A local lawyer who I know — I’ll call him Rick — was recently sentenced by a federal court judge to 60 days in prison for taking money that belonged to one of his elderly clients. The Lawyer is in his mid-sixties. I want to share with you a letter that I sent to him after the judge handed down the sentence. I think you will agree that the advice that I shared with him would be of benefit to anyone. The sending of the letter was what I considered to be a spiritual work of mercy. Here’s what I wrote in the letter:
Last year was the 80th anniversary of the publication of the book, Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. The book, which was originally published in 1937, has never gone out of print. In other words, at any time during the past 80 years, a person could walk into a bookstore or, in recent years, go on the internet and purchase the book. Very few books have ever succeeded in remaining in print for 80 years.
Last week, I had an appointment with a man — I’ll call him Jim — who hired me eight months ago to represent him on a personal injury case. As usual, Jim brought his wife with him to the appointment. I’ve met with Jim and his wife on four occasions over the past eight months. Jim was injured when a large truck disregarded a stop sign and collided with his vehicle in the middle of an intersection. Because of his injuries, Jim has not been able to return to work. He’s been without an income for eight months.
In the home that I grew up in, we were limited in the amount of time we could watch TV. My mom hated seeing her children sitting on the couch watching TV. It was common for her to come into the family room unannounced, walk over to the TV, and shut it off. This frequently happened while we were in the middle of a show. After turning off the TV, Mom would order us to go outside and play.
Earlier this year, I hired a man who is an expert at optimizing websites for local Google search results. I agreed to pay him $900 per month to optimize my website at PeoriaInjuryLawCenter.com. For the purpose of this article, I’m going to call him “Jim.”
I recently watched a video of a presentation that was made by a businessman who owns several successful companies. His companies generate more than $100 million per year in gross revenue. One of the topics that he touched upon was the difficulty that a business owner has in trying to manage and balance his or her business life with their personal life.
On a Sunday afternoon during the summer of 1985, I drove my young family to my parents’ home for a visit. The adults ended up in the back yard sitting on lawn chairs, while the children played in the yard. At one point, a bird landed near my four-year-old son, Harry. He immediately ran toward the bird to see if he could catch it.