Designing Your Life Around What You Want with Crystal McDonough

Business Leaders Podcast

Too many people go to work every day because that’s what they think they’re supposed to do. Perhaps they have this dream that they’d love to pursue something else. Maybe they’d like to start their own firm or their own business, but they’re not sure how to do it. If you’re in that kind of dilemma, Crystal McDonough says the first thing you need to do is figure out your goals and what you want out of life, and then design your life around that. Crystal is the founder and owner of McDonough Law and she has designed a fairly unique lifestyle as an entrepreneur, a business owner, and a lawyer. Today, she shares what her normal day looks like and how she manages it.

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Designing Your Life Around What You Want with Crystal McDonough

We have Crystal McDonough. She is the Founder and Owner of McDonough Law. They do business law, energy, natural resources and utilities. They serve Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, Idaho, California and Florida. Crystal, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

We serve clients who are looking for attorneys who can help navigate them through some of their tough legal issues, whether it’s business, natural resources, energy or even trusts and estates. We help our clients navigate those issues. We come up with a plan to walk them through that and then we implement that plan to help them find as much success as they can with their situations.

You and I go back a little way. We’ve talked off and on for quite some time and this is not your straight-out of college first pursuit. You’ve been an entrepreneur and a business owner for many years before you pursued your law degree. Let’s dig in a little bit to the backstory.

I got my first taste in business when I was seven years old. I made inventions out of trash in our trash can, wrapped it in tin foil and went door to door selling my inventions to our neighbors for a quarter. I came home with a pocket full of change, I felt pretty good about myself. Later on in high school, I started a piano studio. I had been studying piano for a lot of years and my piano teachers said, “I think you’re ready to start teaching.” I opened up a studio, and I taught music for a lot of years.

What booming metropolis was it done?

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This was in Grand Lake, Colorado, a little bitty mountain town if you’re familiar with it. I went from there. When I was in high school, I discovered that there was not a swim program for our community for all the kids. I coordinated with our local country club and the community center. I went and learned how to be a swim instructor. I took all the courses through the Red Cross. I developed and implemented a huge program that they ran for several years through the program. I taught all the lessons, I ran the program and I coordinated everything. I got my real first taste in how to run and manage things and take something from the ground up, solve the problem, put a plan together and find some success with that. There were a lot of kids that came through our program. It was fun, then I went to college.

What did you study in college?

I studied Piano Performance. That was my first love. Then, I met my husband and fell in love with him. We got married and went on to continue with other areas of business. We had a small construction business for a while. I maintained my piano studio because I loved teaching. We had a few other small businesses that we ran, but I always loved education. I always loved the learning. I was forever a student. I was always taking classes, and I ended up with a lot of degrees. My husband finally looked at me one day and he said, “Is there an end to this? Is there a purpose to all this education?” I finally ended up in a class at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. My professor looked at me and he said, “Have you ever thought about law? You’d be good at law.” I just dismissed it because I thought, “I’d have to take the LSATs, and then I’d have to take the bar exam.” None of that sounds any fun. I enjoyed business and what we were doing, but I continued to take education classes.

I ended up in a Master’s program at DU in Environmental Policy. Our first class was taught by Ved Nanda, in conjunction with the law school. It was Global Energy Law and I loved it. After our first class, I came home and I told my husband, “I have to go to law school. This is so cool.” He looked at me and he said, “What? I don’t even know what this means, but we’ll figure it out.” We figured it out. Two years later, I was enrolled and attending the University of Wyoming, and I was pursuing my JD and my Master’s Degree in Natural Resources at the same time. I did a dual program. I also had a unique experience because I was able to work as a graduate assistant for the School of Energy Resources. I had this cool program where I was getting my law degree, working in law, getting my Master’s in Natural Resources and then working on these great, amazing energy projects for the School of Energy Resources.

It’s not like you didn’t have a family along the way?

No, I started law school with three kids. Our youngest was three at the time I started law school. That was quite the challenge. If anybody ever told me how hard it was going to be to do that program with kids, I don’t know if I would have done it because it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

The thing that is interesting was that your husband stepped into the breach and was supportive.

Designing Your Life: Be passionate about what you want to do and where you want to go in life.

My husband was the rock that got us through. He managed the family. He took care of the kids so I could do it. I did the whole program in two-and-a-half years and it’s typically a four-year program. I was on a mission to get it done as quickly as I could because I have a life. I had family. We had to put everything on hold while I was in school. He kept everything running. I could not have done it without him. My mom came and helped. Every other week, she would come, help him out with cooking, laundry and dishes. It was a family effort.

When you look back at that timeframe and you see your kids when you have a discussion, how much do you think of that effort and drive from the example that your kids pick up?

It had a huge influence on my kids. For the first two years, I felt pretty bad because it was hard on them too. They didn’t get to see me very much. I’d never been away from them before. I cried every day, but we got through it. Now, my oldest son is eighteen, my middle is sixteen and our youngest is thirteen. The two older ones remember a lot more about it. They’re so motivated and they even talk about those experiences helped them to shape who they want to be and where they want to go in their life. My sixteen-year-old daughter, she pulled me aside and she had to write a paper for school and she said, “Mom, you’re my hero.” That was pretty special because you never know how your kids are going to see you or what they pick up. They’re amazing. They’re hardworking. They’re passionate about what they want to do. They’re both taking college classes and getting A’s. It’s been great because we’ve taught them, and they’ve learned through this process, how to think for themselves and how to be who they’re meant to be. They’ve seen me work hard to do something I am excited about and passionate about.

You homeschooled too. The thing that is unique about that is you have a fairly unique lifestyle because you’re seasonal.

I’m a business owner first. I’m an entrepreneur, I’m passionate about business, I love business. That’s partly why we have many amazing business clients. When I get to talk to our clients, not only am I talking to them as a lawyer, I’m also a business owner. I get what they’re going through day-to-day. When I went to law school, I knew I was going to own my own firm. That was the goal. I knew that I wanted to build that firm around my family so that I could have time with them. I didn’t want to be that parent that was locked in my office from sun-up to sundown and never got a chance to see my kids. On purpose, we set it up so that we could have that flexibility so that I could work hard, but then I could spend my off-time with my kids.

You guys escaped the winters.

The first plan after law school, we started homeschooling the kids but we had some help. My husband helped and it was a team effort there. The kids took to it like ducks in water. They love the freedom and the flexibility. We decided we wanted our kids to experience as much as we could and we wanted them to see a lot of stuff, not just study and read about it. We bought an RV, a Fifth Wheel and pulled it behind our truck. We started taking the kids on trips. We’d go to museums and national parks. We started traveling all over the country to take them to see some of the history. Everybody still talks about our trip to DC. We road triped to DC and we were there for two weeks. We walked all over that town, it’s great. We’ve been coast to coast, north, south, east, west. We’ve been all over this country. It’s been a fantastic experience for our kids. Some of our favorite places are going down to Florida. We like the beach, especially when it starts getting a little bit cold in Colorado.

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As people are reading going like, “That’s a pretty large meal to eat in one bite.” As you got through law school and you forayed into starting your own firm, what are the key takeaways that you would advise somebody else that’s getting ready to do something similar?

The number one thing anybody needs to do, whether they’re in law, business or anything, is what do they want out of their life? Design their life around that. I’m writing a book on that in my spare time. I believe that too many people go to work every day because that’s what they think they’re supposed to do. Maybe they have this dream that they’d love to pursue something else, they’d like to start their own firm or they want to start their own business, but they’re not sure how to do it, what the next step is or, “How do I get from A to B?” The hardest part is taking that step.

From my perspective, the first thing you need to do is, “What’s the goal? What do I want to get out of this?” My goal was I only have my kids for a short time. Once they go off to college, they get their own jobs, they start their own families. My time with them is limited. I wanted to maximize as much time with my kids as I could. My husband and I started dreaming of, “What are the ways we could do that?” There is no better way to spend time with your family than in a camper because it is a small place and you’re all crammed together for a month in little camper. You have to get along. You get to know each other well and you get close.

Those are my favorite memories and our kids too. The first time we went out on the camper for the month-long trip, we had to take them kicking and screaming. They did not want to be gone for a month. They didn’t want to be away from their friends. They didn’t want to be away from other activities. We got them out on the road and this amazing thing happened. All of a sudden, everybody was having a blast. We were laughing together and nobody was on their phones. Nobody was on their gaming devices. We weren’t watching TV at night. We were playing games, laughing, having fun, going outside and doing activities. The first thing anyone who wants to do what I’ve done or what other people are doing, find out what your passion is. Figure out what the end game is and work your way backwards from there.

We were talking about it that you’re starting to have people reaching out to you that are in the law profession going, “I want to have my life similar to yours.”

I get phone calls, emails, LinkedIn messages and Facebook messages all the time from other attorneys who love the law. They love helping people. If you’re in law, you have a passion to help people because that’s what we do. They also want to have a life and be with their family. Law can be all-consuming because you’re solving other people’s problems. Sometimes that can be very time-consuming being involved in that. How do you balance that and still be passionate and help people, but at the same time be with your family and be present for them? The challenge is coming up with that plan on how you’re going to navigate that. It’s not always perfect, but it’s always a learning experience. That’s the best part. You get to walk through it together.

The thing that is interesting is when you look at the broad range of areas that you serve like energy, natural resources, utilities and you’re talking about blockchain as well. Maybe we can talk a little bit about how you developed the interest and expertise in those various sectors.

Designing Your Life: We’re seeing a lot of changes happening. The key is to be a lifelong learner.

First of all, it comes down to being passionate about learning. That’s the key because law is constantly changing. Technology is constantly changing. That’s what we’re seeing in blockchain. We’re seeing blockchain being implemented in business, banking, finance and law. Anywhere there’s a contract, it can be implemented. We’re seeing a lot of changes happening. The key is you’ve got to be a lifelong learner.

Your Master’s degree is in the natural resource space.

I’m passionate about the land. My grandfather was a farmer in Nebraska. I grew up spending a lot of my weekends, holidays and summers on the farm helping with harvest, shearing sheep and calving season. I grew up in the mountains, just a stone’s throw from Rocky Mountain National Park. I grew up in Grand Lake. It’s about as close as you can get. I grew up with a deep appreciation for our natural resources and the world around us. I love working with landowners and people who are doing projects that are related to our land and our natural resources such as water, wind, solar, oil and gas. We do a lot of work related to the land. We deal with other land issues like easements and even disputes between landowners. Sometimes the fence is in the wrong place. It makes for a fascinating practice for me because I get to do what I love every day.

I think about the business of owning land. It sounds for people that don’t either own land or don’t own ag, you think it’s just ground. That was not that simple because you have the water rights, mineral rights. You have easement for access, easement to cross or any number of items, which you have more of an appreciation from your legacy and how you grew up. You were involved also in some unique activities in Wyoming that was in the utility space.

When I was in my law program, my Master’s program and working for the School of Energy Resources as a graduate assistant, I was assigned to work and do research for the Wind Energy Task Force for the Wyoming legislature, which was fascinating. I was a law student and I was doing all this research on a lot of big emerging issues related to renewable energy and land use. I did a lot of research. I wrote reports and gave presentations to the legislative body. It was a unique experience, especially for a law student to get to see firsthand first of all, how our laws are made. Second of all, how much work goes into trying to prepare laws that make sense related to our natural resources and our energy resources? It’s a unique balance between landowners and energy development. That’s the balance there but we work in both spaces. It was a shaping experience for me because I got to talk to a lot of landowners. I got to work with a lot of energy companies and utility companies. It was a unique experience. I loved it.

I think people when they drive by a big ag operation and they see power lines going across or they see wind turbines on there. I don’t know how many people think about the whole process that goes into permitting, easements, getting to build and the whole infrastructure issue to get that stuff installed unless you have experiences like you or you’re a landowner and you’ve been approached.

If you think about it, a large landowner, a rancher or a farmer, they’re going to have all of these areas. They’re going to have water. They’re going to have oil and gas issues. They’re going to have transmission lines, possibly pipelines. They’re going to have road easements. They’re going to have maybe even some leasing issues and sometimes it might even touch on federal. Maybe they are leasing ground from the state or from the federal government. Landowners seem to touch a lot of areas that we probably don’t realize as we’re driving down the road.

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Until you’ve been down that road a little bit yourself, you don’t appreciate it as well. If you just own a house in the city, you don’t think too much about it. Unless you have a homeowners association, then they’ll tell you what color you paint your house.

We get some of that too.

For you, shifting gears a little bit, you came out of law school and you decided to build your practice. Somewhere along the way, the entrepreneurial spirit kicked-in in your law practice. How many people do you have in your practice?

We’ve got ten people in our firm between attorneys, support staff and admin staff.

You started out licensed in where you can serve Colorado and Wyoming?

I took Wyoming and Colorado bar exams back-to-back. That was a challenge. I think that I’m the only one that took both exams back-to-back and passed the first time on both exams at the same time during that...