Manders Mindset
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
98: Mindset, Gratitude, & The Legal Side of Podcasting with the Podcast Lawyer Gordon Firemark
In this episode of Manders Mindset, host Amanda Russo welcomes the renowned "Podcast Lawyer," Gordon Firemark. With over 30 years of experience in media and entertainment law, Gordon has become a guiding force in the podcasting world, offering creators invaluable insights and practical advice. In this episode, you’ll learn about Gordon’s unique journey from entertainment production to law, the power of gratitude in shaping resilience, and why he believes every podcaster should have a “podcast prenup.” He also explores the ethical dimensions of using AI in content creation and how creators can stay true to their voice while protecting their work in an evolving digital landscape.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why a "podcast prenup" is essential for co-hosts, guests, and collaborators
- How a simple gratitude practice can transform your mindset and boost resilience
- The ethical and practical considerations of using AI in content creation
- How to balance ambition with contentment for a fulfilling career
- Key steps for protecting your content legally and maintaining ownership
Episode Highlights:
- [1:15] - Meet Gordon Firemark: The Podcast Lawyer, podcaster, and author.
- [4:30] - Gordon’s journey from entertainment to law.
- [17:24] - The challenges of shifting from litigation to collaborative law.
- [29:09] - Gratitude practice: A simple yet powerful mindset shift.
- [39:09] - Introducing the “Podcast Prenup” and why it matters.
- [54:51] - Unexpected lessons from the world of entertainment law.
- [1:06:08] - Exploring AI’s role in content creation and legal implications.
To Connect with Amanda:
linktree.com/thebreathinggoddess
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Gordon's Links & Resources:
Podcast, Blog, and New Media Producers’ Legal Survival Guide by Gordon Firemark
Free Podcast Guest Release available at gordonfiremark.com/PodcastRelease
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to rate, follow, and share Manders Mindset for more inspiring conversations and insights!
Welcome to Manded Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, amanda Russo, and I am thrilled to welcome today's guest, who has truly become one of my all-time favorite people. I'm so excited. My respect and admiration for this man run very deep. We first connected about a month before I traveled to PodFest last year where he was speaking at a virtual event and I'll admit I was fangirling a little bit. His title caught my attention right away and I knew I had to go to PodFest because I had to meet this individual. His wisdom, respectability and kind, approachable nature made such a lasting impression on me and I got the pleasure to meet him and have lunch with him at PodFest and it's a big reason as to why I even went. And now I have the honor of considering him a dear friend of mine and I could not be more excited to have him here today to share his insight with all of you.
Speaker 1:I am here today with the podcast lawyer himself, gordon Feiermer. Now, gordon has practiced media and entertainment law since 1992. He's been doing this for a long ass time, so he is basically an expert. He's also a podcaster himself and he hosts the Entertainment Law Update podcast. Been doing that since 2009. 2024, everybody's got a fucking podcast. He's been doing it since 2009. He's an expert in that, too, and I am so, so excited to have him here with me today.
Speaker 1:Gordon is also an author what doesn't this man do? He does it all the author of the book, podcast blog and new media producers, legal survival guide and creator of several different online courses. He also introduced me to something called a podcast guest release and he's got even a fun name for that Calls it a podcast prenup, which everybody should get a prenup in everything, because you don't know how things are going to work out. Honestly is how I feel about that. He got his undergraduate degree in radio, television and film and he's got experience in live theater production, and I am so excited to be here with Gordon today. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you very much, Amanda, and with that, our time is up for this episode.
Speaker 1:It is not up.
Speaker 2:I can't believe it. Has it really only been like a year since we first connected? It feels like we've known each other all our lives At least all of your life, because you're younger.
Speaker 1:I know it really has. Also, if you guys are not watching this and you're listening to me, you need to pull up the YouTube, because Gordon even has a beautiful purple background that he purposely used because we're on brand.
Speaker 2:My favorite color, the color of royalty.
Speaker 1:It's my favorite color too. Oh my God, I'm a big fan, as you just keep fucking speaking Podcast, I can't say that I'm a fan.
Speaker 2:No, I meant the F word anyway.
Speaker 1:Why can't I? I say the F word. I'm just teasing you. I am the owner of Meander's Mindset. You want to speak to my attorney?
Speaker 2:It's your show.
Speaker 1:Do owner of me and your mindset. You want to speak to my attorney?
Speaker 2:it's your show, do whatever you fucking want to thank you. Thank you very much. I will do whatever I mean. I do. So can you tell us who gordon is at the core? I think if I have to identify myself at the core, I would say I am a father and a husband and a servant. I'm here. I feel like I've been put on this earth to help people communicate, help people get their message out so they can have impact and achieve things and influence the world, and so they can do it safely and securely, without, you know, worrying about being prosecuted or persecuted for it, and staying out of trouble. That's what I try to help people do.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So can you take us down memory lane a little bit? Tell us about upbringing childhood, family dynamic, a little bit of how you got to today.
Speaker 2:I live in Los Angeles today Doing entertainment law. You kind of have to be in one of the entertainment centers. But my parents were New Yorkers and dad was a physician and my mom was a speech teacher in schools and then she went on to become an audiologist. So science and health care was really the family business. But I was the black sheep. We lived in Massachusetts for a while and actually the beginning of my path to becoming the lawyer and entertainment guy that I am today really starts when I was in kindergarten in Brooklyn, massachusetts. The school I went to was a kindergarten through 12th grade and the high school kids were doing a production of Oliver and they invited the priest not preschool the kindergarten kids to come and watch a dress rehearsal and that got me going. They sat us down in the auditorium, the house lights went down, the stage lights came on and I was transfixed for the next couple of hours. It was tunnel vision, complete focus. It was what I knew. I had to be involved in some way. I came home after school and talked to my parents about it. They were totally on board with taking their kids to see theater. They were being New Yorkers, they were used to the Broadway environment. So they took us to see shows from time to time.
Speaker 2:Jump forward a few years. We've moved across the country so my dad could take a job here in LA and I started getting hanging with a I won't say a tough crowd, but tough for the affluent community we were living in anyway, and they were getting, we were getting into you know, low grade trouble enough for the police to take notice but not to actually hold us accountable, I guess. So at some point I guess by this time I was about sixth grade the principal of our junior high school pulls me aside one day and he says I need you to do something. I need you to run the sound and lights for the school variety show. And I'm okay, great, I learned how to do that Run the mixing board and switch on and off the lights and those kind of things. And that led me into high school where I became the school head sound man. This is not the AV club, the kids who set up the projector in the classroom. This is doing the theater projects and concerts and homecoming, you know, all those kinds of events, setting up big PA systems and that kind of thing. And I had sort of found my groove. I was a pretty nerdy kid but now I sort of had something to live for.
Speaker 2:I guess I was in my junior year when this professional theater opened up in our community and I went and I got a job there. So I was a stage manager and house sound technician there for a very long time. Actually I was employee number seven on the payroll of the theater and I continued working there on and off up until about five years ago. So from 16 to 56, maybe 40 years working there something like that, through college and law school and all those kinds of things. Anyway, I majored in radio, tv and film in college, as you said in the bio, and I was really on the path to work in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 2:But just as I was sort of finishing up college I took some of the graduate level courses in radio, tv and film, media policy and management and law kinds of stuff and I discovered an aptitude. Well, the professor pointed out an aptitude and I thought about going to law school but I decided not to. And then a year later I'm working here in Hollywood doing television production. The writers guild went on strike and it was going to be a long, lasting strike. Saw that on the wall and decided to go to law school.
Speaker 2:And this was in the midst of the craze when a television show called LA Law was on the air. It made being a lawyer look extraordinarily sexy. So there were an awful lot of us in law school at the time. But coming out of law school into that environment, it was very hard to find a job and I ended up working for a firm doing entertainment related and intellectual property litigation, realized that was not my thing and pretty quickly went out on my own, hung out a shingle to help people do the kind of work that I want to do. So that's 40 years in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:You say you've always been the black sheep. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Oh, I just kid around because there was a health care family and both my sisters became psychologists and I went into the law and you know doctors and lawyers. There's a little bit of animosity or at least antipathy there and you know my dad used to tease about that. We got along great. It was actually the. The joke in our family was that the dysfunction in our family was how functional as a family, so really blessed to have had a very comfortable, happy childhood and grow up reasonably well adjusted, I'll say I think probably anything that's wrong with me now is because of things that happened in my adulthood and now you said two sisters I have two sisters, both younger and both are psychologists.
Speaker 2:Nice family life I gotcha now.
Speaker 1:you had a professor that noticed your aptitude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if she's out there, maybe she's listening. Deanna Robinson in Eugene Oregon was the one who called it to my attention. I haven't spoken to her in all these years since graduating. But yeah, I was taking a class called Government Regulation of Media and it was a 500 level course in college. So the grad students, I was the only undergrad taking the class and I got the top score on the exams and the papers. So she said you should think about law school and at the time I sort of laughed it off. I was going to go to film school, become a movie guy. I didn't get into film school, but I did get into law school.
Speaker 1:You didn't get into film school.
Speaker 2:Well, I only applied to UCLA and USC, you know sort of the top law film schools in the country. No, I don't think I did get into either of them, but I applied for law school sort of at the same time. Basically, on a dare from a friend, I got into law school.
Speaker 1:Okay, I want to backtrack. A dare from a friend is why you applied to law school. Let's elaborate.
Speaker 2:I, his name is Mike, I again someone I'm not in touch with now, but we were talking on the phone one day right around the time that this idea of all this had come up, but maybe you should go to law school. And he was in flying to law school and he said, gordon, if you don't do it you're a fool. You know that kind of thing. I'd say, well, look, I'm going to film school. You got to try. I dare you Something like that. And you know how guys are. They challenge each other. That was a weird challenge, I guess. So I applied you know what the heck? I took the LSAT and filled out an application or four, I guess. I applied to four schools and got into two of them.
Speaker 1:What did you apply to?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm going to reveal all my secrets. I applied to USC and UCLA for law school. Those are the two I didn't get into and I applied to actually three others. I applied to Pepperdine and Loyola and Southwestern, which is where I ended up going. Those are all here in LA, so I just wanted to stay. And entertainment law it had to be an LA school, so it worked out.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love that. So you go to law school and post leaving law school.
Speaker 2:So I finished law school in 1992 at this glut of young lawyers coming out of school at the same time that law firm, the business of being in law, was changing and there was a lot of consolidation of law firms and the movie studios were merging. Several studios had merged so lots of those entertainment law jobs were actually being eliminated and I was competing for the entry level jobs with people who'd been out of law school for three, four or five years and it was, I would say it was. The hardest time in my life was that year or so of looking for work as a lawyer. Time in my life was that year or so of looking for work as a lawyer and I ended up landing a job that a friend of mine from law school had been in and he was leaving and he sort of got to pick his successor and that was pretty great. And then, yeah, like I said, lasted, you know, less than a year in that job before I quit, and a half, let's put it that way and that I was doing work I didn't care for, I didn't like myself much. This is one of the things I learned about myself is that I was actually pretty good at the confrontational, adversarial lawyer thing. Except that I couldn't turn it off and leave it at the office. I would bring it home with me and just didn't like that about myself, didn't like that side of myself. So I decided that I had to not be a litigator and that meant leaving the firm. There were other reasons to leave the firm as well, but it was a very uncomfortable work environment.
Speaker 2:I ended up leaving that job and a few weeks went by, a few months maybe, and my grandfather was in town visiting and he saw that I was on the phone with people all day, I was doing stuff, filling, you know, just sort of helping friends with one legal thing or another and so on. And he said, hey, you know, you have a business, right, you have a law firm. And he was not an entrepreneur, but he was a shop owner. So he had his own business his whole life. And he sort of pointed out you've got all you need is an office and a desk, some business cards and you got the real thing. So he was kind enough to cut me a small check a modest check, I should say, enough to buy the furniture and put a lease deposit down on the office and I was off to the races. That was 1990.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is a funny story. So this was January of 1993. Um, here in Los Angeles I don't know if you remember what happened on January. I think it was the 14th of January 1993. We had the Northridge earthquake. This is before you were even born, but I was.
Speaker 2:My office was in this high rise tower in the middle of LA downtown century city actually, and it happened in the middle of the night, but the building was really shook. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I wave my hand back and forth in front of the camera. The buildings really shook and when I came into the office the next morning, the bookshelf had fallen onto the desk that had been delivered literally the Friday before. This is a Monday morning, friday before I'd had all the furniture delivered, set it up and installed it all, and then things crashed down on each other and it all broke. Fortunately, I had bought insurance that week that I opened up the office, so I ended up buying the same furniture twice in the same month. Maybe that was a moment I should have thought of that. Anyway, you know, stayed in that office for a few years, ended up partnering with some other lawyers for a while and then back out on my own since 2001,. I'll say something around like that. So 23 years now hanging out a shingle of my own, doing my own thing.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love how that happened. With that simple little comment from your grandfather. You already have your own business. You know, sometimes things happen from some person in our life just noticing that one little thing that, like you, might not be able to put the full pieces together to realize what you would do it yeah, I think it took someone knowing what it looks like to say it and point it out.
Speaker 2:I mean, my dad was a doctor. He was in practice with some other doctors, but not quite the same thing.
Speaker 1:Now you mentioned when you were doing litigation. You had the confrontational lawyer thing. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Well, when you're litigating, you're taking one side at the complete expense, I guess you could say, of the other side. The job of a lawyer is to. You know, the job of a lawyer is zealous advocacy for the client's position, and in litigation you're going to win or you're going to lose. The job is to win.
Speaker 2:In the kind of work that I prefer to do, I view a real success in negotiating deals and setting up businesses as win for everybody, if it's not that someone hasn't done their job very well.
Speaker 2:So that's my goal is to really make sure that when people are in the beginning of a relationship, that they're talking through the right issues and they know what they're getting into and they want to get into it that way and they're making deals that you know. Maybe they're not happy with every single aspect of the deal, but overall the outcome is something everybody likes, everybody's happy about, at least comfortable with. And yeah, so the adversarial thing of, you know, banging fists on tables and and arguing for a single position without acknowledging the other side, you know that's just not who I wanted to be and being argumentative all the time. Really, as it happens, the last few months I've been doing a lot of sort of pre-litigation dispute resolution, trying to help clients settle things so they don't have to go to court. I find myself dealing with disputes and advocating those single-sided things more, but it isn't how I prefer to live my life.
Speaker 1:Let's put it that way how are you bringing it home?
Speaker 2:well, if you're examining the girlfriend over why she wants italian rather than chinese food, I mean stupid stuff like oh, even that simple yeah, I mean, everything was an argument, everything was a yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And know you get into a zone of a mode of doing things and it's just very hard to sort of switch it off at the end of the day. So at least it was for me. Some guys do it great, Some lawyers are just have a system where you know, sign out of one job and into the end to human being mode after that. That wasn't what I was at. At least I hadn't figured out how to do that. I think I'm better about that. I've done my time in the shrink on the shrinks couch a few times, figured some stuff out about myself and dealt with some anger issues and things like that. So overall I'm a much bad. I wouldn't be married with children now if not for that inner work over the years and learning how to breathe, breathing goddess over the years and learning how to breathe, breathing goddess, and learning how to breathe through stressful times.
Speaker 1:So no, I get that. It's interesting, you know, do you think? Let me ask you this before I say what I'm gonna say do you think there was any egotisticalness, aside to that into that? You know, with not letting it go, I don't know about that exactly.
Speaker 2:I mean, definitely, ego is a thing and for me, maybe I had something to prove. I mean, you know, I had this super uber successful dad and mom was successful in her work. So maybe I was sort of trying to live up to some expectations that I sort of imposed on myself, projecting my own expectations onto others and experiencing some frustration. So yeah, my ego is definitely a part of all that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, short answer is yes, I guess I mean, even like you still arguing over even silly things, still embodying that I guess you could say that loyal mindset yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess it's a kind of competitive need to win.
Speaker 2:If I haven't won the argument, if I haven't won the choice of where we're going to dinner or what movie we're going to see or something, then somehow I'm inadequate or not masculine. You know, maybe it's a letting her have her way was sort of you know, again, again, even that had to be my decision. Nowadays, ask my wife a whole different person.
Speaker 1:Now, if you don't mind me, asking your wife now is that that same girlfriend that you were arguing with?
Speaker 2:We only met. We've been married, 19, coming up on 20 years and we met a year before that. So no, there was a handful of very nice, very. You know I have nothing negative to say about any of my past girlfriends they all kind of trained me in one way or another and gave me lessons that I needed to learn to become the man that my wife, my actual wife eventually married. And I don't think without some of those lessons in humility and spirituality and honesty and those kinds of things, I she wouldn't have had anything to do with me. So it's all good. The path has been a learning journey that's with everything.
Speaker 1:I was honestly only just curious because I myself, for example, when I first started working as a paralegal, I really held that title to the fucking degree. Like you know, there were certain things I wouldn't quote, unquote do because I'm a paralegal. You know, I'm not going to go here because I'm a paralegal, even plant medicine, like I had somebody want me to try that with them at the time and I was like I'm a paralegal, I can't do plant medicine and like it was just all these different. Well, I wouldn't do that because I'm a paralegal. I don't do this because I'm a paralegal. You know, and I said it all, everybody knew you didn't have to know me well to know that I was a paralegal.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I think that these hard-earned certificates and credentials are something that a lot of us hold on to and they become sort of an identifier, they become our identity, and most of us are far more than the one or two-dimensional that represents, and it's a matter of being able to sort of let go and let people see more of you, more facets of the gemstone that you are.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're too sweet. No, I love that. More dimensions, Like we don't have to be just one thing, you know you can tap into all of it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that is that kind of ego attached to the law degree. I'm a lawyer. Look at me. You're supposed to have a nice car, you're supposed to wear nice clothes and an expensive watch and all those kinds of things and honestly, I've never had the kind of career where my success has been just through the stratosphere. So I don't have the high-end car and the high-end clothes and I don't. You know, I live a comfortable but fairly normal, average, middle class kind of a life and learning to become content with that is also an important thing. Check your ego at the door and be a good human being, no matter what.
Speaker 1:Have you not always been content with that?
Speaker 2:no, I mean, like I said, the those first half of my professional career this well, certainly the first half of my adult life probably I I think I carried around a lot of anger and frustration and dissatisfaction. Like I said, that the therapy sitting with this shrink and talking through things really helped. And honestly I'll say to everybody if you haven't gone to therapy, talk to a shrink Maybe. If you don't need to, that's fine, but if you haven't done it, you don't know and there's always something to learn about yourself and probably to let go of that. You know we carry around so much baggage and we don't even know we're doing it.
Speaker 1:So I say go talk to to somebody, it's good for you yeah, I also love how you mentioned you don't know if it'll work if you don't ever try it. You know, I try to emphasize that with everything, like you don't know if something will be for you, if you'll like it, if you'll enjoy it. Career activity hobby, you name it, if you enjoy it. Yeah, career activity hobby, you name it. Like if you don't put your heart in it and try it.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely. You know, just like trying new foods right, you might not like it and you don't have to ever try it again, but you might really enjoy it. It's worth a shot. So you know, I say, go for it. Life is too short to skip over things just because you have a preconceived notion of that. You like it or not like it. Don't believe everything you think. That's so true.
Speaker 1:Now you mentioned you let go of a lot of anger. Do you mind elaborating a little bit on what some of this anger was stemming from?
Speaker 2:I think it was sort of diffuse, generalized anger, just sort of carrying, you know. I mean, it was sort of the way I had operated in my life was, you know, take issue with things oh the food's not hot enough, or oh the the guy behind me in the movie theater is making noise, or whatever. You know, it didn't have to be much to get angry about things and it was a way of being. I guess you could say maybe it was a kind of way of engaging with the world and showing that I was engaging with the world. That wasn't very productive, you know, but yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe it was frustration with not having made it as a filmmaker and ended up, you know, settling to become a lawyer, or we're doing therapy here now.
Speaker 1:That is what the podcast is. Amanda's mindset is partially therapy. Thank you Licensed, but you know I provide unlicensed therapy.
Speaker 2:I think it was just a default position that I somewhere along the line fell into. I'm trying to think was I an angry kid? Probably not. I mean being the nerdy kid, the kid that kids picked on. I was always overweight, so that was the thing. I was that chubby kid with the red hair. When I had hair it was bright red. So I got made fun of, you know, and I guess maybe some of it was just sort of a reaction to the circumstances I was put in and I felt put upon or something I don't know. There's a lot of growing up that happened a little later for me than maybe for some people. So I was always a mature kid in terms of, you know, identifying, being able to talk with the adults and that kind of thing. But I think inside I was very insecure, very uncomfortable in my skin, probably until I was well into college and experiencing life as an adult.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that you mentioned the food's not hot enough. And yes, I picked up on that because you know, and I haven't shared this, I don't know if I've even shared this very detailed anywhere, but I love how you mentioned too that maybe it was a way of engaging with the world. You know, for a while I used to post on my stories and I didn't realize in hindsight like what I was actually doing, but any little nuance that would happen to me. I'd spill my drink and I'd make a post on my story to mention her, and now I wasn't necessarily angry, but it's like that negative mentality, you know. And now I'm engaging but it's like, oh well, I'm complaining about somebody not re-racking the weights at the gym and it's like man, there are bigger issues in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's easy to take things personally. Oh, they didn't re-rack the weights at the gym. Well, that you know. That makes it harder for me. What a pain. That's not cool, Right? Hey, you know we're all here following the rules. What makes you so special, Right?
Speaker 1:There's no such thing as rules. I don't believe in rules of life.
Speaker 2:But the point being that you know there are some people who go through life taking issue with things and other people everything just rolls off their back and they're you know. Just nothing phases them and you know, I'd like to say I'm finding somewhere in the middle. I'd rather be the guy who things roll off my back more often, but I sometimes get angry. I had an experience a few days ago that I caught myself mid sentence and apologize to this poor woman that I was complaining to and I said I know, it's not your fault, I just need to vent and she goes. Well, vent away. I guess the self-awareness and being able to catch myself, rather than carrying that around for two, three hours afterwards still fuming about this situation, was totally beyond my or anybody else's control. Some people just go through.
Speaker 2:I have a friend who's actually his wife and you never hear a word out of this person's mouth that isn't a complaint or a judgment or criticism oh, it's too sunny out, but it's too hot. Or oh, it's nice and cool. You know it doesn't matter which way it goes. It's cloudy, it's cool, but it's cloudy. You know there's nothing that isn't qualified with a negative and you know you could call it looking at both sides of a coin, I suppose. But she comes off as negative and he and I go out to dinner sometime We'll chit-chat about things and the negativity. I'm tired of hearing about it and I think that she experiences a lot of that in life. People put some distance. Because of that, she's always got a dark cloud and I, you know being positive and you know what the practice that I've done that really has made a difference in my life.
Speaker 2:Gratitude, sitting down a couple of times a day and just thinking of two or three things for which I feel grateful. It's very hard to be negative and angry when you're saying, oh, such fresh air to breathe. Oh, look at this cute dog that's rubbing up against my leg. I've got these amazing children. It's very hard to be negative about things, even when times are a little hard sometimes. If you're living in that space of gratitude, appreciation it doesn't even have to be a thank God or prayerful thing.
Speaker 2:Look for the silver lining, keep a list of the positives and the negative stuff just sort of doesn't take hold. You know I do that in business too, and this is an interesting, maybe it's a tip for people. Business too, and this is an interesting maybe it's a tip for people. You know how, when you're doing your work and people criticize or they you know you don't hear from the folks that are happy very often, right? So when you do make a file and put those notes or those emails or whatever in that file. I have a file in my notes application just titled kudos. Every time somebody says something kind or positive or upbeat about me or my products or my services, it goes in there. And when I start to feel really low, take a look at the kudos. People are happy that they know me and that they've worked with me and that's brings up the spirit.
Speaker 1:And that brings up the spirit. I absolutely love that.
Speaker 2:It's super easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it's so true that so many people they don't leave a review. They don't say anything unless it's a negative one or a crappy one. So, honestly, even something I've tried really doing the past years is anytime I enjoy something, I am leaving a review. I am leaving a review and it is so detailed and I'm saying what I enjoyed, why it was good, why you should go all right, I should do that more. All the specifics and you know, I even actually had a woman I was speaking to in terms of podcasting.
Speaker 2:That was like, you know, if it's a google review, that even gets your name out there, like people see that Even negative reviews and criticisms are really a gift in their way, because you know if it's a real negative, you know real something you believe in and you agree with. Well, then you change your behavior or you try to adjust for it or make it right or whatever, and if it's not, then you just know and you write it off. That person's just having a bad day, right Me yelling at this woman in the mall. It totally wasn't her fault, she was just the one bearing the bad news.
Speaker 2:But I'm thinking of there's this podcaster and he also does a YouTube channel where he does reaction video to a particular TV show and he gets hundreds of comments. Just get out of this, get off this shut up and let me watch the show. Right, and he's doing the reactions because that's a legal thing where you stay out of trouble with copyright law by doing reactions. It's fair use, it's transformative. So these people responding to him this way, he always tries to turn around and say something kind in return. Thank you so much for watching or. I really appreciate your input. You know just stuff like that and it's kind of funny. And he's doing it, you know, with his tongue in his cheek, of course, but it's kind of a signifier of you know how you have to live life. The world can be a harsh place if you let it, and it can be a pleasant place if you cultivate that.
Speaker 1:so you are a philosophical being, you are, and no, it's so true. You know, we often hear like what could be better, what we could improve on or how to fix things. Since I've started the podcast, like everyone, and their brother has a suggestion as to what to do, how to fix it, how to edit, how to anything. And you know I don't often hear this is good, that's good. I hardly ever actually to the point where I started reaching out to other podcast hosts, even if I've never had a conversation with them. If they do one random thing that I liked in the podcast, well, they can't be like, hey, I've only listened to one episode, but, by the way, you said this Really like the way you said that it's like just letting people know, like, because we don't always know like what's working, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why the kudos files are great. When you get those things from people, you have to. Let's face it. It's probably 10 to 1. 10 negatives to 1 positive. So hold on to the positives, Let the negatives go out the window.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, I love that. I actually have a note on my phone like a success list and I saw a meme years ago that mentioned like listing every single successful thing you can think of that you've ever done small little professional, personal, every aspect, like even on a random hard day and just looking at it and be like, oh damn, I did. Xyz, I'm pretty badass, you know, like boosting morale a little, you know yeah, I just had a thought about the idea of a bucket list.
Speaker 2:It's sort of an inverse of that. It's sort of the proud to have done, the list. And with bucket list you're crossing things off. I'd say with a proud to have done, you're adding to the list as you accomplish more things. So you go out in the world looking for things, experiences to have, positives to experience and okay, this is a thing I may have to write a book.
Speaker 1:You do have to write another one. I'll buy it. I'll be the first one. I'll pre-order it. I'm ready right now. You can start writing.
Speaker 2:Okay, send it to me, I'll get started.
Speaker 1:Maybe I will. Don't push your luck. Don't push your luck. We're entering a verbal contract careful.
Speaker 2:At least it's not an emoji contract.
Speaker 1:Remember that story is that a thing? An emoji contract?
Speaker 2:there was a case maybe a year or so ago where it was up in canada where this, these business people were interacting over text and the one guy sent a thumbs up emoji and the other guy took that as an agreement to the terms of the contract and the court upheld it and said, yeah, you agreed I mean based on prior course of dealing and all that but yeah, you can make a contract with an emoji, so be careful what your emoji choices are.
Speaker 1:I'm blown away with that.
Speaker 2:I mean it makes sense, but manifestation of intent to be bound right intent to be bound by the terms of a contract, right, offer, acceptance, consideration. There you go, you got contract. So the thumbs up is the acceptance.
Speaker 1:Wow, and then so okay, there was an offer. And then you said consideration.
Speaker 2:Well, the exchange of value in the deal. Whatever the deal was about, I don't remember the details, but yeah, okay, okay, and that that's all it takes.
Speaker 1:You know, that just makes me really think that people gotta be careful. Just how easy it is like you're in a quick conversation, you know what I'm saying, like via text and you send a thumbs up or oh. It also even makes me think about love reacting like on an iphone or like like reacting what that means, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a rare case.
Speaker 1:But get it, but it just yeah, you know it's interesting.
Speaker 2:I was talking to some students about this earlier. I think one thing is, if you have a course of dealing, I'm always using written contracts, and then there's this thumbs up thing. The judge looks at us and says, well, no, everybody who deals with you knows that you work with written contracts. So of course you didn't mean the thumbs up to be binding, but if you routinely text with people and that's all you rely on, then yeah, right, so it's sort of the way you operate in the world can influence how you're viewed if you ever end up in these disputes and things.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I want to backtrack a tad. You mentioned about focusing on the present and we were talking about gratitude. And you know, something I started doing myself that I think has really helped is I do the gratitude every day, but I try to have it be something within the last 24 hours, something that happened to me, something I saw, something I experienced, and it almost forces me to be more present and to look for more good things. You know because, oh, in the morning I'm going to write down these five things in the last 24 hours that I'm grateful. You know it's easy to think of the big things like I'm grateful for my spouse, I'm grateful for, you know, the big thing.
Speaker 2:Everybody can often think of them, but in the midst, you know, Well, there are so many of the I won't call them little things, but there's so much that we sort of take for granted, right? I mean, the sun rises in the east every day and it warms us all day long, it gives us light to work by, and all of that, and we take it for granted. But can you imagine what life would be like if the sun didn't come up tomorrow? It's worth being grateful for Having fresh air, clean water to drink. Not everybody does so. Most of us are very fortunate, having a job we enjoy or people we like to be around, just the feeling of wind in our well, I don't have hair, but the wind in the hair as you're driving in the car or whatever. These are things worth paying attention. Living, as you said, being present in the present.
Speaker 1:I love all of this. Oh my gosh, I want to transition a tad. So this podcast prenup what made you first decide. Now we're going to create this.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, I want to clarify something. In the introduction you talked about the guest release as a podcast prenup, and it is a kind of a prenup. Sure, it's between the guest and the host, but when I talk about a podcast prenup I'm thinking a little more broadly. That it's really the agreement between anybody that you have a deal with, whether it's a co-host or co-producer of the show, or your virtual assistant who's going to help you do the show notes, or the editor you hire to edit your show. All of those people should be signing a contract that lays out what to expect and what's expected of them and what happens if. How does this relationship end? If you stop wanting to do it, can you just walk away? What do you owe me? If your partner's in a business? Well, you know what do you do about that. How does somebody buy the other person out? What if there's's uh, somebody dies or becomes disabled? Now am I stuck dealing with your family to try to figure this out? And if you haven't finished the work, what do I do that? You know all these kinds of things. So that's what a prenup really does is it sets up the expectations of both the good and the later possibility of the bad. So with the guest release it's you're going to come on my hour. I'm agreeing to come on your show and you're agreeing to host me and do an interview and hopefully showcase my best. You know, put my best foot forward and that's our agreement. I'm agreeing to let you do that and you get to publish it in your feed and I get to link to it and share and all that. But it's good for my visibility because maybe some people are going to come out and find one of my podcasts Entertainment Law Update or Legit Podcast Pro and thanks for the plug and that's that. But you should get it in writing because that consent to be recorded, privacy issue comes into play, the ownership of the resulting recording comes into play. So all these things are covered in what I call a podcast guest release.
Speaker 2:This sort of my proselytizing mission, I guess you could say is every host of a podcast should have their guests signing a release every single time. It's life safe sex. If you don't use it, that one time is the one that comes back and causes problems. So use a podcast release every time, practice safe guest. So you know there it is and honestly, if you don't mind, I'll plug it. If you've got other listeners that do podcasts and interviews and things, go to podcast releasecom and you'll get a free guest release that you can download and use. You can implement it into part of your workflow. It doesn't have to be paper that they print out and sign and send back. It could be an online form or checkbox or those kinds of things. So, but just get that manifestation of intent to be bound every time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but so too. But so what made you? Now we need this release for the guests, for the co-hosts, for the VAs. What would the actual? Let me create this.
Speaker 2:So when I started podcasting it was I actually started as a guest on shows in the early mid 2006, 2006 or so. When I started my own podcast, I realized I needed to make a deal with my cohost. This is a bit of a do as I say, not as I do, because we recorded a conversation where we talked about it's my show, she's the cohost, but if anything changes, it's my show and I'm keeping it back out of conversation. That should have been in writing. We've been doing it for 16 years and everything's fine, so I'm comfortable with our mutual understanding, but those are the kinds of things you need to get in writing. So I realized that, and I realized as I was getting into it that I wanted to. Being the kind of lawyer I am, I wanted to do some due diligence and make sure I was crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's and getting things right. So I started doing research and I ended up writing a book about podcast law, podcast blog and new media producers legal survival guide. And that book guy kind of got me thinking. And then, well, people would come and say, well, yeah, fine, but where do I find this? Or well, how do I do that, and so I started realizing, okay, I've got to create these things and the guest release is sort of an easy, quick win, a great way to protect yourself.
Speaker 2:And I wanted to look, I'm in business. I have an online business that I wanted to promote and attract people to my mailing list so I could offer them my goods and services. So I decided to give the guest release away as a contract. It's an exchange for giving me your email address. So you give me your email address, I give you this freebie and then I get to send you emails until you click the unsubscribe button and hopefully I give you additional value that keeps you coming back for more. That's when I started thinking about this and eventually that led to me building out a whole course and program called you see it on the screen behind me easy, legal for podcasters is a, an online course that helps creators who don't want to hire me to draw up all these documents for them one by one and cost, you know, many thousands of dollars. Perhaps they can get in on this course and learn how to do it for themselves and access some templates and forms and things like that. So that's what's going on behind the curtain here in Firemark Central.
Speaker 1:Firemark Central. Firemark HQ. Okay, Is that official anything? Firemark HQ? No, it just came to mind. I got you. So people had questions as to how do we do this? Post the book? No, that makes so much sense. I got you legally bound. It says what it's supposed to say, all of the things you know. When that it's actually, it will stand up. You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean, yeah, yeah, you know, it's one of the things that I mean, if you haven't done it a lot before, and let's face it, I'm an entertainment lawyer, so I was dealing with oh, you know, someone, we're having someone on our tv show or we're hiring an actor to be in a movie, or whatever. So a lot of these are the same kinds of issues in a sort of slightly different angle, and so it came pretty easily and naturally to me to start thinking about these issues, and really the trick was identifying those different angles and addressing them in one way or another. So I've done the hard thinking for you so you can get a form and feel comfortable that it does the job that you need done, when you don't have to hire me to do that thinking over and over again. There's some things that are suited to creating templates or working out systems for developing things quickly and, frankly, it's kind of fun for me too.
Speaker 1:Now I got to ask why Pluina? Where did that? Why was that the word?
Speaker 2:I think it's just. It's something I just came up with as sort of a. It captures the imagination. Everybody kind of knows what a prenup is I think Most people do anyway and so it sort of captures the imagination. It recognizes that, hey, if you're going into a podcasting collaboration with a co-host or the guest and host relationship, it's a little bit like a marriage. You're starting a relationship and, like it or not, a lot of relationships end, sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly, but oftentimes unhappily, and the goal, I guess, of a prenup is to make that transition, that ending, easier, more manageable, more peaceful. I guess there we go, not being the adversarial, controversial, confrontational guy again. Let me help you make it more peaceful.
Speaker 2:So that's where prenup came in. And you're getting married to your co-host. That's where I first started thinking about it. Okay, you've got a co-host, you're forming this thing. The podcast itself, the show is, is the house. The episodes are the various assets that you own and of course the audience has the kids right. So you gotta figure out who gets the house, who gets the kids. It's just an apt metaphor, I think wow, I like that analogy.
Speaker 1:the show is the house and you said the episode is the asset it's the furniture and the cars and all the other stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the audience and the kids, wow, that makes so much sense to me. So that resonated with me on a different level, because the law I've been involved in was family law. Prenup is something I've dealt with. I've created them, I've edited them, I've talked to people about well, your divorce would be different if you had this prenup. Well, the prenup says this, so it doesn't matter what you're saying. Now it's like you know, and I think so many people have, like this stigma around getting a prenup. But you know, I think everybody should, even in terms of marriages. Like I had an attorney say to me once it's kind of like car insurance you don't expect or want to get in an accident, but god forbid, if you do, your ass is covered and you know, like, you don't expect the to get divorced, but god will bend you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was doing a webinar this morning for digital entrepreneurs and I was thinking about these kinds of metaphors also, and another one that I came up with is getting this legal protection stuff done. It's not something anybody is excited about doing, right? It's certainly not bucket list work that you want to get done, but you do it because it's sort of like the pre-flight checklist. You're getting on a plane. You want to know that there's enough fuel and the systems operate right and the landing gear is going to come down when you want it to, because otherwise you're coming in for at least a rough landing or maybe an all out crash. Right? So get that legal stuff done. It's like the landing gear on the plane you only need it for those few occasions, but when you need it it's there for you.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's so true. I love those little analogies and those little metaphors, and you know that. Sam Matoni also mentioned something to me and I think it's really relevant too in terms of podcasting as well. When you create that prenup whether it's your marriage or whether it's your podcast, the co-host, the guest you are on best terms with this person. When things fall apart or go a little rocky, you're not on the same terms. So, like, why not create the prenup? While everyone is getting along and you want the same things, you're on the same page. You know, like before the tension arrives.
Speaker 2:And sometimes those conversations lead to the tension. Right, you're doing this prenup thing, you start having this conversation, you realize you're not on the same page. Well, I would say better to have that discovery happen early, when you have less invested in things. Now you know, like in marriages there's a lot more going on. It's hard to be well, it's just business. No, we're in things Now. In marriages, there's a lot more going on. It's hard to be well, it's just business. No, we're in love, we're supposed to be in love, we're getting married or whatever. But in business, you're getting married because it's business, right? And so having those conversations, realizing hey, maybe we're not on the same page, either getting through that or not, is better than figuring it out two, three, five, 15, 30 years later.
Speaker 1:I like how you mentioned, sometimes it does bring about the tension. I had a potential guest that I really and I talked to you about this privately that I was so excited to interview but she wouldn't sign my guest guest release so y'all have not heard from her. But it created a little bit of tension but like it was one of those that it was much less tension and much less friction. We didn't argue there wasn't too much tension, it wasn't like combative or anything, but it was much less. Her simply saying, oh, because, because it says XYZ, it's not something I can sign, and me saying, okay, I understand, then we can't record. We follow each other on social media. It is what it is. But it was much less of like I don't even know the word I'm trying to find for this but much less of combativeness because, because it was, we had that conversation, you know, when it wasn't after the fact yeah, you hadn't both invested a bunch of time and we hadn't invested much of anything.
Speaker 1:You know like, we had one conversation and I sent her this email and she was like, okay, well, here's my standpoint. You know, it was probably an hour's worth of time with that, so, but it made for less friction, you know, which I think. Wouldn't you want that Like less stress in life?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, there are some circumstances where friction is a good thing, but other than that, no, it's where, where it's friction A good thing.
Speaker 1:Let's delve down that between the sheets.
Speaker 2:Amanda, that's what I was thinking. Where is friction a good thing? Let's delve down that Between the sheets.
Speaker 1:Amanda, that's what I was thinking of I had no idea where you were going, or stuff.
Speaker 2:I didn't telegraph it with the eyes.
Speaker 1:No, because I was really like, let's delve down.
Speaker 2:What friction do you want? The brake linings on your car friction is good there too. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:Life is too short not to have some fun. I agree, I love that you said that. I agree, you know now this is completely off topic and irrelevant, but I'm somebody who wears a lot of shirts that have very interesting sayings on them and I've gotten a lot of comments about them. You know, and it's like life is short, I'm gonna wear the funny sarcastic shirt because why not? You know like, I have a green hoodie that I wear around christmas time that says something along the lines of like but follow up, deck the the halls and not your family. That's good, I think it's cute. You know like, not all of my family love them. I also have one that says cold ass balls.
Speaker 1:It's a sweater okay you are looking at me like I'm insane right now well, no, I already do that.
Speaker 2:But no, I mean, hey, like I said, life's too short, go have some fun yes, and whatever is fun for you you should embrace on your deathbed?
Speaker 2:do you want to be remembering all the serious shit that went on in your life or you want to remember the good times and the laughter right? What's the most musical sound that comes out of people? Laughter it children's laughter especially is it's like music to me. I just you know I could go through my whole life just listening to children laugh. That's great. So have fun. Entertain, Actually entertain yourself by entertaining the world.
Speaker 1:Okay, from the entertainment law lawyer, there you go. Ask me, like at the end of your life, like how do you want to look back on life and like what's going to make you so freaking grateful that you, like shed a tear looking back, I lived this, you know, not just like what you want to do, what you want to experience, but what's going to make you so you know, totally yeah.
Speaker 2:So now, how long ago was it that you created this prenup? Oh gosh. How long ago was it that you created this prenup? Oh gosh, it's probably been about nine or 10 years now since I've made the original podcast release and the other versions of prenups have come, you know, along the way in the course of creating the course and the trainings and things. But yeah, that's probably about 10 years ago.
Speaker 2:I hadn't thought about that and it's been updated, you know, that's. The other thing is I try to keep it updated. So when ai came in, you know into the consciousness of the community, what a year or two ago, I added some language in there that gives the, the host, the right to use ai tools to edit the show, but on the condition that it not edit the meaning or the tone of the word spoken, because you want to promise you're not going to embarrass or harm your guest's reputation by changing what they said. Even if you cut out a word, you can move the arms, but don't change the positive to a negative or those kinds of things. So try to find a middle ground and I update the agreement from time to time and it's a Google Doc that people can download. Once you get it, you can go back and check it again. Get the update. When I do update, I notify everybody who's on the list.
Speaker 1:Okay, you mentioned AI and I want to touch upon something. Hopefully I don't butcher this, but if I do just correct me, that you mentioned when you were speaking at Podcast Movement about how chat GPT people don't own what the response we get from that's not ours. Can you elaborate on that and explain this better than what I'm saying? Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the principle that we're talking about is the output of the system, right, you type in a query and it goes and it gathers, you know, uses all of its accumulated knowledge from, frankly, from ripping off all the work that's been out there before, and then it spits out an answer. Well, in the world of copyright law, ownership of a copyright that is, the right to protect and exclusive right to use the things that we create that comes from the act of authorship and author implies that there's a person right, and in almost all the other countries in the world, the governments have basically come out and said that the copyright is. In order to have a copyright, there has to be original work of expression by a human author. Here in the US we had a case a decade or a little more than that ago involving photographs taken by a. They call them monkey selfies, google monkey selfie, and you'll see the images I'm talking about but these scarlet crested macaques from somewhere in Indonesia. This photographer went and he left his camera out and these macaques picked up the camera and started taking pictures of themselves with it, and so no human involved in the making of those photographs. So when somebody else, the photographer put them on his webpage and he was publishing a coffee table book or something and the Wikimedia Foundation, the makers of Wikipedia. They found one of these images and put it on their site and he sued, claiming copyright infringement Copyright infringement and it went through. The courts took a few years and the courts ultimately ruled no, no human authorship, no copyright there to be infringed.
Speaker 2:So that's the risk that you take if you use these AI tools to generate content, is you can't prevent others from copying and using the same stuff and they can copy it directly from you if you don't make it your own by making it original. So that's a problem. So, hey, I think that it's a double-sided. There's legal issues coming at it from many angles. One is you know where's it getting the information it's basing all its knowledge on? Well, it's going out and scraping stuff off the internet. Guess what? People own that, even though they publish it on the internet, they own a copyright and they have a right to decide who gets to copy it. So there's lots of lawsuits going on. We're at the early days of these lawsuits, but I'd say within the next year or two, we're going to start seeing some real answers to is it legal or not to train your AI on everything out in the world.
Speaker 1:What's the best way to still use AI but basically cover our efforts?
Speaker 2:I would say treat AI as a starting point, a jumping off point for things.
Speaker 2:Don't ask it to write the whole script of your episode or whatever. Ask it to give you an outline and then take that outline and work it up as your own thing and then flesh it out yourself and if you need a little more help with a section of it, you can say tell me more about that and use it as a research tool, not as a creation tool. That's probably my biggest advice and, frankly, just operate with the understanding that if you use the output of the AI and you try to claim ownership, you're not going to have any success with that. Still, you can benefit by curating that stuff, but you could make an online course that's entirely generated by AI, but you're the one who knew what to ask it and when to ask it and so on. So the organization and structure might be yours, even though the actual lessons in the course maybe not. But I wouldn't use it to write a whole book, unless you're willing to give the book away for free, cause that's what's sort of going to happen. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so okay, Basically using it a little bit for creativity.
Speaker 2:I would say for ideation and initial steps, but not for the full. I mean, frankly, I don't want to hear from the machine. I want to hear what you have to say, the way you say it. So sit down and write. Yes, it's harder work, but that's what earns you the right to claim ownership.
Speaker 1:That's fair.
Speaker 2:Raining on everybody's parade out there.
Speaker 1:No, I appreciate it because it is becoming so prevalent. Now Everything offers some version of AI. Even where I publish the podcast, I use Buzzsprout. They have something called co-host AI. All these different even outside of your chat, GPT, all these different sites have their own version of AI. This, like Snapchat's got it, like everyone's fucking got their own version.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, they're great tools, wonderful tools, but use them like tools, not as a replacement for the human intervention and authorship for the human intervention and authorship.
Speaker 1:Now you have a pretty general release that people can use for guests, assistants, co-hosts. When would you suggest that somebody might want like a specific tailored type of release for something they're doing?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, if you have a narrowly very subject focused podcast, you may need to include some disclaimers. If you're doing like therapy on the air, I mean that's what we're doing. But if you're doing, if you're a licensed therapist and you're really doing a therapy session, you need something more than just, oh yeah, you can record me and publish it. You want to cover those bases a little more. The good news is that the release part of it, the guest release thing, is relatively basic. There's not a lot to it. Other areas, like if you're getting into a partnership or co-producing, co-owning the show, those kinds of things, then who's bringing what to the party? It may be a pretty easy thing to fill out a template and we've got templates for those kinds of things available. But if you're not comfortable with that or if what you need is a scoop of vanilla ice cream, great, I got you covered. If you need a full on banana split, then you're going to probably want to call me and hire a lawyer. That make sense.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:There's another weird metaphor for you Banana splits. The real trick is asking the right questions and then addressing them, answering them in the document. What should I be worried? What am I worried about? I want to make sure I'm getting a copy. It should seem so. You're getting a copy. What can you do with it? List them out. What can't you do with it? That may make sense also to list, but not this. How are you going to give credit when you talk about it, when you publish it? It has to include this. Those are the kinds of wrinkles that need to be ironed out.
Speaker 1:I love all the metaphors today. Yeah, I love them. That's like my favorite thing ever. Do you know what CYA stands for? Yeah, what doesYA stands for? Yeah, what does it stand for?
Speaker 2:Cover your apples.
Speaker 1:Okay, fair enough, cover your ass Fair enough. So maybe that's a very well-known phrase, but I heard that like for the first time in a training.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 1:It's been a couple years now, but it's like changed my life and, like everything I do, I'm covering my ass absolutely no, that's the same.
Speaker 2:You're working in the legal field.
Speaker 1:The paralegal field covering asses is what we do, right it's just one of those things like a better safe than sorry type of thing you know like, rather than after the fact being like, well, fuck, let me cover my ass before I end.
Speaker 2:The other metaphor that fits there is.
Speaker 1:You know it doesn't do any good to close the barn doors after the horses have already run away. I've never heard that in my life. Really there's no point because they're already gone. Yep Unless they're coming back. What do you mean?
Speaker 2:Come back home. They're going to need to get in, but I'm just being goofy.
Speaker 1:I think too philosophically for you to be too goofy.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to lighten it up. Life's too short not to have some fun.
Speaker 1:That's true. No, I love that. Oh my God, I could talk to you all night. You know, I love that.
Speaker 2:I love it so much I gotta go make dinner and feed my kids.
Speaker 1:Listen, gordon. You told me there was not a time limit. I have a verbal contract that you said you don't have a time limit.
Speaker 2:Oh well, let me get starved.
Speaker 1:Your wife will feed them. They won't starve. She's great. I have faith in that.
Speaker 2:No, we're good, Go ahead.
Speaker 1:I trust that she's great. Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? Yes, really.
Speaker 2:I will teach you how to be rich. Isn't that his name?
Speaker 1:I didn't expect you to know him Well yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm wise as much as my ears.
Speaker 1:I'll put it that way, he's got a podcast as well, called On Purpose. Have you heard it? No, I did not know. He had a show. Film me it. Well, he ends it with two segments. The first one is called the Many Sides to Us, and I've started incorporating these in my podcast. But notice, I give him credit. I'm not taking credit because I didn't make this up. See, I'm following Gordon's rules, gordon's mindset over there, you're using his idea, not his property.
Speaker 2:Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Yes, I am using his idea.
Speaker 2:See, ideas can't be protected under copyright law, but the specific way that he iterates it is his, and likewise the way you iterate it is yours.
Speaker 1:So am I not allowed to be asking these questions?
Speaker 2:I've been doing this. You ask her the same exact questions that he asked.
Speaker 1:Yes, shh, don't tell her.
Speaker 2:No, short questions are probably not copyrightable either. Go ahead, do it, do it.
Speaker 1:Now I'm afraid to ask you these. I'm hesitant as to whether I should. I've been doing this for a long fucking time. It's all late now, do it? I was honestly trying to cover my ass by mentioning him, and that's why I started with no, you're, and you're right too.
Speaker 2:That's the right way to do it. It's not plagiarism and it's probably not copyright infringement. I I won't know until I hear it. So.
Speaker 1:Well, the question is, what is one word someone who was beating you for the first time would use to describe you as?
Speaker 2:Someone who's meeting me for the first time.
Speaker 1:One word. These all have to be the first five have to be answered in one word.
Speaker 2:Bold.
Speaker 1:Okay, what is one word that Bold? Okay, what is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as?
Speaker 2:Helpful.
Speaker 1:What is one word you'd use to describe yourself?
Speaker 2:Effective.
Speaker 1:What is one word that, if someone did not like you, would you use to describe you as?
Speaker 2:Someone doesn't like me or wouldn't agree with my mindset. Hard one, ignorant.
Speaker 1:What is one word you're trying to embody right now?
Speaker 2:Service.
Speaker 1:The second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in up to a sentence. Number one what is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 2:When you're going through hell, keep going, don't stop and screw around. Get through it, keep going, don't stop and screw around.
Speaker 1:Get through it. What is the worst?
Speaker 2:advice you've heard or received. Finish what you started. Some things aren't worth finishing, some things you should just give up. You should stop. It's not working. Don't do it.
Speaker 1:You don't have to commit to the finish line for everything you do. Okay, I like that you mentioned that. You know, I had a guest once say, because I asked her something about achieving goals, because she had achieved a lot of things, and like if somebody was struggling to achieve something and she mentioned, like maybe it's not meant for you, you know, maybe you are having such a hard time with the thing because you're not meant to do the thing. Okay, what is something that you used to value that you no longer value?
Speaker 2:I no longer value what other people think of me. That's hard, I'd say I value that less than I used to, but not completely off the map.
Speaker 1:Okay, if you could describe what you would want your legacy to be as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say? To be as if?
Speaker 2:someone was reading it. What would you want it to say? I want my kids especially, but really everybody who knew me, to be a good person and to do some good in the world, to be of service, to help others, solve a problem, get a message out, effect change in the world. If everybody made a little change that was for the good of people, the world would be a much better place.
Speaker 1:That's true, I completely agree. Now, this is going to be a fun one to hear your response to. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why. He does not ask why, but I want to know.
Speaker 2:One law Well, I mean the human part of me says gravity, the law of gravity. But somebody already beat me to it. One law Boy, that's hard. I think it would be a law that that places the ultimate value on respect for one another, and I'm not exactly sure how that I mean. You know, laws don't get made overnight, that you have to think them through and negotiate with all the stakeholders and all that. But no, I think that showing respect not showing but actually respecting one another, regardless of points of view, regardless of who they are, color of the skin, all those things, that respect is valuable and that you should earn your place in the world by being respectful, by respecting everybody, well, because the world would be a better place.
Speaker 2:I think so much of what's wrong in the world, in politics, in society, in business, in our personal lives, in relationships, stems from a disrespect, maybe a lack of empathy also. But you know, everybody has value, everybody's here for some contribution that they bring. And when we minimize another person, when we marginalize people, that's a disrespect, that's the way we create the otherness, the separateness that divides us. So I say the opposite of that is, we all should respect, and I guess maybe Jesus said you know, we should all love our neighbor, love thy neighbor. Right there it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes so much sense. I love that. I love all of this. Oh my god, thank you so much for speaking with me this was a blast.
Speaker 2:It's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:I I have. I have a question I want to backtrack that I thought about but I didn't ask you and I'm because there's no rules for how I I run my podcast. I'm gonna, I'm going to ask. So you mentioned you started guesting in 2006, which is like fucking 18 years ago, so that's like forever ago, but you didn't start your own until around 2009. Did I hear that correctly?
Speaker 2:So yeah, so I started out. I'll tell you, I discovered podcasting first as a listener. There was Leo Laporte was the head of the Twit Network this Week in Tech. I was listening to him because I'd followed him on television and when his network changed formats and he left, he started a podcast. So I figured out how to listen to podcasts. This was back when you had to download it onto your iPod and carry it around with you and I thought, oh, that's cool, that's neat. And I thought, oh, that's cool, that's neat. And I liked the format he was doing.
Speaker 2:Right around the same time, this guy reached out to me and he asked me to be a guest on his show to answer questions. He did a show about a video, mainly like wedding videographers and event videographers, and he asked me to come on and answer questions. He just had a bunch of questions that were legal questions. So I came on and I was a guest and we got through a few questions and he said I got to have you back again, came back again. Shortly after that he reached out and he said let's do this every other week. We're going to do two twice a month. We'll do this show, we'll call it law and video, and he would bring the questions and I'd bring the answers to his show. But I was the guest expert, recurring guest, and we did that for around a couple of years before his boss found out he was doing a podcast and accused him of moonlighting and made him stop. What's interesting now is that he still works for the same company, but now his job is podcasting for the company. I think that's the case. I may be being a little out of turn, but anyway, at that point I was hooked. I had already figured out how to hook up a microphone to a computer and do a Skype call and all those kinds of things and, being the audio geek that I'd been in high school and college, that was fun. And so I had the bug and I realized I wanted to keep doing this and so I thought okay, what kind of a show would I do? Entertainment law I'll do a weekly or monthly news roundup of case law in entertainment.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to be the only solo voice. I wanted to have someone to bounce things off of and I wanted it to be a woman, because you want to have some contrast and varying points of view. It needed to be somebody who also practices entertainment law, but in a slightly different area than mine. I don't do much music law. So I said I want it to be a music lawyer. I didn't want it to be somebody competing with me here in Los Angeles. No one to help your competition.
Speaker 2:So I put it out on Twitter this is 2007,. Maybe 2008 Twitter. I was on there, there were a handful of lawyers on Twitter and I said to the lawyer community hey, I'm looking for a co-host here. Here are the criteria. And I got maybe 20 responses. 18 of them were the same name, tamara Bennett.
Speaker 2:So I ran. I didn't know her. I reached out to her and I said hey, you've been recommended. I'm thinking about doing this podcast and here's what I have in mind. Would you be interested? Let's jump on a call and just record a test episode and see how it goes.
Speaker 2:And so I created a little outline and we agreed to get together and talk and we made episode zero and it took us a few months to pull it together and get started. And my, my wife, had our first son during that sort of window of time. So he was maybe six months old when we started the show, maybe a little older than that and probably would have started earlier had he not been coming along right then and we had just moved into this new house and we needed a place to record. You know, it was all the logistical kind of stuff. And yeah, 2009, april 2009 was episode one of entertainment law update and we do a monthly show and day after tomorrow we record episode 173. So, yeah, so that's exciting and thus began an odyssey in the world of podcasting.
Speaker 1:Oh, that is so fascinating. I'm so glad I asked that. I was a little surprised that you started the guesting before the hosting. I would have thought it was the other way around, because you have so much knowledge to share.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean experts get asked to be guests. I get that, yeah, yeah, and I love the sound of my own voice, so it was inevitable that I'd end up getting cameras and microphones. You brought up ego earlier. You know, if this isn't ego, I don't know what is.
Speaker 1:You do love the sound of your own voice.
Speaker 2:I joke around about that. But no, I'm comfortable with the sound of my own voice. You know a lot of people don't like to hear their own voice on recordings because it's not what they hear in their head when they're talking. I don't notice a difference anymore. I'm desensitized to the difference. I guess, and I think you know, if I didn't have something to say and some value to share, I don't think I would like the sound of my own voice.
Speaker 2:But one of the things I've learned and become very comfortable with is that I do have something to share and there's always a new perspective, a new angle. Even though I can cover the same topic every week, I can cover it differently and give someone else a new insight into copyright or trademark or contract or trade secret law or just the ins and outs of the entertainment industry, whatever it is I'm talking about. So entertainment law update is that show, and my other show is legit podcast pro, where I do a live video, live stream on YouTube as well as record the audio. I make it for the audio audience, but I sit here and talk into this microphone like this as I do short tips on 10, maybe 15 minutes at the longest for podcast creators and others in the creator economy and help them navigate some of these legal things and understand how the business works.
Speaker 1:I love how you mentioned the insight. You can share the same thing with multiple perspectives of it.
Speaker 2:That's the answer to the big fear that a lot of people have about being a creator is I wouldn't know what I'm. What am I going to talk about? And the fact is, yeah, you may have covered it two weeks ago, but unless that same person was listening with the same questions in mind two weeks ago, they're getting a different bit of knowledge, and the ones who were listening last two weeks ago have a new question this week. So you're moving them along. You know it's bite-sized pieces.
Speaker 1:No, I heard once and I have no idea who said this to me, but about reading the same book twice. Like you'll get different pieces of wisdom. You know, listening to this same podcast episode two weeks later you're a different person and you'll heal different nuggets from it, you know yeah, it's like layers opposite of peel.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe it is like unpeeling an onion. Right, you've got one layer after another and there's something else there. I was gonna say it's like stacking on layers. You know, building the bricks in a wall going up.
Speaker 1:I love all of these analogies. I love these. Hey Worden, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for speaking with me, and where can people connect with you? The podcast lawyer.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I'm fortunate to have the name Firemark, which is very uncommon, Isn't that your?
Speaker 1:real last name.
Speaker 2:It is the real last name, the immigration coming over from what's now probably Ukraine or Kiev or maybe Belarus or something. Great-grandpa, came over right before the turn of the 20th century and they say, if the immigration officials didn't know how to pronounce your name and they tried it a couple times they'd give you a new name, and we think that's how it came about. So my, that great-grandfather had sons and had a son, I should say, and he had a son, and that's my grandfather, and my grandfather had my dad and my dad had me and I'm I have two sons. So me and I'm I have two sons. So maybe it will now propagate, but for now it's just us. So anyway, firemarkgordonfiremarkcom is the website for all the other stuff that I do, and you can find me on most social media just using my first initial last name, g firemark, so awesome, and what is the best way for them to get the release?
Speaker 2:Podcastreleasecom.
Speaker 1:Perfect. I will link all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much, and now I do always like to leave it back to the guests. Any final words of wisdom, anything you want to share with the listeners, whatever you want to leave them with.
Speaker 2:I think I threw it all into the to the episode. I mean, you know, come on, life's too short to go have some fun. All those great, those kinds of lines, finding your gratitude, and you know what Bill and Ted said it right Be excellent to each other.
Speaker 1:Bill and Ted.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I feel old. Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. It's a Keanu Reeves movie from the early 90s. I want to say I haven't.
Speaker 1:You don't have to feel old, I have not seen majority of movies, tv shows you could name anything. I can count on one hand the Netflix series that I watched in Spanish, so it's not an age thing.
Speaker 2:Well, that means your time has been better spent than mine.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh Well that means your time has been better spent than mine. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. I loved this.
Speaker 2:It has really been my pleasure. It's always a delight to talk to you, Amanda. This was fun.
Speaker 1:This was like my favorite episode.
Speaker 2:Say that to all the guests.
Speaker 1:I really don't. I'll sometimes tell them it was one of my favorites, but I don't always say it was my favorite. Well, thank you. One of my favorites, but I don't always say it was my favorite. This was. I'm flattered. Thank you so much again. I really appreciate it, my pleasure. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Mander's Mindset.
