The Four Keys to Getting EVERYTHING You Want

You can reframe your way into your future. You just think about what you can do, not what you can't do. And that's what I ask of the people around me. That's what I ask the people in my company. And that's how we get to where I can be working on the business, not in the business. Because it's the same principles. You're going to have the best time if you make the best out of what you get.

Hey everyone, this is Mike Koenigs and welcome to Capability Amplifier. This is April Jones. Say hi, April.

Hi everybody.

All right, so I've got. I am really excited for this episode and I have a little question for you today and that is, what do you get when you take a young girl raised by her mother in South Central LA with gangs surrounding her, Crips on one side, Bloods on the other, who takes an hour and a half bus ride each way to school from South Central LA all the way to the Valley, literally, where the Valley girls are. She does a good impersonation of them too. But she quickly got involved in student government and became class president. Then leaves to go to an all girls Catholic school with Catholic nuns until she gets to Berkeley. Then she creates and develops a remarkable self running law firm and she only works on it, not in it. And she's got branches both in Denver and in Los Angeles. Along the way she marries Darryl, a remarkable man who turns out was a neighbor in South Central la. And together they have three extraordinary children. A Grammy Award winning musician, a rocket scientist and neuroscientist who also happens to be a Miss America runner up. Now our middle son literally became a rocket scientist at SpaceX and went to Princeton, then to Yale and is now getting his MBA at Harvard. Their daughter Ellery, who in addition to being the only girl who played flag football, now went on to school at Harvard, was a runner up in Miss America and happens to be a neuroscientist discovering ways to enhance the brain and discover how it grows and changes when one of the senses, like sight, is removed. And the oldest became a jazz musician with his band filled with Grammy Award winners who happened to perform in Beyonce's band and wrote the flute solo that Lizzo played during the Grammys and much more. So the question you've got to ask yourself is how? What were the guiding principles that enabled young April Jones to escape and grow and excel in an environment that was stacked against her. So welcome to Capability Amplifier where you learn how to stack the odds in your favor no matter who you are, where you're from, and what circumstances stand in the way. So welcome, April. Awesome to have you here. I know that was a long intro, but I thought we'd get the small stuff out of the way first.

I'm happy to be here, Mike. I do have to correct something. I never can live in my own family. My middle son went to Princeton and Harvard. No. Yale. That'd be.

Oh, my.

Yeah, you can't leave that one out there.

All right, good job. Good job.

Okay. Okay. Everything else, that was true.

All right, well, here's the thing. Still, big accomplishments, no matter what. Not too bad. Not too bad.

Yeah. I don't think you need to go to Princeton. Harvard Annual. Oh, yeah.

Oh, man. All right, well, we were stocking. I was thinking. I don't remember all three of them, but I had it in my notes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was close.

Okay.

People do that all the time. Okay. All right.

Thank you. Well, I've got. Besides the backstory, I do want to give credit where credit it is due, which is how we met in the first place, which was Arjon Robbins, who I originally met at Genius Network. He's also a member of Strategic Coach, and he's been a coach of yours for years. So I, first of all, just want to say hi to Joe and to Arjun and Dan, as usual. But what do you say we dig into this?

Let's get after it. All right. All right.

So I think the first question that I have is if you were going to boil this down to both your why and what you attribute to your ability to overcome, rise above, and get whatever you want, because that's a huge part of who you are. What is it?

I would say it's my ability to pivot and to keep my wits about me. It's something that I kind of developed growing up in the hood in South Central Los Angeles. And it's really served me well.

It's. It's interesting, and we'll talk about this a little bit later on, but part of the way that I got to know you a lot better, there's a variety of ways, but I got to interview every member of your family, some close friends, people you worked with over the years and learned a lot. And one of the biggest and best ways was you had traveled to Mexico with Vivian, me, and a few friends during my birthday. And then you invited Vivian and me to join you for your 30th wedding anniversary with Darrell. Darryl and I got to meet all your kids, a whole bunch of friends, including people who were in the original wedding party. And they did some fabulous dancing, I have to admit, very entertaining. But you know people in your professional life, your personal life, and one of the things that I noticed when people talked about you, they talked about you and Darrell and who you are together. And that was besides overcoming and rising above, you've never abandoned anyone. So tell me about that. Tell me about your long term relationships.

It's really important to me to keep people who knew you when know you now. It's the complete package of you.

Right.

I think the family we've turned into be, the business that I've run, it's all made up of all the lessons along the way and the people who are with me on the journey.

Well, another thing that happened along the way, again, this is where I remember saying to you, you have got that special it. And I know the SAS is about to turn on pretty soon, the fun part of you. But you came up and you were at a speaking training that I was doing with Arjan. And first of all, I really fell in love with your story. I'm like, holy cow, you know, like I. Because at first I met you and I'm like, what royalty did she come from? It's true, it's true. It was so fun. And so one of the things that I learned in your story was, first of all, what happened during 2008 for you. And then there was a turning point moment. And then the fact that during the lockdown, you not only doubled, but you quadrupled your business and you got to the point where you're truly working on not in your business. You don't have to be there anymore. And then you also had an agreement with Darrell, which you're living up to right now. So why don't you just talk about some of the motivators and some of the lessons along the way that you think are replicable. I know they're replicable. I've watched it.

So 2008 was obviously, it was a recession for the whole country. I had my practice since 2000. We've been growing every year, doing great. And then the recession. So at that point I had to make some decisions. And what I ended up doing was just going lean and mean. And that got us through. We came back stronger. But then we have the whole crisis that that happened, you know, a decade or so later. And then what do you do? I thought just for a moment that I was going to have to like, oh, no, we just had our highest two weeks ever. And now we're going to go Back, and, you know, wow.

Next day, our coach I'd hired, Arjon Robbins, met with all of the lawyers in his group and laid out a plan for us. You're moving forward. You're going to take advantage of this. This is an opportunity. You're letting no one go. Everyone's going for it with you. And here's the plan. So it was really probably. I mean, I didn't even have 12 hours of oh, no before I had a plan. And we marched through it, did some really incredible things, serving the community, doing all sorts of things. We did webinars, and it had all these topics. And so our John had a happy hour every week. So every week, even if he wanted to have doubts or not move forward, it's Friday again, you know, and now you got to keep it moving. You got to do the next best thing. And we quadrupled since then.

Unbelievable.

And.

And you also reached out. And again, instead of just laying around and taking it, you brought on some fabulous guests, too. So I think this is a good time to brag a little bit, because you had some great connections and they showed up for you and talk about some of the people that you brought on, because, I mean, really, you didn't just provide a message to clients, but a community, and you created momentum. You know, it was modeling, but also, obviously, the results were fantastic. When a lot of people just rolled over.

We did webinars three days a week. We talked about family law issues and how to parent, how to survive. But we also had taken Troll Tuesdays, and that's when I would have somebody, a known figure. Like, I had a Super bowl star, and I had Beyonce's dad on. I had the owner of our baseball team, the Rockies. And that was an interesting one. It was right when baseball was completely shut down. You know that moment when it's like, baseball's shut down. Yeah. And his alarm goes off while we're talking, and he says something like, we were supposed to be in Ohio right now.

Oh, yeah.

And so, you know, when you have some, you know, like, how are you getting through this? How do you take control? How do you move forward? And that's what we brought to the community.

That's so awesome. Yeah, it's great story. So I think, you know, as we started talking about working together.

I remember you saying, you know, I've got.

A lot of people who want you to speak for them. You talk to a lot of people. You've been building and developing community. But also when we started digging into.

Talking to your family for Example, talking to your friends, what they all said about you was they loved the stories about your family and how successful they are, but also the notion of these.

Aprils or April isms. And when we started kind of talking about creating something together, I showed you something called the Creative Whack Pack from.

Roger Von Oak. And I got this back in the 70s, by the way. And the whole idea is a deck of cards with an idea on it to make you think differently. I thought, okay, that would be super cool for you in addition to the book and speaking and also the coaching program that eventually develop. But why don't you just talk a little bit about coaching and what's been happening in your life that led you to want to do what you're doing right now?

Well, part of it was I. So I started my law practice and I have these three kids. They're, they're, they're, you know, barely two years apart. So they were two, four, six, all in high school, all in college, all in diapers. And there was a point where they were, you know, we're pouring into them. They're excelling in ways that are pretty striking. And I felt like I was using my gifts and talents like all for my children. And I mean, I still had my law practice and I was growing it, but just in terms of, at some point, you know, you've got, like you said, I've got a Harvard educated neuroscientist, PhD, top 10 Miss America Girl. So that takes up time. I have the, the rocket science Ivy League football champ who's also a sports model.

Wanted a perfect SAT score. You know, all those things take time. And then my son, who plays all these instruments, the bass, the berry sax, the tuba, the bass clarinet, I could go on. So you have to imagine that for every so. And he was the all state basis. So to do all of that and pour all this into all these children for years, there's stuff, there's, there's a part of me that's not giving to others. Yep. And I said, and it was agreed kind of in my family, with my husband, that once I was done with them and they stopped taking up all of my time, I was going to look outward, look outside of the Joneses.

Yeah.

That we've become in and, and, and do this for others. And so that's where I am now. Kids are all grown. The company is roaring and doing fantastic. We've got these super deep roots in the community. I'm on boards and commissions and I speak. And I'm asked to do things. But there's this constant theme of, how do you do it with the kids? I've gone into board meetings, you know, a decade ago, probably, and it's like, april, tell everybody where your kids go to school. I was at a meeting a couple days ago, and it's like, april, how's your daughter? Tell everybody about your daughter. And people tend to pick a kid because it all sounds not true. Like, when you put it all together, it just doesn't sound totally.

It's that it was. I was like, yeah, whatever.

Until I met him. And I'm like, damn.

Yes. Oh, no. People will say, you know, I thought that if they were. If they were all those things, that they wouldn't be, like, personable. But that's where you get the Miss America and the sports models and the jazz musicians. I mean, there's all that just real world personalness and a humility and. And they're. They're Christians and they love to, you know, they love the Lord. They love to do good and be good, you know, as good as you. I mean, who wants to be good all the time? But, you know, just be good people and. And proud of that. But that's not enough for me. And that's what this is about, because that's not enough. I talk to people all the time, and when people get brought into my world, then I will, like, just pour all this into them. One thing I'm known for, if somebody reminds me of my daughter, say, we're traveling, then I'm just all about her. Tell me about your career. Tell me what motivates you. Tell me what's holding you back. Tell me what you're doing to get in your own way, and let's get you out of it. But that's still one on one, you know, it can't just be people I hand pick or run into. I really believe that this is for other people and what we've been doing in terms of figuring out how to deconstruct it, put it in some tips and some advice so that I could just, you know, talk to people. And it's really for people who are ambitious. It's people who already who think they're winners, but they can get in their own way or get in their own head and this kind of. This kind of unstopped that and get you to the next level. So I'm super excited about it.

Yeah, me too. Me too. Well, I want to, before we get into some of the content, because you've got some awesome lessons that I think are applicable to anyone, no matter where they are in their life. And it could be professional business owners, individuals dealing with whatever. I love your pivots. I love the April isms. But I do want to talk about one other thing, that when I was chatting with Darrell, your husband, and interviewing him.

We talked briefly about this. And you and I have had some conversations, too. And of course, it's not even anywhere near the same, but, you know, my wife was. You know, she's Jewish. Her parents are Holocaust survivors. They've overcome some crazy challenges.

But the stuff that white folks don't deal with. You grew up in the hood. You've got three black kids, and you become prominent members in a white neighborhood and a white man's business. And you've got to have a conversation with your kids at some point about getting pulled over by the cops and all kinds of other complications. So why don't you just talk about that a little bit? I think you've got some really remarkable insights, you and Darrell, about how you've had these conversations, how you've raised your child, your children, and how they see the world, how they've refer. Reframed this through, frankly, a positive. So dive in. It's so interesting. I love the way you think about these things.

Sure. Oh, let's see. I know. So my middle. My middle kid wanted to go to this private school because they told them, you know, if you go to this private school, you can go to Harvard and yell and, oh, mom, can I go? Can I go? Can I go? So fine, we enroll them.

We enroll them in, like, no to that.

How do you say. How do you say no to that to a little fifth grader?

So we find. We enroll him. I didn't even interview at the school. I didn't even check the school out because we didn't have time. We had, like, a week in a room. So I do that. So now the kids are at three different schools. I'm. He's home because his school starts late on this day. So I take everybody else to. I'm carpooling with the neighborhood, rush into the new public school, and I get pulled over because they're doing some sort of traffic stop. And they're like, I'm sorry, ma', am, but we're monitoring this traffic circle. I'm like, you know what? Can you just follow me to school so that the kids don't miss recess? Because now I've figured this out. Where I come from, you weren't, like, asking the police to follow you to school and we'd lived in this town for a while. Now, like, initially, we had them stop me once. We were. It was Halloween. We're walking the kids to somebody's house, and they. They pull up and they say, how many kids do you have? And I'm like, what's it to you? He's like, well, we have glow sticks, ma', am, because it's going to be getting dark soon. And we wanted. I was like, oh, my gosh, where are we? So you get that a little bit, knocking on the door, and you're like, the police are at the door. You know, may I help you? Like, well, ma', am, I noticed you had your garage door up. And, you know, the best way to prevent crime is to prevent crime. Like, oh, thank you. Thank you, sir. Our dogs ran off and they brought, like, dog treats and toys. So now I'm like, okay, I get this. I get where we live. Everybody knows us. We know everybody. This is great. So go to school. Turns out I jumped in the car, you know, without my purse, without shoes, and I didn't have a license. So I asked the man if he could follow me back to my house. And he does it like, what? So he follows me back to the house. And then while he's writing me the ticket, I ask. I run in to take a shower because I got to get out of here. I gotta drop band off. I gotta get to work. And I was just gonna be really quick. I come, and my son, who had been watching cartoons, he. He. He tells me that the policeman's in the house. I'm like, you let a policeman in the house? And that's when I realized, like, oh, my gosh, these children are gonna. We are failing them. If you. If you're like this little black boy opening the door and just telling the police to just come on in and wait for my mother in the house. So at some point, we did have to rectify the two lives, because that's not. That's. This isn't the real world. This is not the real world. And one of my sons was. They both ended up in this program, was called the Battalion. And so it's like when young men come out to the world like a debutante. So there's a group called Jack and Jill that was made up of black families decades ago just to survive racism and still be strong. So they do a battalion. Then there is a white group that does a battalion. So my son is in both. He's in the fancy. I used to call it the white battalion, black battalion. They're both having lessons on Sunday, and he comes home and the. The Black Battalion had lessons on what to do. This is the top.

Oh, and he's in both of them, by the way. That's. That's the funny. That's the funny story. I like both.

So. And these are, like, the smartest and the best kids, right? And they had a lesson on what to do when you get pulled over. Like, it was very serious. Like, you're quiet, you say, you know. Yes, sir. You keep your hands down. And then in the. What I'll call the White Battalion, they met at Del Frisco's the same day, and where you pull out all the silverware, all the plates, all the china, and you walk through what you do at a meal. And so I say to him, when I realized this, I'm like, which one did you think was you needed or was the most valuable? And he looked at me, he was like, you need them both. You need them both. And that's the black men in America. You need them both. And that's. There's a very sad part of that as a mom, right? You. But you mean, you also. You know, you do what. You give them everything you can. You equip them while you can. You. You pray for them, and you try to. Try to make change.

Yeah. Yeah. It's. It's like the. Probably the worst thing we ever dealt with was.

Some kittens. And Zach's going to a really nice school here, La Jolla.

And, you know, one of his friends start. Calls him. Calls him a dirty Jew. Dirty Jew. And it goes on and on and on and on for a long time until he finally said something. This kid was edges away from getting expelled. And I know this kid. They were friends since they were six years old. So something clearly got to him and turned into a thing, and somehow they thought it was funny. And look, when I grew up, rotten things got set. It was just part of the era. And you and I are in the same neighborhood of age. You look a lot better than me. But the point being.

This is nothing compared to the complexity of what gets navigated, I guess is my point. And it's just remarkable listening again to how you and Darrell structure and have these conversations and how your kids interpret. It's awesome. So, next question, and the full disclosure, which I mentioned earlier, is I got to talk to a lot of people around you, and we decided to create these pivots, these.

April isms, and document them. And we had interviewed, I think, I don't know, six or so maybe seven people around you. And by the time we were done, we had almost 40. And these have become other people's interpretation of your wisdom. And there's a whole bunch of sources of these. But my goal was to.

Capture these, turn them into like the cards, turn them into what has become your platform. And it's also become a lot of what you're doing with your advisory practice. And so I thought let's just do a little dialogue here, go back and forth a few of them.

Sure.

And let's begin with an example, one which is imagine you're stuck in a snowstorm. You're slipping and sliding all over the place. You got a car full of kids, you're spinning around. Or maybe you lose control or completely lose where your car is in a parking lot. What's one of the April isms? One of the things that you shared with your kids, you bring to the office. And it's also helped you create a self running organization, which is a big tall order. But I think that's what all these have in common. Sure.

Well, you can, you can narrow that one down to, to, to keep your wits about you. That was always a big thing because you figure things are going to happen, you might want to panic and you know, in the movie, the person who panics and they can't get up and then the, the monster eats them because they didn't just get up and run. You know, get up and run, like think, pause and think, pause and think. And so actually that snowstorm story happened to my, my sons as adults. They were taking some kids, I think in their youth group to Big Bear. Car started sliding. My son was in his football shape at the time. So he pushes the car into a bush and they don't have chains. It's just a lot happening. But to hear them know as a mom, not like the super mom, but just like a regular mom, you, you hear this story afterwards and you think of how terrible it could have been.

Yeah, yeah. A whole bunch of bad things.

So many bad things. Cars sliding down hills. Both boys. You know, my son's a musician and we've always been very particular and careful about his hands. Like you're doing yard work and you come in and you hit yourself with the rock. And my husband's like, I told him not to pick it. Like before you can even see me, I told him, I told him, don't pick up the rock.

What happened to his tuba finger?

His tuba finger, right. So, but they, they, they figured it out. Like they, they worked Together as a team. They said some story about how they took their iPhones and put it on a string and put it under the car to see what it was stuck on, just one success story after the other. And that's the kind of thing that really makes you proud, and it. And it shows you that your job is. Your job's done, right? Job's done so well.

There's another one, too, about how.

Corbin, your musician's son, was talking about how you lost the car. He's a little boy. He starts to cry, and he's like, you're never gonna get a hold, like any little kid would. And that dramatically affected the outcome of his life. He literally could say, here's the moment that changed my life. So there's two things that I want to get at here. One of them is the philosophy. That's the pivot, is the Aprilism, and it's also what happened as a result. So that's the setup.

Okay, that's the setup. That's the setup. Corbin could. I mean, really interesting. Here he is, this amazing musician, and he's pretty much. He's a square.

And he would worry about things, and I'm like, there's nothing to worry about. Like, let's just keep it moving here. So, yes. Car. We can't buy the car. And what, are we never gonna find the car again? I'm like, let's just go on an adventure. Let's go on. Let's. Let's. Let's. In fact, let's forget about the car. Let's just go hop in the light rail, and let's go someplace else, and let's have fun. And that's what he learned to do. He learned how to keep it moving, how to not panic, how to, you know, make a good time out of what you have in front of you.

Yeah. And he went on, as a result, what he told me is he said, it's because I was the guy. You know, like you said, he's the square, But I always painted inside the lines as a rule follower, and now I'm a jazz musician, where it's important that, yeah, we're gonna. We're told, let's. Let's play in G minor. But then we play whatever we want, and that was because of you. And that's one of the things that. That was really, really fun to listen to. And mom just would turn everything that was difficult into let's go on an adventure. I love that it's reframing. That's really.

Yeah, it's Part of what you reframe. I reframe at work. I reframe at home. I mean, you can ref. I reframe my way out of, you know, a bad neighborhood, out of.

Girls who wanted to beat me up. Like, you can reframe your way into your future.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really good. All right, so let's hit another pivot principle that you've got. This showed up. It was Brandon who talked about it especially, but.

Talk about problems and puzzles.

So a problem is a puzzle. This is. This is my math guy. Right. He's the one who could solve math in his head when he couldn't talk. And he really appreciates the whole puzzle concept of it. He's the one who got the perfect math SAT score. He said, that's what I want. That's what I like to do. Who says that? Right? So we had to figure out how to make that happen, like, how to get him that kind of help. But that's a puzzle, too.

You just think about what you can do, not what you can't do. And that's what I ask of the people around me. That's what I ask the people in my company, and that's how we get to where I can be working on the business, not in the business, because it's the same principles. Yeah.

Right on. And ultimately, I think that's been what showed up over and over again when we talked to some of your workmates, people who've worked for you over the years about how you solve problems and how they see how you react to a crisis is you turn it into fun and games. Drives your husband's. Your husband, Daryl, nuts, but he appreciates it.

It's like.

It's pretty funny.

Yeah. Ha. I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't necessarily say at work it's fun and games, because we're not supposed to be having fun and playing games, but. But we do keep the ball moving forward. I had my sales team come once and tell me that our beautiful billboard had the wrong phone number on it. Oh, it was beautiful. It was down by the courthouse.

And. But when she brought it to me, she. She actually. She tried to stop me in the hallway, and I'm doing something else. I'm sure she was glad I didn't. She couldn't get my attention. And then when I came back to see what she wanted, she called the billboard company. She'd figured out it was the wrong, like, call rail number. Like the number that you use to track marketing. She called it. Found out that it was rolling to a voice message. So she still couldn't check ROI because she, you know, she'd answered all the questions and gotten the billboard company to agree to just go up there, paste a new one on top of it, and give us. She's like, you know how you said you love these billboards and you want to do more of them? She's like, I've got some great news.

You get to do more.

Get to do more of them. They're giving us all this extended time because we had the wrong phone number. Oh, but that's. That, to me, is my team. Keep your wits about you, handling it and solving the puzzle and not coming to me and telling me the problem, complete with a. I don't know.

Very good. All right, so there's a whole bunch of Aprilisms, and that's what they say. Oh, yeah. No, they do. It's. It's really funny because your husband's really funny, because he's like.

Yeah, my wise wife. It's really, really funny watching the two of you together. But I'm gonna just pick a couple of my favorites, and I'm gonna have you pick one here because. So we're gonna just do a little random grab bag. Okay, so we've got whatever it takes. Let's go on an adventure. We talked about that one. Brandon loves open experimentation. So is your daughter. Keep your wits about you. We've got be a trailblazer. That one's fun. Parent your way out of a job. Create a container.

Oh, how about if you can't go where you want to go? Somewhere better. That's one of my favorites, because this is Ellery's. So set us up.

Sure. We. We were going to Africa. We're going to visit a friend in Africa. Ellery was working as a hostess, working really hard as a hostess. One summer, it was actually the summer that Brandon was home from Princeton, working at a gas, oil, and gas company, making a ton of money and being able to, like, finish reading because he had so much free time. And I remember her saying, I make. And she looked at his check, and he made so much more money than her, doing what she thought was nothing. And so she's working super hard just being a hostess. We're going on vacation. She has to, like, beg to get a week off. And we're at the airport, we get shots, you know, get a visa, all of that. And then our friend says, can you not come yet? That. Can you come tomorrow?

So we stay at a hotel by the airport, and we come back to the airport, and it's still unclear and a mess. And now what do you do? My. You know, we call my husband. The first night we called him, he's like, well, I guess you. You know, just. That's terrible.

I want you to impersonate your husband. Please.

I. I can't believe that. Just. Just. Just come on home. I could just come on home, and me and my daughter, like, we're not coming home.

I'm like, you took off a week. My office is planning on me not being there. I can say for sure what we're not doing is giving up and coming home. Can you imagine? We couldn't imagine that.

So what we do once. We just decide, okay, fine, We. This isn't going to happen. We. We look at the top places to go in the world, starting alphabetically, that United could go to where we can get on a plane in, like, the next two hours. Because we're still. We're still at the airport. So by the time we get to Aruba. So Ellery would look it up. I would go online trying to find a hotel. I'd go on the airline. It was just. We were just hustling, and we found Aruba. Flight left in two hours, and that's what we did. We flew to Aruba instead. It was so outlandish. We get to our hotel, everybody's. They can't even talk to us because they're watching some game like the World cup on television, and I cannot figure out who they're rooting for. And it's because I hadn't looked into where I was going. They're rooting for the Dutch. I was like, why? Well, Aruba was Dutch on the. Everybody speaks Dutch. It's like one of their five languages. I had to apologize. Like, I'm so sorry that I know nothing about where I am right now, but I didn't mean to be here. So, yeah, that's how clueless we were. But we had a great time as one of our best, best memories. And when she rattled it off the other day, I was like, wow, she's still remembers that, But I said it to her so much then. You're going to have the best time if you make the best out of what you get.

And she still says that to herself to this day. It's still very true.

Well, let's talk a little bit. Well, for one thing, I've had so much fun just listening to the family stories, and they go so deep, so wide. They're so applicable to any business. That one is one of my favorites. Just because.

You know, you set up, you start up with. First of all, it's creative solution. You could just sit around and give up or keep on trying doing the same stupid thing over and over again.

And did I mention she was 17? A 17 year old girl.

Oh, that's great.

Oh my goodness. How not fun is that if you don't turn it around and reframe it?

Yeah, it is. It's awesome. Okay, so.

Here'S the other thing that I like about it is you've got constraints, which if. No, thinking about this now, the way I would use it myself would be if I get in a situation like that or something similar, I'm going to create a goal and I'm going to say we have two hours, okay? We're going to find the best solution that's better than where we're going to go. So there's two rules, which is we have two hours and it has to be better.

Right?

So let's figure it out. We'll team up. You do the research or you find options and then you do the research. If I were sitting around like with Vivian or Zach or a couple of friends.

And that'd be an interesting thing to do. If you made your plans to do something and then you change it at the last minute on purpose.

Right.

That'd be even weirder.

That would be a fun, fun activity. I mean, if you're not going to Africa, it's. It's not the same trip, is it? You know, let's change continents right now. Everybody, on the count of three, go.

It's. And after going to Africa lots and lots of times, I'm trying to think of how many times. Oh, and by the way, while we were doing this, Abby found the quote, things turn out the best for people who make the best of the way things turned out.

Yes.

Ooh, 17 said that.

Yes. Well, I said it. I mean, I had to keep going. And she, she just, she still says it, but for a scientist. She's a scientist, so, yeah, she gets to say that to herself a lot, I'm sure.

I'll tell you what, those crazy kids. Those crazy kids these days. Okay, so here's what I want to do. I want to talk a little bit about your platform, because when we started working together, I know you told me, I just want to help more people. I've been helping people and doing things that aren't at or with the law firm for a long time. And I really saw evidence of that when a lot of the people that were in your original wedding party, talked about how much you guys helped them and evidence of your life just growing up, navigating a complex world in a complex time, becoming incredibly successful, achieving what I would say is the entrepreneur's goal, which is a self running organization and multiple offices. You live in beautiful places, your kids are off on their own, they're independent now, they're doing well. And your husband says, do whatever you want, it's your turn and you pick something. That's another hard challenge, which is I'm going to teach people how to pivot and I'm going to grow and scale. But why don't you talk a little bit about your speaking career, the new book you're working on and the pivot package working together with you.

Well, I'm speaking now in front of audiences, professionals, business owners, young men and women. And so I'm available for that is what I've been doing. So it's, it's actually, it's like my sweet spot, only amplified. Yep. And that's the part that gives me the most juice, is this is amplifying and helping more people. So really excited about that. We've got pivot experiences because so much of this is being able to pivot. So this is, I expected A, I'm going to make D fabulous. You know, I'm the skip BC and go to D. You know, when your first thought is, I can't do this because it didn't go the way I was expecting you, you're going to stay stuck and you're not. There's the whole rest of your life that you're going to miss out on and we can't have that. So I'm really about helping the, the ambitious person, the person that knows they're a winner, but they just need to get to the next step and then the next step and the next step. And that's what we do. So we have, we have pivot experiences, we have small groups for individuals. We work on solving business challenges. I have a unique perspective after I've been an attorney 30, 32 years, probably since 91. I know I stopped adding over 30, so it's mushy. But I've been an attorney over 30 years. I've met with thousands and thousands and thousands of people, especially doing family. I mean, we talk about the thing that hurts you the most. We divide money, property and children. What's left after that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, other than your health. It's, it's like a ripping and a hurting. And so I'm Always having to go to the core and the essence of people in their hardest, darkest spots. And so to do this in a business sense, to elevate people to being better and doing the most and, and forward thinking, and it's like, it's. It's like I almost have an ice cream shop. Like, this is. This is. This is good, fun stuff because we're talking about getting people to the success that they're looking for and helping people figure out. As my mother said, you know, you can have it all. You can have it all. Maybe not at the same time, but you can have it all. And how do we get people to whatever the all is for them? And so that's what, that's what we do. And that's the offer is, it could be individual, it could be businesses. We speak. We got a book coming out. Like, it's exciting.

Yeah. No, and you are incredibly hardworking.

And I love the way you think you and I are very, very similar. It's been an absolute pleasure. And the fact that we've been able to play together too, which is an absolute delight. So I don't know if there's anything else. Do you have any other ask for our audience or request other than to go to AprilSmithJones.com to learn and fill out an application and download some of your goodies?

Yeah, definitely. AprilSmithJones.com AprilSmithJones.com we have a bonus video recorded, so where we'll go through more April Aprilisms and how to pivot. We've got a Pivot pack that's always growing with tips and games and ways to, like, really get your mind so that you're nimble and you can immediately respond with keeping your wits together. And immediately respond with what's the pivot and what are my options and how do I do the next best thing when this isn't going the direction that I want to go? So we'll get you nimble. You can download those two things. You can learn about how to hire me as a coach, advisor, and speaker. And if you enjoy this message, you can also write me april@AprilSmithJones.com oh, yeah.

Well, what can I say except I've been looking forward to this. Had an absolute blast. I know we're going to be doing some more. And for you watching right now, you know what to do. Learn more about April. She is so much fun, amazing family. She's all this and a whole lot more. And next time, I'm going to loosen her up even more because, boy, when she gets going, she gets going. And of course, if you like this or you can think of someone who'd appreciate the message, please share it with them. Otherwise, like comment and we'll see you in the next episode of Capability Amplifier. So let's say goodbye. Right? See everyone. Thanks a lot for watching or listening. Bye.

Bye, Sam.