 I mean, we would drive lift and eat canned beans and ramen noodles when we first started the firm, we'd work in the firm for half the day and then we'd go drive lift to keep the lights on. Welcome to the you are your podcast, Nick. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah, so I am really excited to talk to you for one. You're wearing a Philly shirt. So, I mean, there's no way around that, everyone. We are recording in February 2023, right before the Superbowl. I'll make sure I mention in the notes which team won. OK, and Nick, you were saying that you're wearing that jersey because you're actually going to go to the Superbowl? Yeah, I bought tickets today. I'm taking my dad. So the two of us are going to head out tomorrow night or Friday morning. And yeah, it'd be awesome. Flexibility of lawyers. Absolutely. He is able to go to the Superbowl, take some time off of work. Like, how cool is that, right? That's the best advertisement for being a lawyer and owning a business. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's funny. I actually saw I went to Las Vegas for my birthday back in April. I actually bet the Eagles to win the Superbowl back in April at 40 to one. So I got that sitting on it as well. So it could be a really great trip. Well, it'd be great either way, right? But it'll be really nice. Maybe we'll stop by Vegas on the way back when they win. Yeah, very cool. That sounds like a great life to me. So, Nick, we were talking about Philly in the Superbowl because you are actually in Denver, Colorado now. What took you to Denver? Absolutely, yeah. So I attended law school at the University of Colorado in Boulder and then just fell in love right away with the mountains. And so I've been in Denver for six years, moved down here after law school. And so, yeah, I mean, I just love it. I think the lifestyle is a lot better. I love the snowboard, love to be outdoors. The weather is great. You know, it's been snowing here recently, but the sun's back out. The snow is melting. So it's really the best of all worlds. Yeah, absolutely. And you actually met your business partner while you were in law school. Tell us about that. Yeah, absolutely. So we actually met at Admitted Students Day. So we were both looking at law schools that we wanted to go to. We met at Admitted Students Day. And it's kind of funny because we actually didn't really like each other at Admitted Students Day because we were just kind of both alpha dogs. And we were like, well, who's this guy? And then the first day of orientation, they put you through kind of this speech, the first day of orientation, at least in a lot of law schools, where they kind of tell you about how a lot of lawyers are drug addicts and depressed and basically to just, you know, be aware of those things. Right. And when we came out, we saw each other from across the courtyard and was like, man, that was a bomber of a conversation. Right. I think mental health is very real and something that people should be focused on. I'm a big believer in that. Yeah, I think that's really cool. And I'll also say, you know, one of the big things about mental health is that people don't have an ally and you two already found each other. So you probably were like, we'll take care of each other, right? You're like, we got this. We're kind of each other's therapist. As you should be, because you guys are also business partners. You founded the law firm Troxel Fitch, which is there in Denver, Colorado, beautiful website, you know, very, very clean, very nice. And you always thought that you would become an entrepreneur. So are you living out your life's dreams, all of your goals right now? Yeah, I mean, I think so as an entrepreneur, I'm the type of person who always kind of wants to keep going and climb higher. I mean, for me, it's about kind of more than just the pursuit of like my financial success and things like that. I feel like I'm very blessed. I've been blessed with opportunities and a brain and ability to communicate with people and execute in a manner that I have to maximize that. And so for me, it's like, hey, how far can I push this in terms of, you know, how can I maximize my time, right? Both in terms of achieving success, helping people, having fun, having memories that are worth having, right? So, I mean, I do think I'm living my dream. I mean, there's not, there's not many things that I wish I could do that I can't achieve through hard work at this point. And I think that's a really good point because a lot of people say they want to be entrepreneurs, but there's a lot of work, a lot of long hours that go into it to get to the point where, you know, you can take off some time and go to the Super Bowl if you need to. What was that struggle like when you two decided that you wanted to go out into business on your own? You know, it was tough. So Josh actually decided he wanted to start a firm first. We were roommates in law school, actually. And so he decided that he was going to, that was the path that he wanted to pursue first. I was a little bit more hesitant. I thought I would go work for a big law firm. And for me, for most of my life, right, I was like, hey, if I ever make six figures in my life, that's kind of the goal, right? I mean, I never, you know, really saw that as a big possibility. And so when those big law firms are throwing big numbers, that you it's hard to think anything differently. But, you know, his trust in me and his belief that we could do it, which really he whittled me down. Right. And that, you know, I'm forever grateful to him kind of having that confidence and, and convincing me to do it and being able to see, you know, the strength I do have. And, you know, as we've done this, being able to kind of see that for myself. But at the same time, you know, neither of us had really had anything before. So when we were starting, it wasn't really any different. I mean, we would drive, lift and eat can beans or ramen noodles. When we first started the firm, we'd work in the firm for half the day and then we'd go drive, lift and things like that to keep the lights on for the first few months, just because we started it right out of law school. Right. We had no clients. We had no reputation. We didn't have anything. And so you got to still keep paying rent, right? Now, we learned pretty quickly that if you get legal work, it pays a lot better than driving lift. That was probably only the first four or five months of that. But it was tough, you know, and then 2018, you make money, but you're not really like rolling in it. Certainly 2019 was again kind of starting to have more traction, but a lot of ups and downs, a lot of variability between months. And it was interesting for us because our firm really took off at the beginning of 2020, I would say, hit that proverbial tipping point. But then the pandemic hit. And so we had that moment as well, right? We moved from a small co-working space into our offices. Now we quadrupled our fixed expenses on February 1st, 2020. And then the world shut down six weeks later and our phones stopped ringing. And so it was nervy at times. I mean, it was tough, but we just kept pushing. And then I would say, as things kind of settled down, it really took off for us mid 2020. And so it's been interesting, right? It was it was those two years where things were really tough. And then we started to really have this continued success. But it was during a pandemic where things were shut down. And so you're balancing both, hey, I don't have anything else to do. So I'm working all the time. But you're also balancing that with, well, I got to keep taking all the work because I don't know if something else is going to happen to where the work might stop coming in. And so it's kind of funny because, realistically, until probably the end of last year, we were still a little bit in that kind of back against the wall mode with taking and just working ourselves to the bone because it just seemed like there was a lot of uncertainty. And so then lately we have been trying to really focus on how do we utilize what we've built to not only continue to work hard and to help as many people as possible, which is what we want to do first and foremost. But how do we start kind of now finding a little bit more of that balance? Because, you know, I think over the long term, you can't just work all day every day forever, but you do it first. I mean, that's just that's just the way it is. You made a lot of really good points there because I'm sure you two made it through the crunch of 2020 because you remember driving for Uber, driving for Lyft back when you first started, right? You're like, oh, this isn't as bad as that, right? It's hard, but it's a different kind of hard. Absolutely. And I kind of still think about that, even as we've had more success, right? It's like, you know, I still drive in 2006. I try to avoid the Golden handcuffs, honestly. I mean, I spend great money to have experiences and things like that. But for me, it's like, you know, I didn't do this to be super rich or anything. I mean, I want freedom and that's ultimately what entrepreneurship can give you. Absolutely. So for everyone that's listening, I do want to explain Golden handcuffs because we have a lot of law students that listen as well, and some lawyers may not know either. That's when the perks and everything that you get, your salary, all of it outweighs the fact that you're working 95 hours a week, right? And so you're like, yeah, I'm chained to my desk, but why would I give this up, right? I did big law for five years, so I certainly understand. You're like, how can I turn that down and do my own thing? Why? Right? Why would you want to? So Golden handcuffs are definitely something that lawyers do with all the time. I've never heard of law firm owners talk about them, though. Like, this is a different perspective for you to say, even though I own this, I'm all about personal attention, professional results, but I don't want it to be my whole identity. Yes, my thought on Golden handcuffs is always more about like if you establish a lifestyle, it's hard to dial it back, right? It's easy to drive a 2006 when that's the nicest car you've ever driven. So as soon as you start leasing a Range Rover or something, you're never going to go back to drive of a 2006. Or, you know, as soon as you start eating steak lunches, it's hard to go back to Chipotle or things like that, right? And so I always kind of thought of the Golden handcuffs more as like if you immediately kind of have success and lean into having a lavish lifestyle, you know, unwinding that is tough. I mean, not to slightly switch subjects, right? But they even talk about that when people are getting divorced, right? Where a lot of the times you have alimony and things like that because of, hey, you've been living this certain lifestyle. And yet to some people, it's like, hey, this is crazy. You don't need to eat this well or live in this house. But it's just kind of one of those things. Once you achieve a certain level of comfortability, it becomes very difficult to take that step back. And so that was kind of more of my thought is more so. I want to be mindful of how much of my success and comfort I embrace in terms of material possessions, because it's hard to it's hard to go back, right? Yeah, no, it is. I completely get it. You know, as long as that 2006 car is running, keep driving it. I especially think of that. So I became a Colorado Avalanche season ticket holder this year just because I played hockey all my life. And now that I'm living out here, I love watching it. And, you know, I got the lower bowl seats and I was just kind of laughing at myself because it's like, you know, growing up, we never we always sat in those weeds, but now it's such a foreign concept to think about. Really cool that you would rather spend your money on experiences more than just the fixing and the lavish stuff. So that's pretty cool. So, Nick, I do want to go back a little bit further. You said you always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Did you ever have like a lemonade stand or were you selling? Like, did you do anything business minded before you even went to law school? Yeah, so kind of got that passion and undergrad because for me, I always so I played football most of my life through my freshman year of college, you know, and probably wouldn't have ever like played professionally, right? But I always thought I'd be involved with football somehow doing something. It wasn't really so I stopped playing that I was like, well, OK, what else kind of scratches the edge? And that's where I really started realizing that entrepreneurship was. What did that for me? And so actually my first kind of business idea that I was going to do was like revolutionizing pre and post-workout nutrition with cannabis, like having CBD protein shakes and things like that. And I did that at a business pitch competition in like 2014. And I almost won, but I did it. Obviously, I couldn't actually do anything with that business at that time because I didn't live in a legal state and things like that. So it was more of just a concept. But my plan was always, hey, I would get a degree in accounting. I would get a law degree and then I would work for a while and then start a business. And so it wasn't until I got to law school that then I kind of, you know, I drank the Kool-Aid like many other law students. I was like, hey, you got to go work big law and do this for a while. And I kind of convinced myself, hey, maybe just doing that and working with entrepreneurs for scratch the edge. Then after I got out of law school and was studying for the bar, that's kind of when I had the realization that I needed to do something for myself. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sitting here shaking my head like, yep, yep, yep. And I imagine you probably also had their business partner like, that's not what you want to do. Don't forget, come over here. Come over here. Come over here. Yeah. So, Nick, I just have one last question for you. And the audience for the podcast is a lot of law students or new lawyers lawyers who've been practicing for five years or less. Do you have any advice to them about your career and what they can do with their law degree? Absolutely. I mean, I would just say you could do anything you want. I'm a true believer that anything you set your mind to, if you're willing to work hard and sacrifice for it, you can do it. I mean, I guess this could be an opportunity to plug. My law partner and I, we are co-authors in a book, How to be a Lawyer. It was written with Jason Mendelson, who's an adventure capitalist. So we were guest authors in that. It's really a book about bridging the gap between law school and practice, how to be successful and happy in your practice. And that kind of tells a little bit more in depth about both Josh and I's story and how our path is a little bit different. You know, and I say this not to not law school or law firms or anything like that. But I think that law students and young lawyers can kind of be beaten down and feel like, hey, there is only one path. You know, if you're not top 10 percent, you know, just don't even try things like that. I think it really does a disservice because I think that the education you get in law school is incredibly powerful. It makes you able to solve problems and you actually do know more than you think. And if you're just willing to dive in and do it and try, you really can do anything you want. I mean, I'm always happy to chat with law students or young lawyers. And we're I'm always happy to open the hood and really tell them exactly what we did and how we did it, because at the end of the day, you know, and have the map, but you still have to climb the mountain. Right. I mean, it's it's going to be about how you execute it more than about what the path is. I guess I would always say so one of my guiding things is I had a mentor who told me if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. And so to me, I always felt that as like, hey, you have to know where you're going to know what step to take. Right. And so I think that being in law school or being a young lawyer, you can feel like, hey, what should I do with my career? Where should I go? Who should I be? And to me, I just encourage people, what does that end go look like? Right. You know, even as simple as like, hey, do you want a family? Do you want kids? If not in your future, do you see yourself living lavishly, taking vacations or humbly? Do you want to move to the mountains and get off the grid and really drill in? Hey, what do you want your life to be? And once you know that, then taking that first step is a lot easier. I mean, that was what it was like for us. You know, I knew that I wanted, you know, a family someday. I wanted freedom. I wanted to have hobbies and be able to travel and do things like that. And so for me, it was like, hey, the big firm lifestyle, it just doesn't work, right? You work a lot to make partner to work more and just never kind of an end of grinding and billing, which, hey, like that's great for some people. You know, again, I don't, I don't knock it. I just knew that that wasn't the route for me. I knew I needed to be the captain of my own ship. And so, you know, I curled my toes over the edge of the cliff and we dove in. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's really good advice, right? You have to figure out what you want to do. It doesn't have to be a 10 year plan, where are you trying to go right now? Right, so that you don't just waste a whole bunch of time wondering. OK, so thank you so much for mentioning your book. I will make sure I link it in the show notes so that people can pick it up if they're looking for it. And if you are watching this on YouTube, thank you so much. Again, we appreciate the jersey and go Eagles. Go birds, baby. All right. Well, thank you so much. I'll talk to you later. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.