From Rock Bottom to Breakthrough: How Perseverance Turns Pain into Success

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Are you a law firm owner who is struggling with perseverance? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer podcast, host Tyson Mutrux delves into the critical role of perseverance for law firm owners and entrepreneurs.

For Tyson, success comes to those who can endure the pain to keep going. For law firm owners, you need to stick it out and fight through the tough situations in order to rise above it all and make it to the other side. For those that are struggling, there are a few things you can do, in which Tyson uses Carvana as an example of a company who rose to the top after hitting rock bottom. You can reduce costs and restructure debt, improve operations and slim down your workforce.

Tyson provides some actionable steps law firm owners can take to persevere through tough times. One thing is to focus on the long game because success takes time. Big wins are not always going to happen. They will come in waves and it is important to always focus on the ultimate goal, even when things don't go as planned. Make sure to celebrate the small wins to keep momentum going so you and your staff are motivated to keep working hard. Tyson also emphasizes the need to have a good support system around you. It is more important to ensure your colleagues and staff are going to push you to be better and be there to help when needed.

Take a listen to learn more!

Episode Highlights:

• 00:11 Enduring struggles and setbacks as a law firm ownership
• 3:16 Actionable steps for enduring challenges in law firm ownership
• 7:53 Importance of building mental toughness law firm success
• 13:56 Emphasis on viewing failures as opportunities for growth and improvement

• Ask us a question about starting your own law firm here!

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Transcripts: From Rock Bottom to Breakthrough: How Perseverance Turns Pain into Success

Tyson Mutrux (00:06.03)
Testing, testing.

Tyson Mutrux (00:11.342)
Hey everyone, welcome back to Maximum Lawyer,

Tyson Mutrux (00:20.59)
Hey everyone, welcome back to another Saturday episode of Maximum Lawyer. And today I'm going be talking about a topic that resonates with pretty much every business owner, especially law firm owners, any entrepreneur and that's perseverance. And the reality is, that success often comes to those who can endure the pain. They can keep pushing and then, then wait for the tide to turn in their favor.

That's the reality of it. And so I'll just start with those of you that are in that part where the firm's struggling, you're trying to fight through it. I'm just going to tell you, the pain is temporary. We've all been there. Even the most successful law firms in the world, in the country, at some point they were struggling. Things were not all easy. so a lot of us is fighting through that.

those struggles, those setbacks, those moments of doubt, we all have them. They're a part of the process. I'm going to give you an example of this outside of the legal industry. And it's something that really got me thinking, and it's carvana. I know that may seem a little odd, but if you look back to 2023, so 2023, everyone thought they were done.

The headlines, they screamed of their doom and gloom and experts were writing the obituary. But what's kind of crazy is they've risen from the ashes and the reality is that the same can happen to you. If you are in a spot where your firm is heading down and you think that you're going to go down with the ship, the reality is that's not going to happen. You stick it out.

And you, I mean, hopefully you can implement many of the things we talk about Maxim lawyer to help steer the ship and turn the ship for you, but, it's temporary fight through the pain. I promise you, you'll get through that storm. It is fine. All right. I, I'm going to get to more about this in a second. just, I'm going to take a pause for a moment and just tell you if you have, if you need some help, right? If you, if you have questions, just text me. Okay. Just text me or.

Tyson Mutrux (02:48.686)
I talk about this quite a bit. Just go to MaximalLawyer.com forward slash ask, okay? MaximalLawyer.com forward slash ask and just submit your question. You can go there or you can text me 314-501-9260. Both of those are in the show notes. Submit your question and if you want to, you know, just talk to me personally, reach out to me. I'm happy to talk to you. I did it a few weeks ago.

law firm and read some questions. They some pretty difficult questions and I jumped on the call and spoke to him for I don't know 30 minutes I don't know if it was 30 minutes or an hour but I was driving and we talked and we had a nice little conversation so if that's you feel free to reach out don't be afraid to. That's an important part of the process is reaching out and asking for help and if you are kind of in a tough spot right now and you're listening this sounds like you're doing that so you're doing what you can.

But stick around for the rest of this episode, hopefully you will, because we're going be diving into perseverance. It's one of the ultimate keys to success and it's how you weather the storm. It's a really, really important part of everything. But I'm going give you some actionable steps you can use as well to help you weather that storm. I can say it, I've mentioned this a few times on the podcast, I can say this stuff all I want, unless I give you actionable steps.

It's not going to be a whole lot of good, especially when you're in, you're on the downward spiral, so to speak. But I want to come back to this, this Carvana comeback story. So it really is interesting. So they had a meteor, meteoric rise. They had gotten up to, I pulled this up. So they were right around $349, $350 a share in

2021 so middle of 2021 by middle of 22 beginning of 22 you'd seen a massive decline a pretty massive decline lost a couple hundred dollars per share by If you look at if you look at middle of 2023 the bottom I think was four dollars and five cents Okay, so you're talking about a share that had a stock share that had gone from

Tyson Mutrux (05:11.406)
$360, $361 is what it was in August of 21, all the way down to $4.05 in December of 2022, so beginning of 2023. it was, mean, I'm talking about dire. You're talking about dire, that's dire. That's a really bad situation. On top of that, they were drowning in debt. Analysts were saying that, you know, they're going to have to go bankrupt. They had made a bunch of bad decisions when it comes to fleet vehicles.

It was a really bad situation. Everyone thought that the company was done. But it's interesting. mean, what happened next is something that they're going to be teaching. And that's assuming that things keep turning the way they are. But it's going to be really a master class that they're going to be teaching in universities for quite some time.

Is it had to do a lot of perseverance and strategic thinking? But what they did is that, I mean, they got down to basics and that's one of the things that you can do right now is they reduce costs. You can reduce costs. They can restructure their debt if they need to. That's what, or you can restructure your debt. That's what they did. They improve their operations. That's fully within your control too. So your systems, your processes, all that. When it comes to maybe you have too many people, you have to cut some of the fat. I can just tell you someone.

We had went through and we really streamlined things intentionally. We went through top grading and we do a lot more with less people now. It's really interesting. We hired more talent. We spent more money on our people and we're getting a lot more done with far less people. So you can do the same thing. And by doing some of those things, some of those basics, they were able to come back much stronger. And as I mentioned, their stock, actually I don't think I did mention yet, their stock now is at $224. So

They've gone from $4.05 all the way up to $224 a share. They were up to $259. They did have a little bit of a dip since then, since as of the recording of this podcast, there was a little bit of a dip in the market overall. So it's not just a caravana thing. And I think that law firm owners, they can take a lot of lessons away from that story.

Tyson Mutrux (07:32.622)
You know, just because you are facing challenges doesn't mean that your story is over. All right. doesn't mean you gotta go get a job. Doesn't mean you got to shut down the firm. Doesn't mean any of those things. pain is, it's just one of the things that we have to talk about. It's, it's part of growth. Okay. There are many, many times that what we do is painful. It is, it's a, but it's a temporary feeling. Cause there's a lot of times where it feels great. You know, money is great. Clients are coming in, you're getting a bunch of wins.

But you're gonna have the ups and downs. You're gonna have the pain that's part of it. It's kind of what, can't remember the Disney movie, but you're talking about joy and sadness and all that. Joy is not a thing unless you have sadness, okay? Happiness and success and all that is not really a thing unless you've got the pain part of it. You gotta have the, it's an integral part of it. The key is staying in the game long enough to see the other side of it. You gotta fight through it.

mean, there's many reasons why building perseverance, why it matters, because I strongly encourage you to focus on mental toughness. And if you need a coach, hire a coach that's going to focus on I've got Jason Selk, and Jason Selk has built this armor around me. It's one those things where, in a good way, I feel invincible. I obviously know that if I crash a motorcycle, I get hurt. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about from a mental standpoint.

giving me that mental, that coat of armor, it's really, really important. And you need to do the work yourself too to kind of build to that. And that's because building a law firm is not easy. You're gonna run into vendors that suck. You're gonna run into other attorneys that suck. You're gonna run into employees that suck. You know what? Deal with it, move on. That's what you can do. Deal with it, move on. Deal with it, move on. You'll get through that. There are gonna be months where clients are scarce, okay?

Cash flow is tight. see things trending downward. You're questioning every decision that you make. Your employees are questioning every decision that you make. But the truth is the most successful law firms aren't the ones that can avoid the pain. It's that they're the ones that can endure the pain. Okay? It's important. They're not avoiding the pain, they're enduring the pain. They outlast those obstacles.

Tyson Mutrux (09:53.896)
Every law firm owner that I know that has hit seven figures or more They have faced those moments where they they thought about giving up completely. They thought I'm done. I'm gonna go work for someone I'm gonna leave the law completely The main difference is that they didn't okay. That's the difference. They didn't Perseverance is not something that's glamorous. It's not like you see in the movies. It's just not glamorous sometimes you're sitting in your office and you're Complaining to yourself and you're thinking about how bad it sucks

It's not glamorous, but it's what's the ones that can get through it. That's what separates those who succeed from those who don't. It's just that simple, really is. So let me give you some actionable tips. That way you can stay on course or get back on course because…

You you gotta have some of these things that can help you persevere when things feel just impossible. focus on the long game. It's really important. Remember that success takes time. Think about your long-term vision. If you don't have a long-term vision, come up with your long-term vision. Tell your employees about your long-term vision, about what you want for the firm. Just remember, like most firms, they really don't hit their stride until years, you know, three to five or later.

Play the long game, okay? Play the long game. I don't care if you're in year 10 right now and you think, well, know, most hit it in three to five. Who cares? You're year 10. Make some tweaks, cut the fat, and then get through it, okay? Celebrate wins, okay? Here's something I will tell you. The ones that have struggled the longest that have not seen that success, I've seen that they're really hard on themselves and they don't look at those small wins. I don't care if it's that you…

finally made it to the gym today after not going for three years. The ones that see the success ultimately are the ones that they pat themselves on the back. They say, you know what, I made it the gym today. Hell yeah, I'm gonna go tomorrow. The ones that I see that are in that 10 year streak where they're not doing well, they've been doing this for 10 years, they're the ones that went to the gym today and they say, well, yeah, I went to the gym but I haven't been in three years.

Tyson Mutrux (12:08.92)
They're hard on themselves. They're really hard on themselves. And you've got to change that mindset. You've got to celebrate those wins. The smallest wins. I don't care if you drove to the parking lot, you got out of your car and said, I'm not going to do it today. Guess what? You got out of bed. You got close. Let's celebrate that as a win. Now let's walk towards the door. All right, tomorrow let's go inside. Make the progress. Every little inch counts. Real important.

You gotta celebrate those wins. That's why our huddle, every day, every single day we celebrate our wins, different than previous day. And if someone says, I don't really have a win, guess what? We don't accept that. I see that on the Friday call, sometimes the action call at the guild. I don't know if I, nah, nah, nah, let's think about it. Stop, let's think about, okay, let's go through your day. Every single time they've been able to come up with something. It doesn't matter how bad the day was the day before, we all have bad days.

It can be really bad days, but there's something there. There's some sort of light at end of the tunnel that you can look to Another thing is is build a support system All right So you're gonna want to surround yourself with people who believe in you believe in your vision that support you That are positive people that are not negative influences That can be a mentor. It can be a mastermind group. It can be your team, right? Yeah, team especially, know having the team around you

that believes in you, that believes that you are going to be able to pull off the vision for the firm that you've been talking about, but you're gonna wanna make sure you build that team around you. Super, super important. All right, the next thing I wanna get to is find your why, all right? Why are you doing this? Why are you still doing this?

I there's there's the the book Cynic I can't think it was S-I-N-E-K I'm drawing a blank but Simon Cynic the Find Your Why really really good book there's lots of books on helping you find your why but I do find that reminding yourself like stopping for a second and reminding yourself why you started doing this why you started your firm in the first place why you became a lawyer why you became a law why you went to law school

Tyson Mutrux (14:31.8)
kind of going backwards and thinking about those times and thinking about what you used to be and why you used to think the way you thought. Really valuable. It's a really powerful thing that you can use to help propel you forward. And it will really help you kind of think about, what do I want my legacy to be? And it's a really powerful little tool you can do. And then the last thing is that learn from your setbacks. All right?

Every single failure that you have is just a lesson. It's all it is. It's an opportunity to grow. I don't care how bad the mistake was, right? It's an opportunity to grow. Use them to improve your processes, improve your leadership, style, leadership, the way you communicate, your strategy, all of that. Learn from the mistakes that you make. The more mistakes you make, guess what? The more lessons that you learn, and you learn from them, and you'll make a difference.

All right. And here's the thing. mean, you've seen me grow with Maximum Lawyer. Those of you that have been listening for a while, those of you that are new, welcome. hopefully you'll go back and listen to some of older podcasts. I'm a much better law firm owner now than I was eight years ago when we started the show. But the reality is that I have faced my fair share of pain.

This journey has not been an easy journey. I know that whenever I'm on this podcast, it may sound like it's been all roses and all success. That's not that's not true. The truth is, is that we've had to go through a lot of pain to get to our firm to where it is now. And that's the same for everybody. OK, there were months where I mean, I doubted everything. I'm thinking like, what like what am I doing here? Why am I working this hard?

for this, is it really worth it? those are tough conversations that you have to with yourself. It's tough. But what I've learned is that perseverance, does pay off. It really does. And I found that each time I've taken a hard punch, I found that the harder the punch, the better I've been on the other side of things, which is such an odd thing to think. You think the harder punch that you take,

Tyson Mutrux (16:57.542)
when I get through this I'm gonna be knocked down a peg but the reality is that every time I'm taking a hard punch the harder it is on the other side of it I'm that much stronger I'm way stronger and the same will be for you

You gotta push through the hard moments, everyone has to. So if you're listening to this and you feel like, you're on the brink, I just want you to know this and truly understand this. Success is waiting for you. The pain that you're going through, it's temporary. Just keep going through it. I think a lot of times, I think about this quite a bit actually for some reason. I really like the movie, Days of Thunder. I think it's a 1990 movie, that's what it is, but.

There was a moment where Tom Cruise is driving and he is driving through the smoke and he got scared. And when he got scared, he made some really bad mistakes and he ended up crashing the car and got really, really injured. And they didn't think he was ever gonna be able to drive again. there was, you compare that to later in the movie and the same scenario came up. the guy on the radio says, you gotta just drive through it, just drive through it.

and he put the gas down and just drove through it. And he came out the other side just fine. And you kind of saw all the stress kind of come off of him. I think about that quite a bit just because things suck sometimes. And you've got to just put the gas down and drive through it. And you'll ultimately be OK in the end. Even if you take a punch, you will be stronger for it. All right. So I am going to wrap things up.

Just kind of want to leave you with the thought that law firm owners, the ones that succeed, I'm telling you, they're not always the smartest. They're not always the most talented. And I'm sure you've seen those people, right? You've seen the ones you're like, what the hell? What are they doing that I'm not doing? That guy's an idiot. We all have those thoughts. But the reality is that sometimes the most successful is that person over there that you're like, how are you doing that?

Tyson Mutrux (19:07.362)
But really what it is, it's just that they're the ones who simply refuse to quit. That's what it is. They're just the ones that keep pushing. So just like Carvano, what I talked about before, just like all the other successful law firms that have come before you, you can turn things around, right? Even when it feels impossible. That's all I have for you this week. Just as I wrap things up and you know.

Just remember that if you've got something you want me to cover on the Saturday show, shoot me a text 314-501-926-0. Go to maximallawyer.com forward slash ask and just submit your question, whichever those you prefer. that is all I have for you. But remember, consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care.