Settlement Nation Episode 4: Megan Hottman

This episode of Settlement Nation we chat with with Megan Hottman, a powerhouse health and wellness advocate, cycling enthusiast, podcast host, and attorney out of Golden, Colorado.

Megan shares her insights on running a successful practice while maintaining balance. We cover how she became “The Cyclist Lawyer“, tips to increase your personal energy levels and presentation in and out of the courtroom and what it was like to be featured on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel”. We also speak about the challenges she has faced and overcome, not only as trial lawyer, but as a female entrepreneur.

Courtney Barber:

Welcome to Settlement Nation. I am Courtney Barber, and I’m joined today by a very special guest, The Cyclist Lawyer, Megan Hottman. Now, Megan is based out of Golden, Colorado and has her own firm since she was actually 29 years old. This is also while she was racing three Ironman Triathlons, she coaches other attorneys on health and wellness and is a huge educator and advocate for safer cycling. Now, this is also while she rides hundreds of miles every week, and she does this without any coffee at all, which is amazing. So welcome, Megan.

Megan Hottman:

Hi Courtney. That’s quite an intro. Thank you for that.

Courtney Barber:

Listen, this is the condensed intro. There’s so much amazing information about you. I was like, “What can I actually include?” But I’m lucky we have a whole episode to get through all these amazing things about your background. So we’re going to jump straight into it. You did just mention you did a big bike ride yesterday. Just tell people a little bit about how many miles you rode yesterday, which is for us crazy, and for you is a normal day at the office.

Megan Hottman:

Yesterday actually was pretty exceptional. I am in Salida, Colorado right now, and I have always wanted to mountain bike the Monarch Crest, which is one of the top five mountain bike rides in the state of Colorado. I’m demoing a full suspension mountain bike, which is just a more capable tool for the job. The trail is a one directional. You start at the top of Monarch Pass and then you ride and end up down in the town of Salida. Most people will take a shuttle up the mountain to start the ride. I think you know where I’m going with this.

Courtney Barber:

I do.

Megan Hottman:

So yeah. I was the crazy girl on the full suspension mountain bike riding up the mountain path. I rode up Monarch Pass to the start, and then we mountain biked the Monarch Crest Trail. It was a phenomenal day. It’s high altitude riding. We start at like 10,000 feet above sea level. We climb up to 12,000 feet and then it’s just all this amazing single track and gorgeous blue skies and fresh air and just all the things that light my heart on fire.

Courtney Barber:

You can definitely tell, for everyone who will soon to get to know Megan very well, she has some of the best energy of anyone I’ve ever met. This is why we wanted to have her. But on that note, you are The Cyclist Lawyer, that’s basically your trademark. How did you decide that you’re going to focus your practice on representing cyclists?

Megan Hottman:

Cool question. The short answer is that I needed to start my own practice to free up my schedule so that I could train and race. The law firm where I was working as an associate fairly soon out of law school, of course, just as an associate, you’re expected to put in a certain schedule, a certain number of hours. It was just not allowing me to do what I wanted to do and the goals I wanted to chase on my bike. At the time, I was racing road cycling and I was super top level, and then was also racing on the velodrome track racing. I was racing world cups, and doing that all over the place and all over the world.

Megan Hottman:

Melbourne was one of the world cups that I raced actually, and Cali, Columbia, and Manchester. Anyway, I just needed more time. But while I was working for that law firm, a woman that I raced bikes against had actually been hit by a car and she’d approached me at a bike race and said, “I know you’re a lawyer. I have no idea what you do, but is there any way you could help me with this?” So I had gone to my boss at the law firm and said, “Hey, could we sign up her case?” He was thrilled that I was making rain, so he said, “Sure.” So we signed up her case.

Megan Hottman:

I truly realized that if I was going to practice law, that’s what it would need to look like for me, which is that I was working on something that I cared super strongly about and I was representing people that I understood and also care deeply about. So when I decided to strike out on my own, I decided that’s the type of case I would focus on. Optimistically, I did not think that it could be the extent of my practice or the exclusive type of law. I figured I’d have to add other things to the practice and much to my chagrin and pleasure and joy, I have been able to sustain the practice for over a decade on exclusive bike cases. The reason it’s called The Cyclist Lawyer is simply because I was a cyclist, and I was a lawyer, and I was a lawyer for cyclists. So I trademarked myself and set up the website as thecyclist-lawyer.com.

Courtney Barber:

That’s amazing. Above all this other stuff that you do in terms of looking after your clients and all your activities and your personal time, you’re a big advocate for safer cycling, not only in Colorado, but across the US. When I saw you last time, you just come from presenting to law enforcement about cycling rights. Tell everyone a little bit more about that and what you hope to achieve in the future with this.

Megan Hottman:

Sure. So it’s basically the part of my practice where I don’t get paid and I feel like I’m having the biggest impact, if you will. As a civil attorney, I am frequently suing drivers who hit cyclists, and more commonly, the driver’s insurance company. While the pursuit of monetary reimbursement for injuries, damages, and losses for the cyclist is incredibly important, it does not change the landscape in any way with respect to the way that motorists treat cyclists on the roadways here in the US. Early in my practice, we start the case with the police report and the police are on scene and they’re investigating the collision. Oftentimes, that’s the only time that you have those witnesses present, or you have the evidence exactly as it is.

Megan Hottman:

I started to see lot of mistakes being made by law enforcement in their police reports. They weren’t even correctly interpreting the laws that we had on the books. They were bending over backwards, it felt like, to actually find the cyclist at fault, like no matter what, somehow the cyclist contributed. So it was really a fork in the road because I thought, “Well, I can either burn these guys in the media and I can make a big thing about how they’re doing this badly, or I can start offering to train officers.” I went with the latter and really, it took one specific commander, SWAT commander, in Boulder County to take a risk on me and bring me in to teach his entire department, because usually law enforcement doesn’t exactly like having lawyers, private counsel, private attorneys coming in to teach them anything.

Megan Hottman:

I’m super objective. I’m the type of person who says, “Listen, the cyclist, they ran a stop sign. So yeah, they were at fault.” I’m not going to go overboard and try to make the cyclist innocent if they weren’t. So my objectivity is what won law enforcement over. So with the start of that office, it became a thing where all of the offices here in the front range in Colorado hired me to do their inservices, which really, I think overall, made cycling a lot safer because we got law enforcement on board with what the laws actually say and why they say them and what motorists are expected to do and we really saw a shift in citations being appropriately issued to motorists.

Megan Hottman:

If you can imagine, that starts the entire case off on a much stronger footing, not just for the civil case, but then there’s also the traffic case against the driver as a result of that ticket. What we’re usually trying to do is have these drivers have to do some substantial community service or even losing their driver’s license for a period of time so that we can reinforce over and over again, you have got to drive carefully in the presence of cyclists. Especially here in Colorado, we hold ourselves out as a cycling mecca. Our motorists need to drive carefully. There’s lives on the line, and we want people riding bikes. It makes the world a better place so we need drivers driving more carefully, so that cyclists feel safe.

Courtney Barber:

Right. I think some of the reviews that I did read from law enforcement online, because I did a nice deep dive on you to find out all this great information was some of the comments they had actually made saying, “It was one of the best and most informative and educational talks that they’d actually come to.” Saying “It is objective, you’re going there and teaching them so that they can do their jobs better.” And in the end, it does help everyone. So I think that’s a testament to yourself as well. It’s not just one sided. You show all sides so that everyone can rise together, which is great.

Megan Hottman:

Totally. Totally.

Courtney Barber:

We’re going to switch gears a little bit here. We’re going to get into your health and fitness because clearly this is a big priority for you. Your firm and yourself, it’s all trademarked about cycling, but how have you taken, even apart from cycling, just your own wellness practice into your daily life and how has that benefited you not only personally, but as a lawyer?

Megan Hottman:

So I will answer that question by starting with when I was a law clerk out of law school. So I discovered bike racing when I was in law school. I was a runner before that. So ran marathons, but really truly found cycling my third year of law school and it completely caught me by surprise how much I loved it and the goals that I ended up having. So in order to have time to race my bike right out of law school, I took a job with a judge, which is a really great opportunity. It doesn’t pay very well, but it was only a 40 hour work week, so I could keep racing my bike. So I sat beside the judge and I watched all these lawyers come through our courtroom day after day after day after day.

Megan Hottman:

I was consistently struck with the stark and noticeable difference between those who clearly cared for themselves. Exercise, got fresh air, didn’t smoke, ate healthy foods. They didn’t have to be an exercise fiend, but they were at least taking care of themselves compared to the lawyers who were treating themselves like a disposable object, who were just doing all the things that we know are bad for us top to bottom. Interestingly, I was very surprised to find that people were still smoking in their offices in the courthouse when I worked there.

Courtney Barber:

Oh no.

Megan Hottman:

That was awful, awful, awful. So I actually went on a big crusade to get smoking banned. We’re not talking that long ago, this was 2004 to 2006 when smoking should definitely have not been part of the landscape inside of a courthouse. Then that was in Kansas City and then I moved on to a second judicial clerkship in Golden, Colorado. Again I was struck by the difference between district attorneys who clearly got up and ran before work and private counsel who clearly had gone skiing over the weekend, had a little color in their face, had that outdoor zen vibe versus the lawyers you could tell who just were always on their computers, were eating garbage food, were sitting too much, were not moving enough. They just were destroying themselves and oftentimes, they were blaming it on the profession. Like, “Oh, I’m so out of shape because I work so much.”

Megan Hottman:

So you watch hundreds, if not thousands of lawyers this way, and you start to look at how the juries are responding to them and you start to look at how even the judge is responding to them. Just the way that people behave in the presence of those who take care of themselves and those who don’t. I can’t say at the time that I really made this connection, but it has definitely come and become super apparent to me as I’ve been in the practice of law and as I’ve encountered other lawyers. Truly feeling like I have an advantage in the ring, simply because I show up taking care of myself. To the extent that I think lawyers actually leave money on the table when they show up in a public venue like that, not having cared for themselves. Especially in personal injury, I believe that our secret weapon for our clients really is us.

Megan Hottman:

So if we aren’t caring for ourselves, and sadly, in the profession of law, alcoholism and drug abuse and just ways of numbing out and trying to avoid the stress are really common. We do our clients a disservice when we get into those types of behaviors and patterns, because we’re not showing up our best self. Health is a top priority of mine anyway, because I want to live my best life possible and I don’t think I can do that without good sleep and exercise and good food. But certainly within the context of the practice of law, I feel like I do my clients the best possible service I can because I show up 100% ready to go in the ring and knowing that I’ve got the endurance to last and that my mental and physical acuity and strength is an asset to the equation.

Courtney Barber:

I love that. This is something that I’ve witnessed as well and I’m sure you have at the training events that we met at and looking at other attorneys, sometimes there’s a hundred attorneys in the room and you can really see the big difference between the ones that have been up early in the morning, they’ve worked out, they’ve come to the training, they’re drinking water. They’re looking after themselves, they’re drinking tea. And then the other ones who obviously didn’t get enough sleep the night before, because of that come in late, they’re looking for coffee, they’re eating whatever’s available, bad food. Then you see about two o’clock, they’re nearly asleep. They can’t perform for the rest of the day, let alone meet other people, and network, and work with each other in cases. So I think that definitely lends to what you were saying about showing up your best self. It’s not just for yourself, it’s also for the client as well.

Megan Hottman:

Yeah. To your point earlier, you complimented me on my energy, which by the way, I can’t think of a more top level compliment to be paid. So thank you for that. But if you think about when you walk into a room at a conference like that, we are naturally drawn to certain people’s energy, and never is it the person who’s hung over and eating the garbage breakfast. They are not emanating the energy that you are just going to naturally gravitate towards. It is going to be the person that got up early, exercised, and is drinking water, like you said, and is still going strong at two and three and four in the afternoon. By the way, the juries react to the same exact way. It’s just a different energetic pole. It’s like a gravitational force that you just can’t look away.

Megan Hottman:

You’re just captivated by this person who’s just radiating energy. That’s what I want when I’m in the arena for my clients. The last thing I want is the lawyer, the jury to say, “This woman is disheveled. She she can’t get her words out of her mouth. She is distracted. I mean, she’s falling asleep at the counsel table.” That would be my worst nightmare. Health is definitely a priority, not just for my own self, but because of my belief that we do better work for our clients when we’re healthy.

Courtney Barber:

Absolutely. Leading on from that, and this is my favorite question to ask people because I love mornings and I love routines. I love knowing how people set themselves up for success. So with you, tell everyone a little bit about your daily routine. What do you do as a ritual, or you make sure that there’s certain non-negotiable things in your day that you do to make sure you’re feeling the best that you possibly can?

Megan Hottman:

I have a pretty strict morning routine and it has been the strict, consistent routine for the last couple of years. So I quit drinking alcohol back at the end of 2017. Once I got that numbing behavior out of my life and really started to get clear on what the day looks like when I’m not tuned out for some reason or hung over or whatever, I really started to embrace the power of how you start your day. Books like Own the Day, Own Your Life by Aubrey Marcus or Game Changers by Dave Asprey. You start to look at these people and you say, “They all have this one thing in common, which is this incredibly strict and repeatable morning routine and they do it pretty much without fail every morning.”

Megan Hottman:

So my routine is that I get up first thing and I drink a bunch of water while my dogs are eating. That’s because we dehydrate at night, especially up here in altitude. So I rehydrate with a bunch of water, and then I immediately take my dogs for a walk. It doesn’t matter what the weather is. That’s what I do. It’s 10 to 15 minutes, brisk walking, no cell phone, no headphones, no sunglasses. One of the things I’ve read is if you want to keep your circadian rhythms on track, you actually want to expose your eyeballs to some natural sunlight first thing in the morning. So I don’t wear sunglasses and get out for a quick clip with the dogs.

Megan Hottman:

Then I come back, and then that’s usually when I make my coffee. Something that I changed this year, back in March, is I gave up regular coffee and I’ve switched to decaf. I still have my morning routine around the making of the coffee, but I don’t have the caffeine. What I’ve noticed is that I’m able to start my day with just the natural energy that I have from sleeping well. I don’t add a bunch of gasoline to the fire whereas the coffee was actually making me really jittery and spastic the first half of the day. Then usually, I will pack a healthy lunch and oftentimes, if I am actually going to the office like pre-COVID times, I would get on my bike and ride to work. Nowadays, it’s more of sitting outside and working from home, which is just a total blessing for me.

Courtney Barber:

That is so great. You don’t need any extra energy. If anything, if you could share some energy with all of us, that would be great. I haven’t been able to give up my morning coffee yet, but it’s down to one, which is way better than it used to be.

Megan Hottman:

Good for you. Yeah.

Courtney Barber:

So switching gears a little bit, we want to talk about the fact that you are a bit of a local celebrity in Colorado. You’ve been featured in numerous publications, one named you Colorado’s Top Resident Badass, which I think is great. I mean, what better compliment? That was Elevation Outdoors magazine. You were also interviewed on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, which I’ve watched that program before. I’ve seen a lot of different sports people on there. That’s certainly an honor and something that I think you should be very proud of, and I’m sure you are. How did this all come about? And what was it like for you when they contacted you and said, “Hey, we want you to be on the show?”

Megan Hottman:

So I started the firm in 2010 and kind of winded down my bike racing aspirations. I just kept getting hurt and such late 2011, really focused on my practice in 2012 when things started to really take off. In 2015, Outside magazine reached out to me, this writer named Andrew Tillman, and he said, “We’d like to do a big spread about you and your practice. We think what you’re doing is really great.” I was just over the moon about that. Andrew flew to Colorado from Texas and spent some time with me at my office. We did some bike rides, got to really know him. We became friends and he did this four page spread on me in Outside magazine in the print magazine, which came out in late 2015. He might’ve actually contacted me in 2014. It took a while for the article to come out.

Megan Hottman:

Basically as soon as that article hit the stands, wow. That was incredible. The flood gates opened. That’s when Bryant Gumbel’s team called me and said, “We’d like to fly out to San Francisco to have you on the show.” That was an incredible honor. Again, it comes back to the objectivity that I brought. So I was equally applying pressure to cyclists, to follow the rules and to be responsible for their conduct on their bike, as I was demanding that motorists do better. That’s really what captured both Outside and HBO’s attention was, “This isn’t some cycling advocate who’s so into the Kool-Aid that she can’t see the role that cyclists’ mistakes are playing.” So a lot of the questions in the content in both of those was really directed towards, what can both road user groups do to be better? Yes, of course, huge opportunity career highlights to be in Outside magazine and on HBO Real Sports, for sure.

Courtney Barber:

That’s amazing. It is a real testament to you that you have such a big reach, not only in the trial or lawyer community, but in the sporting world. We’re going to talk a little bit now back to your lawyer hat, I guess we’ll say.

Megan Hottman:

Sure.

Courtney Barber:

Tell us a little bit about the most interesting case that you’ve worked on.

Megan Hottman:

Honestly. So in a nutshell, what I focus on is cycling injury cases. So typically, it’s a cyclist who’s been hit by a motorist and I do them all over the country. Especially in the states where I’m licensed, that’s where the bulk of my work comes from. They’re all interesting in their own right. I myself was hit by a car in a bike lane last May and I had the unfortunate opportunity to really fully appreciate what my clients go through when they are hit by a car. I guess, just for recency as well as what came out of that, I’ll use my own case as the most interesting case, even though I feel like they’re all really interesting, but I got taken out in a bike lane on my E bike, eight tenths of a mile from my house in broad daylight, on a bright red bike, wearing a bright white helmet, by a young driver who wanted to turn right into our neighborhood.

Megan Hottman:

She just never saw me. She just drove right through me. I was hurt, and I was very discouraged, and it broke my bike, and I was concussed, and very frustrated. Because if the cities across the country are going to spend the time and money to give us bike lanes, I feel like there needs to be extra protection in the law. It’s just white paint on the pavement, but it’s where people have said, “This is where we want you to ride if you’re on your bike.” There should be some extra protection for us. As a result of getting hit, I got really pissed off and contacted one of the legislators, Senator Mike Foote. I said, “Can we get something on the books for bike lane protection?” And he was actually surprised. He was like, “There isn’t anything about bike lanes?” I said, “No, across the country, there’s no legal protection for us in bike lanes. Let’s make it a rule that if a motorist hits a cyclist in a bike lane, the motorist is presumed at fault and is kind of defacto on the hook for causing the collision.” He’s like, “Sure.”

Megan Hottman:

So we drafted that bill [SB20-061 Yield to Bicycles in Bicycle Lanes] last spring, I got to testify before the Senate judiciary committee, as well as the House committee here in the Colorado legislature. We got it passed earlier this year and it became law right before COVID kicked off and then it went into effect on July 1. It’s really as close to strict liability as we’ve seen, which is simply that if a motorist hits a cyclist, the motorist is presumed at fault. In the context of bike lanes, we got this bill passed. Even though I’d had many clients hit in bike lanes, I guess I’m sort of embarrassed to admit that it took me being personally hit to get pissed off enough to take some additional action. But I’m really proud of that, because now if a cyclist is hitting a bike lane [in Colorado], the burden is on the motorist to try and prove why it was actually the cyclist’s fault. Generally speaking, it’s always the motorist’s fault. So it’s good. It helps us get better results in the traffic case and in the civil case.

Courtney Barber:

That’s fantastic. Is that nationwide, this new ruling?

Megan Hottman:

I wish. No, it’s just here in Colorado. The weird thing about cycling laws is that there are no federal laws, it’s just state to state. So each state legislature does its own thing, which quite frankly causes a lot of the confusion because it’s different state to state. Unfortunately, then you have city councils doing their own thing with city municipal codes. Even within cities, you might have different rules. So it’s honestly understandable why cyclists and motorists are so frequently confused. One example is that people think cyclists should ride bikes into traffic so that they can see what’s going on, a lot of us were taught that as kids. The reality is that cyclists are treated as vehicles in the law in all 50 states. So we are required to ride with traffic. If a cyclist is riding against traffic and a collision happens, then it’s going to be the cyclist’s fault. That’s just one of many examples of misunderstandings.

Courtney Barber:

Right. Even though it is only been passed in Colorado, I’m sure we’re going to see very soon that it does spread to other places, especially with you at the helm of getting the word out. So I look forward to hearing updates about that. So tell me, Megan, what are some challenges that you have faced in this industry?

Megan Hottman:

Well, first of all, people told me not to start a firm when I was 29. I’m really glad I didn’t listen. I think just in general, the profession of law is very much still in that old school, “This is how we’ve always done it,” mentality. I do see that across the board, just in ways that we prepare cases. One thing that I do that most lawyers would never consider doing is that I share the entire case file with the client because it’s their file. I want them to see everything that we’re doing. Many lawyers who are older, perhaps more traditional, will tell me that they think that’s a terrible idea. I think I have always felt like I have been swimming against the channel a little bit or swimming against the current in this profession because there is such a deep rooted sense of “This is how we’ve always done it.”

Megan Hottman:

I feel like there are ways to deliver better customer service to our clients without much of the old school format. Even when it comes down to just lawyers, giving themselves permission to take better care of themselves, to not have to work so many hours and treat themselves better, I feel again, like I’m constantly kind of pushing against the current with that messaging. It lands with the younger lawyers, certainly, but the lawyers my age and the lawyers older than me, they still don’t want to hear it. They still really want to brag about their 80 and 100 hour work weeks and how they never take any vacation and they never see their family. I guess my challenge is that I don’t relate to that profession. If that’s what the practice of law is, I don’t fit here.

Megan Hottman:

I’ve always struggled with that because that’s never going to be me. If that’s really what someone wants from their lawyer, they want to hear about how much they’ve worked, and how they don’t take vacation, and how they worked all weekend, I’ve always struggled with, if that’s what people expect of lawyers, then I don’t belong here. That’s not how I want to do life. So I think that there is a shift and I do believe that the younger generations are going to help. I think COVID has helped because it’s freed people up to be able to work remotely and do life a little bit differently. But this belief about law, that it has to be hard and you have to suffer, and only if you’re suffering, are you a really good lawyer, I think we just have to continue to dismantle that for our own profession’s sake and our own mental and emotional and physical health’s sake. Otherwise, this profession is going to unfortunately implode on itself with the way that lawyers are so self destructive with their behavior.

Courtney Barber:

I agree with you. It’s definitely something that I’ve witnessed here in the USA. Maybe a little bit different to Australia, that to kill yourself at your desk is the highest level of accolade that you can have. It’s so archaic. Especially as you mentioned with COVID, it has shown a lot of people how much they can do when they’re… Some people obviously still have to go to a workplace and go to an office, but actually having some time and chunking down their day and putting their own personal health as a priority alongside with work because you can’t help anyone when you’re not taking care of yourself. So I definitely agree with you and that sort of lends to our next question, which is, “what is something now that you wish you knew five to 10 years ago?” This is not only as an attorney, but really just because you really are a female entrepreneur. You’re great at marketing. You’re great at branding. You have all these different things going on. What is something that you wish that you could tell yourself years back

Megan Hottman:

It probably seems obvious to you because you’ve met me in this space. So you don’t know anything different about me. It probably seems like I know exactly what I’m doing, that I have this confidence in the way that I approach things in a very different way than many lawyers do. But that certainly was not always the case. I was constantly full of self doubt that I was doing this profession or this business ownership thing wrong because I was always still making time for a workout. I was only taking the number of cases that I could handle very well instead of just taking all the cases and focusing on making as much money as I could. There were many years where I had this tension in myself between presenting and projecting “Lawyer Megan”, which is what I thought people wanted to see, and then the actual Megan I’m in my private life.

Megan Hottman:

I felt like I was constantly switching back and forth until the fatigue of that just really culminated and basically cracked me. It’s like you’re wearing two personalities. The advice I would give is to surround yourself with people who are where you want to be, who are living the life that you want to live, who are people’s advice that you absolutely trust and want to take, that I have had some incredible mentors and I’ve also had some incredible coaches and visionaries, really strong women outside of law who have seen me and reminded me of my power when I was so down on myself and just thinking, “Surely there’s a reason that no other lawyer is doing this the way I’m doing this. I must have this wrong, even though it feels right to me, I must be missing something.” That imposter syndrome just creeps up super loudly.

Megan Hottman:

So thank goodness. I was surrounded by women and coaches and people who saw me who were ahead of me a bit in their careers, who said, “Keep doing it the way you’re doing it because it’s magic and you’re a lighthouse. And yes, you’re doing it differently than other people are doing it, but it’s in a way that’s really serving you and serving your clients.” Even just in social media, just started projecting more of my personal self. I don’t share a ton of my personal life. That’s not what I’m saying, but it’s my voice. It’s more laid back, and it’s more holistic, and it’s not the bulldog lawyer voice. It’s truly who I am. I’m a softie. I’m very heart-led. I used to think that was a weakness and it took people telling me over and over again, “No, that’s actually a strength. Keep going.” If it hadn’t been for those people reminding me and encouraging me, I would’ve probably stayed stuck. So my advice would be surround yourself with people who are strong and can remind you of your strength when you doubt yourself.

Courtney Barber:

That is fantastic. One of the things I really admire about you and like about you as a person is that you are very authentically you and you have your own viewpoints, but you don’t sway from your own rituals, your own practices, your own beliefs, how you want to run your life. I think that’s fantastic and something that should be really commended and very inspirational for not only a lot of other trial attorneys, but female entrepreneurs, anyone who, I guess, it’s hard for us to be able to have all these different identities, because everyone does want to put you in a box. You’re definitely showing the world that you can live in many different boxes and you’re doing just fine.

Megan Hottman:

Oh, thank you for that. Authenticity is one of my true values, core values. So thank you. That compliment means a lot to me.

Courtney Barber:

Absolutely. Now here’s the time you get to give yourself a plug. Where do people get to find more about you? Where do they get to watch your HBO special? Where do they get to contact you?

Megan Hottman:

Cool. Well, if you want to watch a really fun video for 21 minutes, we just broke a world record in December, we rode 28 hours on spin bikes, broke the record, and we raised a bunch of money for PeopleForBikes. You can find that on our resources page, under the videos link on our website, which is thecyclist-lawyer.com. So that’s something fun if you want to just pass some time and get super motivated. On Instagram, which is my primary social media, I am @cyclist_lawyer. You can also just search for Megan Hottman and you’ll find me on there. I’m definitely in love with Instagram. I love photos and you’ll find me a little bit on Facebook and Twitter, but Insta’s where it’s at, in my opinion. So find me on my website or Instagram, would love to hear from listeners and let us know what they think.

Courtney Barber:

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time, Megan. This has been great.

Megan Hottman:

Thanks Courtney. Appreciate it.

Share