In this episode of Trial Lawyer Talk, Scott speaks with mindfulness meditation counselor Randall Sokoloff. Mr. Sokoloff shares insights into the tools we can use for being more present inside and outside the courtroom.
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Transcript of Episode 49, with Randall Sokoloff
Scott Glovsky:
Welcome to Trial Lawyer Talk. I’m Scott Glovsky and I’m your host for this podcast where we speak with some of the best trial lawyers in the country. Today, we’ve got a special treat. We’re going to do something different. We’ve got Randall Sokoloff with us. Randall spent 10 years as a Clinical Psychotherapist and is now a Mindfulness Meditation Counselor, teacher, writer, and great thinker.
Randall works out of his studio in Claremont, California, called Wake Up and has tremendous insight into tools that we can use to become more present inside the courtroom and outside the courtroom. Let’s get started. I’m very happy and grateful to be sitting with a wonderful man who is wise, thoughtful, and a great teacher. I’m sitting with Randall Sokoloff. Randall is a writer, a Mindfulness Based Therapist, and the Lead Meditation Teacher at Wake Up studio in Claremont, California. Randall, thanks for being with us.
Randall Sokoloff:
Oh, you’re welcome, Scott.
Scott Glovsky:
Randall, lawyers deal with fear, anxiety, feeling out of control. Have you ever felt any of those things?
Randall Sokoloff:
This morning.
Scott Glovsky:
Say more.
Randall Sokoloff:
I think that’s a normal part of human existence to feel that way. Some of us are better than others distracting ourselves from that experience, but I think it’s a pretty normal experience. Certain jobs, certain things that we do in life can trigger it more, certain things that happen to us. It can be exemplified, it can be brought out more. But I think that feeling of being helpless, out of control, afraid as a fundamental aspect of the human condition.
Scott Glovsky:
How can mindfulness help with that?
Randall Sokoloff:
Well, mindfulness has greatly helped me with that. But in a nutshell, mindfulness is basically the practice of learning self-regulation, learning how to control one’s own inner state, learning how to be present with what is happening in the moment. Through the practice of mindfulness, we gradually become more skilled at dealing with difficult emotions, difficult feelings.
Scott Glovsky:
You mentioned that mindfulness has helped you with these feelings of fear or anxiety or powerlessness. How so? Tell me a story.
Randall Sokoloff:
So many to choose from. What should I … Let’s see. Well, I teach mindfulness classes quite regularly, I work with people as a mindfulness counselor, I work with people all day who are … we’re discussing some very triggering subject matter. When I teach mindfulness, I’m in front of a group of people talking about potentially triggering subject matter. There’s no way without mindfulness that I could do this.
There’s just no way I’d have to be on medication or continually drunk. Mindfulness allows me to stay present despite feelings of discomfort in my body and in my mind. For example, if I’m sitting with a client, and I’m talking about death or divorce or illness or surgery or bankruptcy, and the variety of triggering subject manner, I’m skilled enough now that I can trust myself to not freak out.
Mindfulness has given me the resiliency within myself to hang in there, to not react or lose control. I trust in my ability to navigate my way through stress, through difficult situations. If I’m sitting with somebody, and I’m about something that’s scary or triggering for me, I have this inherent sense that I’m going to be okay.
Scott Glovsky:
How did mindfulness help you with that?
Randall Sokoloff:
It gave me a method to control my madness.
Scott Glovsky:
Let’s get into that. Can you take us through a meditation so that we can feel what you’re talking about?
Randall Sokoloff:
Yeah, absolutely. We can talk theoretically about riding a bike, but until you get on that bike and ride it, it’s really hard to understand that experientially, and I think especially with attorneys and many of us. We spend all of our time in thought. We’re in a very conceptual place. We intellectualize, we’re conceptualizing our way through life. Whereas with mindfulness practice, it’s about switching out of that and coming more into the experiential, right?
The experiential meaning your physical experience in the present moment, your sensory experience in the present moment and being with that rather than ignoring that and just being in the conceptual because the root of suffering, the root of anxiety, the root of … maybe not fear, but the root of suffering stems from thought. Thinking is the culprit. If we want to minimize our suffering or be in a better place, it’s vital that we’re able to bring ourselves out of that state.
With mindfulness meditation, that’s what we’re practicing. Just switching out of the conceptual and coming more into the experiential, which then over time, we experience less suffering in our lives, right? It’s not that we have less pain. Pain is inevitable. We’re in a physical body, we’re going to experience pain in many forms emotionally, physically, but we don’t have to suffer.
Suffering is self-inflicted. We’re doing it to ourselves, right? Mindfulness is kind of a practice of learning how to not inflict suffering on yourself. When we do a meditation, that’s what we’re practicing, so just to kind of set it up that way.
Scott Glovsky:
Take us through a meditation.
Randall Sokoloff:
Sure. How long would you like it to be? You can choose from 5 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, 5 hours. It’s up to you.
Scott Glovsky:
Well, let’s do somewhere between-
Randall Sokoloff:
Three minutes, five minutes?
Scott Glovsky:
Five minutes and ten minutes, whatever.
Randall Sokoloff:
Five minutes, okay. But your listeners have to be willing to do it. They have to be willing to give it a shot.
Scott Glovsky:
Look, if I or my listeners are not willing to give it a shot, we’re all wasting our time. Our listeners are listening because they want to be here, and be present, and learn from you.
Randall Sokoloff:
If they don’t, I guess they could just fast forward through this part.
Scott Glovsky:
Well, our listeners are actually very present and very interested in learning and growing.
Randall Sokoloff:
Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s great. Those are fundamental qualities needed for wellbeing. Yeah. If we don’t have the interest in growing and learning, there’s just continual chaos. Yeah.
Scott Glovsky:
Okay.
Randall Sokoloff:
All right. Let’s do it. If you can just find a comfortable position, if you’re sitting in a chair, so just become comfortable and see if you can just have both of your feet flat on the ground, and you can have your hands on your lap, and you want to straighten your spine, and you want to open your chest up, open your heart. There’s nothing to fear in this moment, everything’s okay. You can open up a little bit and see if for the next couple of minutes you can give yourself permission to do nothing.
This is a do nothing practice and ironically, doing nothing in our society can be one of the more difficult things for people to do. So, see if you can just give yourself permission to do nothing for five minutes. You’re not trying to solve any problems, you’re not seeing yourself as a mistake that needs to be fixed, you’re just present with yourself as you are in this moment. That’s it. See if you can close your eyes. Thich Nhat Hanh calls it, Finding Your Seat. See if you can find your seat within yourself.
That’s another way of saying begin the process of becoming more grounded, more rooted in the here and now. You can do this by just noticing how you’re feeling right now. Notice if you feel restless, anxious, calm, angry, joyful, depressed, sick, healthy. Just notice where you’re at and see if you can be willing to be honest with yourself about where you’re at in this moment. Everything is impermanent. This will pass. There’s no need to judge it or try and ignore it or push it away. Just notice how you’re feeling and then see if you can just let it be here and just bring your attention to your breath.
Noticing your breath as it moves in through your nose and back out through your nose may take a few moments to become more acquainted with your breath, but just notice your breath as it moves in through your nose and back out through your nose. You’re not forcing your breath, you’re not trying to control your breathing, you’re just noticing your breath in the same way that you would notice waves in the ocean. Just noticing your breath moving in through your nose and back out through your nose.
When you breathe in, noticing your chest expand. When you breathe out, notice how your chest contracts and see if you can really practice, really train in keeping your focus on this movement of your breathing in the same way as if you were aiming at a target, you would be focused on the target. See if your breathing can be your target. Noticing that you’re breathing in, noticing that you’re breathing out.
Your mind might be very active generating all kinds of thoughts. You may notice that your mind is very busy. It’s often called the wandering mind. This is okay. This is normal, but see if any time you notice that you get caught up in thoughts, anytime your mind wanders off with your attention, just bring your attention back to your breathing very gently, very non judgmentally, just noticing once again that you’re breathing in and breathing out and see if you can just let your thoughts move through your awareness.
You’re not trying to stop thinking, but you’re just aware of thinking. As you notice that you’re breathing in through your nose, you’ll notice that you’re breathing back out through your nose. Wow. Look at all these thoughts. My mind is really busy, but just continuing to breathe in, continuing to breathe out. See if you can be aware of your feet touching the ground, notice your body making contact with whatever you’re sitting on, notice if your palms are sweaty, dry, moist, see if you can notice your top lip resting on your bottom lip, notice if your lips are dry or moist.
Maybe you can feel the material of your clothes touching your skin. Just being present with the experience that you’re having in this moment without judgment, without needing to escape from it, just being present with what is actually happening now. Maybe you can feel your shoes on your feet, maybe you can notice if your hands are cold, warm, hot. Can you feel any tingling sensations anywhere in your body? Maybe your feet, maybe your hands. Can you notice if there is anywhere in your body that feels tight or constricted? Maybe your chest, your abdomen, your neck area.
Just noticing these various sensations that are happening in this moment and just being present with them as you would be present with a friend. Everything is impermanent. The sensations will pass. There’s no need to react to them. Just let them be here. Welcome them in as you continue to notice your breath moving in through your nose and back out through your nose and as you continue to be aware of all these thoughts moving through your mind.
If you notice that you start thinking about something, you get caught up in a thought, thinking about the past, you’re about the future, your time traveling, just become aware of it to make a mental note to yourself, “Oh, there I go thinking.” Then very gently, just bring your attention back to your breathing, back to noticing your feet on the ground, back to noticing your top lip resting on your bottom lip. Just bringing your attention back to the experience that you’re having in this moment rather than being preoccupied with 10 minutes from now or 10 minutes ago, just be here, present with your life as it is in this moment.
Nothing to fix, nothing to solve, nothing to do. Just present with life as it is in this moment, the only moment that ever really is. The future in the past is always just a thought, but the present moment is where we can find our lives. I’m just noticing what it feels like to be alive in this moment. As you notice that you’re breathing in through your nose, notice that you’re breathing back out through your nose. Can you notice any sounds that you’re hearing right now?
Sounds are always present, sounds are always happening in the present moment, never in the future or in the past. Becoming aware of sounds is a good way to ground yourself in the present moment. Just notice any sounds that you hear inside of the room that you’re in, or the car that you’re in. Notice sounds that are happening outside. Just aware of sounds entering your ears as you breathe in and breathe out and remain aware of all of these different thoughts moving through your awareness, but you’re no longer identified with these thoughts. You’re no longer taking them so seriously. But instead, you’re putting more value on being present with your life as it is now and just letting your thoughts move through your mind like clouds moving across the blue sky.
The blue sky isn’t affected by the clouds that move across it. The blue sky just lets the clouds, and the birds, and the airplanes just move across it without getting perturbed. Let’s see if you can do the same thing. Just allowing the sounds, the sensations, the movement of your breathing, the thoughts that you’re having. Just let all of this move through your awareness as you continue to notice that you’re breathing in, breathing out unperturbed by whatever it is that you’re experiencing in this moment, unaffected but instead, just present letting whatever it is that you’re experiencing in this moment be here. No resistance or trying to change anything, just present.
Noticing your feet touching the ground, your body being supported by whatever you’re sitting on, your clothes touching your skin, and your breath moving in through your nose, back out through your nose. If you get caught up in a thought, just become aware of it. You are thinking, “Oh, there I go again thinking,” thinking about something in the future, and then just bring your attention back to your breath, letting the thought go. Just present with your life as it is in this moment and in this moment you may notice that everything’s okay. That you’re okay.
Just one final time. If you notice that you’ve gotten caught up in a thought, just notice, become aware of it, make a mental note to yourself, “Oh, there I go thinking. Don’t need to do that right now.” Just let the thought go by very gently bringing your attention back to your breathing, noticing that you’re breathing, and your chest is expanding, noticing that you’re breathing out, and your chest is contracting. Notice how the moment you bring your attention back to the breath, the thought will dissolve.
Then whenever you feel ready, please take whatever time you need. But when you feel ready, you feel free to end this meditation by opening your eyes and bringing your attention back into the room. Once you do have your eyes open, see if you can just take a moment notice. How do you feel now? Anything shift internally for you? Maybe you feel a little calmer, maybe you feel like you’ve created a little bit more homeostasis for yourself internally.
There’s a little less anxiety. Just notice. Notice if anything has changed in your experience. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t, but just notice. Good.
Scott Glovsky:
That’s very powerful. I’m resonating towards the feeling of calm and present, being present. Can you talk about the connection between being calm and present as an individual connecting with other people? The reason I asked this question is that when I’ve been in your meditation classes in this moment, coming out of a meditation, I’m calm and present and feel very connected to you and to the other people in the group. Tell me a little bit about the connection we feel or that we can get through the feeling we have right now.
Randall Sokoloff:
Yeah, it can be very, very powerful, very different than meditating on your own. It’s interesting in meditation classes how there’ll be lots of people in the room and then you’ll get to this point where it’s just like this feeling of stillness and quiet, but yet all these people are present and it’s almost like a symphony, right? Every person is vibing off of the other person, and it’s a really interesting experience.
As a meditation teacher, I know that my inner state is crucial for the cultivation of whatever state the group will enter. It’s really important that … I mean, I noticed that when I’ve been leading meditations, if I’ve been anxious it affects the symphony. But I also noticed that when I’ve been anxious and I have been anxious when I’m leading guided meditations plenty. I noticed that the group, when they get into a very present calm state, or even in a present calm state and we’re resonating.
I think that that’s what we do as human beings. We resonate off of one another. I think that’s why meditation classes are so important and so powerful because where else do you have that experience in our society?
Scott Glovsky:
As trial lawyers, we strive for connection when we’re standing in front of the jury. If we’re anxious, the same laws apply, and the more present we can be through the tools of meditation or for whatever reason, but we’re here of course to focus on these tools, that matters for authenticity, for connection, for credibility.
How do we get there? Because as lawyers, we prepare and prepare and we show up in court and all of a sudden the judge says, “You’re on,” and we have to perform. I’ve heard you talk about how meditation is building muscles, sort of.
Randall Sokoloff:
Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Scott Glovsky:
Can you tell us about that?
Randall Sokoloff:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, do you notice how when you practiced this meditation maybe you brought your attention back to your breathing 10 times, 20 times during the course of the meditation. You may have become aware that you wandered off and then you bring your attention back to your breathing.
There’s a saying that if you notice that your mind has wondered 1,000 times, bring it back 1,001 times, and it’s through that continual bringing your attention back, noticing that you have wandered off, noticing that you’re lost in thought, and then being able to bring your attention back to the breath even 1,000 times in a day. You’re gradually building new neural pathways in your brain, right?
When you do that, you’re very gradually restructuring your brain, you’re changing or altering your perceptual apparatus. Whereas you are normally used to being lost in thought, every time you bring your attention, every time you catch that, you’re lost in thought and then you bring your attention back to your breathing, you’re changing your perception of reality.
As a result of that, you actually change the neuronal structures in your brain. It’s that whole idea of neuroplasticity. The brain isn’t this solid mass dune to a steady decay. The brain is actually plastic and can change and restructure itself if we choose to perceive things in a new way. That’s why with mindfulness, the more you bring your attention back to the breath. The reason why the breath is the central focus, there’s lots of forms of meditation, there’s different objects or focus.
But with mindfulness, the reason why the breath is the object of focus is because the breath is always happening in the now. The breath is never in the future, it’s never in the past. The breath is always now. Every time you bring your attention back to your breathing, you are perceiving the now. The more that you can bring your attention back to your breathing, the more your perception changes.
It’s that continual bringing your attention back to your breathing all throughout the day or just standing in front of a jury or just standing in front of a judge being able to remember to come back to the breath. That is how you build this particular muscle like lifting a weight. The repetitions that you do when you lift the weight to gradually build the muscle. That’s a metaphor in mindfulness.
It’s the continual bringing of your tension back to your breathing that builds this muscle. The more you do it, we cannot think about coming back to my breathing. I’m just innately aware of my breathing as I walk down the street. If you ask me if I’m breathing in or breathing out, I’ll be able to tell you. But I wasn’t always that way. I was far from it, but it goes from being a practice to becoming a trait.
That’s why practice is so crucial with mindfulness. The more we practice, the more the practice just becomes automatic. You’ll be standing in front of a judge, you’ll be standing in front of a jury, you’ll be nervous, you’ll be stressed out, but you’ll just automatically be focused on the breath, which is going to help to ground you more.
It’s not that there’s going to be the absence of anxiety. It’s like when you fly on an airplane, there’s not going to be the absence of turbulence. But the more you fly on an airplane, the more you know that the turbulence isn’t a big deal. Same with the breath. You’ll still have the anxiety as you stand there in front of a jury or a judge or courtroom filled with people, but the anxiety won’t be such a big deal. You’ll be able to manage it.
Then once you’re able to feel like you can manage the anxiety, the anxiety keeps us from being able to be authentically ourselves. The anxiety is what is getting in the way. Once we’re able to feel like we can handle the anxiety, we can be more ourselves. Hopefully that answers your question.
Scott Glovsky:
What roadmap do you have for those of us that do not know much about meditation? Give us a roadmap for how we can start to build these muscles.
Randall Sokoloff:
A roadmap. You mean like how to go about cultivating this practice?
Scott Glovsky:
Yeah. In other words, should we spend five minutes a day, should we go out and buy a meditation pillow? Give us how to start to meaningfully meditate for dummies.
Randall Sokoloff:
Well, it was a very rocky road for myself. It was definitely a rough start. But what’s important is that you just start by not having any expectations of what it should be. That when you start meditating … if you could do this for five minutes a day, that would be great. If you could do it for one minute a day before you get out of your car and go to work, if you could just pause for one minute, and you were able to do that every day to make a drastic difference. It’s a delayed gratification over the instinct gratification of just getting in your car and going to do what you’ve got to do.
If you could just take one minute and just focus on your breath and be present. Over time, that one minute really will add up and create change at very subtle levels and not so subtle levels. Even if you could just start with one minute … I mean, ideally if you could start with five minutes every day, whenever you get to it, get an app on your phone, a meditation timer, they’re free, set it for five minutes and then just practice following your breathing and then the timer will go off and you’d go back to work.
If a person could do that five times a week, six times a week, it can make a radical difference in their anxiety levels. You won’t need medication over time. But what’s important is when you start practicing to not have any expectation, to not come to the practice with, “I need to feel a certain way.” One of my teachers said that the quickest way to quit meditation practice is to have an expectation because if you expect it to give you certain results and so you practice every day for a month and then in a month you’re still feeling anxious or depressed or stressed out, you’re going to quit. “This doesn’t work. This is crap. I give up.”
Meditation is slow medicine. It’s important to really stay with it and it’s a kind of delayed gratification, which we’re not used to in our society. Meditation does make some more immediate differences, but the benefit is gradual. The ultimate benefit is gradual and it’s important to stay with the practice. The way to do that is to not have any expectations, to let this be the one thing that you do in your life without any expectation, to just let it be.
Scott Glovsky:
What is your goal in living? What do you look forward to doing or trying to do every day?
Randall Sokoloff:
That’s a complicated, very good question. Well, ultimately, there’s the superficial things that I want to accomplish, but ultimately I want to be free of suffering. I have a friend, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and sometimes we would go out and we’d be in a bar walking down a street and he would tap me on the shoulder and be, “Hey man, if you die now, are you okay?” And I would say, “No, no. I’m not ready. No. Absolutely not.” He would shake his head. He said, “I still got work to do, man.”
I think that my ultimate goal and the reason why I practice and why I teach is so that I can … It’s only when we no longer fear dying that we can be at peace. I think that that’s been a big fear of mine all of my life. For me, I’m really trying to be at peace and that’s a practice. Every day, that’s my fundamental goal is to be at peace, to be free of anxiety, worry, depression, distress.
I just want to clarify that I don’t expect that I’m not going to experience anxiety or depression or stress by being free of it. What I mean is that it’s all good. I accept that it’s okay. If I’m anxious, I’m anxious. If I’m depressed, I’m depressed. If I’m stressed out, I’m stressed out. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die. It’s okay, let go. That’s what I’m trying to do.
Scott Glovsky:
Well, I’m very appreciative for all the gifts that you’ve given me.
Randall Sokoloff:
What have you gotten out of our work together?
Scott Glovsky:
Well, calmness, peacefulness, reset, a sense of grounding, and you’ve led me to a daily five-minute meditation practice that has made me more calm, more safe, more feeling secure and comfortable. I take that when I go into court, when I feel my anxiety growing, when it’s time for me to stand up and give my opening statement or deal with an issue and I focus on the breath and-
Randall Sokoloff:
That’s great.
Scott Glovsky:
… it’s a wonderful tool that I’m still learning. I’m a beginner.
Randall Sokoloff:
You didn’t do that before?
Scott Glovsky:
No.
Randall Sokoloff:
Oh, so this is a new way of operating?
Scott Glovsky:
Yeah. I’ve had strategies to deal with stress, but the meditation practice has been extremely profound and taking me to the next level.
Randall Sokoloff:
That’s great. I think that since you first walked into the meditation studio, I’ve noticed a change in your energy and in your sitting practice. It’s definitely different, it’s definitely noticeable. I think that with mindfulness, the most important aspect of this practice, which is very antithetical to how we normally live our lives, is that a fundamental precept or philosophy of mindfulness practice is non-striving.
Scott Glovsky:
Say more.
Randall Sokoloff:
Non-striving. You’d be amazed how much striving there can be within non-striving, right? When people are practicing non-striving, and they’re really trying hard not to strive, it can feel chaotic. But ultimately with meditation practice or mindfulness practice, it’s a practice of non-striving. Nothing to accomplish, you’re not a mistake to be fixed, you’re not a problem to be solved, you’re not striving to do anything. You’re just present with what is. The irony is that that changes everything. Well, what’s that saying? That which we resist persists.
The moment we stop resisting what is, it goes away. The example of a courtroom or when I teach meditation classes. This morning I did a 30-minute silent meditation class and in the beginning of it when we started, I had coffee and I was doing things all morning and then all of a sudden I sit and there’s the anxiety and then there’s the thought, “Oh gosh, I have to sit here for 30 minutes with this. What if I have to get up and leave the room? I’m the meditation teacher.”
Then there’s the images of me running out of the room in a panic. Then that just elevates my heart rate and it’s like this feedback loop, which is very uncomfortable. But with non-striving, I’ve just gotten better at sitting there with all of that and not resisting it and knowing that it’s impermanent, it will pass, and it always does. 20 years ago when I was suffering from terrible panic attacks and horrible anxiety disorders, I freaked out because I was resisting it.
I was trying to fix it or felt like it shouldn’t be there. I wasn’t letting it in. I was afraid of it, I was pushing it away, I was drinking it away, I was annexing it away, I was doing whatever I could to push it away. I was striving. If you stand up in front of a courtroom in front of a judge or a jury and you’re feeling anxious and you’re really trying hard to have it not be there, that’s hell. The cure is to let it in. Know that it’s there and welcome it in the same way that you would welcome a friend into your house and then it passes.
It’s the craziest thing, but that’s what we’re practicing when we practice. When you just sit for five minutes and you follow your breathing, that’s what you’re practicing. You’re practicing not striving to change anything, letting in whatever is present and then gradually you become more confident in your ability to handle the house guests.
Scott Glovsky:
Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. In closing, what resources would you suggest for our listeners, be it a podcast, a book. Where can people go to get more information?
Randall Sokoloff:
On mindfulness, well, I trained with Jon Kabat-Zinn and he is the man responsible for bringing mindfulness to the west, really starting mindfulness in this country. All right. He wrote two really great books, one’s called Full Catastrophe Living. Just a great one for … I highly recommend that one. Another one is called Wherever You Go, There You Are. He also started … Some of your listeners might have heard of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, but I highly recommend taking a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class.
I mean, changed my life when I initially did it. I believe it’s eight weeks just on the weekends and you can do them online now. I would highly recommend doing MBSR class reading Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book or books. Also, Sam Harris, who is one of our foremost American intellectuals, also happens to be a meditator. He wrote a great book on mindfulness called Wake Up. He’s a fantastic, so that’s a really good read. I would recommend starting with those four things.
Scott Glovsky:
Needless to say for our listeners, but if you’re ever in the area of Claremont, California-
Randall Sokoloff:
Yeah, it is.
Scott Glovsky:
The Wake Up studio that Randall runs is truly a spectacular and special place. Randall-
Randall Sokoloff:
Thank you. Do you mind if, I had just finished this … I want to read a little passage. I think it’s good for closing.
Scott Glovsky:
Please.
Randall Sokoloff:
Attorneys would appreciate it.
Scott Glovsky:
Please.
Randall Sokoloff:
It’s from a very small book that I highly recommend called The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer and he’s a journalist and a writer. I thought I’d finished with this passage. By nowhere, he just means right here. Nowhere means nowhere to go, nothing to do. Just here. In an age of speed, I began to think nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. In an age of constant movement, nothing more is urgent than sitting still.
You can go on vacation to Paris or Hawaii or New Orleans three months from now, and you’ll have a tremendous time I’m sure. But if you want to come back feeling new, alive and full of fresh hope and in love with the world, I think the place to visit maybe nowhere.
Scott Glovsky:
That’s beautiful.
Randall Sokoloff:
Well, thank you.
Scott Glovsky:
Randall, thank you so much.
Randall Sokoloff:
Yeah. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate the opportunity.
Scott Glovsky:
Thank you for joining us today for Trial Lawyer Talk. If you like the show, I really appreciate if you could give us a good review on iTunes, and I’d love to get your feedback. You can reach me at www.scottglovsky.com. That’s S-C-O-T-T G-L-O-V-S-K-Y.com and I’d love to hear your feedback. You can also check out the book that I published called Fighting Health Insurance Denials, a primer for lawyers that’s on Amazon. I put the book together based on 20 years of suing health insurance companies for denying medical care to people and it provides a general outline of how to fight health insurance denials. Have a great week and we’ll talk to you in the next episode.
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