Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have been a trial lawyer in Illinois for over 40 years. Three years ago I was inspired to write my memoir, Chicago Law: A Trial Lawyer’s Journey. The following year I wrote a book with a spiritual theme: Tales From Healdsburg: A Story of Self-Awakening. My latest book is a self- help book: Recipe for Success: The Key Ingredients for Living Successfully.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Recipe for Success: The Key Ingredients for Living Successfully is my latest book. I was inspired to write it the lawyer I am currently mentoring. I have mentored around 30 other men and women and taught them how to be trial lawyers as well as fine upstanding human beings. This book contains all the other lessons I wanted them to incorporate with experience of working together. This helped to polish up all the fundamentals I tried to teach them.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write when I am inspired. When inspired it is like someone is dictating the words tome and I can’t type them fast enough. I get it all down one chapter at a time and then go back and clean it up several times until it is presented in a final way that I would find suitable to give to a Supreme Court Justice to review. I try to make it as perfect as I can once my draft is down on paper and out of my mind. I write in bursts like this from an outline to give structure to what I am writing. I already have the structure in mind and then flesh it out with my narrative.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I was very influenced by everything written by Joseph Campbell as well as Carl Jung. I like reading about comparative religion and studying mythology and psychology. I have always been addicted to self-help books from Norman Vincent Peale, Napoleon Hill, Leo Buscaglia, Tony Robbins, and Zig Ziglar.
What are you working on now?
I work for the law firm I founded in 1984 as the managing partner and senior partner. The firm’s name is Garofalo, Schreiber & Storm, Chartered. We are located in downtown Chicago, Ill. Our practice is concentrated in defending Illinois workers’ compensation cases and employers’ liability cases. We have 19 attorneys in our firm and I hired each one and trained the majority of lawyers who work in our firm.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I normally post about my books on Facebook and Linkedin. I also have an extensive mailing list of around 1,500 contacts and I email them when I’ve written a new book. Most of my readers are lawyers I know and business contacts and clients I’ve come to know over the course of my career.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
When a subject grips you and you feel the urge to write, make the time to write! We are all busy and other items can easily take priority but when you feel you have something in you that needs to come out and you have to share it with other people, make the time to write and let your creativity come pouring out. It will be good for you and what you have to say will probably be helpful to those who read what you write.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Follow your bliss. Do whatever grips you and go wherever it leads you. There may be no chartered course but if you follow your bliss it will put you on a path where developments occur, people will enter your life, outside influences will bear on you that you never anticipated and it will all lead you where you need to go. Have faith in the process. Wherever you bliss takes you will be your destiny. The journey you are on is what matters, not the end result.
What are you reading now?
I just started reading A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. I love Joyce.
I just finished The Last Juror by John Grisham. I am a sucker for Grisham’s books and have read all of them.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I’m not sure what I will write next. I’ve written a memoir, a spiritual book and a self-help book to spread my mentoring beyond those whom I’ve personally mentored. The logical next step will be a novel and I’m thinking of some ideas about how I could structure a novel.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
A translation of the books found at Nag Hammadi that were not included in the New Testament; Ulysses by James Joyce; Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda; The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
Joseph Garofalo’s Social Media Links
Facebook Profile