00:00:00 – 00:00:08 Nitin Bajaj

Hey everyone, welcome to the industry show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj, and joining me today is Kern Singh. Kern, welcome on the show.

00:00:09 – 00:00:11 Kern Singh

Thank you, Nitin. Really appreciate you having me here on the show. Thank you.

00:00:12 – 00:00:15 Nitin Bajaj

It’s great to have you here. Let’s start with a big question: who is Kern?

00:00:16 – 00:00:27 Kern Singh

Kern Singh is a dreamer, a husband, father, son, and a service member. That’s, that’s—if I had to describe myself, that’s what I’d say I am.

00:00:28 – 00:00:43 Nitin Bajaj

Love that. And we’ll obviously get to explore a little bit of that in the next few minutes. Tell us about your journey to starting the law firm, but most importantly, the part that I’m most interested in is the why behind it.

00:00:44 – 00:00:56 Kern Singh

Yeah. For all those who are joining us today, my name is Kern Singh, founder of Singh Law Firm. We exclusively practice estate planning up and down California and have been doing so since 2010. At our core, we are a law firm that practices estate planning.

00:00:57 – 00:01:08 Kern Singh

We started this—my wife and I both started this back in 2010 when we had our first daughter, and that’s been our journey. It’s been a fight from scratch, from nothing, from the ground up, and going up and on.

00:01:08 – 00:01:29 Kern Singh

And when I said “dreamer” earlier, I feel like any entrepreneur who might be watching or who’s out there, we’re all dreamers. We have a vision, we set our sights on something, we zero in, and we execute. And that’s usually what it is. So it’s the visionary, the executioner when it comes to it. And that’s what I would say, that that was, that’s kind of the premise or the thesis of where I’m at.

00:01:29 – 00:01:38 Kern Singh

But yeah, Singh Law Firm, we’re around, that’s what we do. We have 7 offices. We’ve identified 2 new offices that are coming up here, and then potentially jumping out of California and going to other states.

00:01:39 – 00:02:02 Nitin Bajaj

Love that. You’ve had a phenomenal journey, and I’d love to learn a little more and share that with our audience. Give us a sense for—you said 7 offices, 2 more coming up. Give us a sense for what type of clients, how many clients, and give us some sense of what I like to capture is the impact of the work you and the team have been able to give back to the community.

00:02:03 – 00:02:04 Kern Singh

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

00:02:05 – 00:02:29 Kern Singh

Our offices, we are headquartered in Fremont, California, and the Bay Area, Silicon Valley. So we’ve got a Silicon Valley office, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills. We’ve got one in Ventura, La Jolla, and Newport Beach. And we’ve identified 2 more. I will not release those today. There will be a news release on that at some point here in the future. But yeah, that’s just—we’ve identified certain areas that we’d like to explore and get into.

00:02:29 – 00:02:53 Kern Singh

But overall, I feel that my why was in 8th grade. That’s when it started. And it started as a dream. Being Indian and having Indian parents, there’s usually a couple of paths for all of us. And sometimes we act, we ask and go down those paths, and sometimes we fight and say, “No, we’re not going to go down those paths.” So we want to pave our own. And I was one of those “pave your own paths.” So it was in 8th grade.

00:02:54 – 00:03:14 Kern Singh

And again, my father was a physician, and coming from that family, it’s doctor, engineer, dentist, what it is. And my dad, being a physician himself, my entire life was discouraging me to go into medicine. He said, “Look, choose your own path, do what you want.” But I felt from him it was always going to be something very tried and true and established.

00:03:14 – 00:03:24 Kern Singh

But I think for him, his biggest thing that I didn’t do was go into the military and serve our country. And but nonetheless, we support the country and we support the efforts there. So that’s my take from my father.

00:03:24 – 00:03:31 Kern Singh

But it was, it started in 8th grade. In 8th grade, it started with The Godfather, the movie The Godfather. I don’t know if you’ve watched it.

00:03:31 – 00:03:31 Nitin Bajaj

Yes.

00:03:31 – 00:03:53 Kern Singh

And I was just intrigued, and that’s what I wanted to do. So it was a balance of Godfather, going into business on my own. And I realized that I’m not Italian, I can’t join the Italian mob. So the main character in The Godfather—or not the main character, but one of the characters—was Tom Hagen, and was the lawyer for the family. And I said, “Hey, look, that might be my way in.”

00:03:53 – 00:04:05 Kern Singh

But a long story short, businessman, I wanted to be a lawyer, and I wanted to go into criminal defense. That’s where it started. I was going to be a litigator, go into criminal defense, but I wanted to always own my own business. I didn’t want to work for anyone else. So that was the drive.

00:04:05 – 00:04:32 Kern Singh

And I feel like whatever that drive may be, for me, it was always some form of sales. And whether it was selling pens and pencils in 8th grade, 7th grade, or running a gambling game in my 8th grade class, that the entrepreneurial spirit was there. And that’s what just took me, that dream, that vision. And I just started to look at that vision, learn from the people around me, and understand what are the steps and the discipline that’s needed to execute on that vision.

00:04:33 – 00:05:01 Nitin Bajaj

I love that story and The Godfather reference. On another day, I’ll give you my own intersection with that. Now, obviously you deal in a space that has a good deal of regulation. There is also a little bit of, may not be stigma, but something that people don’t necessarily want to think or talk about. But amongst many of these things, if you had to call out the one big challenge you’re facing, what would that be?

00:05:02 – 00:05:15 Kern Singh

I’m going to put a pin on that question. I wanted to go back because I didn’t answer fully your question. Being a lawyer, I can hold on to certain things, and I know that I didn’t close the loop on certain parts of your question. You asked, “What’s the size?” or “What’s going on with Singh Law Firm?” “What’s going on there?”

00:05:15 – 00:05:52 Kern Singh

So we have, like I mentioned, 8 offices, or 7, 7 or 8 offices. We have 35 employees. We’ve identified probably hiring another 11 by 12 months from now, excuse me. And we’ve served, for the last 16 and a half years, we’ve served over 36,000 families up and down California. Our growth rate has been about 18, 18% year over year for the first 15 years of our practice. And the last 2 and a half years of our practice, it was 29% last year. This year we’re pegging it to be about 40%. So we’ve been at an explosion growth rate. And with that, we’ve got over 3,500 five-star reviews up and down California for all our locations.

00:05:52 – 00:06:21 Kern Singh

We’ve got a really great vision, a really amazing team. If we rewind about 3 years ago, my vision was that I was wearing literally all the hats in the firm. I was the lawyer, I was the CFO, I was the CMO, I was the CTO, CPO, COO, and the GC. And I slowly started to peel away those hats over time. And it started about 2 and a half years ago when we hired our CFO, then we brought on our COO, we brought on a head of HR, we brought on a general counsel, we’ve got now a CPTO.

00:06:22 – 00:06:54 Kern Singh

And then the next few hires are probably going to be our internal CMO and then a growth revenue officer. But those were some of the best decisions I made as an entrepreneur, because I know for a fact that I am good at what I do, and I’m a great dreamer and a great visionary, and I’m a great executioner with the people that are around me. I know that much. So for me, the big one is delegate to elevate. And I wanted to elevate myself, so I needed to delegate. And that was the peeling of the hats. Throwing those responsibilities to people who are better than me and more capable.

00:06:55 – 00:07:21 Nitin Bajaj

Congratulations and kudos. As we go through this journey, it’s extremely important for us to realize, and I believe as an entrepreneur, that’s one thing we do, is we understand more of what we are and what we are built of. So kudos to you for realizing that and bringing the right people in the mix that have launched and unleashed this amazing growth that you’ve seen. So very happy for you.

00:07:22 – 00:07:38 Kern Singh

I appreciate it. Now, jumping to your next question that I’m going to answer is, what is the biggest hurdle that we’re facing in our legal space, so to speak? I would say in my specific estate planning world, or even just generally in the legal space as well, is technology and AI that’s coming in right now.

00:07:38 – 00:07:53 Kern Singh

Most attorneys that are out there are old school. They are not great with adopting technology. Their processes are old, and they’re systematic from their old ways, and they don’t just don’t work. And technology that’s coming in is disrupting.

00:07:53 – 00:08:11 Kern Singh

AI is coming in on, think of it vertically and horizontally when it comes to the legal field, and it’s disrupting the area. And those who don’t adopt or those who don’t start to create in AI, especially in legal, are going to get left behind, which is fine. That’s just, that’s the nature of our capitalistic market.

00:08:11 – 00:08:22 Kern Singh

And there’s always going to be room for capacity for those to get absorbed into those spaces. But I think that’s going to be the biggest challenge in our field right now, is going to be technology and specifically AI.

00:08:23 – 00:08:31 Nitin Bajaj

I agree with you. Now, on the flip side of challenges come opportunities. What’s the one you’re most excited about?

00:08:31 – 00:08:51 Kern Singh

I my biggest excitement on opportunities is going to be the growth that we have in the technology and the AI, really. Because the growth comes with adopting technology, adopting processes and procedures, and anything that’s out there that’s new, that’s disruptive, to bring it in to whatever firm you’re in. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the legal space or any other services industry.

00:08:52 – 00:09:05 Kern Singh

Any sort of technology or disruption that you’re able to adopt and bring in, those are opportunities that can kill your threats. They can, they can kill your anything that’s out there to off-center off-balance.

00:09:05 – 00:09:20 Kern Singh

So I think that for us is huge, bringing our CPTO in and adopting a lot of technology, a lot of AI, and creating a lot of our own white-labeled AI and technology internally is going to be in itself disruptive for our firm and possibly for those in the market as well.

00:09:21 – 00:09:23 Nitin Bajaj

I agree. Exciting times to be living in, for sure.

00:09:24 – 00:09:25 Kern Singh

100%. Thank you.

00:09:26 – 00:09:53 Nitin Bajaj

Now, as we talk about the future, I like to pause and reflect. I’d love to invite you to share two moments from your previous life and experiences. One where things did not work out as you had expected. There was disappointment, failure, lessons. And another where things exceeded your expectations and became a success beyond your imagination.

00:09:56 – 00:10:04 Kern Singh

This is, this is hard because there’s a lot of, so let’s start with the first one. Can you remind me what the first one was? It is, what are some of the things that held you back?

00:10:04 – 00:10:10 Nitin Bajaj

Or something that was a disappointment. You expected certain results and didn’t pan out as you had expected.

00:10:10 – 00:10:35 Kern Singh

Let’s start out with that one first. I would say, I don’t like to look at disappointments or negativity. One of our core values in all of our companies is the N in Singh. So we run with Singh, S-I-N-G-H, and the N stands for no negativity, no gossip. And so for us with that, I just don’t like bringing negativity. And so I don’t look at it as a lost opportunity or anything like that, but no disappointment.

00:10:35 – 00:11:02 Kern Singh

But things where I personally may have failed or could have worked harder on is that maybe there’s people around me who just didn’t believe in the vision. I think that’s the biggest one. And for any entrepreneur that’s out there, is the vision is always ours in our heart, and it’s always big and bigger than life. And there’s very few people who are able to believe in that vision. And then that’s why there’s certain visionaries that are out there.

00:11:02 – 00:11:20 Kern Singh

But the support group around you, now to flip the negativity, right? The support group around you has always been the biggest thing of salvage for me in my life. And I’ve been very blessed to have people around me who have believed in the vision in my later years in life. And I think it starts with marriage, my wife.

00:11:20 – 00:11:44 Kern Singh

My wife, I remember my biggest dream for her when we were dating in college, and we’ve been together for eons, is that we were dating in college and I went to UC Irvine and she came down to visit. And we went down to vacation at San Diego, and it was at night and we were on the beach. And I told her one day, “I’m going to buy you a house on the beach.” And fast forward, we’re living on the beach. And so it starts with that little vision and the belief and the support behind you, and you just need to execute on that vision.

00:11:45 – 00:12:21 Kern Singh

So I think for me, that was a big one, is getting married to the person who believed in my vision, believed in, believed in me, believed in it regardless of any setbacks that are. They just knew that I had it in me and had that grit and the perseverance. Because we live in America. And at the end of the day, we come here and this is a country of perseverance, this is a country of opportunity. And it’s just for the, and it’s there for those who are there for the taking. Those who want to put the effort in, who want to just constantly grind it out every day and be consistent and be disciplined, those dreams will come true. And so that was number one, is getting married to the right person who believed in me.

00:12:21 – 00:12:45 Kern Singh

And then surrounding myself with true mentors, people who have either been in business themselves and have experienced it, but being close with them and using them as my advisory board and asking them questions. They’re older than me. Maybe they’ve been in business 15, 20 years ahead of me, and they’ve been through it, they’ve seen it. And I use them as my sounding board often, and it’s a very small and tight group. And that to me has been very big.

00:12:47 – 00:13:03 Nitin Bajaj

Beautifully said, and couldn’t agree with you more. But also, really kudos to you for keeping your head straight and figuring out what’s important. And it’s always about the people and having the right people by your side. So very happy for you.

00:13:04 – 00:13:04 Kern Singh

Thank you, Nitin.

00:13:04 – 00:13:12 Nitin Bajaj

The other part of it was an example where things exceeded your expectations and became a success beyond your imagination.

00:13:14 – 00:13:31 Kern Singh

This goes back to a previous conversation we’re having about the hires that we had about 2 and a half years ago, and hiring the people and surrounding myself with, I call them my soldiers. And they have been insurmountably helpful to me. And these, this is my C-suite. And so those individuals exceeded my expectations.

00:13:32 – 00:13:53 Kern Singh

The growth we’ve had over the last 2 and a half years, and then the projection of growth we’re going to have moving forward, just really led us, not only from a business standpoint at our core in the law field, but along with our real estate vertical and then our private capital vertical, has allowed us to explode significantly. And to me, that has been, has exceeded my expectation.

00:13:54 – 00:14:09 Kern Singh

I thank God every day. I let all of them know, literally at each of our meetings, I hold a Monday meeting with all of our departments on the hour, and I literally let them know every day that they have all been a key, key role in where we are today.

00:14:10 – 00:14:22 Kern Singh

Singh Law Firm is not just one person, it’s the collective of us and believing in the vision and all having that same core value system and the vision, along with the grit and the want and the desire to keep moving.

00:14:23 – 00:14:41 Nitin Bajaj

Beautifully said again. And it’s, one thing is to have the vision, but also to be there as a leader to enable others so they can succeed and in turn bring success for all involved. So really great team there. Congratulations.

00:14:41 – 00:14:42 Kern Singh

Yep, thank you.

00:14:43 – 00:14:55 Nitin Bajaj

Now, this is all great. You’ve grown, you’ve achieved success in every which way possible. What do you do to de-stress, relax, get off the treadmill?

00:14:57 – 00:15:16 Kern Singh

I’m still learning. I’m still trying to learn. I’m sure you can watch all the interviews of the rest of the, and look, I’m in great company. I’m a small guy amongst all that you’ve interviewed, and I’m in awe in the fact that I’m here amongst these amazing people. And there’s a lot greater people that are out there that still need to be interviewed amongst, within our community.

00:15:17 – 00:15:44 Kern Singh

But what do I do to de-stress? I’m still learning. I learn every day, and I think it’s a challenge. Number one, I look at, we’ve all had, those who’ve had children, fortunate, fortunate, excuse me, enough to have children, realize that when you have a baby, there’s usually three things that happen when they’re crying. They need to be fed, they need to be cleaned, or they need to go to sleep. Okay? So I look at the two of those items for myself as an adult is, have I slept enough and have I eaten enough? Because if you’re not eating enough, that’s an issue.

00:15:45 – 00:16:06 Kern Singh

But I eat very clean and very systematic with my food. And then I’m very regimented with working out. I work out seven days a week, and then, and it’s a non-negotiable for me, 8 to 10 is my workout time, and it starts with a run. And I usually do about 3 and a half to 4 miles a day. And then I go up to the gym and do extremely heavy weights. And that’s my zen, my moment.

00:16:06 – 00:16:27 Kern Singh

I do the sauna, and I have a hot tub at home. So when I come home, I get my work done, and then I go out in the backyard, play a little golf. I got a little putting green in my backyard, so I go out and tinker out there and have some conference calls if I need to. Maybe I’m in Tahoe and I go out on a board and have a board meeting with one of my kids to de-stress. And swimming or having, going on a walk with my wife or playing with my dogs.

00:16:27 – 00:16:43 Kern Singh

But the big one is, the big non-negotiable is getting up early for me and then having a routine in the morning. I’m very regimented. It’s, I’ve got a program in the morning, I go get my workout done, I get my work done, and then after that, I’ve got my free time. But even my free time is blocked. Certain times are for innovation, certain times are for projects.

00:16:44 – 00:17:13 Kern Singh

And, but I read. I’ll spend a lot of time reading. I’ll, and my reading is both fiction and nonfiction. And for nonfiction, it’s a lot of times just bettering myself and educating myself on what it is in the environment, whether it’s a business book or it’s on taxes. And then the nonfiction, or excuse me, the fiction, apologize, that I read, it’s usually some form of a suspense novel, some spy novels. I love this author called Vince Flynn, John Grisham, I’ve read. So it could be about the Navy SEALs or whatever, but I love reading and that’s what I do to de-stress.

00:17:13 – 00:17:37 Kern Singh

But more importantly for me is just spending time with my wife and kids, to be honest. That’s, and putting the phone away in a drawer. I’m regimented on Sundays. I do not answer my phone. It goes in a drawer, and I don’t look at the phone until nighttime on Sundays. Building in a little bit of that. But again, this is a learning, this is my program. I’m learning it. I make pivots on a weekly basis on it. But I think the biggest one is just working out and getting good rest and eating extremely clean.

00:17:39 – 00:17:42 Nitin Bajaj

That’s the core. That’s the foundation. I love that.

00:17:42 – 00:17:43 Kern Singh

Yep. Yep.

00:17:44 – 00:17:48 Nitin Bajaj

Is there a book or a podcast that’s a favorite that you would like to share?

00:17:50 – 00:18:16 Kern Singh

There, there’s absolutely one book that I live by. And a lot of those, the individuals that are very close to me, I kind of shove this in their face is the book Traction. And the book Traction, I started about three years ago, and we brought it into our team. The leadership teams read it, and we follow the whole idea and the concept behind it, right? And so having your vision, your core values, setting your meetings, setting your quarterly goals, setting your yearly goals, your 1, 3, 10-year goals. And we follow that regimentally.

00:18:16 – 00:18:58 Kern Singh

And it’s funny, when I rewind myself back to that eighth grade Kern, and in high school, I created this Word document where I set myself up with five-year goals. And I didn’t know about traction then. And I had got these five-year goals, and it was going to be a certain thing at this year, a certain thing at this year, and at 40, I had something going on. And I still have that same document that I work with today on the personal side and on our family side. But traction coming in just kind of resonated. It was like, this, this concept, this, this thesis is real, and it’s real in the business world. And that was just, I was practicing it, not knowing that it was there. So traction is extremely, one of the best core blueprints for your business to help you kind of gain traction and move forward.

00:18:58 – 00:19:13 Kern Singh

So that’s amazing. That’s a great book. I also read a lot of the Harvard Business Handbooks. And so there’s a book on leadership, a family business. There’s one on project management and marketing. I’ve read them all. They’re amazing. They’re great books to just incorporate into your business.

00:19:14 – 00:19:41 Kern Singh

My father, I’m going to go back a little bit. He taught me the value of just grit and working really hard. And I remember as a child waking up in the morning, and he’d be already, he’d already be gone to work. And it’s 7 o’clock or 7:30, he’d come back very late. And then his work ethic kind of resonated with me. And I’ve had jobs since I was 16 up until I started my own business. And I always wanted to work and make sure that I was always out in that, that, that area.

00:19:42 – 00:20:06 Kern Singh

But he handed me, I remember he, he handed me when I was 16, the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And everyone knows it, Robert Kiyosaki. And he didn’t explain to me what the thesis of the book was or anything, but he just said, read it. And I kind of knew what he wanted. He just learned it. And so I read it, learned it. And then from there on out, I was always educating myself on books on taxes. I always heard my dad talking about taxes and his medical practice. He had a ranch and just trying to balance the active income.

00:20:06 – 00:20:25 Kern Singh

And so I incorporated that at the early stage of my business education, that I call it, is that understanding taxes, minding your taxes, incorporating in any sort of a business. So I would say Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad for any children who are out there, and parents give that to your children. But traction and those Harvard Business Handbooks are beautiful. They’re amazing.

00:20:26 – 00:20:37 Nitin Bajaj

Thank you for sharing those. Now, onto my favorite part of the show. We call this the one-line life lessons. Kern, I would love for you to share your life lessons with us.

00:20:38 – 00:20:54 Kern Singh

I’ve got a lot, but one that was told to me was when I was starting my business was, keep the overhead low and the money will flow. Simple principle, right? Simple principle.

00:20:54 – 00:21:10 Kern Singh

I think the other one is delegate to elevate. It was a good friend of mine told me this. Delegate to elevate. And if you think about it, a lot of us, and especially being Indian, we want to keep the overhead low, the money will flow. Don’t hire employees. Let’s do the work ourselves. Let’s hold all the hats ourselves and do it our own.

00:21:10 – 00:21:22 Kern Singh

And that’s great. You can do it. And when you’re starting out, you have to, you’re bootstrapped. We did it all. We all have done it, right? The doctors out there, the dentist out there, the startup guy, the guy who has the convenience stores, whatever it is, we’ve all done it.

00:21:23 – 00:21:39 Kern Singh

But the point when that spin wheel takes off, there’s a lot of practice, number one, but you’ve got to delegate to elevate. And I think everyone who understands that statement will understand and it’ll resonate with you.

00:21:41 – 00:21:45 Nitin Bajaj

So true. I agree 100%. Are there other life lessons you’d like to share?

00:21:46 – 00:22:02 Kern Singh

Number one, this is a cliché, but life moves very fast. It goes by very, I’ve got the white dotty here. You got a better head of hair than I do. Life goes very fast. I still feel like I’m 15, Nitin. I don’t know about you, but you’ve got to enjoy every day.

00:22:02 – 00:22:21 Kern Singh

Don’t worry about tomorrow. Yesterday helps us understand today and tomorrow. Tomorrow’s going to happen. You just have to have your vision. Believe in your vision. Execute on your vision. Some days you will not execute very well. Some days you’ll fail, but you have to have the resilience to get up and move forward.

00:22:21 – 00:22:35 Kern Singh

We are here in this country for a reason. We left our home countries. Every immigrant in this country has left our home countries for an absolute, otherwise we wouldn’t have left. Right? And there are better people than us, better immigrants than us who came under much harsher times.

00:22:37 – 00:23:05 Kern Singh

And so us sitting here and being able to provide jobs and then having these hardships are actually a lot easier than those that came to this country a hundred years ago. So we are pioneers in our own ways. They were pioneers. We’re pioneers, but we have to work a little harder being the pioneers and carrying on that same tradition, that same mentality, and that same vision of those individuals and the same vision that this country was founded on, to be honest.

00:23:06 – 00:23:37 Nitin Bajaj

So right. And so beautifully said. Kern, thank you so much for making the time to be with us, for sharing your journey, your story, your life lessons, but for most importantly, the passion you bring to what you do and helping people navigate the things that they don’t honestly understand. I really appreciate and I’m glad you had the chance to come share your journey and inspire many others that needed to hear this.

00:23:39 – 00:23:45 Kern Singh

Nitin, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me on the show. And again, I’m honored and blessed to be here amongst so many that are great.