Gregory Ward and Jany Martinez-Ward founded Ward Law Group with the goal of contributing to the Hispanic community’s legal needs after suffering a car accident.
After experiencing a devastating blow that almost closed their business, they chose action over fear and decided to do whatever it took to grow their firm to new heights.
In this latest installment of Playing a Bigger Game, I sat down with Gregory and Jany to learn more about their story and the drive that allowed them to garner explosive growth in their market against all odds.
You have to do something when you face fear. You have to take action to overcome fear. So, I recall that moment that was pivotal for us. We had no money. We had no cases. We were just thinking to ourselves, “What’s going to happen?” But if you train your mindset to just
move forward no matter what — shove that fear down and take an action step — your mind will follow that thought. That’s what we did this year all over again.
Q: You guys have experienced an incredible amount of growth just over the last several years, and even recently. I would love to know: what was the pivotal moment — that catalyst moment — where things really took off for you?
The first big challenge we overcame, I think, was the catalyst to our growth. I lost our biggest client because I had been undercut in the fees by a friend of mine. It looked dire for us. We thought we were going to go out of business.
I said, “We’re going to go give a special offering at church,” because we’re not going to allow this fear to control us.
The next week, I got a summary judgment order from a judge in the mail that we had won a case, which generated a $100,000 fee. That was the first seed money that we used to advertise for personal injury — which then was just explosive.
Really living our values, I feel, was the turning point because that was the biggest fear factor at the very beginning. Going forward powerfully was a huge step and a big breakthrough for us.
We’re big drivers and we want to grow, but you can never forget where you came from.
You can never forget your roots. You can never forget your values because that is what got you here.
Nowadays, we see so many people getting lost in the growth and in the success because they forget who they are. Every couple of months we sit down and we write our values and our vision, and we compare, “Hey, are we on track?”
Life is growth. If you’re not growing, you’re dying — There’s no third direction.
The truth is we always have to be growing. We don’t want to stop here. We feel like we haven’t even gotten to the peak.
