What does it take to turn a painful experience into a way to help others? My guest, Jason Plotkin, is a personal injury lawyer, author, and advocate who knows firsthand what it means to face fear and rebuild after trauma. After being bitten by a dog at age five and later surviving two serious car accidents, Jason turned his experiences into a mission to help injured people and their families. We talk about his children's book, The Pickle, the Patch, and the Puppy, and how his Bravery Ladder helps children overcome their fear of dogs one step at a time. Jason also shares what his own recovery taught him about empathy, the challenges of dealing with insurance companies, and why listening is such an important part of helping others. From building a law firm focused on people to supporting first responders in his community, Jason reminds us that being unstoppable isn't about avoiding life's challenges. It's about looking for solutions, learning from our experiences, and continuing to move forward.
Highlights:
3:55 – How a childhood dog bite shaped Jason's journey through fear and recovery.
9:44 – How the Bravery Ladder helps children overcome fear.
25:51 – How two serious car accidents changed Jason's perspective on helping others.
30:38 – Why personal experience can transform empathy and client care.
46:38 – How supporting parents helps children recover from trauma.
57:11 – Why being unstoppable means finding solutions instead of making excuses.
About the Guest:
Jason Plotkin, Esq. is the CEO and Managing Attorney of the Pinder Plotkin Legal Team, a Maryland personal injury and workers'
compensation firm. Over 20 years he has grown the firm 5x, and it has handled more than 3,700 cases, including over 2,200 personal injury matters and nearly 1,500 workers' compensation claims. The firm works under its motto, Hardworking Attorneys for Hardworking People.
Jason knows his clients' side of the desk because he has sat there. In his twenties and thirties he survived two serious car crashes, went through surgery, and dealt with the insurance system firsthand. The second crash happened while he was already practicing law, so he kept working for his clients while he healed. As a five-year-old, he was bitten by a dog. The bite healed, but the fear stayed with him much longer.
Those experiences became his books, and today he is a best-selling author whose three titles were all #1 Amazon new releases. His first, The Role of a Chiropractor in Treating Auto Accident Injuries (2019), explains how chiropractic care fits into recovery after a crash. Crash
Course: To Recovery and Beyond (2024, also in Spanish as Curso
Intensivo) tells the story of his own recovery and gives accident survivors a practical guide for the months after a crash. His children's picture book, The Pickle, the Patch, and the Puppy (2026), is for kids ages 4 to 10 who got scared by a dog. It teaches a "Bravery Ladder" that breaks a big fear into small steps, and licensed therapists have endorsed it.
Jason is a life member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and has been named a Maryland Super Lawyer every year from 2020 through 2027.
In 2021 he was the inaugural recipient of the Clio Legal Impact Award, presented at the Reisman Awards. He teaches continuing legal education nationally through the National Business Institute and hosts Around Town with the Laurel Board of Trade on Laurel TV.
He earned his J.D. with honors from Syracuse University College of Law and his MBA and B.S. in Marketing, both with honors, from the University of Baltimore. He comes from a Baltimore family of firefighters and lives in Maryland.
Ways to connect with Jason**:**
Website: https://jasonplotkin.com
Firm: https://pinderplotkin.com
Children's book: https://pickleandthepuppy.com Amazon author page:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jason-Plotkin/author/B0GSWXNKNY
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-plotkin/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jason_a_plotkin/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/japlotkin/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JasonPlotkinesq
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT\&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/
https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/
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Transcription Notes:
Michael Hingson 00:04
What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. I'm your host, Michael Hingson, speaker, author, and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead, and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on, and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience, and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another edition of Unstoppable Mindset, we're really glad you're with us. We really appreciate you being here, and we're looking forward to forward to having a great discussion with Jason Plotkin, and who is our our guest this time. Jason is a lawyer, an injury lawyer, but has a great story to tell from everything that I've read. He's also an author. He's written three books, and he has won some awards. And I'm sure we'll get to all of that. So, without giving anything else away, Jason, welcome to Unstoppable Mindset. We're really glad you're here. Oh, I should say you're from Maryland, and and he's in the in I assume you're in the Baltimore area.
Jason Plotkin 01:39
Correct. I'm actually in our Baltimore office right now. There you go.
Michael Hingson 01:43
There you go. And of course, people in Maryland pronounce it Baltimore. So there you go.
Jason Plotkin 01:47
Yeah.
Michael Hingson 01:49
Anyway, Jay. Well, welcome. Well, well, welcome to to to Unstoppable Mindset. We're really glad you're here.
Jason Plotkin 02:00
I'm excited to be here.
Michael Hingson 02:01
Well, why don't we start? I love to do it this way. Why don't we start by you telling us a little bit about the early Jason growing up and all that? That gives us all a chance to get to know you a little more.
Jason Plotkin 02:11
Sure. Well, the early Jason wanted to be an accountant. Right? He loved basketball. He loved dogs, but he wanted to be an accountant until he worked at a law or accounting firm, and he realized he didn't want to be an accountant. That that taught me early on that it's always good to you know get experiences before you make decisions, and really life is all about you don't know what you what you don't know until you don't know it, right? So I came. I grew up in Baltimore. I pretty much lived in in Maryland my whole life, except for law school in New York. I married, had two kids, and always wanted to be a a lawyer. And it took a long road to get there. And then when I got there, I decided I wanted to be a man of the people, and I help a lot of people, especially those that are injured.
Michael Hingson 03:02
So, what what is it you didn't like about being an accountant?
Jason Plotkin 03:06
It was boring.
Michael Hingson 03:08
Oh, okay. Have you ever seen the the the remake? I guess I would say of the movie The Producers or the Broadway play Mel Brooks with Matthew and Nathan Lane.
Jason Plotkin 03:20
I haven't.
Michael Hingson 03:21
There's a Matthew Broderick comes into it from being an accountant, and he always wanted to be a producer, as he sings in one of his songs. But when they show the people in the accounting office, you hear people singing unhappy, unhappy, very unhappy. So, as soon as you mentioned you weren't overly happy with being an accountant, I had to ask.
Jason Plotkin 03:48
Yeah, and that that makes sense. I mean, I I was 15 years old. I had a work visa to to go work there, and I just need to be a little more excitement. I think back then.
Michael Hingson 03:58
Yeah, I can understand you're you're just dealing with well. I will just say just dealing with numbers. Some accounting people may yell at me for that, but with law, there's a there's a lot of interesting aspects to the law. I've I've never really had a desire to be a lawyer, but I appreciate law, and I've been involved with dealing with Congress and legislation, and I've dealt with states and a variety of things like that. So I appreciate it and understand the value of it. So good for you, and and you certainly are are back there doing a lot of good work. Well, one of the things I read in your bio was that five years old you got bit by a dog. Tell me about that a little bit. I did, and did you sue the dog later.
Jason Plotkin 04:42
That's I'll get to that definitely. Did not sue the dog.
Michael Hingson 04:46
Oh, okay.
Jason Plotkin 04:46
Did not make an insurance claim either.
Speaker 1 04:50
Ah,
Jason Plotkin 04:50
is one of the misconceptions. You know, when you an incident happens, it's really an insurance claim. So you don't have to feel like you're going to sue a family member. In fact, if my my parents had made an insurance claim when I was five years old, I might not still have student loans, right? Yeah, I'd have been able to get a little compensation in a structured settlement for for me to help with school down the road. But long story short, it was my parents' anniversary. They were going out. I was five years old. I was having a sleepover at my aunt's house, and this is back in the day, Michael. When there was no cell phones, I'm old enough where there was no cell phones when I was five years old.
Michael Hingson 05:28
What year was that?
Jason Plotkin 05:29
That would have been in the early '80s, mid '80s. Okay, yeah,
Michael Hingson 05:36
yeah. No cell phones and no real internet and and computers were just starting to appear,
Jason Plotkin 05:44
and really no computers at least for us we they were they wouldn't have been affordable to
Michael Hingson 05:49
us yeah so
Jason Plotkin 05:50
we wouldn't have had any had access to one there but my parents it was their one night a year where they would go out to to a nice dinner it was their anniversary I was my man was making some snacks. She has some pickles. I was eating a pickle while I was playing with her lab Bo, which I loved. And apparently, Bo likes pickles too. And Bo went to take a bite of the pickle while I was taking a bite of the pickle, and he bit my lip instead. Yeah, it was so it was one of those kind of things where a dog just made a mistake, which is common. However, lips bleed; they bleed a lot.
Michael Hingson 06:28
They do. It
Jason Plotkin 06:28
can be a little traumatic for someone that's five years old. It was more traumatic for my aunt because she turns around all of a sudden. I'm screaming, and there's blood everywhere. So, as I'm as I'm a parent now, as I'm older, I really feel from my my aunt in the story of what she went through, and so that started a a process of you know the star healing and the recovery of the the trauma to being nervous around dogs to eventually getting my own puppy, another black lab, which I loved and grew up with, and it led to me writing the story. And it's you know the pickle, the patch, and the puppy, a story for kids who got scared by a dog, and that's really kind of the whole premise behind it and why I wrote the book is my shared experience.
Michael Hingson 07:18
It doesn't sound like the dog was was mean or being mean and nasty, but you guys just ended up at the same place at the same time, which is a law of physics.
Jason Plotkin 07:27
Exactly, and that's what happens a lot with children. Because if you think of it as an adult, dogs are around your waist level, and they jump up on you. But for a child, that your waist level is around their their face.
Michael Hingson 07:39
Yeah,
Jason Plotkin 07:39
it happens. Playful dogs they make a mistake. They get startled. Most incidents happen with a good dog that made a mistake.
Michael Hingson 07:48
When I was in my freshman year in high school, my brother was was playing tennis. He was a junior at the time, and so I stayed around, and then my parents. My mom picked us up at the end of of the time he was playing tennis after school. One day, I was throwing a ball for my guide dog Squire, and Squire decided to leap up and try to grab the tennis ball as I was throwing it, and my finger got cut on his teeth, and and and he didn't chomp down. It's just that actually, I was my hand was just going so fast that it it it got cut on his teeth. So I understood that it wasn't anything that that that he did, but I can understand why kids can become afraid of those kinds of things. But by the time Squire and I went through that, we had been working together as guide dog in person for oh, I would say nine or 10 months. So you know, Squire I think felt pretty bad about
Jason Plotkin 09:01
it too, and that's the thing that happens. The dogs feel feel bad, and a lot of times it's the more children are more traumatized by their parents or the adults' reaction to what happened than what actually happened. When the parents freak out, that's when they start to emulate that and freak out as well.
Michael Hingson 09:21
The only problem for me was it was one of my braille reading fingers, so I had to start practicing reading with my other hand a little bit to without using both hands, which is the best way to read braille. But but it worked out okay. Yeah, and I can read very well with that finger again. So you know, perfect. But but yeah, although it was it was okay, and poor Squire was was was very very I would say for a while traumatized by it. Kept checking out my hand and giving it kisses and and all that. So it was as well. But sure, I can understand why it could be a trauma, and as you said. The parents and your aunt probably made it in in some senses a whole lot worse than it really was.
Jason Plotkin 10:07
Yeah, because I think her trauma was probably more. I was talking about too long ago, and she still gets trauma without thinking about
Michael Hingson 10:16
it. It's not going to help to do that, but you know, but but you moved on from it. So how did how did you how did you move past it and get to the point where you weren't traumatized?
Jason Plotkin 10:28
And that that's some of what we put into the book. So children, because you know, I'm a lawyer and I represent a lot of children that have been injured, and it's hard for children to communicate what they're going through, even to their parents. So came up with the concept of the brain alarm, which kind of goes back to what I would start to feel like as a child, where something was different, right? You get that a little fuzzy feeling; it's something that makes you a little nervous. Brain alarm goes off, and you might get scared. So we took that and we turned it into a bravery ladder. So the idea is you slowly get more adept to being around dogs and putting yourself in a position to be around dogs. Whether it's you know you might start walking on the other side of the street to avoid a dog. Well, try walking on the same side of the street. You might avoid going to your friend's house because Johnny has a dog and the dog scares you. Well, maybe just try to meet with Johnny outside his front door for a little bit, and then slowly get back to where you were before.
Michael Hingson 11:27
Yeah.
Jason Plotkin 11:28
So we've done that as a bravery ladder. Each rung is supposed to be a step, and the children have a bravery journal that they can track it, and they get certificates along the way with a graduation certificate at the end.
Michael Hingson 11:40
So how does that process work? When you say they get a certificate, who who creates that?
Jason Plotkin 11:44
So we have it all pre-done on pickonthepuppy.com. Ah, okay. You can go in there. They can download a resource. It's a PDF. It'll have the journal that they can print, and then at each stage, there's a certificate and a certificate for the end for completion. So that way, it becomes a an activity with the parents because we're also trying to try and retrain the parents to be part of the process and not overreact.
Michael Hingson 12:09
Yeah, I I hear you, and and that's that's a big part of it is is the parents. I know when I just am walking with my guide dog, whether we're in a building or whatever, and sometimes kids want to come up and talk to the dog, and I would let them. But many times the parents go, "Oh, don't do that. That dog might bite," and this and that and the other stuff. And all they're doing is is helping to instill fear in the child. But whenever I hear it, I will even when I don't have time, I'll take the time to stop, take the harness off, and say, "Wait a minute, this dog doesn't bite. You're welcome to say hello to the dog." And mostly the parents do react pretty well to that, but they already started a process when they say, "Well, the dog might bite." You know, don't don't go up and and talk to that dog. There are so many other ways to handle it that would be so much more effective and not cause trauma, but too many parents don't do that.
Jason Plotkin 13:08
Yeah, they don't, and and some of it could be from something they experienced as a child that's never got through, and now they're passing on to their their children.
Michael Hingson 13:17
Yeah, and it and it doesn't help to do that, but but they do. So one of my goals, whenever I hear anything sort of negative like that, is I will work to try to to change that. And usually I'm I'm able to do it. I'm able to to get people to realize, oh, this dog is is friendly, while the dog is giving the kid lots of kisses. Of course, if the child's holding an ice cream, then I say, you know, you better move that out of the, you know, move. If you got, if you're holding an ice cream cone, better move it out of the way, or give it to mom or dad. But
Jason Plotkin 13:53
now, and that's smart because a lot of these incidents start around food.
Michael Hingson 13:57
Yeah,
Jason Plotkin 13:58
kid eating around a dog like myself, or the dog's eating and the child wants to play with the dog.
Michael Hingson 14:05
Yeah. Well, and and things things do happen. My guide dogs would not react negatively if they're eating and a child comes up and wants to play with the dog. But by the same token, I think it is fair to teach that dog eating don't don't interrupt the dog's dog's food because you never know, and and just wait a few minutes. When the dog's done, you can play with the dog as much as you want.
Jason Plotkin 14:34
Exactly. It's and a lot of times it's not uncommon if you live with siblings, everybody batting over the last place slice of pizza, right?
Michael Hingson 14:42
Yeah,
Jason Plotkin 14:43
you gotta be ready for it sometimes.
Michael Hingson 14:45
Yeah.
Speaker 2 14:49
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Michael Hingson 15:23
Well, so you you went through school, went through high school, and all that. I'm I'm assuming you went through high school because you went to college, and and all that. So, what what was was college like?
Jason Plotkin 15:36
College was great. You know, some of the best memories. Made a ton of great friends while I was there. I'm really an introvert, so I think college helped me get a little more extroverted, which helps me because for everything I do now, at the heart of it, I'm I'm a small business owner. Yeah, to be a small business owner, you have to get out there and meet people, go on podcasts. Right, you got you got to learn to put yourself out there. So it was the early stages of I wasn't quite there, but it's like stepping stones. Maybe a rung in my ladder to be extroverted was going through college, making a lot of great friends.
Michael Hingson 16:12
Did you get to the point where you were pretty much over your fear of dogs by that time?
Jason Plotkin 16:17
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now by the time I did that, and a bunch of some of my roommates, several roommates had dogs throughout. So for a couple of years, I lived with somebody that had a dog because you know my I come from a family of dog lovers. I always grew up around dogs. At that period of time, I was pretty young. I think we were in between dogs in my my household. I think my parents probably one of our dogs had moved on, and they were probably trying to deal with having a five-year-old, and get used to it first before we had a dog. And I'm not sure if my the incident spurred us to get a puppy faster, but we wound up having a puppy. Tika was in the book as well. I grew up with a black lab; just absolutely loved her. She was my best friend.
Michael Hingson 17:01
Yeah. Do you have puppies today?
Jason Plotkin 17:04
Yes. I well, I have two kids, and we went to rescue a black lab. Turns out we rescued an Italian greyhound mixed with Chihuahua that looked like a black lab as a puppy. It just never grew.
Michael Hingson 17:18
That's an interesting combination.
Jason Plotkin 17:20
Yeah. I don't know how it happened. We rescued it. We had a couple of veterinarians try to figure out what she was. She is extremely fast. We call her Luna, and she is can jump and just as a joy. So my my kids now have the same experience growing up with a dog, and they love it. She sleeps every night in my oldest bedroom. Great addition to the family.
Michael Hingson 17:44
Well, and my current guide dog Alamo is a black lab. He's the first black lab I've had. I've had three golden retrievers. First three guide dogs were all goldens, and then the next four were yellow labs. They were all female yellow labs, and the first three were male goldens. And now I have a male black lab, so we of course do a lot of travel, and it's it's a lot of fun going through airports because I can go through the metal detector in in the security portals without setting it off. But the dog will set it off because the dog has a metal you know metal in her in his harness that will set the detector off. So I'll go through and have an extended leash so that the leash won't set it off. But then the dog comes through, and of course all the security people go, "Well, we need to search your dog. Is that going to be okay?" And my immediate response is, "No, it's not, unless you're going to take a half hour because he hates short searches." And and his tail is going because he knows what's coming. Yeah, and and you know, and I and so I just tell them, you know, you got to take at least a half hour. He's going to be very insulted, and of course they start petting him, and I keep saying you're going way too fast because I know they're not going to take a half hour. Yeah, I actually had one, actually the one in Columbus coming back this this this time actually took a whole minute to to to search the dog, and it wasn't really much of a search. It was all petting the dog, and of course, I think that the guy was getting kisses at the same time because they were both having a lot of fun. But but Alamo is yet to get a half hour search, and he'd take it. He would be very happy to get a half hour search.
Jason Plotkin 19:23
Maybe one day. Yeah,
Michael Hingson 19:26
yeah. Well, in the meanwhile, whenever we sell books when we speak, I will tie him to the front of the table, and I'm behind the table, and I'll take the harness off and tie him and attach his leash to the front of the table. There is no better salesperson than a dog who is just begging to be petted.
Jason Plotkin 19:45
I'm sure. I'm sure.
Michael Hingson 19:46
And and when kids come up, he will stretch out with every appendage going as far as it can go to maximize petting space, which is really so funny. They know. Yeah, it's really. Pretty silly, but but they love it. So, and he's he's he's a good boy. That's great
Jason Plotkin 20:05
because you travel a lot to speak, so it's really good to have the Alamo that enjoys that process with you. Yeah, I
Michael Hingson 20:11
I wouldn't want it any other way. He's got to. One of the things that I tell every guide dog trainer whenever we're talking about another dog is the dog has to be raised around cats. I do not want a dog that is going to have a problem with cats. And we do travel a lot, and I've been very fortunate. Every dog has really done very well with all the attention, so it's it's worked out pretty well. Well, what did you do after college?
Jason Plotkin 20:36
So after college, I went straight through college and got my MBA, so I did a joint program and got my um MBA. Then I went to work for tech companies after college, and I was negotiating partnerships. And you know, we had a lawyer that drafted an agreement. It was like four or five, maybe less than 10 pages. We started negotiating with a big company. They liked it, but they sent back something. I was like 40 plus pages. I had no idea what I was reading, and I decided, you know what? I don't. I want to understand what what we're going to agree with. I can't just advise my company that we should go ahead and do this partnership. I looked up online. The LSATs were in a couple weeks. I went to the library and checked out a book for the LSATs, and that's I say my 20th year as a lawyer. So again, that was still before. I don't think I had a cell phone then either. And I I studied in the evening after work, took the LSATs, which is a test you need to apply to go to law school. And then I decided to go went to law school and applied and went right away.
Michael Hingson 21:44
There you go. How long did that take?
Jason Plotkin 21:48
That took three years. So it was a lot of schooling with a short break at working in between, and but it really helped give me some perspective on what the real world was like. So I knew when I graduated law school, I was gonna have to get ready for everything, right? To be dedicating some long hours.
Michael Hingson 22:08
That's kind of the nature of the beast, isn't it?
Jason Plotkin 22:10
Yep, yep. It's a, it's a lot of professions are like that, but it's definitely one of the professions where you come out of the gate and you work a lot of long hours the first few years.
Michael Hingson 22:20
But you learn a lot.
Jason Plotkin 22:22
Yeah, do learn a lot. I actually was representing broker dealers, so protecting investors from that standpoint. When I got out of law school, and eventually went into work with FINRA, the financial industry regulatory authority. But that's when I really decided I wanted to be a man of the people and form my own firm, and that's why I met up with Ed, the the Pinder and Pinder Plotkin, and he decided he convinced me to start my practice within his practice, and you know that's when Pinder Plotkin legal team was born.
Michael Hingson 22:55
There you go. You were talking about the LSAT. I know for a while, blind people had some real problems because, and the bar association was supporting this whole thing. They didn't really make the LSAT accessible, and they didn't allow you to use the technology that you normally would use if you were blind to read computer material. They they insisted that you had to use their technology, which is which is really not a good thing, and it actually took a Supreme Court fight to get the bar association to end end the educational testing service or whoever does the LSAT to realize you got to do it the right way, and so it took a Supreme Court decision to make that happen. But now blind people can take the LSAT, which is which is a good thing.
Jason Plotkin 23:43
Definitely, I mean, technology has gone so far; it's like everything with the AI. I mean, back then they're they're probably concerned with cheating, so they want people to use their own devices. But you either have to make your devices more accessible, or you got to let people use their devices.
Michael Hingson 23:57
Well, and the reality is that using if you you have the right to make sure that a person's not going to cheat, but you but people ought to be able to use their own device. You know you don't you don't require sighted people to wear your glasses to take a test. They get to wear whatever glasses they want to use, and it's the same sort of thing. It was kind of a ridiculous argument because they just said it's got to be IRA or the highway, and finally the Supreme Court said, "No, that's not really quite true," and and it worked out. But still, it was one of those things that people had to had to deal with. And you know, it it happens. The insurance industry for years wouldn't provide life insurance to people who were blind or had other disabilities because they said we're a higher risk, and it finally took somebody asking somebody in the insurance industry. Well, you say we're a higher risk, but you know everything you do, you're supposed to do based on mathematical statistics, actuarial data, and you have actual proof, mathematical models that we're a higher risk, right? And somebody in the insurance industry said, "Well, yeah. Well, it turns out.". They didn't. They never had anything. They were doing it based on prejudice, and that caused a groundswell that eventually led to every state passing legislation that said you can't discriminate against people who are blind or have other disabilities in providing life insurance unless or until you can provide actuarial statistics or evidentiary data. And I was in Massachusetts coordinating the effort at that time, but in 1985, the last law was passed in the last state, and it's now been what 41 plus years, and no one's come up with any evidence yet. And you know, so things happen.
Jason Plotkin 25:36
Good for you. I mean, look, these insurance companies we we follow suit against them constantly because again I'm a personal injury lawyer. We unfortunately deal with a lot of insurance adjusters who are just you know devalue what people go through.
Michael Hingson 25:51
Yeah,
Jason Plotkin 25:51
without real data to back it up, they find an excuse. And now it's be interesting because I think State Farm came out. Their first two or three levels of claim analysis are going to be AI based, so we'll be interested to see what that's going to be like. Yeah, I'm really like
Michael Hingson 26:08
I've heard that. I'm going to be really interested to see how that goes.
Jason Plotkin 26:12
I hope it's better than some of the these AI customer services situations out there.
Michael Hingson 26:16
Yeah, I know. After September 11th, we had State Farm, and they were good to us. They there were things that we needed to to claim and get reimbursed for, and they were really good about it. So I don't know whether it was just because it was the World Trade Center or or what, but they they did the right thing. So that was good.
Jason Plotkin 26:36
I'm sure a lot of that that played into it. And look, everything is fact specific, but every case, or people have good experiences and bad experiences with each insurance company.
Michael Hingson 26:45
Yeah, unfortunately,
Jason Plotkin 26:47
come to me when they have the bad experience.
Michael Hingson 26:49
Yeah, which is well, yeah, you've you've developed the thick skin to be able to cope with that. Well, so how did you actually end up being or getting into the whole personal industry and the man of the people thing. What was there any event that specifically caused you to do that?
Jason Plotkin 27:06
Sure. Well, it's a kind of a combination of stuff, but I mean, ultimately, it's I come from a very working class family. You know, families are firefighters. My parents are both struggling small business owners. I've had a lot of good role models that just work really hard in their life, and we were never wealthy or well off as a child. So I started to really appreciate the struggle that families go through, paycheck to paycheck, the and it kind of clicked when I had my my first serious accident was in my my 20s, and I was leaving a wedding with a bunch of friends, and we were t-boned in intersection. It was at night. It was at a state or a strange area. It was one of those ones I've seen to have a movie. You know, we flipped on our side, spun around, broken glass everywhere. I had to crawl out of the top of the SUV, pull my friend's wife out. Put the you know the first responders showed up and pulled us out. So I started from that standpoint, and it still kind of stuck with me what people go through. I had to fight three to four insurance companies on that one to really get the compensation I was owed. And then fast forward, you know, I was married. My first child was on the way. I just started up with Pinderplotkin legal team. I was in court all the time, and I got rear-ended at a busy intersection. You know, we just bought a house. We were getting my first trash can for the house. Raise a new house that I was going to raise my family in. I got launched in the intersection. You know, cars are going like 50 miles per hour. My life flashed for my eyes. I thought, you know, I was gonna get hit. You know, secondary impact. You get pushed into oncoming traffic, and another car clips you. Didn't, but it was a serious collision. I was boarded, taken to the place on the board by the ambulance, taken out of my vehicle, taken to the hospital, and my wife. We were tracking our phones because she was pregnant, because I was in court all the time, and she wanted to be able. She didn't want to call me and interrupt me. I didn't want to get yelled at in front of a judge, right? And she asked my mom, "Does Jason have a meeting? Is he a networking event at a hospital?" So you know, next thing I realize, I'm just in the hospital, all banged up, and she comes in, all pregnant, and we just lock eyes and have this, you know, this moment of like, hey, I'm alive. You know, I thought she was gonna be a single mother for a little bit there,
Michael Hingson 29:35
yeah,
Jason Plotkin 29:36
and just kind of seeing what everybody goes through, and you know, they resolidified that I want to I want to help people when they've been injured and them and their families get back to where they they should be. So we built the law firm from that point on around treating accident victims the way I wanted to be treated when I was a victim. Well, and in reality, when you had your second accident, then you you started. And and we're working while you were healing. How did all that go? Yeah, that's tough, right? You back then there was a lot of like I was carrying paper case files, right? So I had to lug these files around the court. There's a lot of actual court litigation is not like you see on TV. A lot of waiting around, a lot of these wooden, uncomfortable benches for a stiff back when you're recovering. A lot of you know you can't call out, right? I got stuff on the calendar, a court deposition, clients that need me. I have a family that needs me. I need the income, right? I was a young, youngish lawyer at that point, you know the young family. I couldn't afford not to work, so I had to push through it. And so it's a lot of long days, a lot of uncomfortableness, a lot of physical therapy, a lot of stretching.
Michael Hingson 30:53
The other side of it is, of course, that your family needed you too. So you needed them, but they needed you, and that mutual support and that mutual need certainly had to help.
Jason Plotkin 31:03
Oh yeah, I mean, look, I I understand there's this drawback of because during my recovery, my daughter my daughter was born. You want to bend over, reach her, pull her out of her crib, and you know, rock her into bed. I did it. It hurt, but you you got to sometimes you push through it. You avoid pain medication, so you're not impaired when you're dealing with an infant. But you sometimes you just gotta push through stuff, life's aversive. Yeah.
Speaker 2 31:28
Well,
Michael Hingson 31:30
what what did you learn from being injured? You know, because law school teaches what law school teaches, but you clearly went through an experience that that that you don't go through in law school, although maybe some people would say, "Oh, you get a lot of abuse in law school." But what have you learned from being injured that you never learned in law school?
Jason Plotkin 31:51
It's it's perspective. It's what you you have to you know walk a mile in someone's shoes. So being on the other side of it, look, my second case, I had to file a lawsuit. You know, I do. We had to go through the litigation process, and it was even more awkward for me than a client probably will ever have to do because two lawyers on the other side, I has had active litigation cases against them, right? And that was their moment. They get to ask me all kind of personal questions about my
Speaker 3 32:25
life.
Jason Plotkin 32:25
So it flipped from you know like one week I'd be going against them in court to the next week we're in a big conference room and they get to ask me questions about all aspects of my life because there's a wide latitude in discovery.
Michael Hingson 32:38
Yeah,
Jason Plotkin 32:39
being on that side of it is it helps me prepare clients, and the biggest impact is it helps me mentor my team. So anybody on at the Panda Black and legal team that deals with clients, client facing, they go through my personal mentorship. You know, when I'm looking through case files, I'll see something, I'll explain to somebody, do a quick huddle to explain what the client's perspective is to make sure that we're helping them the best and understanding what they're going through to really change our approach to to law because look we deal with collisions all the time we deal with dog bites all the time I think I've spoken to like four or five people today before we're even taping that it's going to be, you know, this was our first incident of a dog bite or car accident being injured. But for me, we're used to it. My team's used to it. But we got to treat every conversation like it's our first in some respects. Where we can't just brush stuff off. We got to let people tell their story because a lot of them they just need that that bent that out to understand, explain what what they're going through, and have somebody listen to them so they can feel like they've they've been heard.
Michael Hingson 33:48
How do you deal with the person who maybe caused the problem? Because I'm sure that there is some of that, although a lot of it is is is not. But how do you deal with the other side of it, where you've got an antagonistic person or somebody who really caused whatever happened to occur.
Jason Plotkin 34:05
Sure. Well, there's a couple ways I'll say. So, start with in from an intake standpoint. So, somebody calls us in terms of they they cause the collision, or Maryland's unlike a lot of other states, where contributory negligence is our standard. It's a strong defense. If you're this 1% contributing, you're barred from recovery, and it's it's pretty easy to get to 1%. These insurance companies have adjusters and attorneys that are trained to get you to say something that can infer that you could have done something or should have done something to avoid it, or that you were slightly part of the problem. So we had to have a lot of those unfortunate conversations, and that's actually I think where my personal experience might come into best because I walk those people through what happened, the law, and why I feel it's not fair for most of them. Yeah, unfortunately, we can't help. I remind them that they got to talk to their. Their local politicians to get the laws changed in Maryland, but I also want them to be heard because for them they almost have a worse scenario where they made a small mistake. They might not have been the primary cause of the collision, but they are going to suffer the most.
Michael Hingson 35:16
A lot
Jason Plotkin 35:17
of them can't afford to miss time from work, so I want to make sure give them that time because we've even had a lot of some Google reviews thanking me for that because they'll call through a bunch of lawyers. Lawyers will triage the case that they don't have a case and no one will explain to them why. So now at least they understand why. In my opinion, their case isn't going to be great, or if it's a case that we're still going to take, I will outline all the risk in it. Say, but this is what I see in the case to try to make sure that they. I set expectations because some firms will just accept a case and then drop it. You know, three six months later, I want to explain that this is what I see. This is what could happen if it happens. We're not going to be able to help you anymore, but we're going to get this evidence to try to help you. Now, the other side is we do get defendants that call us, especially on the dog bite side, yelling at us about why are we, you know, coming after them and try to remind them that all our letter says is turn this over to your insurance company. It's an insurance claim, and a lot of people ignore those letters they get, or if they know their dog bit somebody or had some kind of incident, that's what you have insurance for. It makes it so much smoother, less personal. It's a claim, just like workers' comp claim.
Michael Hingson 36:34
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and you know, their dogs tend to create a lot of emotions, and I, you know, I've seen. Fortunately, I have not experienced dog attacks. I almost had one in college. My my guide dog Squire and I were walking. It was at UC Irvine, and the the the issue was that it was a very open campus, a very large campus with about 2800 undergraduate students. Who many of them brought their dogs to the campus and then just turned them loose until they were ready to find them at the end of the day. And a group of them decided to form a pack. And one day they decided to come after my guide dog.
Jason Plotkin 37:16
Oh,
Michael Hingson 37:17
and they were they were behind us and they were growling and coming up, and my dog literally jerked away from me. I was holding onto the leash and the harness, but jerked so that I had to let go of the harness. And literally, in in he just jumped up in the air, twisted 180 degrees, and came down on all fours, teeth bared, growling at these dogs. Can you imagine a golden retriever doing that. Well, the dogs totally were shocked by that and slunk off. That's the closest I ever really came. We had one other incident at the college where where somebody somebody's dog was was going after my dog, and there was a guy in a wheelchair next to me, and literally what he did is he pulled the arm out of his chair and started bashing one of the dogs' heads to get them to to go away, which which they did. But the the bottom line is that a lot of people would say, "Oh, my dog would never attack and never do that." Well, yes, they do, which is always an issue. I
Jason Plotkin 38:17
look at a lot of times. It's why a lot of people get upset when they get this letters is because they weren't aware of it. Most incidents happen when child has friends over, they have someone visiting, and they don't know the precautions. Like, hey, our dog always is going to rush the front door, so we got to put dog gate up, or someone's got to hold them when we open the front door. And you know, now with everybody ordering Uber eats your DoorDash. Yeah, this smelly treats at the front door, and somebody runs up, and they they jump on the delivery driver. That happens a lot, and a lot of times they're more upset with. A lot of times they didn't know about it. They're like, "This never happened." We're like, "Well, we have all the evidence; it did." So they got to go find out whoever was watching the house, whichever teenager might have been opened the front door, so I get that emotional aspect of it. But at the end of the day, it is what it is in some respects.
Michael Hingson 39:11
Yeah, and again, I feel real blessed because my dogs don't jump up. If the doorbell rings, they run to the door, and the tail's going a mile a minute. And if I open the door, the first thing they want to do is go out and greet whoever's there. They don't jump up, but but they like to greet. Yeah. But no, and
Jason Plotkin 39:28
that's great because that's their training, and that's what I caution people with is if you have a dog that loves, because most dogs love people.
Michael Hingson 39:36
Yeah.
Jason Plotkin 39:36
So you just got to train them of how they greet people. Yeah. It's not a jump up and give a giant bear hug, right?
Michael Hingson 39:44
As much as they would like to.
Jason Plotkin 39:46
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Michael Hingson 39:48
So when somebody comes to you and is exploring hiring you and so on because they've had an accident or something, what do you what do you say to them? How do you deal with them? In the first few weeks of of interacting with them, and how do you calm them down or get them to focus or whatever you have
Jason Plotkin 40:09
to do? Well, ultimately, it's it's about their health primarily. So I always remind everybody: the focus always is on your health. So when you're injured, you need to get medical treatment. Especially as we get older, you know. Younger clients are very difficult with that. That when they're in their 20s, they feel invincible. Oh, I'm
Michael Hingson 40:26
okay. I don't need anything yet. Yeah,
Jason Plotkin 40:27
and and or they acknowledge that. Yeah, I'm a little off, but they can push through it. Like, well, that that five 10% off you feel now, you're gonna double when you hit your 30s, double again when you hit your 40s, right? So you got to take care of it now, so that soft tissue injury, whatever it is, can heal. So we focus on medical treatment, getting them access to medical treatment, helping them if they need help with property damage to make sure they can get a rental car, get the vehicle repaired, because that's a big stress, especially for a lot of working families. Is how am I going to get to work?
Michael Hingson 40:57
Yeah.
Jason Plotkin 40:58
So we focus a lot on that. I always tell them, you know, everything else will come together, right? Let's just focus on your health. We're gonna, we're litigators. A lot of lawyers, you see, billboards or TV, they might just refer your case out. They're not going to go to court. We go to court. We prepare every case from the beginning as if it's going to have to go to court. That way, a lot of times we don't have to, but if we do, we're prepared. So I remind them that I want to lose money on your case. I want your case to be a small case, but if it's not, we're going to be prepared to to get you the compensation you deserve. So that that's that's a big thing with letting people understand. Don't focus on on money. It's never about money. It's about your company, especially in the beginning. We'll figure out the money, what your pain suffering is, what you went through later. Because right now, anybody talks about money is just looking at your case as financial recovery. We have a contingency fee, so you don't owe us anything unless we recover for you. So there's no upfront financial risk to hiring a personal injury lawyer, at least hiring us, you don't have to come out of pocket. We cover the expense, and if it turns out we don't have a case because of contributory negligence or something else down the road, you don't owe us any money for our time or the expenses we incurred.
Michael Hingson 42:13
Is that because it's when that happens? Is it covered by insurance, or how do you do that?
Jason Plotkin 42:18
No, I mean we we would receive a percentage of the recovery, right? But
Michael Hingson 42:21
if but if it's contributory negligence, for example, or whatever, where they're not going to get any money, how does that work for you?
Jason Plotkin 42:29
I just I don't get any money.
Michael Hingson 42:30
Okay,
Jason Plotkin 42:31
yeah, no, it's a we did. It happens a lot, unfortunately. But I, I want to make sure people get an opportunity because sometimes we have to, you know, a lot of people are really big on the body-worn camera for police to protect them about police or to help police know what's going on. We use it all the time in collisions. If a police officer arrives, we request, which means we pay for an expense that body-worn camera so we can see what the witnesses said, where the vehicles were, because a lot of times, people accept a fault at the collision because they feel bad. Then they change their mind later because they spoke with somebody, or they the person is no longer in front of them, and they'll tell their insurance company, "No, the other guy ran the red light."
Michael Hingson 43:14
Yeah.
Jason Plotkin 43:14
Or the or my favorite one is, "We were at a red light, and other guy just started to back up and hit the front of my car, twice last month. It's crazy.
Michael Hingson 43:25
That doesn't make a lot of sense, but yeah, I hear you.
Jason Plotkin 43:27
It doesn't. But people, I think they they change their their mind later. So, and look, the fact of the matter is, if you work with these cases, sometimes you can work them without a lawyer. But there's a good chance you're going to devalue your case, especially in a state like Maryland with contributory negligence, it just takes one statement in writing at the scene, a recorded statement, anything that can then wipe your whole case out. Yeah, mistake can ruin everything. Yeah, which is too bad. I I hope just
Michael Hingson 44:00
hearing what you say. I hope someday that will change. But it does make life difficult.
Jason Plotkin 44:04
Yeah. Well, a lot of states are comparative. Wherever you're partially responsible, you just get that percent reduced from what you would receive.
Michael Hingson 44:11
Yeah. Well, you gotta gotta do what you gotta do, right?
Jason Plotkin 44:14
Yeah. Exactly.
Michael Hingson 44:16
So you, along the way, have written. I think you said three books. Tell us about your writing career.
Jason Plotkin 44:24
Sure. Well, the first one was around 2019. It was a book about chiropractic treatment, how how it's beneficial after an accident. It was kind of the early stages back then of the opioid epidemic, where I was really getting a lot of visibility, and we do a lot of workers' comp cases. Yeah, like I think I've hit 1500. I think it was one of the stats I saw recently. Wow! And a lot of times people don't have an opioid addiction or drug addiction until they get injured, and then they get on. They get hooked on that. So I really wanted to let people. Understand that there is chiropractic treatments a way to get treatment without opioids, without just a standard. You go to doctor, you get pain medication, come back in a couple weeks, we'll see if you got any better. There's more and more of a focus on non-opioid pain relief. So I wrote a book like that to help people understand it because back then it's gotten better now, but then a lot of judges and people they they they frown upon chiropractic care. So I want to help normalize it. Then, again, I'm a very private person, but I would find my clients that were having a tough time. I would start telling them my story about my my collisions, about my you know recovery, about having surgery and need for medical treatment, especially my my first collision. You know, my neck and my back were the primary issues I had in the beginning. But I kept mentioning my shoulder. Turns out, like six months or so later, I had a tear in my shoulder because your brain tells you what hurts the most. And but if something feels off, you got to still mention it to doctors. So eventually, my neck and back healed, but my shoulder was still there, and I started realizing, oh wow, there's something going on with my shoulder. Turned out I needed surgery, so I walked him through that, and now I pushed through everything twice and got back to, you know, you're never back to normal, but you get back to your new normal, and you can live a good life. And I decided, you know, at some point, you know what, I need to put this in writing. I had done a couple videos, talked about it a little bit. So I wrote the crash course to recovery and beyond. It's a Toy Story reference because I was a young father then. To Infinity and Beyond, so to Recovery and Beyond, and it tells the story of my collisions, how I went through it, and then includes a guide for people that want to to understand the process of what's going on because look, a lot of lawyers are bad at communication, and we deal with it all the time. These steps, but we got to make sure we explain the steps to clients. And look, a lot of times we're explaining it multiple times, and sometimes the same thing over and over again. And it's because if you've ever gone to a doctor's office, you know you wait a month, two months to get in there, and you get a short period of time in front of somebody. Yeah, sometimes you forget to say something, or you get overwhelmed and you don't really quite remember everything they're saying. I try to explain my team that sometimes that can be the case with us. People ask the same questions. It's just because it's a lot for them to take in, and they want to make sure they understand it,
Michael Hingson 47:23
right? Which which makes sense, and it it is all about communication. Yeah,
Jason Plotkin 47:30
that's life, relationships, everything with clients, with your spouse, with your dog. It's all about communication,
Michael Hingson 47:36
right? And then you wrote the children's book.
Jason Plotkin 47:40
Yeah, and then I wrote the children's book again because we I saw that our our dog bite practice was representing more and more children, and I was telling more and more and more story, and trying to help parents overcome it because a lot of times you're really trying to help the child by helping the parents, and that's when I started to realize what kind of felt like sometimes you feel like a therapist, right? I'm a lawyer, not a therapist. But you hear enough, you tell enough, and especially with our approach of being very empathetic and letting people tell their story and walking them through scenarios or what other clients have gone through, what I've gone through, I realized that I needed to tell this story, and I I couldn't figure out a better way to tell it other than a children's book, to really help the children, so that parents could read to their children at the same time, helping install the same concepts in the in the parents as well.
Michael Hingson 48:31
Well, I was just going to say, and it probably helps the parents at least as much as it does the children if the parents take the time to think about it.
Jason Plotkin 48:40
Exactly, well, it helps them place themselves in their in their children's view. Because a lot of times, what we see with the children, it's really the parents are kind of help. Not that it's negative, but they're they're concerned. I mean, a lot of people feel guilty. Maybe I shouldn't have let my my son ever his friend Johnny's house. I knew Johnny had a dog, or somebody told me that that dog had was was overly exciting and jumped on somebody before, right? So, and parents in general, we feel our kid trips on the sidewalk. We feel bad. We feel responsible in some respects. So, so I get it. I'm a parent as well, so I understand that. And a lot of times, it's really just making sure that we do what's best for our children. Then, same thing I said before. A lot of times, people are very busy in making sure the children get the the treatment they need, making sure they get some talk therapy if they need it. Go to the dermatologist or a plastic surgeon if they need it for the scar to make sure it's properly handled, so there's no infection. Or with Penny Baller's scar, is doesn't impact the child later, right? I was talking to an adjuster last week about a you know a child that's a teenager. She has a scar that the adjuster felt like wasn't a big deal. I was like, well, might not be a big deal to you. You're in your 60s, but for. A female, it's a teenager getting ready for a prom. That starts the end of her life. It's a big deal for her. It's like it's all she can think of. It takes one friend or somebody at school to mention it, and all of a sudden it's like the end of the world. And that actually helped. It changed the perspective of an adjuster, and then they got they got more reasonable on the next phone call,
Michael Hingson 50:22
yeah, and very possibly they have a daughter that they should have been thinking about, but who knows?
Jason Plotkin 50:29
Or they were that teenager, or they
Michael Hingson 50:31
were that teenager, yeah,
Jason Plotkin 50:32
right. So that's really what it is. A lot of times, it's you know having these conversations and explaining to the people on their side, I know you have a job to do, so this is what our clients going through. What can I help provide you to show you that impact so you can properly evaluate it?
Michael Hingson 50:51
So you've got the children's book, but between the children's book and what else do you do to help parents teach their children maybe to be more brave and to to get over things that do happen to them.
Jason Plotkin 51:07
Sure. Oh, it's more just now. I'm starting to get on these podcasts, do podcasts and speaking to help spread that message. But primarily, there's not a lot of time left after being you know a father, a spouse, a lawyer, and the author, and a bunch of the community service stuff we do. So I, I try to let it bring up, come up organic. Whether it's a client, it's a little bit more direct. If we're going over a case and they're, I'm asking how they're doing, and they're starting to explain to me what's going on, we'll start walking them through it. But it could just be a conversation. Like I, this is my third book, and it's been the the book I get the most questions about, the most interest in. So when people find out at an event that I wrote this book, they start telling me about something they're going through, right? And then then it becomes that the speaking point or a launching pad for that conversation about how they can get healthy, and it it really you know on reflection comes back to all the motor vehicle collisions we represent. A lot of the talk therapy there it talks about vehicular anxiety and go representing those cases and deposing those doctors about how you slowly get somebody to drive more and more, drive around the block, then eventually on the highway, and it's the same kind of concept I took in for this approach of the bravery ladder. Which, look, I don't think I invented anything. I definitely didn't. It's just the same name or a different twist on what's already out there. The therapist already used. Just putting my personal perspective on it and applying it in this situation.
Michael Hingson 52:39
I find that people really want to relate in one way or another. I I am I talk to so many people who have to tell their own story, which may or may not be related to anything, but they want to talk about oh they knew this blind person or they they've experienced one thing or another, and you you learn if if you're gonna continue to be in the public eye at all, you learn that you've got to you've got to develop patience because it's so easy just to say, "Well, that's that's nice goodbye." But but I I've learned that I I've always wanted to be a teacher, and what I've learned is that as a public speaker for 25 years, and even when I was in sales, I was really a teacher because I was counseling people, I was guiding people, I was showing them what our product did and didn't do, and sometimes I would tell them that our product won't do what you need, but here's what will. But nowadays, in in speaking, it's all about telling people and trying to relate to people, and when they come up and they want to tell their stories, if if I can, I will listen and and should. Besides that, I never know what I might learn from it.
Jason Plotkin 53:49
Exactly. And to your point about you know sometimes when you're telling people that you don't have the best product, but here's the a better product. Actually, last month we won the Better Business Bureau Torch Ethics Award for the sometimes some of the turn downs we give our clients. Sometimes we'll we'll tell people we're not the best lawyer for them, and somehow they got a hold of that and they they they really picked up on that it's not all about money. It's about helping people and getting the best resource to them.
Michael Hingson 54:16
Hey, I saw a miracle on 34th Street. I know what Chris Kringle did, but but it's true, and one of my favorite stories is that we did that with a customer once and told them what would work, and two weeks later they called and they said we have another project, and because of everything that you taught us, which is the way they put it, we know your product is going to do what we need. Just tell us what the price is, and we'll order it today. You can't get more trust than that.
Jason Plotkin 54:41
Oh, exactly. I had a vendor like that who turned me down twice, and so and each time he pointed me in the right direction. And so as soon as I could, I was actually a match for him. It didn't matter price. I trusted him so much at that point because he turned down business twice. But he could have he could have taken from me, and it wouldn't have been the right solution. For me, and I probably would have been none the wiser, just frustrated like an end user, right? Right. Did you eventually work with him and do something? Oh, for years. Yeah, years until until he retired. It was then it became like it wasn't even a question. My team would just call up. I just systemized it, right? If we needed something that was technology based, if we needed a new computer, a new printer, new minder, whatever it was, just call him. We know he's he's fair, and maybe he inched the prices up, or maybe he earned so much trust at that point. We like him.
Michael Hingson 55:30
Well, and and that's the way it should be. And all too often in in sales and and in other kinds of professions, it's not. But it really makes makes perfect sense that that's the way it that ought to be. There'd be a lot less fear fear in the world if everybody operated that way, but you know we're not there yet.
Jason Plotkin 55:48
Sure.
Michael Hingson 55:50
Tell me about the Clio Award you won that several years ago.
Jason Plotkin 55:54
Yeah, for community impact. So a big part of what I do is I like to be in the community. I ran several business associations when my children were young. You could often see them on stage with me. I'd bring them on to events we the community we sponsored in the community. I was the MC for you know for a part of Baltimore County for about four years. If there was a big event, I was on stage in the Parkville community. So it's always been very important to me. And during COVID, I come from a family of firefighters, and while everybody was at home wasn't able to come to work, they were still going to work. In Baltimore City, they were they became primary care people. Right, you would call the paramedics, call a fire department because you didn't want to go to the hospital, and they were working nonstop harder than they ever had in their life. And for whatever reason, the mayor asked them to take a pay cut, talking about budget issues. I was like, you got all these people that are that are working from home, getting paid or or not getting paid. We got these people that are risking their life more so now never, because they were constantly in contact with people, and you asked them to take a pay cut. So I got frustrated, and I started a free will for first responders program because I knew a lot of these guys they put themselves second in girls. So a lot of first responders they put themselves second, and they don't do the proper planning they have for their families, so we started this program and it really took off. And it was Clio as awards; it was international award for community impact, and we got nominated, and we won. So that was pretty cool.
Michael Hingson 57:35
What does Clio stand for?
Jason Plotkin 57:36
Clio is a as a case management software for lawyers.
Michael Hingson 57:40
Got it. Okay,
Jason Plotkin 57:41
international case management software. So we are up against other lawyers throughout the world. Wow.
Michael Hingson 57:48
Well, you know, with with everything that you've done and you've been through, what do you what do you how do you define or what do you think is an unstoppable mindset?
Jason Plotkin 57:59
They you you don't make excuses. You look for solutions. When I see someone that does that, that's when I know they're going to be unstoppable. Because life hits you every day.
Michael Hingson 58:11
Yeah,
Jason Plotkin 58:12
small or big, and you can focus on you know what happens. So look, that's life. You're going to move on. You control what you can control, and you keep pushing forward. And I'm always telling my team, "There's a problem. Come with solutions because I want to keep people in that solution mindset that that you are unstoppable." This is the way we frame it.
Michael Hingson 58:35
Makes perfect sense, and it's always looking for the solution. And as you said, no excuses. My it immediately comes to mind. My favorite line from the second Star Wars movie, you know, with Yoda: "Do or do not." There is no try.
Jason Plotkin 58:50
Exactly. Yeah, which I love.
Jason Plotkin 58:53
Try is is a word that should be out of our vocabulary.
Michael Hingson 58:57
Yeah, try and failure. I I I have never liked the term failure, and I've learned to really articulate that the problem with failure is that it it suggests something that's permanent that's not. So yeah, you may make a mistake, something may not work. The question isn't whether you fail because you didn't you didn't get exactly what you expected. What are you going to do about
Jason Plotkin 59:18
it? Exactly, exactly.
Michael Hingson 59:21
And that's the you know the thing that I think that people don't get taught enough as to how to do that, but but people should really focus on that. If you were to provide one piece of advice to everybody who is listening or watching us today as they they they leave us, what would that be? What would you advise people if you had one thing that you want people to take away from this?
Jason Plotkin 59:44
If you've been injured, contact a personal injury lawyer. It's a free consultation. At least learn about your rights because if you call an insurance company without speaking with a lawyer, they may walk you down a path that you don't even realize they're going down. That's going to impact you later. So you don't have to. Hire that lawyer, but at least have that conversation so you can get some information about what's going on.
Michael Hingson 1:00:05
That's a good point. That that first consultation is is free, and people should take it.
Jason Plotkin 1:00:11
Exactly. It's like it's like going to Costco. You're going to have the samples. You know, if you've been injured, get some samples. Get a free consultation.
Michael Hingson 1:00:18
Yeah, and go to Costco and get the samples. Although we're not seeing as many samples as we used to see at Costco, but what do you do? There's still always chocolate, which is
Jason Plotkin 1:00:28
oh yeah,
Michael Hingson 1:00:28
which is important. Well, I want to thank you, Jason, for being here, and this is great. Your book covers are all in the show notes, and I hope people will will get the books. If you want people to be able to contact you, how do they do that?
Jason Plotkin 1:00:41
Sure, you can go to pinderplotkin.com. That's p-i-n-d-e-r-p-l-o-t-k-i-n.com. There's also my personal website about speaking about dog bite advocacy. That Jason Plotkin, J-A-S-O-N P-L-O-T-K-I-N.com, or there's picklethepuppy.com for about the book and the bravery ladder. I think there's great ways that you can find all my social media handles off there, and all the phone numbers reach me.
Michael Hingson 1:01:09
Cool. I hope people will do that. I hope people will reach out to you. And I really appreciate your time. You've given a lot of very valuable information. I think, and you've put a lot of things in perspective, which is even more important than just providing information. So, thank you for doing that. I want to thank you for for being here, and I want to thank all of you who are out there listening or monitoring the podcast in one way or another. We would both appreciate Jason, and I would appreciate you giving us a great review wherever you're watching or listening to the podcast. Reviews are very helpful, and they are the the tools that many people use to decide if they're going to listen to other podcasts episodes. So please give us a great review, and we would we would value that very highly. And Jason, for you and anyone out there, if you know anyone else who ought to be on the podcast, who ought to be a guest, I believe everyone has stories to tell, and we want to be able to give people the opportunity to tell them, so please do that. Please feel free to introduce us to anyone who you think ought to be a guest on the podcast. And with that, Jason, I want to thank you. This has been absolutely great.
Jason Plotkin 1:02:13
Thank you. You've been great, and you're a true inspiration, Michael. Truly unstoppable.
Michael Hingson 1:02:21
Thank you for being here with me on Unstoppable Mindset. I hope today's conversation left you with a fresh perspective, a new insight, or at least something worth thinking about. If you're ready to go deeper into the ideas that shape how we see ourselves and others, I have a free gift for you. Head over to michaelhingson.com and download my free ebook, Blinded by Fear. It explores the invisible beliefs that hold us back and shows you how to reframe them so you can move forward with clarity and confidence. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review, and share this show with someone who can use a reminder that growth starts with mindset. When people think differently, we all move forward together. Thanks again for listening. Keep learning, keep questioning, and keep choosing to live with an unstoppable mindset.