When building a legacy, whether it’s a family legacy or a business legacy, it’s important to pause each year and look backwards and forwards. We look backwards to learn from the past and forwards to dream big. Traditionally, that pause takes place around New Years Day, but that’s a busy time. Consider creating an annual tradition to do it at a time that’s more conducive to pausing. That’s what we do at my law firm. The Blum Firm sets aside a day each fall to pause, reflect, and dream, before our busy season and the holiday season gets into full swing.
Last week was The Blum Firm’s annual meeting. To make it more fun, we always have a theme. This year’s theme was “Let’s Saddle Up for Success!,” tying into our local Western culture and all the fun images that conjures up. This year, I welcomed everyone to the “roundup” with remarks aimed at building connection and inspiring greatness. In preparing my opening comments, I drew from Allen Levi’s blockbuster novel Theo of Golden. The book speaks to us in a very powerful way, explaining its extraordinary rise to #1 bestseller status. It was the subject of my blog post of June 30, 2026, “Book Tip: Theo of Golden.”
Thanks to Theo, this year’s speech had a palpable impact on The Blum Firm. The lessons seemed to really soak in. Here are my words—perhaps they’ll speak to you too. Bear with me till the end, as it reveals a big surprise I received after I wrote the speech.
“In my opening remarks each year, it’s my goal to offer some words of inspiration—to inspire each of us to keep reaching and growing to become the best we can be.
Today, I’m drawing the inspiration, for my words of inspiration, from the novel Theo of Golden, which The Blum Firm book club just read. It’s the number one best-selling novel in the world.
Before I get into the story and the lessons we can take from it, let’s draw some inspiration from the author, Allen Levi.
Levi is 70 years old, and this is his first novel. Levi is a role model for continually growing and reinventing yourself.
His first career was as a lawyer.
His second career was as a singer-songwriter.
His third career was as a judge, a probate judge as a matter of fact.
And now he’s a best-selling novelist.
The message is to always be open to doing new things and learning new things.
At The Blum Firm, we encourage everyone to grow—take on new skills, be a lifelong learner, and stay energized.
The second takeaway I want to share about Allen Levi and this book is how we can inspire each other.
Levi wrote the novel during COVID and then packed it away.
He reluctantly allowed his 5 buddies to read it, and they were blown away.
They insisted, not just encouraged, him to publish it.
Levi couldn’t find a publisher, so he just self-published it and his niece promoted it on social media.
Levi said his friends told him 4 life-changing words: “We believe in you.”
Theo of Golden is now being marketed in 42 countries, they’re making it into a movie, and Levi is busy writing a sequel.
None of that would’ve happened without the support and insistence of his colleagues.
Here at The Blum Firm, we believe in each other, and we need to tell each other that, support and encourage each other, like Allen Levi’s buddies did for him.
I’ll now get into the story (without spoiling it for those who wish to read it), and the lessons we can learn from it here at The Blum Firm.
The novel covers a year in the life of Theo, an 86-year-old man, who comes to the town of Golden, Georgia.
He enters a coffee shop where the walls are covered with pencil portraits of random folks in the Golden community, all drawn by a gifted local artist.
Theo is so drawn to these portraits, that one-by-one, he buys them, finds the subject of the portrait, and then meets them at a fountain in the center of town to make a bestowal of the portrait to the subject.
Theo connects with these portrait subjects, along with other townsfolk, and builds a community that becomes a very interwoven group who are there for each other during lots of trials and tribulations.
The first lesson from this plot that can inspire us is how Theo found the value in everyone.
Theo was a wealthy aristocrat, yet he created relationships with people of all walks of life, even a homeless person, a janitor with a sickly daughter, starving artists, lonely people—he saw the good in everyone.
Theo treated everyone with dignity and respect.
When he bestowed a portrait to someone, he told them what he saw in their eyes.
People want to be seen. Theo made them feel seen. He elevated them and filled their bucket.
That’s the way we treat each other at The Blum Firm and it’s the way we treat our clients. It’s the kind of behavior I try to model every day, and it’s one of the reasons I left Big Law (where I didn’t see that kind of behavior) and started The Blum Firm.
The next lesson is to listen and care. Theo did that with his new friends. That’s how he got them to trust him.
So, his new acquaintances didn’t just feel seen, they also felt heard. And then they embarked on a trusting relationship with Theo.
When we listen and care, we develop trust with our clients.
Everyone’s life is a story. I start every new client meeting by saying to the client: “Tell me your story.”
It builds a remarkable and instant connection.
Another lesson from Theo that is a big part of our law practice is to show compassion when people are hurting.
So many of the families we serve are hurting—maybe it’s the loss of a loved one, or a struggle with family dynamics, or confronting their own mortality.
In his younger years, Theo suffered the loss of a young daughter who was the light of his life.
Rather than wallow in bitterness, Theo chose to fill the void by living a life helping others. He filled the hole with generosity, relationships, and spirituality. He transformed the pain into purpose.
We can help our clients, and each other, heal from pain by offering compassion and encouragement.
I know I felt that love from all of you over the summer when I lost my mother. Your being there for me lifted me up and it still powers me through the loss.
Theo also taught us about the value of building a community. Theo took a batch of strangers in Golden and melded them into a community that cared for each other.
The Blum Firm is a community, a very important community. We don’t just come here and work and then go home.
We share a strong bond with each other.
Like Theo’s community, we are a diverse group. We come from different places and bring different traits to the office. We are an assortment of strengths and weaknesses.
But we fill each other’s gaps. We’re here for each other in thick and thin. And I feel a great sense of peace and personal legacy that this a community that will continue long into the future, even after some of us (including me) are gone, hopefully a long, long time from now.
In the end, Allen Levi said he wrote the book to show the reader that life is about choices.
His goal was to inspire the reader to be more like Theo, to choose to be an agent of kindness, generosity, faith, and love.
As we embark on today’s session to reflect on what The Blum Firm is, who we are, who we can be, and dream big about all those possibilities, my hope is that we can make choices like Theo made and aspire to be the kind of person that Allen Levi created in Theo.”
After I wrote these remarks, I sent them to my best friend, Talmage Boston, who forwarded them to Allen Levi, the author of Theo of Golden. To my total joy and disbelief, Levi then left me a voicemail with his reaction to my speech. I am so honored by Levi’s message that I’ll share it with you:
“Well, hello, Marvin.
Good morning. This is Allen Levi.
It is Monday morning. I did not want to start my day without thanking you for the outline, the notes that you will be using in your address to your law firm. Talmage was thoughtful enough to send that to me. He knew that it would be an encouragement, and it is every bit of that.
I’ve been really interested and intrigued by how much thought that some of the readers have given to the text of Theo, but I don’t know that I have seen anything quite as comprehensive or organized or well put together as the remarks that you’re going to share with your law firm. And I am so honored that you see some usefulness to the story with your law colleagues.
You know my past/my history and I think you and I would both agree that for all of its virtue, our profession is woefully imperfect and is often motivated by things that are less than noble.
And I’m grateful that this story about an old man from Portugal might be useful in reminding us of the good that we’re capable of. So, thank you, thank you. thank you.
I wish that I could be in the audience to take notes and raise my hand and ask some questions because I’m sure that your insights are probably more weightier and more substantive than even the story itself.
But maybe one day we can share a meal or a cup of coffee together and I can pick that wonderful mind of yours and benefit from hearing your story. But in the meantime, all the best. I am so grateful for you. I can’t tell you how encouraged and grateful I am for your kindness toward me. So, I hope you have a great day today and again I look forward to seeing you one good day down the road.
All the best and every blessing.”
You can imagine how blown away I was to receive that call. Thanks for coming along with me for this year’s annual meeting of The Blum Firm. In my goal to inspire others, I ended up with my own heart full of inspiration. I call that a big “win–win!”
Marvin E. Blum
Marvin Blum channels author Allen Levi’s Theo to open with words of inspiration at The Blum Firm’s 2026 Annual Meeting.
The Blum Firm comes together to pause, reflect, and dream big for the coming year.