Legal Grounds | Jonathan York

Explicit content warning

04/05/23 • 38 min

Legal Grounds | Conversations on Life, Leadership & Law

This week’s episode is just a little to the left of what we normally do here on Legal Grounds.

As a podcast that puts a lot of emphasis on Leadership, we spend a fair amount of time talking to our guests about those leaders who helped guide them in the early stages of life.

Now, to be sure, we’ve had plenty of guests who have endured trauma from their childhood that has shaped who they would become.

And plenty for who found themselves in the ditch later in life.

But imagine, if you can, living a life in which the first time you remember the feeling of being treated like a human being was while you were working at a wastewater treatment plant on prison-detail.

I don’t pose this question to throw a pity-party on behalf of my guest, but to highlight one of the major themes of this week: empathy vs. compassion.

And that’s because, believe it or not, it’s ok not to be able to empathize with people.

What’s more, when we understand where our ability to empathy ends, we can actually better serve those around us because we recognized the need for compassion, not comparison.

My guest this week is Jonathan York.

At 30 years old he found himself on the inside of a prison cell, divorced, and having lost his business and home.

Jonathan would serve 3 years, but as he puts it, prison was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Today he and his wife are the co-founders of Resionus Industrial Coating, a majority female and veteran owned company with decades of combined experience in industrial flooring needs.

And most recently, Johnather has begun The Relisent Man Project in an effort to share stories like his own, and show how faith and vulnerability is the key to continually moving forward.

I would encourage leaders of ANY role to listen to Jonathan’s story, if only to learn how leader’s that give second-chances can change lives.

Enjoy the show

This week’s episode is just a little to the left of what we normally do here on Legal Grounds.

As a podcast that puts a lot of emphasis on Leadership, we spend a fair amount of time talking to our guests about those leaders who helped guide them in the early stages of life.

Now, to be sure, we’ve had plenty of guests who have endured trauma from their childhood that has shaped who they would become.

And plenty for who found themselves in the ditch later in life.

I don’t pose this question to throw a pity-party on behalf of my guest, but to highlight one of the major themes of this week: empathy vs. compassion.

And that’s because, believe it or not, it’s ok not to be able to empathize with people.

What’s more, when we understand where our ability to empathy ends, we can actually better serve those around us because we recognized the need for compassion, not comparison.

My guest this week is Jonathan York.

At 30 years old he found himself on the inside of a prison cell, divorced, and having lost his business and home.

Jonathan would serve 3 years, but as he puts it, prison was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Today he and his wife are the co-founders of Resionus Industrial Coating, a majority female and veteran owned company with decades of combined experience in industrial flooring needs.

And most recently, Johnather has begun The Relisent Man Project in an effort to share stories like his own, and show how faith and vulnerability is the key to continually moving forward.

I would encourage leaders of ANY role to listen to Jonathan’s story, if only to learn how leader’s that give second-chances can change lives.

Enjoy the show

Previous Episode

Legal Grounds | Sofia Ramón

I’ve never heard any podcast host admit it, but when you get the opportunity to interview someone who excels at what they do AND also happens to be a good friend... well, it kind of feels like cheating.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I prepared for this week’s episode because some of the subjects are deeply serious.

And of course I wasn’t just going to wing it on my introduction.

But when it came time for the questions, I got through about 1⁄4 of what we could have discussed.

My guest this week is Sofia Ramón, Manger & Cofounder of Ramón | Worthington, a majority-women owned and minority-owned law firm.

Having practiced trial law for over three decades, she has primarily represented defendants in first-party insurance claims, transportation law, commercial, insurance, and serious personal injury matters - just to name a few of her specialties.

Sofia is also a qualified Mediator, an executive board member of the Texas Association of Defense Counsel, and proudly serves as a National Director for AVANCE, INC., an organization which works to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty through innovative, two-generation educational support for families with young children.

We discuss how making connections early in your career can help you become a better lawyer and leader, the impact of mentorship, and what to do about the very real disparities in representation for Latino and Latina Lawyers.

But maybe more than anything, this episode feels like the coffee break conversations that inspired this podcast.

So pardon the occasional curse-word, and know that teasing is a love-language.

Enjoy the show!

Next Episode

Legal Grounds | Kekua Kobashigawa

I’ve always thought that one of the best parts of being raised in a military family is that it taught me how to be direct.

Coming from the top down, that directness could take a lot of forms, some good, some...not so much.

But what I never was after walking away from a conversation with my old man was ‘unsure’ of what he meant.

Now, I think a lot of us lump together the idea of ‘being direct’ with the notion of telling people something they don’t want to hear.

As if there is a sort of cold cruelness attached to it.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered that being direct really means telling people what you need them to hear in a way that they will listen.

But - plot twist! - what happens if the person you need to be direct with is yourself?

As leaders, it’s our job to spend a huge portion of our bandwidth thinking about the needs of others.

Too often, however, what feels like self-sacrifice is actually self-sabotage.

After all, how can we be direct with ourselves if we barely know what’s going on with us in the first place?

That’s a question Kekua Kobashigawa found herself asking after the “dream life” she worked so hard to build began falling apart.

But not one to sit among the rubble, Kekua began to build the life she never even knew she wanted in the first place.

Now she’s a Woman’s Leadership Mentor and the best-selling author of “Do Big Shit: The Road Map for Taking Control of Your Life.”

She is also the founder of the HBIC Development.
And yes - it stands for exactly what you think it does.

Kekua and I discuss the perils of common sense, why auto-pilot doesn’t equal safety, and what leaders need to know about how engagement is a two way street.

Fair warning: there’s some salty language so maybe listen with headphones