With no prior experience, today’s guest followed opportunity to generate millions of YouTube views in just months. After cracking the code, this has led her to financial freedom as well as personal freedom of time.
Please welcome a top 1% national attorney and master negotiation strategist, Rebecca Zung.
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Rebecca Zung. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How are you doing today? I’m great. How are you? I’m good. Uh, so I know you obviously, cause we work together at SEO national, but I’m going to pretend like, I don’t know you and know nothing about you and we’ll just see where this conversation goes.
Um, so I like to ask our guests two questions. The question number one is what’s your background? What are we gonna learn from you today? Well, I always say that my background is a divorce attorney by trade, but I do actually way more than that now. So basically I help people negotiate their way in dealing with high conflict personalities or narcissist.
Alright. Let’s um, Define narcissism for us. Well, actually be a narcissist. You would actually have to be diagnosed as a narcissist, but basically what a narcissist says or a narcissistic traits are, are people who are way on the other end of the spectrum of, you know, we all need to feel like. Seen her to know that we matter as human beings, but they’re on a pathological sense that they have no inner sense of value.
They need to get all of their feeling of value from the external world. And they also have, excuse me, and they also have no sense of empathy for another person. Um, they just, they all about them. They can’t feel compassion or empathy for another person. Okay. I got a couple of questions on that, but not until I asked you a question number two, which is, what do you suck at?
I suck at it. I suck at a lot of things. Um, you know, I don’t think I’m very good at sports. Um, I think that I, um, I don’t, I definitely am not great with patients when it comes to my work. Um, like, and, um, Hey, you know, I wish that I could be better with that. Um, uh, gosh, I mean, the list could be long. Like I suck at playing pool.
Uh, so I don’t do you, so on the suck with work patients thing is at what part, like the processes the day to day kind of things like the more granular things. So I like things to be done a certain way. I like them to be done timely. I like a certain level of. Quality, uh, all of those things. And I, and I also liked things done efficiently.
I always actually joke that I’m half Chinese and half German, which means that by definition, I have no fun genes whatsoever. Like work hard, very organized. It has to be efficient. I do have a sense of humor, but, um, not when it comes to my work, like I tend to want it to be really good and high quality and.
So I should either feel very grateful that I get to work with you, or I should start being, I should start feeling nervous right now.
All right. So how did you, well, thank you. Um, how did you get into being attorney to begin with? Let’s start there. Well, I got married at 19 the first time and I had three kids by the time I was 22 and, uh, got divorced shortly thereafter and it was, I had become a teacher. I was already a teacher I’d finished college and was teaching when I got divorced and I really was looking for a way to.
So port my children and survive and give them a life and a quality of life. And there weren’t that many, many advanced degree programs that didn’t require some sort of prerequisite and law school was one of the few that, you know, all you needed was a bachelor’s degree and a good L sat score. And you were in.
So I, at the time I was living in Florida. And university of Miami had a night program, which they don’t even have anymore, but it allowed me to take care of, you know, work during the day, take care of my kids and then go to school at night. And that’s what I did. I mean, it was not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but, um, that’s how I became a lawyer.
And I met my current husband in law school and we have a daughter who just turned 18 together. So. Um, so that’s it. That’s how I ended up becoming a lawyer. And to be honest with you, it was always sort of in the back of my mind, my dad is Chinese and he was the doctor. And, you know, and from coming from where I came from, he only really understood two professions, which was the lawyer and doctor, anything else it’s like.
What do you do? Exactly?
My, my, my dad still asks me that. What do you do? All right. So, all right. Now, how much, how much of your background in law plays into what you do now? Like how big of a transition was that? Or was it relatively seamless? Oh, it was a huge transition. I mean, I had the set out to build, um, a super successful family law practice, which I did.
And I had, you know, one of the largest family law practices in Southwest Florida, uh, you know, up until three years ago. And I just, it, I, I was. Joke that it built me and then it ate me alive. I built it and then it ate me alive. And I just had no life and no time and way too much work. And no, the more I try to add more people under me, it just added more work for me.
And so I just was looking for a way to have a quality of life. So we moved out here. I merged my practice with two other guys three years ago. And moved down here to, uh, California. My husband wanted to come out here and it gave me space to breathe and time to think and expand and decide what I wanted to do.
So I started learning about these, you know, information. Did digital programs like ways to make money from that I actually had. Heard Russell Brunson on a podcast that I was listening to and downloaded his free book. I was like all in with his like little funnel and read his book and started learning things and just decided to start putting together something myself for this.
So I actually started with breaking free divorce masterclasses two years ago, but I didn’t really. Do that much with them, although I am selling them now. Um, but then I wrote a book on negotiation. We last fall and, and really started working more on negotiating with narcissists within the context of high conflict situations.
And built a program around that and started it really wasn’t until I started doing a lot more on YouTube, which I just started at the beginning of this year. I literally have gone from a hundred subscribers to up close to 60,000 in like five months. And you’re, you’re up to something like almost 3 million views.
And just last couple of months, is that right? Yeah, that’s crazy. What, so what, what area of practice were you in when you were doing law? So I assume there had to be some sort of, yeah. Divorce. Okay. Yeah. I did high, high net worth divorce. So I was practicing in Naples, Florida, which is still a small practice.
There are, I mean, I still have a practice there. Um, I do, I keep some cases for myself, but most of my firm handles, but, uh, yeah, so I did high conflict divorce in a very affluent area. So I’ve seen. Pretty much everything we had. We had one guest, um, a while back that worked with couples on, you know, debt and finances and they weren’t going through a divorce, but it reminds me that this, this guess.
Clients came to the table and they’re going through the finances and between the two, they ended up having a hundred and something credit cards that they didn’t know about combined between each other and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. It’s amazing. What, what you hear just like goes under the radar within these relationships.
Yeah. I mean, it’s crazy. I’ve seen, you know, Every kind of sexual thing going on with like people that you would never have thought, you know, your local debt, Anniston financial advisor. Yeah. Or whatever, you know, just normal looking people. Well, they, you wouldn’t know you had this whole clandestine life.
Yeah, let’s talk a little a bit about how you’re growing online, because the majority of our listeners, some sort of entrepreneur, and I think it’s really cool that you have found so much online success in a relatively short amount of time. At what point did you kind of, you very proactively went down the funnel path, as you said, you listened to Russell Russell Brunson, and then you went down that path.
But then during that journey was there. A moment where you said, Hey, I’m onto something and this might work. Yeah. So I actually took a course from a gal named sunny Lenner doozy. Who’s a YouTube course. You know, she that’s what she does is teach people how to use YouTube. And it was really the combination of what I had learned from Russell Brunson’s work and her work.
That really made it take off for me because I learned how to use YouTube. And I really learned how to make YouTube videos the right way. So, but you can’t just have one without the other. Um, but that, that was really what blew it up for me is understanding how a funnel works and going from. You know, giving information and giving value.
And, uh, you know, I’ve now hundreds of hours of YouTube videos. And I do some coaching for people, literally all over the world and they’ll get on with me. And they’ll say I’ve watched all your videos, even your old ones. I put your videos on, like, autoplay, I listened to them over and over again. And you know, like, so yeah know, they know that I know what I’m talking about.
And so I’m giving lots and lots of value. And BRINO from there they go into, I do, I’m a free optin, which is my crush, my negotiation prep worksheet, which is 15 pages. It’s an ebook again, tons of value. So that by the time they get to my free webinar, which is again, more value, um, they, they trust me, they know me, they know what I’m talking about.
They’ve listened to me over and over again. Um, and I really believe that. Um, you know, you hear like the scarcity mentality doesn’t work. It’s not like hold back information or whatever. It’s, it’s actually the opposite. The more value you give the more. Uh, people will want to buy what you said selling. I mean, honestly, I had the same thing with you.
Amen. I li I read your book outrank. Yeah. And, um, I got it. You know, Nancy Dutton had posted it and said, read this guy’s book. And I downloaded it. I don’t know. I think it was like 99 cents or something. And, um, wherever it was that she had posted it and I read it and said, I just need to hire this guy.
That’s what I need to do. I’m not doing all that.
so, you know, I mean, that’s. Okay. That’s the key, I think truly. Yeah. It’s, it’s interesting for me. Well, it’s still a new thing for me. Probably not so much for you because you’ve, you’ve written books as well, but that was my first book. And so it was really cool for now because when Nancy introduced, I didn’t know you had read the book at that point or even knew that the book existed.
So that was a new, exciting experience for me to have somebody come to the table and say, Hey, I’ve. Digested your stuff. And, and I agree a hundred percent when I’m on the other side of the microphone and I go to these other podcasts. I T I, in fact, I did two hours ago on another podcast. Same thing. Uh, it’s the opposite of what you think you give away.
I even hate to say, do you hate, do you cringe when you say value because of how cringy other people make it, like give away free value? Yeah, I know, but you know, but that’s what people understand. It’s like they I’m giving them. Tools that they actually need. And so, I mean, just to go back to what you were saying, so what happened was I had taken in this course from sunny Lenner doozy.
And one of the things that she said in the course was if you have a video on YouTube, that’s what she called a, uh, breakout video. And, and, and, Oh, really, I had some videos on you too, that had put them up and they would get 10 views. 40 views, you know, maybe. Yeah. And my mom had watched it a few times or something.
I mean, you know, like not really anything at all. Yeah. Then I, if you have a breakout video, just do a test and do eight more videos around that. So I had done a video. So over a year ago, who I had just turned on my computer, it was like a three minute video and it was called how to negotiate with the narcissist.
And that video had like 600 views, which to me now would be a terrible showing, but at the time was showing. And so I thought, okay, I’m going to try to do eight more videos around this. I know how to deal with high conflict personalities I’ve been doing for 20 years. So, um, I just did eight more and my channel started to explode.
So I thought, okay, I’m onto something here with this. So let me, let me now, um, go ahead and create a program for this. And that’s what I did. So you followed the, the attention into narcissism. You didn’t necessarily set out and say, well, okay, I’m doing the funnel thing and watched the Russell Bronson thing.
I want to do videos at that point. You didn’t know you’re going, gonna focus on narcissism. No, I knew I wanted to focus on negotiating because I had done a lot. Yeah. Speaking on negotiating a ton and I. I published a book last fall called negotiate. Like you matter, the surefire method to step up and win and matter is the acronym for the methodology.
So M stands for something a stands for something. And I knew I was onto something with negotiating because I had asked Robert Shapiro who’s the famous lawyer. You give me a testimonial and he actually called me and offered to write the foreword for the book and send him the truth. Did you have any relationship with him before that point?
No, I didn’t. I had actually just Googled his
and I sent him Clery. Options for testimonials. Cause I figured he’s busy. Yeah. That’s a really good tip for anybody who’s gathering testimonials for a book by the way, is instead of asking him to sit and write something, cause people are busy. I gave him three options and said, if you’d like, you can just pick one or you can write your own or you can modify any one of these.
And um, he wrote me back within an hour and said, call me. Well, and so we got on a call that was like on a Thursday. And by the time his secretary had set up the call, it was like a Monday or something. And so by the time I spoke to him, it had been, um, a weekend had passed and he. Had read my book and I knew he had read it because he started pointing out typos and things like that.
And I hope to swear to him that it was going to editing that it was an unedited manuscript that I was trying to gather testimony while it was being, you know, and, um, And then he, you know, he’s giving me a hard time and he’s like, you know, normally I hate divorce attorneys and okay. I’m going to meet for some reason.
So then he went in on to say that he really liked what I was doing. And I, I had just been on extra, like the week before I had, I’ve done a lot of national television. So I was able to, I wrote him a very personalized email. Yeah. And you know, they basically showing that I knew what he had been up to showing that he and I are aligned in a lot of ways that we’re both attorneys, that we’re both using our law degree for a much larger yeah.
Based assessed information. And I guess it spoke to him, but you know, it’s really a good lesson on, Hey, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. So he at, during that call, he said, what is it that you want from me? And I said, well, I would love a testimonial. And he said, well, I would be happy to do a testimonial or a forward if you’ve died.
Uh,
Okay. It’s all yours. What do I need to do? So that’s how it came about. So you answered you pretty much answered what my, my next question was going to be, but I’ll ask it anyway. Why do you think that he did that for you? It wasn’t really just because you think something resonated with him. I think obviously something must have resonated with him.
He’s super busy and he certainly, he didn’t. I was actually ready for him to say, I’ll do it for you. This amount on money. He didn’t ask me for any money. Um, he just did it. So, I mean, like I said, uh, I also sent one to Michelle Obama. She did not respond.
Yeah. You know, I got him. So. No. He’s happy about that. Well, no, you only got a couple minutes, so I want to touch on two more things. Um, you, you kind of explained what narcissism is when we first jumped on the call, like, is, is narcissism, is there, I guess kind of a two part question, is there a levels to narcissism and is it treatable?
Like, can you address narcissism? I don’t want to say cure narcissism, but like. I know you’re on the side of supporting and helping the victims just a little bit. There are, but I think you have narcissist. And I said, um, I just don’t know if we should keep it here. Hold on one sec. Give it a second.
Okay. Hold on. I’ll make a note to have the editor fit and change that. Yeah. Okay. I made it now. Alright, here. I’ll I’ll ask it again. I’ll ask it again. Um, and then we can just edit it. Um, so I got kind of a two part question. Is, is there a levels to narcissism? And then I know you mostly work with the people that are on the victim side, but do you ever work with, with the narcissism that the narcissist themselves is that like something you can address within them?
Well, if you know, you never really know if somebody is actually a narcissist until you’re actually in it with them because they start off with their love farming phase. And so they seem like really perfect in the beginning thinking,
um,
In scenario coaching for people around the world and, you know, to the extent that my time allows. And, um, and then, you know, I do the webinars and all that sort of things and YouTube. So ongoing relationships as much. But when I did, you know, you can definitely start to tell once you’re in it, that you’re dealing with this type of person.
And one of the things that you want to say is that narcissism, in some ways, all of us have kind of narcissistic traits in the sense that obviously we all enjoy getting compliments. We all enjoy. You know, we all want to feel seen, heard and know that we matter. That’s part of the human experience, not a person on the planet that doesn’t feel that way.
That’s why I called the book negotiate. Like you matter, it’s, it’s, it’s a continuum really. And so it’s when you get to the end of the continuum where it’s kind of on a pathological sense where people have no inner sense of value and they have to suck value. Right. From people around them and they put, we call that narcissistic supply to the detriment of the other person.
So it looks like they sucking blood out of you where you almost end up feeling. Exhausted. And, and they’re, they’re like leeches and sometimes they’re called energy vampires because of that. Um, and, and they can’t, they have no ability to care for another person. It just doesn’t exist for them. Alright. Are a lot of these people, um, is it just kind of how they’re born?
Is it like a, you know, I don’t know, the proper terminology, chemical thing or whatever, or is it something that happened that. They became this way as a result. Yeah. They say it happens in childhood and early childhood somehow because of some trauma they experience, um, where they just started to believe that the world is not a good place and that in order for them to get anything, they have to manipulate it.
And, you know, it’s a very much of a scarcity mentality. Like if anybody else has something good, then it takes away from me in some way. Um, but. Um, I have also read that it could happen from overindulgence with children as well. Like in other words, they just feel like they don’t have any words and over children want boundaries.
They want to know that people care about them. So, um, I have heard that it can come from that as well. Yeah. Interesting. Um, well, Rebecca is, I’m going. I gotta go. I appreciate your time. I want to give you the last few minutes to tell our listeners how they can find out more about you. Yeah. So obviously my website, which is, um,
easily be able to find it. If you give you a Google. Sure. Damon
it’s, Rebeccazung.com and. I have all kinds of things there, including my free webinar, or you can sign up for that. You can sign up for one on one coaching. I do have a free giveaway, which is my free, as I talked about earlier, crushed my negotiation prep worksheet, which you can get at whenmynegotiation.com.
Very cool Rebecca Zung. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Oh, and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Hello? Yeah, that’s on there too. Rebeccazung.com.
