Episode Transcript
Glenn Harper: 00:00:00
Hello everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Empowering Entrepreneurs Podcast. I’m Glenn
Glenn Harper: 00:00:03
Harper. Julie Smith. What’s going on, Julie? Well, you know, it’s back to school.
Glenn Harper: 00:00:08
Oh, it’s the best. Not to date the podcast, but all the kids are back
Julie Smith: 00:00:11
in school, which means we don’t stop running until next May, I
Julie Smith: 00:00:15
think. That’s our rule. That’s part of the deal. That’s a package deal. It’s all
Glenn Harper: 00:00:18
good. Well, we’re having a great time with our podcast today. We
Glenn Harper: 00:00:22
have to do it a little bit later in the day than normally bright and
Glenn Harper: 00:00:25
early because our guest has been so gracious to kind of join us from the
Glenn Harper: 00:00:29
West Coast. So we had to go a little bit later. So, Thank you for
Glenn Harper: 00:00:31
that. Which means we don’t have any coffee. So we’re currently sharing a bottle of
Julie Smith: 00:00:35
water. We don’t know what to do with our hands because we’re used to drinking,
Glenn Harper: 00:00:37
but it’s all good. We’ll figure this thing out. Well, let me do a nice
Glenn Harper: 00:00:41
introduction. I’d like to introduce a fellow entrepreneur, Tamina Watson,
Glenn Harper: 00:00:45
founder of Watson Immigration Law. She’s a member of the Forbes Business Council,
Glenn Harper: 00:00:49
host of Tamina Talks Immigration podcast, author of The Startup Visa, and
Glenn Harper: 00:00:53
CEO of Pinky’s Shoe Bags. Last but not least, she doesn’t
Glenn Harper: 00:00:57
look like She would be in this classification based on age, but
Glenn Harper: 00:01:01
she is way deep into the birdwatching and bird photography. We will deliver all
Glenn Harper: 00:01:05
the— delve into all these things and see what makes Tamina tick and why she
Glenn Harper: 00:01:09
has this unrivaled passion to be involved in everything. Tamina is
Glenn Harper: 00:01:13
the person you call when you get lucky in the immigration lottery and your number
Glenn Harper: 00:01:16
is called. She will take that new immigrant citizen and show them how to
Glenn Harper: 00:01:20
become the best version of themselves by being an entrepreneur, which if any of us
Glenn Harper: 00:01:23
can think about it, would be next to impossible to know what to do if
Glenn Harper: 00:01:26
we became a citizen of another country and wanted to run a business. Impossible.
Glenn Harper: 00:01:31
Her expertise is turnkey as her satisfaction comes from helping others get the opportunity
Glenn Harper: 00:01:35
that she received many, many years ago. Allegedly, she says she
Glenn Harper: 00:01:38
enjoys her free time in nature, but I think we can all agree that in
Glenn Harper: 00:01:41
her free time, it is about quality, not quantity of time, as she has a
Glenn Harper: 00:01:45
mission to serve her clients. Apparently, immigration is controversial these
Glenn Harper: 00:01:49
days, and we cannot wait to jump in and discuss some different perspectives. Sit
Glenn Harper: 00:01:53
back and enjoy the ride as we pick Tamina’s brain. Thanks, Tamina,
Glenn Harper: 00:01:57
for being on our show. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you
Tamina Watson: 00:02:01
for such a beautiful introduction. I’m so grateful. We have to give him a few
Julie Smith: 00:02:04
minutes to like catch his breath after that one. I, I don’t put the commas
Glenn Harper: 00:02:08
in, so I just keep talking. Yeah, we can tell. No, we,
Glenn Harper: 00:02:12
we, uh, we on this podcast, we love talking to
Glenn Harper: 00:02:16
people, what makes them tick, how they got where they got, you know, what is
Glenn Harper: 00:02:19
it that they do and what ultimately is their vision and purpose and all those
Glenn Harper: 00:02:23
things. And, you know, there’s a lot of controversial content out there on you,
Glenn Harper: 00:02:27
just a boatload, but ultimately, I’m totally kidding. We’re trying to
Glenn Harper: 00:02:31
figure out, you know, where did you come from? Where’d you get here? And it
Glenn Harper: 00:02:34
says you grew up in London. Is that true? That is true, yes. Born and
Glenn Harper: 00:02:38
raised there? That’s correct, yes. Well, you don’t
Glenn Harper: 00:02:42
have a very London-type accent. So what’s going on with that? Did you get
Glenn Harper: 00:02:46
converted when you moved to America or what? So this is my
Tamina Watson: 00:02:50
21st year in the United States. I was born in the
Tamina Watson: 00:02:53
UK. And then for a few years, I did live in Bangladesh. That’s where my
Tamina Watson: 00:02:57
parents had immigrated from. And then I had a Sleepless
Tamina Watson: 00:03:01
in Seattle moment when I met my husband. I was here
Tamina Watson: 00:03:06
on vacation, and I had a blind date set up. And
Tamina Watson: 00:03:11
then it was long distance, and eventually I got married and I moved here. And
Tamina Watson: 00:03:14
this is my 21st year of being married, 21st year of being in the
Tamina Watson: 00:03:18
United States, and 20th year of being an immigration lawyer.
Julie Smith: 00:03:22
Wait, this is just right on par for what’s happening in today’s world. I know
Julie Smith: 00:03:25
Glenn wants to start with your childhood, so he’ll go back. But what do you
Julie Smith: 00:03:28
think about Meghan and Harry moving back?
Tamina Watson: 00:03:33
I have no idea what to think about that, to be honest, because, you know,
Tamina Watson: 00:03:37
it’s, it’s so interesting that I, I was
Tamina Watson: 00:03:41
a young kid when Harry was born and William were born.
Tamina Watson: 00:03:45
And, you know, Diana, I remember being, you know, 7 or 8 years
Tamina Watson: 00:03:49
old when Diana’s wedding was live on television. Um, it
Tamina Watson: 00:03:53
was, it was so surreal to see Harry move to the US
Tamina Watson: 00:03:57
because, you know, the royal family doesn’t move here. I don’t know what
Tamina Watson: 00:04:00
to think of it. It’s— I think it’s going to unfold in real time. I
Tamina Watson: 00:04:03
think when I saw the headlines yesterday, I thought, what on earth? You know, how
Tamina Watson: 00:04:07
is she going to make it there? But, you know, we’ll
Tamina Watson: 00:04:11
see. We’ll all see in real time. This is why I’m not allowed to be
Julie Smith: 00:04:14
in charge of the podcast direction, so I’ll hand it back over. No, no, that’s
Glenn Harper: 00:04:18
a great question. And again, people that are in
Glenn Harper: 00:04:21
England, they follow this stuff. Like, this is a big thing. I follow this stuff.
Julie Smith: 00:04:25
What do you mean? Yeah, but you know, US immigration lawyers follow this
Tamina Watson: 00:04:29
stuff too, because it’s all— it’s been around in a lot of our
Tamina Watson: 00:04:33
forums. That’s how I got the breaking news that now he’s
Tamina Watson: 00:04:36
moving. And then they’re like, what’s his immigration status? What, you know, what
Tamina Watson: 00:04:40
happened here? So there’s, there’s many different angles
Tamina Watson: 00:04:44
to one particular family. And, you know, who knows?
Tamina Watson: 00:04:48
We’ll see. We’ll see. Well, so let’s go back a little because
Glenn Harper: 00:04:52
again, I’d like to get to know our guests a little bit. So your parents,
Glenn Harper: 00:04:56
did they immigrate to England at some point? Yes, my
Tamina Watson: 00:05:00
dad had immigrated in the ’60s. And
Tamina Watson: 00:05:04
when he got married to my mom, my mom moved to London in
Tamina Watson: 00:05:08
the ’70s. And then in the ’80s, the whole family
Tamina Watson: 00:05:12
moved to Bangladesh for a little while. And then in the ’90s, we came
Tamina Watson: 00:05:16
back. And then I continued my education and
Tamina Watson: 00:05:20
became a barrister, one of those trial lawyers who wear
Tamina Watson: 00:05:24
wigs and gowns. Good, good. And, you know, that was
Tamina Watson: 00:05:28
from a little girl. I mean, my first memory was I wanted to be a
Tamina Watson: 00:05:32
barrister. I didn’t, you know, that’s all I wanted to be, a trial lawyer with
Tamina Watson: 00:05:36
a wig and gown. My father was one too. So that’s
Tamina Watson: 00:05:40
where my inspiration came from. But then I moved to the United
Tamina Watson: 00:05:44
States and I had to restart my career and think
Tamina Watson: 00:05:47
about what I wanted to do. And immigration kept following
Tamina Watson: 00:05:51
me as a path, but immigration was the only thing I
Tamina Watson: 00:05:55
didn’t want to do. Wow. If there was one thing on my list that I
Tamina Watson: 00:05:58
didn’t want to do, it was immigration law. I grew up watching my father
Tamina Watson: 00:06:02
practice immigration law. And in the olden days,
Tamina Watson: 00:06:05
immigration law was very much a community thing to do. It wasn’t the sexy thing
Tamina Watson: 00:06:09
to do, you know? And— It was a lot of asylum as
Tamina Watson: 00:06:13
well, and in my mind, I thought immigration law was only
Tamina Watson: 00:06:17
asylum work. Mm-hmm. And I didn’t want to have my
Tamina Watson: 00:06:20
heartstrings just pulled on every day. Mm-hmm. It’s such a, you
Tamina Watson: 00:06:24
know, it can be tragic, it’s very heavy. And
Tamina Watson: 00:06:29
when I moved here, as I mentioned, I moved here 21 years ago, I was,
Tamina Watson: 00:06:33
I had to study for the bar again, and I had to think about what
Tamina Watson: 00:06:35
am I going to practice. And with a UK law degree,
Tamina Watson: 00:06:40
I could be practicing a federal
Tamina Watson: 00:06:43
area of law anywhere in the country, but I didn’t
Tamina Watson: 00:06:47
understand America had 50 states, 50 different, you know, legal
Tamina Watson: 00:06:50
systems. And immigration is a federal
Tamina Watson: 00:06:54
area of law, which means you can practice it anywhere. And as you mentioned at
Tamina Watson: 00:06:58
the top of the hour, I live in— on the West Coast in Seattle.
Tamina Watson: 00:07:01
And I could only take the New York Bar or the Californian
Tamina Watson: 00:07:05
Bar with my background. So I took the New York Bar,
Tamina Watson: 00:07:10
but that limited me in the areas of law I could
Tamina Watson: 00:07:13
practice. And immigration law kept following me. And the 5th
Tamina Watson: 00:07:17
time I surrendered. I said, okay, universe. I love it. I’ll
Tamina Watson: 00:07:21
just do this for, you know, a little while, and then I’ll do something
Tamina Watson: 00:07:25
else. And honest to God, the first day of immigration, I said,
Tamina Watson: 00:07:29
why am I fighting this? If you don’t want to practice asylum law,
Tamina Watson: 00:07:33
you don’t have to touch an asylum case. And I very quickly learned
Tamina Watson: 00:07:37
that, um, I jive with people who are
Tamina Watson: 00:07:41
brilliant entrepreneurs. And, you know, the savviness that
Tamina Watson: 00:07:45
comes with it, the drive that comes with it, the complexity of immigration law
Tamina Watson: 00:07:49
that is about entrepreneurship in many ways, you know, I
Tamina Watson: 00:07:53
had a natural knack for it. And here I am 21 years
Tamina Watson: 00:07:56
later. Was your— hold on. Was your dad, was he
Glenn Harper: 00:08:00
employed? Was he self-employed or did he work for a firm? Oh,
Tamina Watson: 00:08:04
good question. He was a barrister. And in the UK, barristers are
Tamina Watson: 00:08:07
self-employed. Self-employed. So did he give you a look that said, after
Glenn Harper: 00:08:11
you did this, I told you so? Did he say that or no? As a
Glenn Harper: 00:08:14
good dad would have said. No, actually my dad was
Tamina Watson: 00:08:19
actually a little upset that I was moving to another country because he wanted
Tamina Watson: 00:08:23
me to practice with him. And
Tamina Watson: 00:08:27
it took him a little while to get used to the fact that I wouldn’t
Tamina Watson: 00:08:30
be with him. But he was very proud. He’s very proud of my
Tamina Watson: 00:08:33
husband. My mother was definitely the woman behind the man
Tamina Watson: 00:08:37
and me. And, you know, it was interesting. But
Tamina Watson: 00:08:42
yeah, he was very proud that I followed his footsteps. He’s definitely not mad that
Glenn Harper: 00:08:46
you are in law in the US. He’s mad probably that
Glenn Harper: 00:08:50
his His daughter got swept up by some other man. And, and so that’s
Glenn Harper: 00:08:54
what he’s mad about. He’s, he’s not mad that you’re doing law in the US.
Glenn Harper: 00:08:58
Um, but that’s too funny. Go ahead, Jill. Do you have any brothers and sisters?
Tamina Watson: 00:09:02
I do. They’re— I have 2 siblings and they’re in the UK. And are they
Julie Smith: 00:09:06
following in your dad’s footsteps or did they do something completely different?
Tamina Watson: 00:09:11
Very different. You know, they didn’t wanna be like me for sure. Definitely
Tamina Watson: 00:09:15
didn’t wanna follow the, like, big sister’s doing this and let’s do
Tamina Watson: 00:09:18
something different. So you’re the oldest? I am, yeah. Okay, there you have it.
Glenn Harper: 00:09:22
Well, that explains everything. Okay. And the reason I do this, ’cause we can profile
Glenn Harper: 00:09:26
everybody and we can, there’s a certain fact pattern that always happens.
Glenn Harper: 00:09:30
And it’s just neat that this is going on. So, you know,
Glenn Harper: 00:09:35
there’s 2 things that happen when some, when people are, uh, that we kind of
Glenn Harper: 00:09:38
see when they become an entrepreneur. And one of those things is somebody was
Glenn Harper: 00:09:42
influential show them that, hey, it’s risky,
Glenn Harper: 00:09:46
but it’s exciting and fun. And there’s a lot of reward or
Glenn Harper: 00:09:51
that, that’s the one path. Or you go work in the steady job in the
Glenn Harper: 00:09:54
factory and do the thing, right? Or in the office and you do the thing.
Glenn Harper: 00:09:56
Nothing’s wrong with either one of them. So it sounds like the only thing you
Glenn Harper: 00:10:00
knew was being, watching your dad be self-employed, right? So you never knew really anything
Glenn Harper: 00:10:04
different. Is that a true statement? Well, actually, you know, I,
Tamina Watson: 00:10:08
I didn’t really know if I was going to be self-employed or not. You know,
Tamina Watson: 00:10:11
when you go to law school, you’re not necessarily learning about business. It’s a
Tamina Watson: 00:10:15
big problem. And I mean, these days you probably have seen there are coaches everywhere
Tamina Watson: 00:10:18
for lawyers, but 21 years ago, that was not the case.
Tamina Watson: 00:10:22
The influential person in my life to become an entrepreneur was actually my husband.
Tamina Watson: 00:10:27
My husband is an incredible human being,
Tamina Watson: 00:10:31
just loves me to bits. And when I was coming into a new country
Tamina Watson: 00:10:35
trying to find my feet again, I initially was
Tamina Watson: 00:10:39
working with somebody and it wasn’t going well. But my
Tamina Watson: 00:10:42
husband said to me, you know, why don’t you just try something on
Tamina Watson: 00:10:46
your own? And if you fail, I will still love you.
Tamina Watson: 00:10:51
And those were the words that got me into my own firm. And
Tamina Watson: 00:10:55
here I am. So I have to ask too, where did you meet your husband
Julie Smith: 00:10:58
on vacation? In Seattle. I had a sleepless in
Tamina Watson: 00:11:02
Seattle moment where— Oh, literally sleepless in Seattle. So I was just thinking that
Julie Smith: 00:11:06
was a, you know, Yeah. Okay. Legit. Yeah. Yeah. We
Tamina Watson: 00:11:10
had, we had some family friends who brought us together. How
Glenn Harper: 00:11:13
about that? And my fam, my, my, my, my mom’s sister and his
Tamina Watson: 00:11:17
colleagues brought us together. Okay. Well, that’s the best thing
Glenn Harper: 00:11:21
ever. So ultimately, you know, uh,
Glenn Harper: 00:11:25
some entrepreneurs, they look back and reflect and they say, you know,
Glenn Harper: 00:11:29
since I was 8 or 10, I was doing this or saw, a
Glenn Harper: 00:11:33
family member, a mentor doing this entrepreneurial thing. I was curious about it.
Glenn Harper: 00:11:38
And other times it just comes outta nowhere. So you weren’t basically
Glenn Harper: 00:11:42
coached per se, or led down the path where your dad’s like saying, hey, you
Glenn Harper: 00:11:46
really should become an entrepreneur like I am.
Glenn Harper: 00:11:50
Well, he was more like, hey, you figure life out, we’ll see how that goes.
Glenn Harper: 00:11:53
Or were you more, was he more like, hey, you really should go do this?
Tamina Watson: 00:11:57
It was more like, be a lawyer. Just be a lawyer on your own. Like,
Tamina Watson: 00:12:00
be a lawyer. Uh, but the legal system in the UK is actually pretty
Tamina Watson: 00:12:03
different from what it is here. The education system,
Tamina Watson: 00:12:07
how you practice law. And in the UK, there are 2 distinct
Tamina Watson: 00:12:11
pathways. One is being a trial lawyer or barrister, or a
Tamina Watson: 00:12:15
transactional lawyer, a solicitor. And a solicitor can
Tamina Watson: 00:12:19
be employed in a law firm, or they could have
Tamina Watson: 00:12:23
their own law firm and be an entrepreneur. But barristers typically
Tamina Watson: 00:12:27
will be under one umbrella called chambers,
Tamina Watson: 00:12:32
And they would all be self-employed. And so to me,
Tamina Watson: 00:12:36
I did not necessarily understand that as such. That was
Tamina Watson: 00:12:40
not necessarily the goal. The goal was to be a lawyer. My parents had a
Tamina Watson: 00:12:44
dream. I had a dream. How that was going to unfold, you know,
Tamina Watson: 00:12:48
obviously we’re seeing now. But the goal was to be a barrister, and
Tamina Watson: 00:12:52
the self-employment wasn’t necessarily the issue or the focus.
Julie Smith: 00:12:56
Right. It was more How to practice law. Got it. It’s sort of like when
Glenn Harper: 00:13:00
you’re an accountant. Exactly. She loves it. You can be governmental, private,
Glenn Harper: 00:13:03
corporate. The one thing I never wanted to do, numbers. I’m just kidding.
Glenn Harper: 00:13:09
I do that for her because she gets a kick out of it. Okay. So—
Julie Smith: 00:13:12
Wait, I have a question. I want to know. So you talked about how immigration
Julie Smith: 00:13:16
just kept hitting you in the face as you were going through, maybe I want
Julie Smith: 00:13:20
to do this, maybe I want to do this. You started out with the New
Julie Smith: 00:13:22
York bar. Walk me through some of the things that you did
Julie Smith: 00:13:26
that, and then, and then like highlight what was the immigration that was hitting you
Julie Smith: 00:13:30
in the face as you kind of walked these steps to get to where you
Julie Smith: 00:13:33
are. So first I moved to a new country, so
Tamina Watson: 00:13:37
I had to go through immigration myself. Um, and then I had to take the
Tamina Watson: 00:13:40
bar exams, but that also was a challenge because I had
Tamina Watson: 00:13:44
been studying forever and I had just started working in the UK
Tamina Watson: 00:13:48
as a, you know, very young barrister doing all the menial
Tamina Watson: 00:13:52
tasks that a newcomer does. But I had
Tamina Watson: 00:13:55
finished my studies, so I was not going to go to law school again.
Tamina Watson: 00:14:00
And when I kept calling, you know, advisors
Tamina Watson: 00:14:03
about how to become a lawyer in another country, I
Tamina Watson: 00:14:07
kept being guided to go to law school again. And I was like,
Tamina Watson: 00:14:11
no thank you, that’s not happening. And so when I learned
Tamina Watson: 00:14:15
that I could take the bar exams for New York, I
Tamina Watson: 00:14:19
obviously did that. And then it became a
Tamina Watson: 00:14:23
sort of a big aha moment that, my goodness, just because
Tamina Watson: 00:14:27
I’ve got the New York bar exam doesn’t mean I can work anywhere I want
Tamina Watson: 00:14:31
because the legal system is so different and I’ve never lived anywhere but Seattle.
Tamina Watson: 00:14:36
And so it took a little while, and I was doing a lot of, like,
Tamina Watson: 00:14:41
work experiences, internships, externships to
Tamina Watson: 00:14:44
sort of learn about the law
Tamina Watson: 00:14:47
and make connections and
Tamina Watson: 00:14:50
understand different issues.
Tamina Watson: 00:14:54
And it was at that time, you know, my law
Tamina Watson: 00:14:58
license and all of the things that needed to happen to work all came
Tamina Watson: 00:15:02
together at the same time. And when I started to look for a
Tamina Watson: 00:15:06
job, I realized, oh goodness, this is not going to be
Tamina Watson: 00:15:10
easy. I had essentially
Tamina Watson: 00:15:14
put myself out there a lot, you know, with a lot of volunteer work,
Tamina Watson: 00:15:18
and I was meeting people. And
Tamina Watson: 00:15:22
the first one came from a nonprofit saying, you know, we’ve got a
Tamina Watson: 00:15:26
position, you should apply. And I already knew I didn’t want to
Tamina Watson: 00:15:30
do immigration. In fact, the funny story is I knew I wasn’t going to do
Tamina Watson: 00:15:34
immigration work, so I had signed up with a temp agency, and
Tamina Watson: 00:15:38
I said, you know, They said, what do you want to do? I said, well,
Tamina Watson: 00:15:40
you know, I’m never going to do immigration. Put me in something immigration, you know,
Tamina Watson: 00:15:43
because I’m never going to meet these people again. Whoops.
Tamina Watson: 00:15:47
And the terminology in the law is different, too. So, in the
Tamina Watson: 00:15:51
UK, a legal assistant is generally a paralegal. A
Tamina Watson: 00:15:55
legal assistant in the US is essentially a secretary. And
Tamina Watson: 00:15:59
so, at this temp agency, they sent me to an
Tamina Watson: 00:16:02
immigration department at a law firm as a legal assistant. And I was just
Tamina Watson: 00:16:06
very happy to be out of the house. Right. My husband, who’s a lawyer as
Tamina Watson: 00:16:10
well, used to, you know, I just realized after, you know,
Tamina Watson: 00:16:14
dating and then getting married, realizing how many hours he works. He’s working
Tamina Watson: 00:16:18
all the hours. And I’m a newlywed. I’ve got, you know, he’s my only, he’s
Tamina Watson: 00:16:22
my only person. And so I was happy to get out of the
Tamina Watson: 00:16:25
house and get any job. And I said yes to being a
Tamina Watson: 00:16:30
legal assistant at the law firm. But it was one
Tamina Watson: 00:16:33
day there, and I realized I’m going to be photocopying all day. So I
Tamina Watson: 00:16:38
stomped my way home and I’m like, husband, I’m a
Tamina Watson: 00:16:41
secretary. How did this happen? And he’s like, it’s
Tamina Watson: 00:16:45
okay, I still love you.
Tamina Watson: 00:16:49
And the next day I got a job offer in
Tamina Watson: 00:16:53
immigration and I thought, you know, I’ll just do this. I’ll take this. That was
Tamina Watson: 00:16:56
my 5th immigration job offer. And I said, I’ll do it. And
Tamina Watson: 00:17:00
so I went and told this other secretary who was teaching me, to be a
Tamina Watson: 00:17:03
secretary, and I said, you know, I’m going to be an immigration lawyer tomorrow or
Tamina Watson: 00:17:07
next week. And she went and told on me, and then the, the
Tamina Watson: 00:17:11
managing partner of that department summoned me in and said, I’m so sorry, you know,
Tamina Watson: 00:17:15
you can’t be here anymore. You’re going to be an immigration lawyer next week. So
Tamina Watson: 00:17:19
I was sort of escorted out of the, of the, of the department. And
Tamina Watson: 00:17:23
what’s funny is I would, you know, I— nobody knew me. I was so
Tamina Watson: 00:17:27
happy that I was a secretary. Nobody knew me because these people became my colleagues.
Tamina Watson: 00:17:31
And it’s, it’s, there was one person who was
Tamina Watson: 00:17:35
so kind. You know those people that are so nice to the
Tamina Watson: 00:17:39
waitresses at restaurants and they pay attention? This was that kind of
Tamina Watson: 00:17:43
guy. And he was so kind. And, but he’s
Tamina Watson: 00:17:47
the only person who really remembered me from those secretarial days. So I had
Tamina Watson: 00:17:51
lunch with him not so long ago and we just had a big laugh. He’s
Tamina Watson: 00:17:54
like, you know, you were with us for a hot minute and then you’ve done
Tamina Watson: 00:17:58
all of this. It’s, um, That was essentially the
Tamina Watson: 00:18:02
journey of, I didn’t want to be an immigration lawyer, but the
Tamina Watson: 00:18:06
universe of immigration kept pulling me in until I said, okay, I
Tamina Watson: 00:18:09
succumb. And I have to assume your husband is not an
Julie Smith: 00:18:13
immigration lawyer. That’s correct. Yes. He’s not an immigration
Tamina Watson: 00:18:17
lawyer. How about that? So, you know, one of
Glenn Harper: 00:18:21
the cool things is when you became an immigration lawyer, you
Glenn Harper: 00:18:25
worked at a firm then, right? And you got hired for them. At some point
Glenn Harper: 00:18:29
you worked there for X amount of time and you’re like, you know what? Why
Glenn Harper: 00:18:32
am I giving them 70% of this? I should do this on my own. So
Glenn Harper: 00:18:36
you went there for a certain amount of time. Did you go in there thinking
Glenn Harper: 00:18:39
you’d go on your own or you went there thinking you’d climb that corporate ladder
Glenn Harper: 00:18:42
in that firm? Do you recall? Yes. It’s an
Tamina Watson: 00:18:46
interesting story, actually. It’s slightly different. Love a good story. Uh,
Tamina Watson: 00:18:50
yeah. My own immigration lawyer, uh, was
Tamina Watson: 00:18:54
going through some life changes. And when all of my,
Tamina Watson: 00:18:58
um, issues came together and I, I could work,
Tamina Watson: 00:19:02
she was like, well, why don’t you work with me? Why don’t you become a
Tamina Watson: 00:19:05
partner? And to me, partnership sounds amazing.
Tamina Watson: 00:19:10
And, you know, again, I don’t know any different, and this is a job,
Tamina Watson: 00:19:13
and so be it, it’s immigration, but it’s a job. And I said yes.
Tamina Watson: 00:19:18
And, uh, I very quickly learned
Tamina Watson: 00:19:22
that a law firm is a business and somebody has to run the
Tamina Watson: 00:19:26
business. And this person was not the right person who knew how to run a
Tamina Watson: 00:19:29
business because she was going through life changes that
Tamina Watson: 00:19:33
propelled her to run a business that she didn’t know how to run. She was
Tamina Watson: 00:19:36
a very good lawyer. And so,
Tamina Watson: 00:19:41
interestingly enough, our bookkeeper one day summoned us.
Tamina Watson: 00:19:45
And I, you know, I’m very new. I have no idea about any of these
Tamina Watson: 00:19:49
things. No. They’ve summoned us and the bookkeeper’s like, well, you
Tamina Watson: 00:19:53
guys are not sending invoices out and you’re not doing any of this right and
Tamina Watson: 00:19:56
you owe us more money. And the more you do
Tamina Watson: 00:20:00
wrong and incorrectly, the more work it is for us to
Tamina Watson: 00:20:04
fix it. So we need to teach you how to do this. So I
Tamina Watson: 00:20:08
learned how to do bookkeeping from our bookkeeper because
Tamina Watson: 00:20:12
my partner wasn’t doing it right.
Tamina Watson: 00:20:16
And I very quickly learned that to pay
Tamina Watson: 00:20:20
bills, whether it’s the electricity or the rent for
Tamina Watson: 00:20:24
the office, somebody needs to do the work and invoice and
Tamina Watson: 00:20:28
all the things that you’re supposed to do. I thought I was going to be
Tamina Watson: 00:20:32
learning from this person. I didn’t. And it was
Tamina Watson: 00:20:38
really a year and a half later when I
Tamina Watson: 00:20:42
realized this couldn’t work, but I was too scared to do anything else.
Tamina Watson: 00:20:46
When my husband said, just go and try this on your own. And if you
Tamina Watson: 00:20:50
fail, I’ll still love you. And that was the beginning of the rest of my
Tamina Watson: 00:20:53
life. Isn’t it funny in school,
Glenn Harper: 00:20:58
like even if you weren’t just immigrated here,
Glenn Harper: 00:21:02
the same challenges face anybody who wants to be an entrepreneur. We, we don’t know.
Glenn Harper: 00:21:05
There’s nobody teaching anybody how to do it. It’s like this secret that is
Glenn Harper: 00:21:09
not out there. I mean, there’s a lot of things today. You can find a
Glenn Harper: 00:21:12
lot of things. But back in the day, you’re on an island by yourself
Glenn Harper: 00:21:15
and your experience of like, I don’t even know how to do this, is the
Glenn Harper: 00:21:19
same as somebody else that goes on their own. They don’t know what to do.
Glenn Harper: 00:21:22
It’s the hardest thing ever. And thank God we have more tools today to do
Glenn Harper: 00:21:26
that. But is that what got you saying, hey,
Glenn Harper: 00:21:31
gonna go on my own, and ’cause if I’m gonna do it, I might as
Glenn Harper: 00:21:33
well do it for myself? I assume that’s what happened. And then I
Glenn Harper: 00:21:37
suspect at that point you’re like, Here’s a nice niche I could be in, cuz
Glenn Harper: 00:21:41
now I’ve been through the whole process. I’ve navigated the whole thing. I
Glenn Harper: 00:21:45
could do a, a lot of good for a few people
Glenn Harper: 00:21:49
instead of a little good for a lot of people.
Tamina Watson: 00:21:53
You’ve touched on something very interesting because I think a
Tamina Watson: 00:21:57
lot of lawyers probably feel the same in that you’ve
Tamina Watson: 00:22:01
learned the academia and academic
Tamina Watson: 00:22:04
part of it, but nobody, or like an accountant, nobody’s really told you how to
Tamina Watson: 00:22:08
run a business. And in the UK, as I
Tamina Watson: 00:22:12
mentioned earlier, there are the 2 tracks. There’s the transactional
Tamina Watson: 00:22:16
lawyer and the trial lawyer. The transactional lawyers are actually taught some
Tamina Watson: 00:22:20
of these things at school, but not the trial
Tamina Watson: 00:22:23
lawyer. They’re not taught that. So all of what we had
Tamina Watson: 00:22:27
to learn was how to stand on your feet and, you know,
Tamina Watson: 00:22:31
argue and negotiate and all of, you know, be in court. But when I
Tamina Watson: 00:22:35
moved here, I had to learn trial by fire, so to speak, as
Tamina Watson: 00:22:39
I just mentioned. But what was interesting is I still
Tamina Watson: 00:22:43
wanted to practice immigration law. And the first, as I mentioned
Tamina Watson: 00:22:47
earlier, that I was like, why was I fighting this? This immigration is a
Tamina Watson: 00:22:50
fast-moving area, not as fast— it wasn’t as fast
Tamina Watson: 00:22:54
then as it is now, of course. Yeah. But it was— I could
Tamina Watson: 00:22:58
see the impact on somebody’s life, you know, within a
Tamina Watson: 00:23:01
reasonable amount of time. And all of it’s complicated. Where do you
Tamina Watson: 00:23:05
file? And what is the legality of this and eligibility of it?
Tamina Watson: 00:23:10
And then how to bill for that. And as I’m learning all of these things,
Tamina Watson: 00:23:14
I opened my own doors to Watson Immigration Law January
Tamina Watson: 00:23:18
1st, 2009. But if you can cast your memory
Tamina Watson: 00:23:22
back to 2008 and ’09, it really was
Tamina Watson: 00:23:27
the beginning of a similar scenarios to what we saw in
Tamina Watson: 00:23:30
2021 and 2022. The recession, people being laid off.
Tamina Watson: 00:23:35
And I had just opened my doors and living in Seattle
Tamina Watson: 00:23:39
where the headquarters of Microsoft and big companies are here, people were being laid off.
Tamina Watson: 00:23:43
Immigrants, high-skilled immigrants were being laid off. So
Tamina Watson: 00:23:46
number one, I was a little scared to open my own doors because I didn’t
Tamina Watson: 00:23:49
know what to expect, but I was going with the flow. And
Tamina Watson: 00:23:53
we had this economic situation happening that was
Tamina Watson: 00:23:57
propelling people to call my phone. And
Tamina Watson: 00:24:01
what transpired over and over again was these
Tamina Watson: 00:24:05
high-skilled immigrants who had a desire to be entrepreneurs
Tamina Watson: 00:24:09
but were not necessarily ready to be entrepreneurs because they had a
Tamina Watson: 00:24:13
steady paycheck with families and mortgages to pay.
Tamina Watson: 00:24:17
But if you are a high-skilled immigrant and you don’t
Tamina Watson: 00:24:21
have valid employment, you are now
Tamina Watson: 00:24:24
unlawfully in the United States. And so the calls
Tamina Watson: 00:24:28
that I got were basically saying, I want my own
Tamina Watson: 00:24:32
startup, help me get a visa for my startup. So
Tamina Watson: 00:24:36
as I was learning how to run my own business, you know, it’s almost like,
Tamina Watson: 00:24:40
I don’t know if you’ve heard this sort of saying that if you want to
Tamina Watson: 00:24:44
learn about how to nurture a newborn baby, go to a mother of a newborn
Tamina Watson: 00:24:48
baby because a teenager mom has forgotten all of those things. I had
Tamina Watson: 00:24:52
just started my business, and I’m still learning that there are quarterly
Tamina Watson: 00:24:56
taxes to pay and invoices. And, you know, that learning doesn’t go
Tamina Watson: 00:25:00
away even after 21 years. But those people who are just
Tamina Watson: 00:25:03
trying to get on the ladder while immigrate— you know,
Tamina Watson: 00:25:07
navigating the immigration minefield became
Tamina Watson: 00:25:11
a natural sort of connection for me. I could understand
Tamina Watson: 00:25:15
them. They could sort of relate to me. And I think that connection
Tamina Watson: 00:25:19
help me sort of get— one of the
Tamina Watson: 00:25:23
things I said to a client once is they came to me and said, well,
Tamina Watson: 00:25:26
that’s my dream. And I realized in that moment,
Tamina Watson: 00:25:30
gosh, all these dreams that I had— Mm-hmm. Were
Tamina Watson: 00:25:34
coming together in America. That’s the American dream. Oh my
Tamina Watson: 00:25:38
gosh, I’m living the American dream. Oh my gosh, each of these people who have
Tamina Watson: 00:25:42
ever uttered the word dream, I’ve got to even push myself
Tamina Watson: 00:25:45
harder to make their dreams come true. And so that
Tamina Watson: 00:25:49
entrepreneurship angle, from my own
Tamina Watson: 00:25:53
perspective, but also the client’s perspective,
Tamina Watson: 00:25:56
really propelled my own career. It
Tamina Watson: 00:26:00
started this trajectory that I didn’t know I
Tamina Watson: 00:26:04
would be following. So
Glenn Harper: 00:26:08
the immigration law for entrepreneurs is the—
Glenn Harper: 00:26:12
are these Folks that are coming here on a temporary work
Glenn Harper: 00:26:16
basis, or are these becoming— going to become citizens and become
Glenn Harper: 00:26:19
entrepreneurs, or is it both that you work with? It can be both.
Glenn Harper: 00:26:23
Okay. But the trajectory, if you like, could be
Tamina Watson: 00:26:27
threefold. Number one, international students come
Tamina Watson: 00:26:31
here. They often do these entrepreneurship classes and
Tamina Watson: 00:26:35
then go into cohorts, and then they have these ideas. they need a
Tamina Watson: 00:26:39
visa for, you know, running their startup. That’s one category.
Tamina Watson: 00:26:43
The other category is you’ve been at Microsoft for 10 years, but you have this
Tamina Watson: 00:26:46
burning desire to be an entrepreneur. You
Tamina Watson: 00:26:50
wait for your green card and then you become an entrepreneur. You don’t necessarily need
Tamina Watson: 00:26:53
me at that point. You’re— you’ve got a green card and you’re all set. But
Tamina Watson: 00:26:57
what if you’re that Microsoft person waiting for that green card? You’re in a line
Tamina Watson: 00:27:01
to get a green card. There’s no real line. It’s sort of invisible. Mm-hmm. But
Tamina Watson: 00:27:05
now you’ve been laid off and you’re sort of
Tamina Watson: 00:27:09
compelled to take that step. And a lot of
Tamina Watson: 00:27:12
my clients are like that. And the third prong is
Tamina Watson: 00:27:17
that people who are very successful outside the United States
Tamina Watson: 00:27:20
see the opportunity that America can bring their businesses to
Tamina Watson: 00:27:24
themselves and they expand into the US. So I do a lot of US
Tamina Watson: 00:27:28
expansion work as well. Well, who knew there
Glenn Harper: 00:27:32
was all those different kinds of ways you can do that? And, but, and you
Glenn Harper: 00:27:35
know, it’s funny, the, the one that, um, probably
Glenn Harper: 00:27:39
sticks, that’s probably the most urgent is probably somebody
Glenn Harper: 00:27:43
who has been here fully assimilated, doing their thing,
Glenn Harper: 00:27:47
living the dream, and then they lose their job and they have the— they’re going
Glenn Harper: 00:27:51
to be gone if they’re not gainfully employed. That’s probably the most urgent,
Glenn Harper: 00:27:55
I’m guessing. that needs the help the most, right? Absolutely.
Tamina Watson: 00:27:59
And this is what really put me on the map because in
Tamina Watson: 00:28:03
2008 and ’09, when I saw the gap in the
Tamina Watson: 00:28:07
immigration system. So our immigration system is from the
Tamina Watson: 00:28:10
1950s and ’60s. And the most recent update was in
Tamina Watson: 00:28:13
1990, which established all the visa categories that we
Tamina Watson: 00:28:17
have. So you’ve probably heard about O visa, H-1B visa,
Tamina Watson: 00:28:21
et cetera. But there was never a startup visa.
Tamina Watson: 00:28:25
So in 2009, when I started to work with these entrepreneurs,
Tamina Watson: 00:28:30
they were aspiring entrepreneurs, and then I helped them get there.
Tamina Watson: 00:28:34
I started to write about it. Why don’t we have a visa for startups?
Tamina Watson: 00:28:38
And what was very interesting is a lot of VCs and angel
Tamina Watson: 00:28:42
investors, people who are investing in high-skilled immigrants, could also see the
Tamina Watson: 00:28:46
problem. And so they were advocating in their own silo
Tamina Watson: 00:28:51
And in— and I was doing what I was doing. And around
Tamina Watson: 00:28:55
2010 was the first time Congress has had a bill
Tamina Watson: 00:28:59
called the Startup Visa Bill. And it was a result
Tamina Watson: 00:29:03
of a lot of these advocacy groups that had
Tamina Watson: 00:29:07
come up from the VC world and the tech
Tamina Watson: 00:29:11
world accelerators. And when I saw that bill, I was like,
Tamina Watson: 00:29:15
that’s the answer. And so there was a merging
Tamina Watson: 00:29:19
of some of these people that came together. And I
Tamina Watson: 00:29:23
have been working with them since. Now a lot of people know about it. But
Tamina Watson: 00:29:26
as you might know, lawyers are often about billable time,
Tamina Watson: 00:29:30
you know. But as an entrepreneur, I
Tamina Watson: 00:29:33
recognized, I had an aha moment one day, oh,
Tamina Watson: 00:29:38
I could actually help make law. Mm-hmm. It’s not
Tamina Watson: 00:29:42
just about lawyering. It’s about the impact I can have
Tamina Watson: 00:29:46
and be, be the voice for the people who, who need
Tamina Watson: 00:29:50
a pathway and don’t have it. So that became honestly
Tamina Watson: 00:29:55
one of the propellers of my career to this day.
Tamina Watson: 00:29:59
And I’ve written so much now. I have books. I have— my first
Tamina Watson: 00:30:03
book was called The Startup Visa. It’s the series, it’s called The
Tamina Watson: 00:30:07
Startup Visa. And it was really inspired by a
Tamina Watson: 00:30:10
client of mine who is a VC who became a
Tamina Watson: 00:30:14
VC and is one of the earliest VCs in Africa.
Tamina Watson: 00:30:18
And he said, Tamina, you have so much content. You know, you should
Tamina Watson: 00:30:22
just write a book. I’m like, oh, yes, I should write a book. And,
Tamina Watson: 00:30:26
you know, I’ve never written a book before. I just had this false
Tamina Watson: 00:30:30
notion that I have so much content, it’s a book already. It’s
Tamina Watson: 00:30:34
only when I started writing it that I realized, ah,
Tamina Watson: 00:30:37
content on a blog or articles written at different times for different
Tamina Watson: 00:30:41
audience— Different. Doesn’t gel and become a book
Tamina Watson: 00:30:45
together. But it really did start the book
Tamina Watson: 00:30:49
authorship journey for me. And eventually, I did have a
Tamina Watson: 00:30:52
publisher initially. It was a well-known VC who had a publishing
Tamina Watson: 00:30:56
company. But they said to me, we’ll write this book. Of course, we’ll publish this
Tamina Watson: 00:31:00
book. Of course, this is right up our alley. But it will be an ebook
Tamina Watson: 00:31:04
only. And I realized, if I’m going to speak to a
Tamina Watson: 00:31:07
senator or a congressperson, I’m going to walk away with the book
Tamina Watson: 00:31:11
in their hands and an ebook is not gonna do it. Nope.
Tamina Watson: 00:31:15
That’s how I became a self-published author. Um, and it really
Tamina Watson: 00:31:19
started my authorship journey. It’s so funny,
Glenn Harper: 00:31:22
entrepreneurs, they’re just like, they, they see opportunity and
Glenn Harper: 00:31:26
instead of going, oh, that looks hard, they’re like, I can do that. I can
Glenn Harper: 00:31:30
do that. Let’s fix that. Let’s do it. Really? I was like, well, how much
Julie Smith: 00:31:32
free time did she really have? She had no free time. Zero. Zero. Zero. And
Glenn Harper: 00:31:36
that’s the cool part about it. And again, it seems
Glenn Harper: 00:31:40
like you get to pick and choose
Glenn Harper: 00:31:44
probably now more than you did before. Not that it would matter, but you get
Glenn Harper: 00:31:47
to pick and choose your clientele to say, man,
Glenn Harper: 00:31:51
this person, man, they got it. I’m going to help them. They are going to
Glenn Harper: 00:31:55
make a difference. They’re here to be the best version of
Glenn Harper: 00:31:59
themselves, to help the country do the things wherever that immigration would be at,
Glenn Harper: 00:32:03
and versus somebody who’s like, hey, I just need to get in and I’m going
Glenn Harper: 00:32:07
to say I’m doing this, but I’m really not. You probably can disintegrate that pretty
Glenn Harper: 00:32:10
quickly when you look at a client, probably, because it’s got to be
Glenn Harper: 00:32:14
rewarding. I’m very lucky at this stage.
Tamina Watson: 00:32:18
People that I want to work with find me, and it’s mutually,
Tamina Watson: 00:32:22
you know, a mutual loving relationship.
Tamina Watson: 00:32:26
Because I say to my clients that we’re a team, you know, your
Tamina Watson: 00:32:30
business, you know your thing, I know the law. And
Tamina Watson: 00:32:36
when that meeting of the mind happens, it
Tamina Watson: 00:32:39
becomes electric in the work that you can do. And
Tamina Watson: 00:32:43
so I, yes, I’m privileged enough to be able to
Tamina Watson: 00:32:47
do that, but I’m also very grateful and lucky that the right people
Tamina Watson: 00:32:51
find me. So did you build a team? Or
Julie Smith: 00:32:55
2008, 2009, at what point do you build a team? Have you built a team?
Julie Smith: 00:32:58
How’d you go about building your team? Well, yeah, I love all the
Tamina Watson: 00:33:02
questions you’re asking because, you know, this is the stuff that people don’t
Tamina Watson: 00:33:06
necessarily know. It’s sort of under the hood. It takes a long
Tamina Watson: 00:33:10
time. Again, nobody teaches you how to be an entrepreneur. And suddenly
Tamina Watson: 00:33:14
you’re like, I’ve got to do payroll. Where is the money coming from? You know,
Tamina Watson: 00:33:18
and whether you pay yourself or not, just like the captain of the ship, you
Tamina Watson: 00:33:21
sink last, you know. And so I initially
Tamina Watson: 00:33:25
had a paralegal with my previous partner, and
Tamina Watson: 00:33:29
that paralegal was full-time. And when I was— when we
Tamina Watson: 00:33:33
became 2 firms, I had that paralegal
Tamina Watson: 00:33:37
for 2 days a week. And one of the things that my ex-partner said to
Tamina Watson: 00:33:41
me was, you eat what you kill. Mm-hmm.
Tamina Watson: 00:33:45
And what was so interesting about that, not that I really understood it, but I
Tamina Watson: 00:33:49
took it to heart, that I’ve got to be out there. I’ve got to be
Tamina Watson: 00:33:53
out there, you know, making sure that people know that I can help them. But
Tamina Watson: 00:33:56
she had 13 years of experience and I had zero. And so
Tamina Watson: 00:34:00
when calls would come in, people would naturally be calling,
Tamina Watson: 00:34:04
wanting to speak with her, but the work didn’t necessarily
Tamina Watson: 00:34:08
trickle down to me. They would— I was bringing the work in, but she was
Tamina Watson: 00:34:12
taking the work. So when I started my own firm, I didn’t
Tamina Watson: 00:34:16
realize how much work was coming in under my name. And
Tamina Watson: 00:34:20
so I had this person for 2 days a week, and I very quickly realized
Tamina Watson: 00:34:23
gosh, I need another day. But I did it very
Tamina Watson: 00:34:27
cautiously. And the ex-partner said, okay, you can have her for 3
Tamina Watson: 00:34:30
days a week, because she obviously realized that the work was not
Tamina Watson: 00:34:34
coming in for her. And when I said, okay, I think I
Tamina Watson: 00:34:38
need her for 4 days a week, and then she put her foot down saying,
Tamina Watson: 00:34:41
no, you can’t. Hmm. So then I was like, what do I do? But I’m
Tamina Watson: 00:34:44
too scared to have somebody else. I’ve got 2 payrolls to do.
Tamina Watson: 00:34:48
And, you know, eventually break through that. And, um, I’m very, very,
Tamina Watson: 00:34:52
very lucky to have some incredible people on my team. We’re
Tamina Watson: 00:34:56
not very big, we’re about 8 or 9, and, um,
Tamina Watson: 00:35:00
I now am using some remote, uh, team members as well.
Tamina Watson: 00:35:05
And so we’re a small but mighty team. And
Tamina Watson: 00:35:08
what’s really important to know is that each of these people are loving
Tamina Watson: 00:35:12
human beings. They love the work that they’re doing.
Tamina Watson: 00:35:16
They really see the impact that the
Tamina Watson: 00:35:20
client is making in the universe. And we
Tamina Watson: 00:35:25
together, we’re dynamite. So I have to know, did you get
Julie Smith: 00:35:29
the paralegal for 4 days a week? Eventually,
Tamina Watson: 00:35:33
she became full-time with me. She’s no, she’s no longer with me
Tamina Watson: 00:35:37
anymore. Life evolves. But yes,
Tamina Watson: 00:35:42
And the entrepreneurship fears don’t ever go away. You know, it’s
Tamina Watson: 00:35:46
just, it’s a different level of fear and a different level of, you know,
Tamina Watson: 00:35:50
insecurities. And, but you push through each time and you do it
Tamina Watson: 00:35:53
anyway and you get to the next level. I think one of the
Tamina Watson: 00:35:57
interesting parts was I had an opportunity to do a radio show.
Tamina Watson: 00:36:01
Everything that I’ve done is I’ve said yes to something scary. Oh, I see. And
Tamina Watson: 00:36:05
one of them was doing a radio show. And it was a
Tamina Watson: 00:36:09
live radio show. And I said to the person, gosh, you know,
Tamina Watson: 00:36:13
I’m just a lawyer. You know, what am I going to do? Mm-hmm.
Tamina Watson: 00:36:17
And he said, no, Tamina, you just tell people what they need to know.
Tamina Watson: 00:36:21
You know, each editor, each person that’s come into my life has sort of shown
Tamina Watson: 00:36:25
me why I’m in— why my voice is important.
Tamina Watson: 00:36:29
But when I was doing the live radio show, I was
Tamina Watson: 00:36:34
petrified. It was so— I was just learning about— I forget what those circles are
Tamina Watson: 00:36:37
called, you know. You know, I was sort of really, really outside of that
Tamina Watson: 00:36:41
zone. And, um, when I
Tamina Watson: 00:36:45
did my first radio show, or the second one, I thought, no, like, I can
Tamina Watson: 00:36:49
do this. I can do this. And I realized I had conquered a huge
Tamina Watson: 00:36:53
fear. Mm-hmm. And that radio show was live for 2 years, which
Tamina Watson: 00:36:57
became my podcast. And then I had a second podcast. And
Tamina Watson: 00:37:00
believe it or not, as life would have it, I’m doing that same live
Tamina Watson: 00:37:04
radio show. It’s a different station that just kicked off last week.
Glenn Harper: 00:37:09
Always say yes, because it’s, it’s never as hard as we think it’s gonna be.
Glenn Harper: 00:37:14
But to your one point about when you’re an entrepreneur, there’s really those
Glenn Harper: 00:37:18
3 core buckets. We, we are like, you’re going to do the
Glenn Harper: 00:37:21
business of being an attorney, but you have to run a business.
Glenn Harper: 00:37:26
That can support being an attorney. And then you have to go grow the
Glenn Harper: 00:37:30
business and be the marketing person to go bring in business. So you have to
Glenn Harper: 00:37:33
do— somebody has to do all 3. And when you first start out, you don’t
Glenn Harper: 00:37:37
know which one. You don’t even know. You think you’re going to just be an
Glenn Harper: 00:37:40
attorney, but it’s like, no, that’s— you end up doing less
Glenn Harper: 00:37:44
attorney work and more running the business and,
Glenn Harper: 00:37:48
you know, making rain than you are doing legal work. probably at some point you
Glenn Harper: 00:37:52
have your team doing all these things. Well, I have to say, the
Tamina Watson: 00:37:56
legal work doesn’t stop. No, it’s there. I mean, at the moment, I’m still
Tamina Watson: 00:38:00
the only lawyer. I’ve had— Oh, geez. Throughout the times,
Tamina Watson: 00:38:04
throughout these years, I’ve had lawyers off and on, and it’s like any
Tamina Watson: 00:38:08
business. So at the moment, I’m the only lawyer, but I do have an
Tamina Watson: 00:38:12
amazing legal team. But what I was going to say
Tamina Watson: 00:38:16
is, Nowadays,
Tamina Watson: 00:38:20
I get bombarded with coaches, like law firm
Tamina Watson: 00:38:24
coaching. And, you know, immigration law is
Tamina Watson: 00:38:28
volatile and controversial. And with any business,
Tamina Watson: 00:38:32
there’s ups and downs. And do you do this or do you
Tamina Watson: 00:38:35
not do this? And I want to say a few years
Tamina Watson: 00:38:39
ago, when I was thinking,
Tamina Watson: 00:38:43
well, how long am I going to do this? Can I do it this way?
Tamina Watson: 00:38:47
I suddenly had to talk to myself and be my own coach
Tamina Watson: 00:38:51
and say, well, I’ve kept a business alive for
Tamina Watson: 00:38:56
18, 19 years. There’s something to be said about that.
Julie Smith: 00:39:00
You can do this. Yeah. Um, and so
Tamina Watson: 00:39:04
am I happy? Success can be defined in so many different ways. It’s what’s your
Tamina Watson: 00:39:08
definition of success? So what is your definition?
Glenn Harper: 00:39:13
I bet I know it, but I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out. You
Tamina Watson: 00:39:17
tell me what you think it is. I know exactly what it is. Your definition
Glenn Harper: 00:39:20
of success, it’s, this is bigger than you. You’re helping other people
Glenn Harper: 00:39:24
achieve people’s— what kind of word is that? You’re helping other people
Glenn Harper: 00:39:29
achieve their dreams. And that’s way more satisfying. Your
Glenn Harper: 00:39:32
dream’s doing just fine, but you’re helping others. And that
Glenn Harper: 00:39:37
is why you do what you do. And that’s the success that you’re having.
Tamina Watson: 00:39:42
You’ve hit it on the nail. And immigration lawyers in this moment are actually
Tamina Watson: 00:39:46
asking the same question of themselves over and over again.
Tamina Watson: 00:39:50
While there are big immigration law firms, a lot of people who do
Tamina Watson: 00:39:54
humanitarian immigration work are often entrepreneurs too.
Tamina Watson: 00:39:58
But the work of immigration law has
Tamina Watson: 00:40:02
never been more stressful. And how do you
Tamina Watson: 00:40:05
sustain yourself in work like this? So I
Tamina Watson: 00:40:10
think in this era of my practice, this era of
Tamina Watson: 00:40:14
my business, it’s become very important to me
Tamina Watson: 00:40:18
to make sure that I am happy in my heart and my
Tamina Watson: 00:40:22
soul. And I can do this, as
Tamina Watson: 00:40:26
stressful as it is, I can continue to do this with love. But you’ve
Tamina Watson: 00:40:30
got to inject love in yourself, otherwise you can’t do that. And how
Tamina Watson: 00:40:34
do you do that? You’ve got to find it. It’s not just by picking an
Tamina Watson: 00:40:38
apple from a tree. That’s not how it happens. It’s a journey. And
Tamina Watson: 00:40:42
I’ve been on that journey, and my journey has led me to birding, bird
Tamina Watson: 00:40:46
photography. And it’s the thing that keeps me
Tamina Watson: 00:40:50
sane and keeps me alive
Tamina Watson: 00:40:54
and excited and curious. And because I have
Tamina Watson: 00:40:58
something that’s not purely work anymore, I
Tamina Watson: 00:41:02
mean, again, I don’t have a lot of spare time, but I, I can
Tamina Watson: 00:41:06
inject those moments in it that allows me to do this stressful
Tamina Watson: 00:41:10
work and sort of figure out how to keep doing it.
Glenn Harper: 00:41:14
Can I ask you a question? So if in everybody’s
Glenn Harper: 00:41:18
career, whatever that is and whatever their business is, the, the stress,
Glenn Harper: 00:41:22
Like, would you mind sharing with me
Glenn Harper: 00:41:26
what is the stress that you’re under? What is
Glenn Harper: 00:41:30
causing you the stress? Is it because you want to do very well
Glenn Harper: 00:41:34
for your client because you inherit their burden and you’re trying to solve for
Glenn Harper: 00:41:38
that? Is it because the rules are changing? You don’t want to lose your
Glenn Harper: 00:41:42
business. What is the stress that’s causing you the most stress? What is that
Glenn Harper: 00:41:46
thing? Have you defined it? Identify the issue. Yeah. All of those
Tamina Watson: 00:41:50
things. And what I will say is, no matter what kind of business you
Tamina Watson: 00:41:54
run, you have that, Justice Ibrahim. 100%. And, but in
Tamina Watson: 00:41:58
the immigration lawyering field,
Tamina Watson: 00:42:03
it is the burden of, it’s somebody’s livelihood or their loved ones. So
Tamina Watson: 00:42:07
the pressure is beyond high.
Tamina Watson: 00:42:11
And the, the expectation and the
Tamina Watson: 00:42:15
responsibility is very heavy.
Julie Smith: 00:42:20
If you— that’s on a good day. Mm-hmm. And when the rules are
Tamina Watson: 00:42:24
changing on you overnight, and you don’t know what to expect tomorrow, and how
Tamina Watson: 00:42:28
you’re going to be navigating that, and how that’s impacting your clients,
Tamina Watson: 00:42:34
it brings another element of stress. And
Tamina Watson: 00:42:38
just an example, these are people who are running businesses. So, just an
Tamina Watson: 00:42:42
example of, you know, there’s a— there was a
Tamina Watson: 00:42:46
new fee of $100,000 on H-1Bs. I don’t know if you are aware
Tamina Watson: 00:42:50
of it earlier this year. I don’t know. And suddenly, whether
Tamina Watson: 00:42:54
you’re the owner of the business who needs the H-1B or you’re
Tamina Watson: 00:42:58
hiring people, you now have limitations. And that is
Tamina Watson: 00:43:02
impacting the bottom line of your business because you can’t serve your customers.
Tamina Watson: 00:43:06
But just a story of a, you know, just ongoing,
Tamina Watson: 00:43:10
this $100,000 on again, off again
Tamina Watson: 00:43:14
is making the CEO think
Tamina Watson: 00:43:18
about decisions of, am I filing? Am I not filing? Can I file
Tamina Watson: 00:43:22
this this way? Can I not file it this way? 2 weeks ago, we made
Tamina Watson: 00:43:26
a decision based on the $100,000 being on again, and now we
Tamina Watson: 00:43:30
have to pivot because it’s off again. And this is
Tamina Watson: 00:43:34
somebody else’s business where they have employees who also need payroll. You know,
Tamina Watson: 00:43:38
so the pressure is, is pretty high.
Tamina Watson: 00:43:45
And up until I found bird photography, um, I,
Tamina Watson: 00:43:49
I didn’t have a way to relieve the stress. And the—
Tamina Watson: 00:43:53
especially during the COVID years when immigration was pretty
Tamina Watson: 00:43:58
evolving with, with the, with the times, but also now
Tamina Watson: 00:44:02
you’ve got COVID. Oh yeah. So there were procedural lockdowns.
Tamina Watson: 00:44:08
It was probably the height of the stress. And you have to think
Tamina Watson: 00:44:11
about, you know, obviously I’ve thought about closing my
Tamina Watson: 00:44:15
law firm down too. You know, it’s like you’re very much at that peak
Tamina Watson: 00:44:19
of like, what am I going to do? And
Tamina Watson: 00:44:24
all of those are stressful. I think though, like from my standpoint, and
Julie Smith: 00:44:28
again, this is the woman’s viewpoint over here, You’re a feeler.
Julie Smith: 00:44:32
And I think you feel every single person’s burden,
Julie Smith: 00:44:36
love, complication, whatever it is that walks through the door,
Julie Smith: 00:44:40
you feel it and you own it. And I think if I could tie
Julie Smith: 00:44:44
a ribbon on it, that’s your stress. Yeah. And
Julie Smith: 00:44:48
the stress is you feel when it change— the law changes because
Julie Smith: 00:44:52
they feel that. And I think the birds bring you peace because they’re
Julie Smith: 00:44:56
just out there flying and being peaceful. And they’re not feeling the stress that you’re
Julie Smith: 00:45:00
feeling, right? If I could like connect the dots, tie the bow, whatever that is,
Julie Smith: 00:45:03
I just think you, you’re a feeler and, and that’s
Julie Smith: 00:45:07
what it comes down to. You’re not a transactional. At the big firms, everybody’s just
Glenn Harper: 00:45:10
a number. They don’t care, but you care. That’s the bird you’re carrying. And we
Glenn Harper: 00:45:14
know this because when we deal with our clientele, it’s a very personal level
Glenn Harper: 00:45:18
that you want to do well for them and you inherit all their problems and
Glenn Harper: 00:45:21
all their opportunities and you feel responsible. You’re not, but you feel that way
Glenn Harper: 00:45:25
for it. But it— you’re just not a transactional person. You, you
Glenn Harper: 00:45:29
deeply want to help them, and that is a hell of a burden to carry.
Glenn Harper: 00:45:33
So who knew birds could be the thing? Thank God you found a thing. Um,
Glenn Harper: 00:45:38
but if you stop caring, you won’t be an effective attorney as you are,
Glenn Harper: 00:45:41
because then you’re just going to— why would you even do it then? Because you
Glenn Harper: 00:45:44
don’t have a passion for it. So true. There have
Tamina Watson: 00:45:48
been times where I said I wish I could care less, but I simply
Tamina Watson: 00:45:52
cannot. I simply cannot. That’s not the way it’s going to be. Welcome to being
Glenn Harper: 00:45:56
an entrepreneur that you care about your clients. Good luck with that. We tell everybody.
Glenn Harper: 00:46:01
Um, well, you know, it’s, it’s funny too. Um, you know, I
Glenn Harper: 00:46:05
just, I wanted to go on a side note because immigration worldwide
Glenn Harper: 00:46:09
is such a whatever it is these days. And it
Glenn Harper: 00:46:13
seems like it’s really, There’s,
Glenn Harper: 00:46:17
it’s either nationalism or the globalism,
Glenn Harper: 00:46:21
like either it’s opportunity or culture. And we’re fighting this
Glenn Harper: 00:46:25
war between the different countries, different cultures of who should do
Glenn Harper: 00:46:29
what, where, and how. And it doesn’t matter what side you’re on.
Glenn Harper: 00:46:33
There’s just this massive war with these 2
Glenn Harper: 00:46:36
things. I don’t know the right answer. It’s way beyond my
Glenn Harper: 00:46:39
skillset. But you’re kind of stuck in the middle of that where
Glenn Harper: 00:46:44
it doesn’t matter. You’re just trying to do this task and help this person in
Glenn Harper: 00:46:48
the current law to do this thing. You believe it to be true and you’re
Glenn Harper: 00:46:50
doing it, but you’re probably catching heat from all over because
Glenn Harper: 00:46:55
they don’t even— I mean, it’s not even fair that they’re getting heat for that
Glenn Harper: 00:46:58
because you’re just trying to do this thing that’s in the law that you’re trying
Glenn Harper: 00:47:02
to not exploit, but you’re trying to help somebody out. But that would be, I
Glenn Harper: 00:47:05
think, a very hard thing to do. Again, for me, people hate the
Glenn Harper: 00:47:09
IRS, so they blame me. Well, I’m not the person making the tax law. I’m
Glenn Harper: 00:47:13
just helping you trying to figure it out. Right. Um, but you probably feel a
Glenn Harper: 00:47:16
little bit of that, correct? That it’s not just the pressure of the person, it’s
Glenn Harper: 00:47:20
everything. For sure. And I, I,
Tamina Watson: 00:47:24
this, this, um, year or 2025, the
Tamina Watson: 00:47:28
legal profession in general has felt a lot of pressure,
Tamina Watson: 00:47:32
um, in just in, in, the rule of law, you know, being
Tamina Watson: 00:47:36
attacked. And so the legal system and the
Tamina Watson: 00:47:40
legal profession itself has felt it. So
Tamina Watson: 00:47:44
I feel it from that perspective, um, when the rules are
Tamina Watson: 00:47:48
changing and I’m trying to figure out what to do
Tamina Watson: 00:47:52
for clients and all of those things, that, that’s it. But
Tamina Watson: 00:47:56
you can’t help but also think about the bigger picture of the world.
Tamina Watson: 00:48:00
And exactly what you just said, and add to that the wildfires
Tamina Watson: 00:48:04
that are around the world happening in Europe, not just the US.
Tamina Watson: 00:48:08
There is a huge displacement of human beings. What
Tamina Watson: 00:48:12
we really need is a world solution to immigration.
Tamina Watson: 00:48:17
And, you know, it’s, it’s beyond me at this point.
Julie Smith: 00:48:21
Mm-hmm. I hope people who are going to the World Economic
Tamina Watson: 00:48:25
Forum are thinking about it and coming to conclusions and ideas
Tamina Watson: 00:48:29
that they can put out there, but we’re all human beings, we’re all
Tamina Watson: 00:48:32
connected. How do we, how do we find ways that
Tamina Watson: 00:48:36
everybody can be served? And, you
Tamina Watson: 00:48:40
know, there are ideas about, well, if you’re displaced from this country but this country
Tamina Watson: 00:48:44
needs this type of workers, why don’t we find a way to solve that? I
Tamina Watson: 00:48:48
mean, you know, the age-old
Tamina Watson: 00:48:52
discussion that’s happened in the United States about immigration reform is Who’s
Tamina Watson: 00:48:56
picking our apples? Who’s, who’s doing all the agriculture work?
Tamina Watson: 00:48:59
Who’s, who’s actually serving the people who
Tamina Watson: 00:49:03
need home care, healthcare, you know, nurses?
Tamina Watson: 00:49:08
There’s a, it’s much bigger than
Tamina Watson: 00:49:12
just running a law firm. And ultimately,
Glenn Harper: 00:49:16
you know, the only way we can navigate this as entrepreneurs and just
Glenn Harper: 00:49:20
humans is we can only control what we can control. And all those
Glenn Harper: 00:49:24
things, as stressful as they are, that’s beyond my
Glenn Harper: 00:49:28
skillset. I’ve got to focus on this task at hand. Going to be a good
Glenn Harper: 00:49:31
spouse, be a good parent, could be a good employer,
Glenn Harper: 00:49:35
take care of your clients and take awesome pictures of birds.
Glenn Harper: 00:49:39
That’s all you can control. Everything else, you can’t do anything with that.
Tamina Watson: 00:49:43
And it takes a long time to learn that though. To take in the pictures
Glenn Harper: 00:49:47
of birds? Yeah, I know. That’s hard. Well, no, I think the
Tamina Watson: 00:49:51
nothing is in your control realization
Tamina Watson: 00:49:55
takes a long time to really sort of land.
Tamina Watson: 00:49:59
Because when you’re an entrepreneur, you feel like you can fix
Tamina Watson: 00:50:02
things. You can go out there and talk about it. You can go and convince
Tamina Watson: 00:50:06
somebody else. But you realize
Tamina Watson: 00:50:12
nothing is in your control. Be happy with the little bit that you
Tamina Watson: 00:50:15
could do. And just live your life in the way that, you know, is
Tamina Watson: 00:50:19
in the highest good of the people around you. But it takes a long time
Tamina Watson: 00:50:23
to come to that realization. Well, you’ve learned, you said one thing earlier, and again,
Glenn Harper: 00:50:27
I was making fun of this bird because it’s such a true thing. It is
Glenn Harper: 00:50:30
so relaxing because as an entrepreneur, you’re just full throttle,
Glenn Harper: 00:50:34
go, go, go 24/7. Your body, our body’s not made
Glenn Harper: 00:50:38
to that. We’re made to peak and relax, peak and relax. We’re not
Glenn Harper: 00:50:42
made to go steady, right? We like to peak and going down. And
Glenn Harper: 00:50:46
you can’t go full tilt all the time. It just doesn’t work. And so having
Glenn Harper: 00:50:49
that outlet where you can now realize this and maybe step back and maybe you
Glenn Harper: 00:50:53
can make that peak not so high and not so long, that would be ideal.
Glenn Harper: 00:50:57
But, uh, you can’t— you’re so good at what you do. I can’t imagine stopping
Glenn Harper: 00:51:01
it. Wait, don’t take away from my question. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Go
Glenn Harper: 00:51:05
ahead. Oh yeah, you’re up. You’re up. This is your part now. So we have
Julie Smith: 00:51:08
one more question and it’s the hardest question of the whole podcast.
Julie Smith: 00:51:12
But what is your endgame?
Julie Smith: 00:51:16
Boom. You know, I think about that a
Tamina Watson: 00:51:20
lot. You know, I
Tamina Watson: 00:51:24
always thought immigration was my one and only
Tamina Watson: 00:51:26
passion in what I wanted to do.
Tamina Watson: 00:51:31
But bird photography has opened up
Tamina Watson: 00:51:35
a life that I didn’t know I could have. And
Tamina Watson: 00:51:39
I used to say no to a lot of international speaking
Tamina Watson: 00:51:42
opportunities. My kids are little— I mean, now they’re teenagers, but
Tamina Watson: 00:51:46
I was avoiding it. Once I found photography, I was
Tamina Watson: 00:51:50
like, you know, invite me to speak in your country. I’ll go and tell you
Tamina Watson: 00:51:54
everything you need to know about U.S. immigration law, and I’ll bring the birds
Tamina Watson: 00:51:58
back and share them everywhere. That has
Tamina Watson: 00:52:02
become true. And I now make coloring books out of
Tamina Watson: 00:52:06
my photography. The series is called Color Your Joy.
Tamina Watson: 00:52:10
And my new dream is to have a coloring book
Tamina Watson: 00:52:14
for every state and every country I visit, so my bird
Tamina Watson: 00:52:18
photography can convert that way. So I would love to
Tamina Watson: 00:52:22
continue to figure out how I do maybe a little bit more of birding and
Tamina Watson: 00:52:26
a little bit less of law. I don’t know if that will happen, but— My
Tamina Watson: 00:52:29
endgame is to figure out how to do them both and keep them combined.
Tamina Watson: 00:52:33
I have become a board member of the American Birding
Tamina Watson: 00:52:37
Association. I don’t know how that happened. I said, yeah, initially I thought
Tamina Watson: 00:52:41
it was a joke. And then I got an invitation to be on another
Tamina Watson: 00:52:45
birding organization board. And they said to me— I said, how
Tamina Watson: 00:52:49
did you even find me? I’m a relatively new birder. And they said, well, we’re
Tamina Watson: 00:52:53
just searching for lawyers and birders, and you’re the only one who keeps coming up.
Tamina Watson: 00:52:58
So, um, I don’t know. I’m following the journey of life
Tamina Watson: 00:53:02
and I’m trying to make sure that I keep joy
Tamina Watson: 00:53:06
and love as my north star in whatever I do.
Tamina Watson: 00:53:10
And I’ll keep going that way. You answered it perfectly.
Julie Smith: 00:53:15
There is no endgame. You’re just on the journey. You’re just gonna keep going.
Glenn Harper: 00:53:20
You know, it’s funny, everybody has to do their entrepreneurial journey to support all
Glenn Harper: 00:53:23
the other cool stuff that it opens up for them to do. Because if you
Glenn Harper: 00:53:26
had like a real job, and you would go in and go to do it
Glenn Harper: 00:53:30
and check out, you wouldn’t have such a high or such a low.
Glenn Harper: 00:53:35
You probably wouldn’t do birding. You’d probably do something else and you wouldn’t
Glenn Harper: 00:53:39
really find your true passion because you’re not pushed to go find it.
Glenn Harper: 00:53:42
So if we, we call that an enabler, when you’re an entrepreneur, it enables you
Glenn Harper: 00:53:46
to do these other things that are way outside. You never would probably, you probably
Glenn Harper: 00:53:49
would never have done birding if you weren’t doing what you’re doing today. I love
Tamina Watson: 00:53:53
it. You know, it’s such an aha moment for me. I did. I don’t know
Tamina Watson: 00:53:57
if I would’ve thought about it that way, but it’s— you guys have the
Tamina Watson: 00:54:01
entrepreneurship stuff like really nailed down. And
Julie Smith: 00:54:04
we’re just winging it. Don’t, don’t, don’t be fooled over there. This is so much
Glenn Harper: 00:54:08
fun. I don’t believe it. It’s so much fun. Well, we
Glenn Harper: 00:54:12
can’t thank you enough for being on our show. I don’t know if you wanna
Glenn Harper: 00:54:15
give a, a plug to your company and book or what, and your podcast for
Glenn Harper: 00:54:18
listeners. The coloring books. Yeah, the coloring books would be great. Oh my gosh. Thank
Tamina Watson: 00:54:21
you for the opportunity to speak. Speak about this. I don’t always get to talk
Tamina Watson: 00:54:24
about the journey of, of all that we chatted about.
Tamina Watson: 00:54:28
My law firm is watsonimmigrationlaw.com. If people are
Tamina Watson: 00:54:32
trying to start companies, investing in companies, um, trying to
Tamina Watson: 00:54:36
hire their, you know, employees and growing, expanding into the
Tamina Watson: 00:54:40
US, I’m your woman for that. Um, if you want to talk birds,
Tamina Watson: 00:54:44
I can talk your ear off. Um, you can find a lot of my writing,
Tamina Watson: 00:54:47
uh, at my author website. That’s
Tamina Watson: 00:54:50
taminawatson.com. If you wanted to feast your eyes
Tamina Watson: 00:54:54
on beautiful colorful birds, my photography website is
Tamina Watson: 00:54:58
tamina-watson.pixels.com.
Tamina Watson: 00:55:04
But taminawatson.com will have everything. And, you know, I will just
Tamina Watson: 00:55:08
leave people with the fact that wellness is a really
Tamina Watson: 00:55:11
important part of entrepreneurship, but you don’t get to
Tamina Watson: 00:55:15
think about it until you’re on your knees. Because you really just keep going and
Tamina Watson: 00:55:19
going and going until you realize you can’t get up anymore. And then you’re forced
Tamina Watson: 00:55:23
to find something. And that’s how birding came to my life. And now I’m a
Tamina Watson: 00:55:26
big advocate for finding joy. The trick
Glenn Harper: 00:55:30
question, do you know what the Ohio State bird is?
Tamina Watson: 00:55:36
Goldfinch? Cardinal. Cardinal. No, I didn’t know
Tamina Watson: 00:55:39
that. Well, you won’t forget it now. You won’t forget. And our, the famous bird
Glenn Harper: 00:55:43
is the snipe. If you ever look at that, we’ve got that in Ohio, snipe
Glenn Harper: 00:55:47
hunting. So yes. So that’d be fun. Well, thank you. Well,
Glenn Harper: 00:55:51
Tamina, thanks again for being on the show. Always appreciate a great guest. And I
Glenn Harper: 00:55:54
hope this was helpful for you, for you as it was for us. Again, thank
Glenn Harper: 00:55:57
you all for joining us on the Empowering Entrepreneurs Podcast. I’m Glenn Harper. Julie
Julie Smith: 00:56:01
Smith.
