first went in, they had this whole wall of all these business books. And I literally had like my arms full of PR and marketing. And I never took classes like this in college. I was all science and psychology. So it wasn't, I don't...

It just, I'd never been exposed to these ideas. So I've spoken to a lot of friends and family members. I've read a lot of books and, and I also, I found this young woman who is very creative, very talented. And I feel like, and she loves it as well. And so the two of us together are definitely supporting each other in our quest.

And we're both doing our research and learning and each coming back with different ideas. And she's also trying to help me not be so concerned about making a mistake. It's not the end of the world. Yeah. I mean, the truth is, if you've done something and there's a mistake, you can edit it. You can change it. You can, you know, but I was going to say, I didn't take marketing or business classes in college at all. Right.

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But I would say whatever we took in college wouldn't even really be relevant so much today with regards to the social media and the internet and how people search and how you get traffic to your site. So, which was a learning process when I left my old law firm and then I had to start my, my new website and I, it, it was a hard lesson that I had to recreate my own full new website.

Even though I helped make the old one, I couldn't use any of that material because it was just, what I learned was it was really just creating more traffic for the old loafer. And so, you know, it was a, it was, you know, a, definitely a lesson learned of like what you have to do to produce traffic to your new website and how you need to create something that is not a duplicate on the, on the internet. Right.

Yeah. And I'm learning more and more every day about it. One of my contradictions though, is that I do feel that social media is a tox. And so people have pointed out to me, so you're using a tox to promote your company. I'm like, yes, but I'm finding the people who are subjected to the tox to give them information on a detox. And so -

I've rationalized it. I mean, it's not disappearing anytime soon. So you know what? I think if we use it for a good cause, then it's good. Like everything, you know, it is how it's utilized. Yes. Right? I mean, mindless scrolling is its flux. Legal research is much easier now that we could do it on the computer. 100%. So much easier. Yes. You know? So.

You know, I, I can continue to say, I don't know if anything is all, is all bad or good, you know? No, it's not. It's not. And I think actually that's something that interestingly we've explored today, the idea that really things that we think are good could become bad if you overdo it. And so there's a balance and a harmony in all of this. Absolutely. That's a great place to end. So it was so good talking to you. You know, I can always.

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I'm talking catch up and I'm going to once you talk to your fam about New York City. Yeah, and I'll make you a deal. If you get in and I don't. I will run a marathon close to me again, so we'll both be training. What would happen if I get in and you don't though? Well, then I've got to see who I know in New York City to get me in. I don't know.

Let's see. I don't know. Let's hope my run it to this year. She was supposed to run it last year and she was injured. She got injured right before. She was able to defer. She deferred. Okay.

So, I mean, the only issue with it is that, not that I would not do it, but I don't know that we would run together. Because if you're running faster than me, it's interesting. The one thing I realized about New York City, which it took a long time to process, is that everything everyone says is true. You don't realize it at the time and you think you're all in control, but the adrenaline and the crowds, it's like you're...

all of your training almost disappears and you get caught up and it's just, you almost have to do it once to then say, okay, now I'm really gonna do it because now I'm gonna put on blinders and I'm thrilled everyone's there. It's incredible, but I'm just gonna stay a little bit more focused. So it's an experience. I don't know, we'll see. It was just funny that the email came today and I was talking to you. So. Yeah, well, it could be the universe.

sending us messages. It just might be. It just might be. All right. I love you. It's great talking to you and to all my listeners, go find your detox.