Morgan Friedman (Host): Hey everyone. I’m excited to be back with another episode of Client Horror Stories, but I am doubly excited to have the one and only Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell here.

Did I pronounce your name correctly?

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yes, you did, Morgan. Thank you.

Morgan Friedman (Host): As they say in New York, with that and 2.50, you can get on the subway.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yeah.

Morgan Friedman (Host): I sound like my dad when I make a lame joke like that., but maybe it’s inevitable that we turn into our parents.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): There are worse things in the world. I’m gonna tell you.

Morgan Friedman (Host): That’s right. So I’m excited to hear about your client horror stories. I have my drinking hat. Let’s go.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): All right. So, I used to publish multiple authors and I really enjoyed it, Morgan. … The feeling of helping someone take their baby, wrap it up, and put it out there into the world, and for many authors also helping them to market it, and brand themselves.

Wonderful, wonderful experience. Well, not only our potential clients watching you when you do things like this, but also your friends. And so I had a really good friend, who came to me and she was like, “Lynita, you know, I’ve watched you do this like a hundred times with other people and I want you to help me.”

And it never crossed my mind to switch … hats from friend to client. Because this is my friend. Yeah. You already said, “Oh oh”, exactly. And … it’s even crazier, Morgan, because I’m a lawyer. And so I did what.

Yes! You almost. Yeah.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Lawyers should have known better.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): I should have known better than to treat a friend.

Yeah, exactly. I should have known better, but I didn’t. And I did what I fuss at my clients, about not doing, which is not having a contract. I was good with a gentle woman’s agreement.

That I would help her with her book and that we would do barter, and the barter part really wasn’t that the problem, right?

The problem was, getting work that I could actually work with, and then getting her what she expected.

Morgan Friedman (Host): So, I’m loving this story so far, but you’re going a bit too fast. I want to dive in because you’ve already made a few interesting points that are worth exploring.

So I’m curious about the lawyer giving good advice to everyone else, but then your mind completely blanks when you explain it, when you have to follow the advice yourself and this is a classic phenomenon.

I had a boss 20 years ago who would always use an old English phrase. He would say that “Shoemakers’ children go shoeless”, like the people that are good at making shoes for everyone else, they don’t do it for themselves. So like, I’m curious to see what happened in your mind.

Cause you all day long, you tell people write a contract, write a contract, write a contract, that’s what you do. Like, explain the thought process to me.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): So, I have a euphemism too, “Lawyers make the worst clients.” How about that? I’m putting it out here for you. So what was going through my mind is this is my friend.

And my friend really likes what I have been doing for other people. And I’ve known her and trusted her. She has seen firsthand what I have been able to do.

Cause she knew me before I started speaking and writing my own books and publishing. And so, it’s not like she was fair weather that she was coming in and trying to just ride coattails.

That’s not what happened here. This was someone who knew me and who I knew well, who I trusted and who trusted me.

So, the thought of having to boil it all down to writing, it just did not cross my mind, which again is why … we make the worst clients because we don’t follow our own advice sometimes.

I do now. But I learned.

Morgan Friedman (Host): You learned your lesson.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): I did very well.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Actually, thinking about what you’re saying, I just came up in real-time with this theory that could explain why the shoemakers’ children go shoeless or why lawyers make the worst clients, which is there’s this thought professionals have, which is I’m different, which is, oh yeah, but I know how close I’m sophisticated.

… I can prevent it. But what happens in real life is life kind of teaches you the lesson. You’re not quite as different as you think you are.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): And I agree with that. I can totally see that on me then. And I would not at that time have called it ego, but looking back, that’s definitely what it was.

Because, … if I look at it from the perspective of the way I treat my friends now, I do boil it down to a writing out of respect for them and for me, right?

So that, if at any time anybody has a question, we can just go back to what we wrote down and we can modify if we need to, but this is what we agree.

Morgan Friedman (Host): So, by the way, … I think, … that’s fantastic. And when … I really like your use of the word respect here.

Because I think what happens to a lot of people is you think with friends, it’s not respectful to write it down.

No, because it, you think it signals low trust, but actually, you’re arguing it’s the exact opposite. It’s I respect you and our friendship so much. I want to be crystal clear on every little thing to avoid problems.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yes, and I actually say that now when I’m working with a friend or so, or a family member, someone close to me, and I have not had pushback.

They actually, … really love and admire and respect that. And they actually refer me more because of that.

And they can give first hand knowledge of, this is what how it’s going to be if you work with Lynita. This is how the contract, these are the expectations, this is what it’s going to cost.

And even those that get the friends and family discount, they know they’re getting a discount because they know what … the price was and what the discount is.

And because we boiled it down to a writing, they can say, well, you know, this is the fee. And it’s okay if they say, well, I didn’t pay that because she’s my sister. She’s my cousin, … somebody else will know you’re not my sister. You’re not my cousin. So you can’t expect, . … So yeah.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Okay. Great.

I love it. But, by the way, … we haven’t even gotten to the story yet and we’ve already meet two new points.

I’ve done maybe 50 of these episodes and I try to get new points that have never come out before, and while I’ve lots of people work with friends and had that sort of breakdown, I like this frame, this framing it as respect.

And I also like, … the lawyer, … having this egoism, or everyone, humans, young people, having this egoism.

So they, … don’t apply the rules of others to … themselves. So we’ve already, mission accomplished, and the story, the fun hasn’t even started.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yeah, it has not. So.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Let’s go. … What happened?

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): The first thing is, if she had not been a friend and just been a client before any publisher would touch you, they tell you we need something that we can work with.

So it has to be a finished work. Now finished doesn’t mean that it’s not been edited, that it has been edited, right?

We know we have to do that, but there has to be something to work with. … My friend sent her work in a PowerPoint presentation.

She literally wrote it, not in a Word document, but in a PowerPoint slide presentation.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Wait, so to be clear, this was supposed to be a book?

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yes! Yes, Morgan, yes.

Morgan Friedman (Host): It’s creative. You have a creative friend.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Oh my God, it was horrible.

And when I was trying to explain to her what a nightmare it was going to be trying to get that information out of the slide into Word, she just could not wrap her mind around why it was an issue, and in talking with her, I finally got to what it was. … She had written it on her phone.

And so, you know on your phone you can expand, make things look bigger, it looks great on your phone.

We’re not publishing on your phone. So, I couldn’t get her to send it over to me in Word, because she was just like, it’ll take me too much time and you’re much better with the tech than I am and all this other stuff.

Well, at this point now, we’re running into, if I send this to somebody else, it’s going to cost me more money than what we agreed to.

So it was copying and pasting, so taking and dumping it into Word, and the font was so tiny, … it was taking forever.

Because it would only allow me to select a certain amount and then paste and then I have to go back and it took a while.

I mean, it took a couple of hours. Then the next part was, it wasn’t in complete sentences. So now I’m really like.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Complete sentences.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yeah, because she wrote it like she talks, and … she has a very flowy, laughing, like lyrical way of communicating, which is beautiful when it’s just you and me chilling like we are now, right?

But that’s not how we produce work that other people are supposed to consume so that they can have an inspiration, a transformation, some type … of wonderful experience so they can use the information to improve their lives, right? …

Morgan Friedman (Host): When I read transcripts of me talking, and … I hear myself and I think I’m eloquent, but I read transcripts and there’s so many “Uh, eh, uh.”

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): I understand. Yeah.

Well, at least that you speak in complete sentences and she doesn’t.

That’s just not the way that she communicates and, … like I said, going back to the friendship, how many of us have actually reviewed what a friend has written and how they communicate in written form.

Most of us, we’re talking and so that’s just the way my friend talks.

Or we’re texting. We don’t always text in complete sentences, we’re just trying to get information quick, fast, in a hurry.

We might send an email, but normally that’s very casual, so I’m not expecting a whole lot. We’ve never interacted professionally like that. So I was just, I was really blown away. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it.

So, now we have the editing part and … I sent it out to an editor because now, we’re running into a lot more time and we had already had a dust-up, our heads butted about the whole PowerPoint thing.

… I knew if I went back talking about the editing thing, it was going to be ugly and I wanted to preserve the friendship. She’s still my friend.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): And she needed help, and I had in my mind, I’m helping by not saying anything. And so I got a few estimates from, oh, go ahead. Go ahead.

Morgan Friedman (Host): No, no, that’s an interesting thought process. I’m saving the friendship by not saying anything.

On the one hand, I understand that thinking on the other hand, you’re like bottling up issues.

So I kind of think I see where the story is going.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): You can see that from a mile away, but I didn’t because I thought I could manage it.

And again, we’re coming back to ego, you know, I got this.

So, I talked to a couple of editors and the price they gave me to fix that, I was like, oh my gosh, now we are talking about, cause you know, as an entrepreneur at the end of the day, everything is boiled down into hours.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): So I’m a lawyer. I know what I make per hour and so if I’m paying for something, a service, a product, whatever, I know exactly how many client hours it takes.

So, it was going to take like five or six client hours to clean that up. And I’m just like, “Oh my gosh.” So now we’re talking about a couple of grand.

So, I spent a large chunk of my Christmas holiday when we had rented a house down in Florida and we were supposed to go see Mickey Mouse.

And when my family was having fun and making food and laughing over the table, I was up early in the morning and when they were watching movies late at night, I was working on that.

So, now I’m mad. But I haven’t said anything. I’m mad and I haven’t said anything and she’s texting asking me what I think.

And I didn’t say. I can’t even get to the content, because I’m too busy cleaning up the grammatical stuff, the typographical stuff. And so … I’m not even enjoying the book.

I can’t. So, after we got back to Atlanta, and I finished the work, I sent it to her and she griped.

She said that I had changed her voice and that’s not how she communicates. And so.

Morgan Friedman (Host): To be clear, she preferred the poetic, flowery, not real sentences style.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): The disjointed. The disjointed communication style, yes.

Because, she said that was her, and it was her work. And that’s what she wanted to put in the world and that’s what I had to do because I was the publisher and she didn’t say it like this, but this is what she intoned. I work for her.

And so at this point now I’m at, and that bottle up that you saw where that was coming, it came up then and I told her that her writing style was terrible and that nobody was going to publish that way.

And that if she felt so confident about it, she should go and try to market it to someone to see what they said.

And so she said that she would do just that. And when she, bless her soul. She sent it to a couple of publishing companies. A couple did not respond at all and she was honest enough to tell me when she came back.

A couple of them didn’t respond at all. One of them that came back said that it was so bad that there was no way that they would put that in the world.

And if somebody cared about her, they would have said something to her.

Like they were brutal, and Morgan, I gotta be honest with you, when she told me they said that, inside, I did a little jig because I was like, they said just what I wanted to say, but I did.

And that’s not nice, but I’m being honest and this was, you know, a few years ago, well, several years, but that’s where I was then.

And then one company said that they would do it, but the price they told her they would charge her was astronomical.

And so she came back and she was like, “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Can we please, move forward and work together.” And I was like, “I will help you finish this, but then we’re done.” Because I told you I would.

What I learned from that was, God had given me an off-ramp. When she left the first time, I should have left her on the side of the road and kept going, you know what I’m saying?

She was safe. Nobody was gonna come grab her. She was fine and … I didn’t.

Until we published the book, but then we had the marketing piece. Which were the pictures, and that was not fun.

That was not fun because, with my clients, I would have had a conversation with them about the three outfits they needed.

You need the professional one, and that needs to be like navy, charcoal, black, something, crisp blouse, so that when someone comes calling and say, I want you on my show, they have that picture.

There’s a fun picture, and then there’s something casual, right?

A lot of polka dots. A lot, a lot of polka dots. I was just like

It was terrible. And the photographer I worked with all the time, just the sweetest soul you ever want to know, told me that was the worst shoot she’d ever done and that she would never work with her again.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Because of the polka dots or like were there other issues in this shoot?

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Oh, see, so the polka dots was the jump-off for how bad it was. So we had lots of polka dots which I love polka dots too, but I think we can all agree you’re not showing up on the interview wearing polka dots.

It is not professional. We all know that. Okay. And then, … some of her clothes were just too small for her size, because she was a curvy lady, pretty, curvy.

But everybody can’t wear everything. And I would think that, … we’re all old enough at this point to know what looks good on us and what doesn’t, … we’re in our mid to late thirties, so … we know better, but you did that anyway.

And then it was the time. So the shoot, top to bottom should have taken an hour and a half. They were there for hours.

And yeah, and it was a lot of nitpicking, and wanting to look at every picture that was taken, and directing the photographer, and instead of taking the direction from the photographer, and …. being condescending and mean.

Things that I just do not tolerate when it comes to the people who do work for me. And so when she came back and told me all that, I was really mad.

And at that point, I was no longer pushing anything down and I told her, I said, “You know, you came back, and you asked me to finish this project with you. And I did and then you mistreat my people. And client or not, you know that’s not how I moved through the world. And that’s not okay with me.”

So, where is this coming from? Well, she had frustration with me that she was taking out on the photographer. And she was afraid to come to me with that frustration because she didn’t want me to drop her because she would be stuck with work that she couldn’t put out into the world.

And … I was frustrated. I was offended. I was hurt by all of that because at the end of the day, I can still sit down and talk with you like a human, right?

And I know there’s frustration because of the way that all this went down. And it would have been better for us to talk it out than for that to happen.

You hurt another human being. And she had done nothing to you. And now you owe her an apology which you refuse to give because you’re too proud.

And this now puts me in the position of having to be firmer with you in this situation, because you won’t apologize than I would normally.

Because I’m mad that you mistreated someone who was under my direction.

We finally get the book out. The publicity is done. Going back to our lives, and then whispers start.

Things come back to me, yeah, exactly, from people in our warm circle about how I had mistreated her. And at this point, Morgan, I had gotten to the place where I was, … treating her like I would a client, finally, with resolving everything to a writing, even if the writing was a text.

So, when a person was wonderful enough to come and say something to me, which I appreciated because I didn’t know those things were happening.

I simply pulled up her name, handed my phone over, and said, “Check out these text messages. You read it and you tell me what you think.” And invariably, their mouths would just go, like, their whole face, like, what?

This is not what she is saying. I was like, but you can read, right? Like, you understand this.

You see, I’m not making this up. And one person within our circle, who most of us consider to be like really boisterous out there, a little bit ratchet, but that’s okay.

In this case, the ratchet friend prevailed, because she went back and corrected her. She went back and told the story the way it needed to be told and she went back and told about the text messages she was able to read.

So, it didn’t have to come from me. The correction came from someone who everybody knew was neutral. She had nothing to do with the situation. And so, that helped save … my reputation and … my brand.

But, Morgan, that really taught me. I had placed … my livelihood in a way, in the hands of someone else, because I didn’t start off on the right foot.

That was crazy. And all of it could have been avoided by just having a contract and somebody who I considered a good friend. We’re still friends on Facebook.

But we’re not friends anymore.

Morgan Friedman (Host): So I have so much to say usually in these Client Horror Stories episodes, I interrupt about every three minutes, but this was so engaging and interesting.

…. I have a whole bunch of thoughts. I’m going to work backwards and start …. and make a comment on the last thing you said, which is that a lot of … these problems could have been avoided if there was a contract, and while I’m a huge fan of contracts, you definitely needed one.

It’s like, I put everything in writing, be clear and transparent. Like, this is a theme of … every client horror stories episode. So I, so on the one hand, I totally agree with that.

On the other hand, one of the most interesting parts of your story is so many of the problems are things that you can’t really capture in a contract.

For example, … she was a bitch to the photographer and …. in the contract, you can’t say like, contracts don’t say act nice to other people.

You’re … like there’s this, their contracts only go so far and … the contract doesn’t stop you from breaking the law or taking advantage of people, but it can stop you … from just …. talking like an asshole, which is why the contract is the starting point.

But, something more is needed beyond that.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yeah, I agree with that. … But I will also add that if we … had a contract, … the feel of the entire situation would have been,

Morgan Friedman (Host): Different.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): You know, so it wouldn’t have been, well, … she can’t do anything. So I’m just going to talk.

No. You’re not dealing with friend Lynita. You’re dealing with publisher professional Lynita.

And this is not acceptable and if you cannot behave any better than this, this is over. And you’re going to have to find somebody else to finish this for you.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Right, and I guess what I’d also add is, while contracts cannot make not nice people nice, I guess thinking about it, a lot of the details could be in the contract. Like … for example, you could say a photo shoot is 90 minutes, the end.

… So like, if you waste time seeing like every little photo, then guess what? You’ll get fewer photos and.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Right.

Morgan Friedman (Host): ….So there’s like contracts can force behavior that … leads to a similar outcome. Another aspect of what you said I found particularly moving is there’s another way, in which our episode is unique so far.

I love looking for what makes every story, … situation … and interview unique, is the emotional underpinnings, … which is, I feel like a lot of people, especially professionals, … even when you’re dealing with friends, … well, I did this, they did that.

And then … it’s like very, let’s say, “Robotic”, but I love how about how you’re in touch with your own emotions and you’re honest enough about your own emotions.

Like, hey, I couldn’t go to Disneyland with my family and that built up resentment inside and I think it’s powerful and important to know your own emotional state.

So because you can’t govern and control your own emotional state if you don’t even admit it. … So, I love how in touch you are with that.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Well, thank you. And you know, it took time to really process that and get to that. And I never forgot that feeling. So, I have now some rules of engagement when it comes to work and when I’m on vacation.

Most of the time, I don’t take my laptop. I might take a pad so I can read. If I do have to do work, I’m only doing it before my family wakes up in the morning.

I’m an early riser. So I wake up most mornings somewhere between four-thirty and five-thirty, anyway. They will sleep the day away if I let them. So I have at least three hours before they get up, … to do what I need to do.

And if it can’t be done before they get up and.

Morgan Friedman (Host): When you’re at Disneyland, if you don’t have your computer, you can still do all your writing on PowerPoint on your phone in a 6. 5.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Oh my gosh.

Just the thought of that PowerPoint! Oh my god! Oh, ow! Oh, man.

Morgan Friedman (Host): But I think this emotional point … is important because I feel like … when a lot of people review client horror stories in the past, when you view it in this like very logical way, like they did this, then I respond like that, then they did that … and that led to this conclusion, that’s one side, like one side of the story.

But the reality is, … people do things or say things that piss you off and like, as your pissed off level, being pissed off level goes up and up and up over time.

Like that, no matter how professional you are, you’re still a human before you’re a professional, so that will always lead me to some sort of explosion.

… Which is why this is a super important lesson that I don’t really think has come out in previous episodes, that you need to manage your own emotional state and when you see yourself starting to feel frustrated, I’m at Disneyland, … and I should be with my family to like deal with that and the client friend, AS, ASAP.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yeah. And … that’s exactly right. And I tell you, I’ll never do it again.

Morgan Friedman (Host): I like your phrase you used about two minutes ago, you said, … rules of engagement and.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Oh yeah.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Yeah, and that’s useful because … that’s separate than a contract. The contract says do this, don’t do that, but rules of engagement, like I won’t work after this hour on this vacation more than this, if this happens there, it’s a very powerful approach towards minimizing these types of problems.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yes. Thank you.

Morgan Friedman (Host): I’m trying to think if from your story, these were the key points that I wanted to make. So step back, let’s see if we can wrap it all together, summarize these different learnings, some key learnings to take away … from this situation.

Be extra special, careful, working with friends, contracts, contracts, contracts.

Not just a contract, but rules of engagement governing time, like, I won’t work after this hour, like, there’s a 24-hour period of response before emails, weekends, etc.

Contracts can only go so far, so you have to pay attention to their asshole-ish behavior or not, and then you also have to, be constantly aware of your own emotional state in order to control your emotions.

And actually, what I want to add to that, I’m going to add a parenthetical to this summary here, which is, often when people think about controlling their emotions, … it’s about making yourself like not burst out in anger.

.. I’m going to control myself. But what’s interesting about your case is, in your story, the controlling emotions was the exact opposite.

You’re like, I want to be such a good friend, that I’m going to go do this PowerPoint conversion isn’t in the contract, but I’ll do it, like you’re trying to go so far beyond that… it all came from … this positive place which makes it harder to recognize.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yes.

Morgan Friedman (Host): So, even when it’s hard to recognize to … make sure you pay attention to your … own emotional state.

There’s another lesson from your story that we didn’t say out loud while you told your story, but I think it’s just worth mentioning, which is as these little problems happened, because you’re trying to be good and … do everything, you didn’t deal with them.

And I think it’s … a super important lesson to, as little problems happen, deal with them at the time.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): … Yes, and you know, related to that, when you were talking, what came to me, I was trying to be such a good friend to her.

I was a bad friend to myself.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Ooh, I like, excellent point. I love it. I love it.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yeah. And because I was a bad friend to myself, it wound up impacting my family and my other business, which is my law. Because every moment that I was fooling around with that, I wasn’t focused on my firm, you know?

Morgan Friedman (Host): Yeah, … I agree.

I think you have a way with words, and I’m happy you’re speaking complete sentences with information, period.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): There you go!

Morgan Friedman (Host): I think that’s a recap of the key lessons from our story.

Are there any other lessons from … this experience that … you want to call attention to now?

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yeah, one that I really would like your listeners to know when you’re dealing with friends, think of them as high-touch clients.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Interesting. Oh, I like that. I like that.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yeah, … because you’re going to do more for your friends and there’s everything right with that, but they need to know that they’re getting a hookup.

So they need to know the real price of everything that you’re doing. And if you don’t want to charge them that real price, that’s okay.

But they need to know what they’re getting because they’re going to call you and contact you in ways that other people won’t.

Because if they’re a friend, they have your personal cell number. They probably have been to your house, you all go to parties, your kids might go to school together.

If they run into you, they’re going to ask you about whatever business you all have going. You would not normally have that with a client that you’re not interacting with that way.

So just have that in the back of your mind. And there’s … a very respectful and professional way of bringing it to their attention, and you must do that. You must do that.

Morgan Friedman (Host): I think that’s the lesson. I also don’t think has come up before in any previous episode … and I really like it. And I like your summary where … a friend that’s a client will always be high touch, like, period.

Like, just … because they’re a friend, because too often, friends all the time say no, no, no, it’ll be quick and easy. I just want a little bit, but because they were a friend, it’s going to naturally leak … into every other aspect, which is just account, account for that.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yes, absolutely. Yes.

Morgan Friedman (Host): One of my favorite specific ways of accounting for that, is I’m a big fan of having policies.

Because, if you have policies and you define it and you have a dock of policies, even if it’s internal, suddenly what happens is … even when it’s friends and let’s say … you’re doing it for free, for … friends, or even ignoring … the money aspect because they think, well, it’s … our firm’s policy to send a summary of the number of hours we work per week to every client on a weekly basis.

So I’m following the firm’s policy, … which I just invented two minutes ago, … I just want to let you know … that all the work last week was 12 hours, and bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, and it’ll be like, oh my god, you spent 12 hours.

And so defining policies is, … let’s say a socially acceptable way in a professional context where you can convey this type of information to help clients slash friends realize these things … like they may not realize it took you 12 hours in just one week.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. Policies.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Policies, and it’s a useful way of thinking about plus also talking about policy, my firm’s policy makes you sound much more bigger than you actually are.

A policy … is just a Google doc that I wrote about an hour ago.

Do you know what I’m talking about?

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): I love it.

Morgan Friedman (Host): Okay, so I think we had a whole bunch of interesting insights.

Any final thoughts, suggestions, warnings, concluding thoughts to wrap up this fun late night episode?

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): Yeah, I think it’s really important for you to be in tune with who you are, what you are, and how you serve, as Paul Tellick would say so eloquently.

And by that, he means, to be honest about what you’re feeling, so that you can convey that to a person in a loving and respectful way.

.. And to take action as soon as you see that action is needed. Don’t wait until it becomes bad.

Lynita Mitchell-Blackwell (Interviewee): And if you know from the beginning, or as my daughter would probably say, from the jump, if you know that it’s going to be bad, you feel it in your soul, that it’s just not going to work, honor that, honor that.

Morgan Friedman (Host): That is words of wisdom. I love it and it’s a beautiful way to … end the episode. Everyone who’s watched this episode and made it this far, I hope you laughed as much as we did and got some wisdom out of it.

And Lynita, it was great sharing the story … and useful for me. I love, I love your framing of some of these ideas to be continued.

Thank you everyone.