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Are you struggling with perfectionism in your career? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Jim and Tyson discuss the damaging effects of perfectionism on law firm owners.

Perfectionism in the legal field can really hold people back in their career. It is a difficult hurdle to overcome because there are feelings of not being good enough. The constant need to be perfect can stop people from starting something new. It could be starting a new business venture, a new project or even a new relationship.

The need to have everything go a specific way with no mistakes is something a lot of people struggle with and it can really hold people back from success.

Many people get stuck in “prep mode” when having a goal to start something, due to perfectionism. For example, if someone wants to start a business in the social media field and spends months talking about the content they want to post or how they are going to market themselves, but have not taken any steps towards starting the business, no progress is ever made. Getting started is the most important thing when doing something new. So don’t fuss about the small stuff and get something on paper.

When working towards something, it is important to think about this question: What did I accomplish today? Think about the small wins and celebrate that. At the end of the day, those small wins get you closer and closer to your goal. Worrying about every small detail and wanting to make it perfect will damage any chance you have in reaching your goal. 

Jim and Tyson speak to creating pattern interrupts to help with perfectionism. Pattern interrupts involve incorporating new things in your routine as a way to move away from repetitiveness. If you do the same thing everyday, it can aid in your perfectionism. Try going for a walk in between meetings or taking a call on your front porch. It is something to break up that task and maybe trick your brain into implementing it again.

Perfectionism is a tough quality to overcome. But, with small changes and the right actions, you can break the habit in your daily life and become content with letting things be how they are!

Take a listen.

Jim's Hack: Show gratitude to people who have helped you, especially on LinkedIn. It is a good tool to keep in your backpocket.

Tyson's Tip: Try out a cold plunge as it has many benefits such as boosting energy.

Episode Highlights:

  • 2:53 Jim and Tyson discuss how perfectionism holds law firm owners back.
  • 5:24 Jim and Tyson share their own struggles with perfectionism.
  • 13:20 Importance of celebrating small wins.
  • 14:32 The importance of taking action.
  • 16:15 The value of incorporating pattern interrupts into routines.


🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here..

    Resources:

    Transcripts: Perfectionism in Law Firm Owners: How to Break Free and Make Progress

    Jim Hacking:
    Welcome back to the Maximum Warrior Podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

    Tyson:
    And I'm Tyson Mewtrix, what's up Jimbo!

    Jim Hacking:
    Oh Tyson, it's good to be back. We haven't recorded in a while. I just noticed that our episode with John Day was released and I was like, man, we just recorded that. So I know that means that we don't have many in the can. I know we have a full day of recording today so I'm excited to spend the day with you.

    Tyson:
    Yeah, it usually means one of two things, either it was bumped up, which sometimes we do, we bump them up, or we have very few in the can, which is, it sounds like that's where we are.

    Jim Hacking:
    Could be both, because it was a great episode, and it's summertime, so sometimes the bounty runs a little low.

    Tyson:
    That's very true, very true. What you up to these days? How you doing?

    Jim Hacking:
    Well, I'm looking at, so one of my YouTube subscribers sent me a bag of Dungeons and Dragon dice. I'm very excited about it. I can do the sound if you wanna hear it. And you might say to yourself, Jim, why do you have, why?

    Tyson:
    Yes, that's exactly what I want to know. Why do you have Dungeons and Dragons dice?

    Jim Hacking:
    I made a comment on the show, on my live show a couple weeks ago about how I really wish I had a 20-sided die because people call me up on the show and they have some cockamamie immigration plan that's really, really dumb. And I say to them, well, you have a 5% chance of this going really, really badly, or you have a 10% chance of this going really, really badly. So I wanted to have dice to represent to say, okay, let's play a game. you're gonna throw out a number, I'm gonna roll the dice, and if you hit, that means you're getting deported, or you're gonna be stuck outside the United States. And that scares the shit out of people. They're like, no man, don't throw that die, don't throw that, I don't wanna see that. So somebody just, they didn't identify who they were, but they said, here are the dice for you.

    Tyson:
    I like it. Well, you know what? Now we're going to do a little show and tell. So Stephen McClellan sent me this cool little thing. Check

    Jim Hacking:
    He's

    Tyson:
    this

    Jim Hacking:
    a good

    Tyson:
    out.

    Jim Hacking:
    dude.

    Tyson:
    So

    Jim Hacking:
    He's a good dude.

    Tyson:
    for those of you

    Jim Hacking:
    Oh

    Tyson:
    that can actually

    Jim Hacking:
    nice

    Tyson:
    see, this is a piece of the airplane of the Spirit of St. Louis. He's a pilot, I'm a pilot, and it's really cool. So there's a little description. For the wings, they used to use fabric. right, not aluminum. And so it's a piece of the fabric from the plane, which is pretty cool. So

    Jim Hacking:
    That's awesome.

    Tyson:
    yes, thank you, Steven. Really appreciate it. That's awesome. But all right, let's get, I wanna make sure we don't have time for our topic today because I think it's a good one. Do you wanna introduce the topic?

    Jim Hacking:
    Today I want to talk about perfectionism. And you know, as of the time of this recording, we have about 200 law firm owners in the Guild. Obviously we have thousands of other law firm owners in the big group and who listen to the podcast. And I have to say that one of the things that I see really holding people back is perfectionism. And I would define perfectionism as sort of an overarching. debilitating fear to get started because you're not going to be able to do it perfectly or Exactly right forever and I think it really is a hurdle for a lot of people and I thought it would make an interesting Topic for our show today

    Tyson:
    I think it's a beautiful topic and it's funny. Sometimes these topics, they track, actually I would say not sometimes, usually the topics track what's going on in our lives. And I think this is an interesting one because both of us, Jason Selk is coaching both of us right now. And perfectionism is one of those things that he talks about quite a bit because… That PCT is very, very bad. And I would agree with you. And it's, I would say that the perfectionism is many times the things that, that stops people from launching and launching, not just meaning the firm, but launching anything, any idea that they have, um, any, any special project, hiring people, starting their firm, you name it, they want everything to be lined up just right. And the reality is that that's not the right way of going about things. But it's a massive block, wouldn't you say? Like, would you say that's the number one block for people? I don't know if I would say number one, but would you?

    Jim Hacking:
    I'm a little biased because I'm a ten-quick start. So I sort of speed through those kinds of things, and so I might not be the most accurate judge of that. But yes, I think it's certainly one of the top three things that hold law firm owners back, that fear of getting started versus just jumping right in. And I'm glad that you mentioned that half the time the things that we talk about, or even more so, half the times we think of, we talk about issues on this show that are things that we've either struggled with or are currently struggling with. So I guess we should begin by talking about our own journeys with perfectionism. How has it manifested for you? And then I can share sort of what I've struggled with in my own weird way of perfectionism.

    Tyson:
    That's an interesting question. I didn't know you were going to ask me that, but I'm glad you did. I think the way that probably early on, the way it manifested the most is just probably beating myself up too much over things that I should have been really happy about. And instead, I picked on the small things. And that is one of those symptoms of that perfectionism where you'll do something really, really well. And let's just use… We'll go with the baseball season. Let's go with a baseball analogy. Let's say that you have an amazing game and you, let's say you were three for four, right? And you had, let's say a triple, a double and a single, like, oh, and, and you did great in the field, but on that one at bat, you struck out like at the end of the day, you focus and I will say, I was really bad about this whenever I was, when I played baseball growing up where I'd have an amazing game. and I would talk about that one thing that happened. And so I would say that that's probably where it manifested the most. And that's not just in baseball, but throughout my life, that's probably where it's manifested the most is when it comes to perfectionism. What about you?

    Jim Hacking:
    So for me, this isn't gonna surprise you, because you know how I run in streaks, and I'll have a great streak going, I'll be doing everything right the way that I wanna do it, and then I'll have one bad day, and then I'm like, fuck it, I wanna stop, I'm never gonna do that again, right? That's really how perfectionism holds me back, is that if I, the goal of perfectionism defeats the satisfaction. of getting the wins, the small wins. I mean, I remember when I read in Relentless Solution Focus where there was a hockey player who was struggling with drinking and Jason said to him, well, why don't you just drink one night a week? And I was like, one night a week? Well, that'll break his streak. Then that'll be bad. And so yeah, this is something that really I've struggled with and still struggle with.

    Tyson:
    Yeah, and it's funny about you. Like you'll be very passionate about something one way or the other. And I'll just, let's just wait a week. Let's just wait a week. We'll see what we'll see how Jim feel next week. And if Jim feels the same way in a week. All right. Well then, uh, then he's really committed to whatever that thing is. Um, but

    Jim Hacking:
    So

    Tyson:
    no,

    Jim Hacking:
    let's talk about,

    Tyson:
    yeah.

    Jim Hacking:
    oh, go ahead.

    Tyson:
    I know, but I was going to say you're right about it, but like, um, I think it's also important. that there are so many people that preach, there's always like one way. But what you just said is really important about, like there's no like one way, like you go in streaks, some people don't, like there's no one way. So we're gonna talk about it a little bit, but just because we're saying one thing doesn't mean it's the way.

    Jim Hacking:
    Well, let's talk about something much more fun than how we've struggled with perfectionism. That is how we see others struggling with perfectionism, because it's so much easier to talk about them over there versus us. But I mean, I was talking to a friend yesterday who wants to get into a consulting business and wants to start doing some social media. And you know, she wants it to be perfect. She wants it to be top notch. She wants it to be high quality. And those are all good things. Those are all good things unless six months later, you're still talking about that and haven't created some damn content. So I think that's the real test is that if you've thought about doing a change or doing something new and you're in prep mode for that for a really, really long time, you know, like the classic story of the law firm owner who can't announce their new firm venture unless they have. best logo that's ever been designed, right, or the best trade name for their law firm. So

    Tyson:
    Just such

    Jim Hacking:
    it,

    Tyson:
    a waste of time.

    Jim Hacking:
    yeah,

    Tyson:
    Such a waste of time.

    Jim Hacking:
    yeah. So it's just, it's, it's sort of not realizing what the most important thing is, which is just getting started. You know, a good example, you know, I have a, I have a YouTube live show with lots of people watching now, and I, I talk for an hour about immigration and If you go back and look at my old videos, they're just so boring and so, hi, I'm Jim. I'm an immigration lawyer. Today, let's talk about citizenship. I mean, it could be no more boring. So you've got to get started so that you can get better.

    Tyson:
    Yeah, and it's really about making that progress. And so if you kind of just step back and think about the way you should really view your day is, okay, did I make progress today? Did I move the ball forward? Okay, and if you did, you need to celebrate that. It's interesting. So we'll do these accountability calls in the guild and people will see the things that they're gonna do on Monday and then Friday, they'll come to the Friday call and they'll do all these amazing things, right? And then they'll be like, but I didn't get it all done. So I'll give myself a five out of 10. Well, like, hold on a second. Like, did you put in… a good amount of effort towards moving the ball forward. And like sometimes they'll put like five, six hours into the thing, whatever the thing is and they'll have made a bunch of progress, but then they'll beat themselves up because they didn't get it done. And the reality is, is you're not going to get things done every week and every single day. It's something that it takes time. Like some of these projects that we're doing as firm owners, they take several months, right? current project, it won't get done until the end of September probably. And if you really step back and the whole project is taken, it's really a two and a half year project that we've been working on. But it's something that we're working on regularly and it's bit by bit by bit and we're always making progress on it. But really, it just, it eats me up whenever I see these law firm owners, they're beating themselves up whenever they're making a ton of progress, but then they're just… they're just down on themselves because they didn't finish the thing, whatever the thing is. And that's just a really negative way of viewing things.

    Jim Hacking:
    I think another form of perfection is when law firm owners says to themselves, well, everything has to be perfect before I do this, especially hiring, right? Everything I have to have, all this money in the bank account before I do that. If you find yourself using language like that, like the stars have to align or I won't be able to take action. I mean, that to me is really where I see it manifesting itself a lot is that… Maybe it's a safety thing, maybe it's a fear thing, maybe it's I don't wanna go out on a limb, but I hate to tell you, part of running a law firm is the uncertainty of outcome. And if you are really, really being limited by that, then maybe you wanna have a job and not so much be running a law firm, because running a law firm is a risk entailing venture.

    Tyson:
    Yeah, another one of those is I got to have all the video equipment. I've got to have all the right video equipment before I start doing videos. And I've got to have all my scripts written. I've got to have all my topics. I've got to have all the best lighting. But in reality, Jim, what is your most valuable piece of video equipment?

    Jim Hacking:
    Probably this microphone and that camera.

    Tyson:
    Okay, not expensive, most valuable. What's the one you use the most often?

    Jim Hacking:
    Oh,

    Tyson:
    It's

    Jim Hacking:
    my phone.

    Tyson:
    your phone, that's right.

    Jim Hacking:
    Yeah.

    Tyson:
    It's your phone. Actually, right now I'm recording this episode, the camera is my phone camera. That's what I'm using, camo, that's what I'm using. And the video is amazing on it. And we overlook those things sometimes. I think a good lesson is to look for the simplicity. look for the simplicity in things as opposed to trying to make things so complicated. And if you can find that simplicity, it's going to really help you combat that perfectionism.

    Jim Hacking:
    you're listening to the Maximum Aware podcast. Our guest today is that MFer Perfection, and we're kicking MFer Perfection to the curb. Tyson, I wanna shift gears a little bit and talk about sort of how we break through perfectionism, sort of what are some tips that we can give to our listeners about how to move past perfectionism.

    Tyson:
    Um, yeah, uh, the, I would say the number one thing, I think maybe the number one thing is celebrating your wins is maybe the number one, even, even if they're small, just finding a win. Um, even if you say at the end of the day, oh my gosh, I didn't do anything to it. No, you did something. Like you did something. You, you, you did something to move the ball forward and celebrating those,

    Jim Hacking:
    Why

    Tyson:
    those things.

    Jim Hacking:
    is that important?

    Tyson:
    And It's going to change the way you view things quite a bit. And it's going to make you appreciate the small progress that you make on a regular basis. And it's going to allow you to realize how you're watching things progress. You're actually seeing things. If you're taking that self-assessment, you're watching in real time as the ball is moving forward, how you're making progress inch by inch by inch. on whatever that project is, whatever that thing is you're doing, you're actually able to stop in the middle of all the chaos of your life and say, oh my, you know what? I am actually making progress on that. And it's going to give you that boost of confidence that you really need because confidence is really the number one factor that you should be looking for is that confidence. If you can boost that confidence, everything else will sort of fall into place.

    Jim Hacking:
    For me, when I find myself slipping into perfectionist tendencies, one of the things that really helps is just to take some action. To do one little step, to do one thing. What can I do today or in the next 25 minutes or this hour? Not putting it off till tomorrow. Giving myself some wiggle room. I think sometimes I've really seen people, and I've gone through this myself, where you get sort of, I always view it as a box. inside of sand. Like you're in a, somebody has dug a box of sand in the sand for you and you're sort of trapped down in it and you gotta sort of start to wiggle free and you gotta sort of um, I think I've told you before about when my dad, we were canoeing down the Black River when I was a kid and my dad got caught in some quicksand and he started to sink and my dad was a man of quick action and hot temper and so he wanted to just sort of like go crazy and get out, but what he did was he just stopped moving and he found himself floating to the top. So I think about that when it comes to being stuck in that sand mass of perfectionism is that you've got to do something to just change it. Maybe it's go for a run or go to the spa or just do something to give yourself some freedom and some, a little bit of movement so that you can get out of that box and then move towards where you want to be.

    Tyson:
    You know, as much of a routine guy as I am, I love the idea of pattern interrupt where you've got your routine, but then you say, you know what? I'm changing things up today. I'm gonna stop doing this thing and I'm gonna go out and. Like you said, you'll go for a walk, go for a run. Maybe I might take this meeting outside and we're gonna go on a walk. That the whole pattern interrupt can be very, very valuable. I think that's a whole episode for another day, but

    Jim Hacking:
    It probably

    Tyson:
    I think

    Jim Hacking:
    is,

    Tyson:
    that that'd

    Jim Hacking:
    it probably

    Tyson:
    be

    Jim Hacking:
    is

    Tyson:
    good.

    Jim Hacking:
    because the very first thing my therapist had me do when I started seeing her years ago was to brush my teeth with my left hand. That was the very first thing, the very first homework assignment that I got was to brush my teeth with my left hand. And I think you're right. I mean, on Wednesdays, you know, I get up every morning at 420 to go to the gym to work out at 5. On Wednesdays, I really go out on the edge and I say, you can sleep as long as you want on Wednesdays and Sundays. Now nine times out of ten I get up somewhere between 4.30 and 5, but I have been known to sleep longer and I think you have to build in those pattern interrupts to try to break up that routine and that monotony.

    Tyson:
    As a quick timeout, what was the purpose of brushing your teeth with your left hand?

    Jim Hacking:
    Oh, I mean, first of all, it triggers different synapses in your brain. But I think more so it was just to see things from a different point of view. I mean, try it. Try it tomorrow. I mean, when you do it, you're just like, well, or you're left handed, aren't you?

    Tyson:
    I'm right here.

    Jim Hacking:
    Yeah. So try it with your left hand. Just see what just it just feels weird. It feels it feels a little different. And it was about she knew that, I mean, back then, I was in a lot of pain and a lot of discomfort and she knew that. She wanted to push those buttons to try to see what shifts could be made.

    Tyson:
    I actually, I can't wait to do this. You know what I mean? I'm, I'm into experimenting.

    Jim Hacking:
    You can do

    Tyson:
    So

    Jim Hacking:
    it in your

    Tyson:
    that's.

    Jim Hacking:
    you can do it in your ice freezer speaking of

    Tyson:
    Yes,

    Jim Hacking:
    pattern interrupts.

    Tyson:
    I'm going to get to

    Jim Hacking:
    Oh

    Tyson:
    my tip later. That's

    Jim Hacking:
    All right

    Tyson:
    going to be my tip of the week. So very good. All right, any final words on this, Jimbo?

    Jim Hacking:
    Well, as always, as always, be easy on yourself. Don't beat yourself up. You don't need to listen to this episode and say to yourself, God damn it, I am a perfectionist, and then use that to keep yourself from taking action. So as with all things, a little progress is good. Just do what you can. Try to move the needle a little bit. If you need help, reach out in the big group. join the guild, talk to us, reach out to Tyson and I. I mean, I was talking to a member yesterday who's struggling. It's not easy running a law firm. It's one of the hardest things you'll do besides raising kids. And I was thinking the other day, we could do an episode on how running a law firm is like raising kids. But in general, I just want you to be your best, to free yourself from whatever's. holding you back. That's why Tyson and I started this podcast in the first place. Why we started the Facebook group, why we started the guild so that people would have resources and a place to go that's optimistic, forward looking, wanting to improve, sort of drowning out the negative. And I really believe that with all the negativity that's going around, you need to surround yourself with people who don't. subscribed to that who don't give into that. The election cycle is heating back up again and I find myself getting drawn back to Twitter. And I just got to remember that stuff is just noise and it keeps you from, it keeps me and you from moving forward.

    Tyson:
    100% well said it's not Twitter anymore. It's X. X

    Jim Hacking:
    Oh yeah, you've

    Tyson:
    is

    Jim Hacking:
    been big

    Tyson:
    the

    Jim Hacking:
    on that,

    Tyson:
    new.

    Jim Hacking:
    yes.

    Tyson:
    Yeah, it's posts now It's not tweets. It's posts. But alright Jimbo. Let's wrap things up speaking of hanging out with Positive people if you want to join us in the big Facebook group join us there if you will and it's just If you're not in the Facebook group, you're listening to this, I think you're missing out on a ton of valuable content. If you want a more high-level conversation with more curated content, go to maxlawguild.com. We'd love to have you there. And if you get something from this podcast, we'd love for you to give us a five-star review and help us share the love. It helps spread the word to other law firm owners just like you. Jimmy, what's your hack of the week?

    Jim Hacking:
    In the last few weeks on LinkedIn and Facebook, I have seen people make posts where they sort of talk about things they're thankful for and they tag people that have sort of guided them. We received one of those this morning. Somebody left us a nice review and it wasn't somebody that we even know or that we've ever heard of. And Joey Vitali is really good at this about, you know, sort of these gratitude posts where you tag people. I think it could be annoying and overused, but I think it's a great way to get engagement and to sort of thank the people that have helped you. And I've written those posts. I think it's a good tool to keep in your toolbox. Again, don't abuse it, but I think it's something that can really sort of amplify the kinds of things we were just talking about on the episode, which is that positivity and the gratitude.

    Tyson:
    Yeah, I like that one. I think anytime you can thank someone for helping you get to where you are, I think that it's a very good thing. My tip of the week, you sort of hinted at it actually. So I've been wanting to do cold plunges for a while and it was funny. So Amy and I, we went out, I went to buy like one of those big tubs to do it in. And she was like, well, she's like, why are we doing this? Like, I've been watching all these videos online. where these people are taking chest freezers and doing it. I said, what? And I was a little resistant at first. She's like, yeah, she's like a lot of it. So we pulled up some videos and I saw some people how they're doing it. And so I put together a chest freezer cold plunge and it's really simple. You take, you have a water filter, you have a chest freezer that I got for 175 bucks on Facebook, cleaned it out. And then I got this ink bird that it's a little plug that goes into the wall. And then this temperature probe goes into the freezer and it, once it gets to the, to the optimal temperature that you set it at, you, it shuts off, right? So it shuts off the electricity to it. So it doesn't get any colder. Uh, and it's really cool. So, and the way the chest freezer is, is it, it will stay at that same temperature for days if you keep the lid closed. It's, it's incredible how long it will stay at that same temperature. So the amount of time that it's actually on, it's very, very minimal, but, um, I did it, I did it this morning. It's the feeling, I'm not even gonna list all the benefits that you get from doing a cold plunge, but you should just Google it. It's quite amazing. The high that you get from it, from the dopamine, it's a sustained high. It's not one of those things where it's like temporary. It actually lasts throughout the day. It's really, really cool. So I highly recommend it. If you thought about it, you don't have to do a deep freeze one, but it's the do a cold plunge if you've not done it before. Really recommend it.

    Jim Hacking:
    What temperature do you keep the water at?

    Tyson:
    So mine's at, I've got it down to, I started it in the high 50s. I'm now at 55 and it, 55 may not seem like it's like, to some people, whenever I heard the temperatures, like that doesn't sound very cold. When you're in it, it's freaking, it's freaking cold. So my goal is to get it down to 50 is my goal.

    Jim Hacking:
    And how long do you stay

    Tyson:
    About halfway

    Jim Hacking:
    in?

    Tyson:
    there.

    Jim Hacking:
    How long do you stay in?

    Tyson:
    See you again.

    Jim Hacking:
    How long do you stay in?

    Tyson:
    All right, so I'm up to three minutes. All right, I started at one minute and then now I'm up to three minutes. I think I'll probably end up getting to the point where I'll be done around 10 minutes, but the real point is where you should stop is where you start to shiver because if you start to shiver the benefits, you've now achieved all the benefits that you're going to get out of it. So it doesn't matter if it's 30 seconds or two minutes or whatever. when you start to shiver is whenever you should start to get out because then that's where the benefits start to… There's no more returns on your body and staying in there if you stay in longer than when you start shivering. So that's really when you should stop. Have you done one ever?

    Jim Hacking:
    Yeah, yeah, I've gone to those cryo places.

    Tyson:
    Okay, gotcha.

    Jim Hacking:
    And when I read the Jim Quick book, I did some cold showers for a while, but I sort of moved on from that.

    Tyson:
    Yeah, well, and with that, there is some research that says that a cold shower is going to give you just as much of a benefit as a cold plunge. So if you're wanting to just do cold showers, you can do it, but I can tell you, I've done cold showers, we did cold showers because of 75 hard, because the different phases we went through, I can tell you it's not even comparable. the energy you get from the cold plunge versus the cold shower a lot better. All right, man. Good talk to you. I'll talk to you more later.

    Jim Hacking:
    All right, buddy. See ya.

    This week on Maximum Mom, your host Elise Buie is joined by Victoria Collier. 

    Victoria Collier, Founder and CEO of Quid Pro Quo: Victoria is a seasoned entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the legal industry. In addition to building and selling her own 7-figure law firm, she has been coaching lawyers since 2008 on how to add value to their law firms.

    Take a listen!

    Episode Highlights:

    • 08:15 Victoria Collier discusses how having children has influenced her entrepreneurial journey and the motivation it provides to show her children they can pursue their dreams
    • 11:50 Introduction to Victoria Collier's business, Quid Pro Quo, which assists law firm owners in selling or buying law firms, focusing on finding a perfect match between buyers and sellers
    • 18:51 The importance of being true to yourself and finding fulfillment in your work and personal life
    • 19:56 The dangers of pursuing growth without considering personal values and alignment with clients
    • 24:12 The importance of preserving the culture and legacy of a law firm when buying or selling, and the need for realistic expectations and a successful transition process
    • 29:11 Discussion on the transition timeline when buying or selling a law firm, including the importance of respecting the seller's decisions and allowing them to stay as long as they want
    • 30:50 Exploring the importance of going beyond surface-level conversations and understanding the fears and concerns that drive people's decisions
    • 34:31 Steps involved in working with the speaker to evaluate and position a law firm for sale, including assessing the current state of the firm, determining the desired outcome, conducting a valuation, and creating a marketing package.
    • 37:44 Discusses the rules of thumb for valuing law firms based on the services provided and the multiple of earnings before taxes and depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).
    • 38:45 Explains the concept of sellers discretionary earnings and how it involves recasting personal expenses back into the net income of the law firm.
    • 42:18 Emphasizes the significance of financial forecasting for law firms, including the ability to analyze trends, make strategic decisions, and understand the impact on the numbers.


    📹 Watch the interview here.

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    Transcripts: Avoiding Common Mistakes When Buying or Selling Law Firms with Victoria Collier

    Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Welcome to Maximum Mom with Elise Buey, where you'll hear from women who are navigating the same messy journey as you lawyering, entrepreneurship and mothering. What a trifecta. We're here to share tips, resources, wins, losses and encouragement for moms who are raising a family while building a law firm so you feel less alone in your journey toward a fulfilling career and being the best mom you can be.

    Speaker 2 (00:00:29) - Welcome to the Maximum Mom podcast. And today I am so excited to have my friend and colleague Victoria Collier. Thanks, Victoria, for joining me today. Thanks, Elise. It's always a pleasure. Yeah, well, I'm so excited to talk to you. I feel like I have so many things I need to ask you about. I mean, there are just burning questions. I think that many of us would like to know the answer to. So I have just appointed myself as the person who's going to ask them all. Well, now you've set the bar up so.

    Speaker 3 (00:01:01) - High, I'm not sure I can read that.

    Speaker 2 (00:01:07) - Okay. First, I always like to just get over that. Tell us what your family looks like. You know, obviously, we're the maximum Mom podcast, so we talk to mostly moms. Of course, I deviate some, but so tell me, tell me what makes up your family? What do you all look like at home?

    Speaker 3 (00:01:24) - Yeah. So at home, my parents sorry, my children. We don't need to go all the way back to my parents. But my children have two moms, so one of them was a prosecutor for 15 years before we had our children. And then she has been a stay at home mom since then and does part time work doing independent college counseling. And I, on the other hand, am a full time entrepreneur, juggling multiple businesses. And then we've got the the children that are 13 years old in eighth grade, a boy and a girl. Love and life at the moment. Yes.

    Speaker 2 (00:02:02) - You are like hardcore in the thick of mommy Big. Big.

    Speaker 2 (00:02:08) - Yes.

    Speaker 3 (00:02:08) - Yes.

    Speaker 2 (00:02:10) - Yeah, Well, you first You have to tell those of us. Some people might not know what you and your daughter did this summer. So, I mean, just give us a brief snippet of the adventure you all did. That involved flights, cars, animals.

    Speaker 3 (00:02:25) - Right. So we so we live in Atlanta and we have a three and a half acre farm with goats and chickens. And it just so happens that the best goat ever is in the state of Oregon. So we flew first class out to Oregon and then rented a vehicle so that we could pick up. It was two goats, actually two goats from a farm out there. And then we traveled back in the car having to camp on the side of the road because you can't, you know, have goats and hotel. And so part of the adventure was that one place where we stopped to camp and, you know, not knowing how far we could drive and how the trip was going to go, we made no advance reservations anywhere.

    Speaker 3 (00:03:11) - It's just kind of like, Hey, let's just stop somewhere. Well, one night there was tornadoes and and so we pitch a tent at this site that we find right at like, dusk. And we're, you know, pitching the tent and then the the park wardens or whatever you want to call them, come driving through and they see this goat and they're talking to my daughter and I'm like, Don't be talking to my daughter. And they're like, Nice goat. You can't have livestock at a national park in us. Like it's dark and there's a tornado coming and they're like, Just hide the goat. And so we did. So anyway, we saw Mount Rushmore. We went to Yellowstone, and it was I drove 100 miles an hour. It was an amazing trip.

    Speaker 2 (00:03:58) - Oh, my gosh. It was amazing. And I was so thrilled to be able to see you as you embarked on this journey just for a moment and to buy some of the goat soap that your daughter is making Now, I'm able to share that with people who come to my home for retreat.

    Speaker 2 (00:04:12) - So it's kind of exciting because then they get to know and learn about your goat adventure, which I just I mean, you're like a mom after my own heart. I was that mom that was like, okay, we're going to go to camp now. And at the time we lived in Minnesota and camp was in Tennessee, and my kids were like, okay, do we have a map? I'm like, No, we're following the signs itself. I'm like, It is good. Like, we would just get on I-35 and I'm like, We'll just look for signs that mention Southern states, and that's where we're going. And we will get to Tennessee and it'll be all fine.

    Speaker 3 (00:04:50) - Well, the amazing thing is being able to see friends, you know, while you're out of town and make those special trips and all that kind of stuff. And my daughter. So appreciate it and I appreciate it. You coming and making time to come see us and everything. So I love I love being able to have my own business, being able to take off time.

    Speaker 3 (00:05:08) - I want to and go see the people I want to that I've worked hard with in the business world. Totally. Yeah.

    Speaker 2 (00:05:15) - Well, and I just think it's amazing to to have your daughter come along and do something like that and to also listen to your daughter. I mean, sit there and talk to us about how she found the goats and how she, you know, figured this out. I mean, talk about a little entrepreneur in the making. I mean, like you just need the driver's license. She's got the rest all planned out. And which, again, reminds me so much of my oldest daughter, who I mean, I was just like, okay, you just do your life. Let me know when I'm supposed to be involved. Yeah, it's amazing.

    Speaker 3 (00:05:52) - I'll just share this real quick. Is that, yes, she is a little entrepreneur, but because I am one, she'll tell you that she's not going to be one. Yes.

    Speaker 2 (00:05:59) - So absolutely. Of course not. She's probably looking for like a steady job, steady pay, like a more steady thing.

    Speaker 2 (00:06:08) - Yeah. I mean, we kind of joke in our family. I mean, we don't know if being an entrepreneur was a traumatic experience for the children or or a positive experience. I mean, you know, but that's just, I think, real life, too, you know, And I it's interesting. I mean, talking to you, you're a great person. I saw something recently on social media and somebody was talking about how, you know, they had this practice they'd been involved in. And I don't remember all the details, nor do I mean to like be specific and share the details. But, you know, they had had like a job, a W2 job for years and years, and they're like, Oh, I want to now go out and start my own firm so I can have flexibility and this and that. And it was like, Oh my. Like.

    Speaker 3 (00:06:52) - What do we show have you been watching?

    Speaker 2 (00:06:55) - I literally was like, I don't begin to know where to start to respond to this person.

    Speaker 2 (00:07:01) - I was like, Well, if your flexibility includes 100 hour work weeks, you know, absolute. Stress over cash flow, like the actual learning that you have to do. You know, throw in 10,000 books you need to read because they didn't mention any of this in law school. If that is flexibility, girl, you go for it. You got this.

    Speaker 3 (00:07:23) - That's right.

    Speaker 2 (00:07:24) - I mean, it is a process of real process. Well, I really I mean, one thing I do want to talk to you about is and I think that I've heard you talk about this a lot of times, I think people think about entrepreneurship, you know, when they have young children because of the flexibility and stuff. And and I do think there is some real truth to the flexibility of, you know, being able to guide your life like, you know, what are you going to do? And are you going to show up for a school event or whatever? I mean, but I found my children's presence very much drove me in what I was doing because, like, I mean, I needed to pay some bills, like kids were looking at tuition in college and all the things.

    Speaker 2 (00:08:10) - I mean, what about you? How has having your children impacted your entrepreneurial journey?

    Speaker 3 (00:08:15) - Somewhat. Just like what you're saying is that, you know, you hear a lot of people say, I can't do that because I have kids. I do it because I have kids and it motivates me. And as you know, my entrepreneur journey hasn't been one business that has just gone forward. It's been multiple businesses in different industries. And I think more than anything, as I look through it, especially as they become teenagers and they're starting to think about who they are becoming, the biggest impact, I'd have to say, is that. Even more now is I don't want to hold back because I want to show them that they can do anything. They can't do everything. That's where, you know, teams and delegation come in. But but they can do anything and they don't have to stick with one thing they can change to. We are more than one job. We are more than one skill set. And I would have to say that that's been the biggest impact.

    Speaker 3 (00:09:15) - Knowing that I have two little ones looking at everything I do every day.

    Speaker 2 (00:09:19) - Oh, I mean, amen to that. It is I find it has been wild to watch how much your children do watch you good, bad and ugly. You know, and obviously and I'm know you, too, like me. I mean, I'm making mistakes over here all the time. You know what I mean? Like on the Daily. I mean, on the hourly, you know, I'm flinging off some mistake something and they are watching all the things. And it's interesting because when mine, when I got to that empty nester syndrome or period, I literally thought, oh, I'm on the back end of all this. Little did I realize these young adult people are watching like a hawk because now they're really like, okay, you know, what am I going to do with my life? What is. So any thought that, you know, once they go off to school, you can like, you know, kick your heels up and they're not watching? Let me assure you, that ain't the case.

    Speaker 3 (00:10:20) - There's Well, just like you're still watching them like a hawk, like mothers do. Yeah. They're, you know, which is good. You know, it should be that way.

    Speaker 2 (00:10:30) - Yeah, it is. It's an interesting journey, though. And I have found actually said to my husband the other day that I think owning a business has been the biggest impetus for personal development by far of anything I've ever done. And that alone is worth the entrepreneurial journey.

    Speaker 3 (00:10:50) - Right. And, you know, I think and that comes down to like you hear the term coaching all the time. And I meet lawyers that have gone ten, 20, 30 years without any coaches at all. And I think where they missed the boat often and even just listening to podcasts and things like that is that coaching isn't often about the business, it's about your growth and how you uplevel you so that then the business does what you want it to do with results. And so you're right. I mean, to me it's all personal development.

    Speaker 3 (00:11:25) - I just happen to have a business on the side that's coming along and supporting that, Right?

    Speaker 2 (00:11:29) - So exactly. I think that's exactly right. Well, let's talk a little bit about your current business that you're running that's related to law firms. I know you are involved in different business adventures now, but you have one business that is related to law firm positioning, law firm sales. How would you how would you describe that overall?

    Speaker 3 (00:11:50) - The business is called quid pro quo, which means equal exchange of value. And so the crux of what we do is we help law firm owners sell or buy law firms, and we're looking for a perfect match between buyers and sellers, which does bring equal value to both sides.

    Speaker 2 (00:12:07) - Awesome. And what what type of things? I mean, what are you looking at and what is your own experience in this? Because you do bring a unique skill set to this area having sold and I think bought your own.

    Speaker 3 (00:12:22) - In the process of. Yes.

    Speaker 2 (00:12:24) - So tell us a little bit about that and what your experience brings to the table in this.

    Speaker 3 (00:12:30) - So I started my own law firm in 2002, so I built a law firm from scratch right out of law school. I had that for 18 years and then sold it. And before I sold it, I was doing estate planning, which is really exit planning for personal life. And so it wasn't a big change to go to exit planning for business. And so I got credentials in that and then credentials and valuations so that I could determine what the value of a business would be, specifically law firms. And so I sold my business and I had been coaching lawyers for years and years in the Estate planning, Veterans Benefits World. And many of my students, if you will, were older than I was. And so they had heard that I had sold my law firm. They're contacting me to find out how do I do that? Because historically you didn't you just closed your doors. You just handed your open files to your buddy down the street. And so my very first client was an estate planning firm right in my backyard where she had called me to see if I wanted to buy her firm.

    Speaker 3 (00:13:35) - And I said, Well, that would be lovely, except I'm under a conflict of interest because I just sold mine. And, you know, there's ethics rules that you have to abide by. And so we were able to sell her firm all cash up front with a short term exit. And that was what started it all. And so now, yes, I am in the process of buying a law firm as well. And even when I owned my own law firm, I went through the process of trying to buy another one. So I had some experience in that. It just didn't complete at that time. And so we do help other law firms by law firms as well. And I would say at least though, that the thread through all of it is that my background has some psychology in it and communication and mediation, and that is all very helpful with. This type of relationships because emotions run high on both sides.

    Speaker 2 (00:14:28) - Oh, yeah. Big time. Big time. Well, tell us a little bit about I mean, why did you decide to sell your law firm? Like, you know, I know a lot of people, they want to know, like if you're running a successful law firm, why would you leave? Why wouldn't you just continue to run it, you know, earn the money off of it, have somebody else do the day to day.

    Speaker 3 (00:14:48) - I'll share a little differently today than I ever have in the past. And which is all still true. Everything is true. Just you get more layers of the onion as you talk about it. But ultimately, I had considered exiting my practice a few times before I did, and something always kept me there. And then I was looking to hire someone as a professional legal administrator to really get my office shaped up in a way that I could not do because I'm the visionary I cannot implement and systems. I believe in them. I cannot create them. And so when I was interviewing this, these people, one of them, the personality test, the guy said, hey, she's going to want to take over your business. And I'm like, That was the first time. I'm like, Really? When it you know, he said it was like, was a bad thing. So that really gave me some hope of spark of hope with some stuff that I had pushed to the end. And then I was on stage giving a about to give a presentation and this woman was heckling me and I was like, I don't need this.

    Speaker 3 (00:15:53) - You know, I just don't need this. But ultimately what was happening and this is the new information, what was happening behind the scenes was my plan was definitely getting my business in shape, and it was definitely going in a great business direction. But personality wise, we were very different and I knew that the two of us could not lead the firm with me as visionary and her as PLA. And I knew that she wanted her own firm and all that, coupled with my daughter getting horses and us getting a farm. And didn't it just feel better to be on the farm? And it did. And I thought, You know what? There's only one letter difference in farm and firm. I'm just going to go to the farm and sell the farm. And it got harder and harder to come back, right? And then it was beautiful timing because the pandemic hit. And so then we could just spend all of our time out there. And it's been I just could see all the possibilities with my kids out there and working from there.

    Speaker 3 (00:16:52) - And there was no decision after that.

    Speaker 2 (00:16:55) - Good for you. Yeah, Well, I think it's I think it is really interesting. And I think as law firm owners, there's so much shoulds in our head about what we should be doing. And I think many of us ended up in law school based on a should, you know, like a lot of times I think people, they get out of high school, they go to college, they go to graduate school. And and they haven't really stopped to think like, what do I want to do? Like, what am I trying to do? So I love that you were able to step back a little and really think about it. And and I mean, personally, I'm with you. Farm and firm. They're just so similar. Like barely a difference, right?

    Speaker 3 (00:17:37) - That's right.

    Speaker 2 (00:17:38) - I mean, you're wrangling horses in one place and you're wrangling people in another. Like it's all the same.

    Speaker 3 (00:17:44) - Yeah. You know, I mean, it took a lot of mental work to get there because it's not even just the shoulds, but it's with everyone watching you, with me having had a presence in the legal community forever with I mean, I remember one lawyer telling me one time something about I'm not going to get his words quite right, but basically you bounce around from here to there with different interests.

    Speaker 3 (00:18:09) - And the way he said it, it was I did not take it as a compliment. I took it kind of like she can't ever figure it out. She can't complete anything. And that's not at all how he meant it, because I did ask him about that. But he says, No, you're inspiring because because you can do these things and you don't limit yourself based on, you know, what you people think you should do. Yeah, but it does it. That doesn't mean that it's not inside and has to be dealt with because it does. You see yourself as a failure, I guess is the bottom way to say it is. You know, I'm not still practicing after 30 years. I must be a failure. Why? Why can't I just keep enjoying this? Right.

    Speaker 2 (00:18:51) - Yeah. But I think it is so just insightful to realize that sometimes you're waking up in the morning. I mean, and if it's morning after morning and you're not, like, fired up to go to the firm and you'd rather be at the farm, like, I mean, good on you do, you know, for being able to make that decision and stand strong in what you believe in? I think it's really powerful.

    Speaker 2 (00:19:14) - I mean, it's the ultimate anti people pleasing.

    Speaker 3 (00:19:18) - Right? And then you have your family to answer to. And why is mommy not to? Taking clients anymore.

    Speaker 2 (00:19:25) - So, yeah, because she's wrangling horses and dealing with goat adventures, right?

    Speaker 3 (00:19:30) - That's right. You know, it certainly changed the dinnertime conversation because my kids literally because we've always talked money, we've always talked business. And so it was not uncommon for me to sit down at the dinner table and have one of my children ask me, So, Mommy, how much money did you make today? And so for two years, I didn't have to hear that.

    Speaker 2 (00:19:49) - Right, Exactly. Instead, you could talk about how much poop did you shovel?

    Speaker 3 (00:19:53) - That's right. How many plants did I plant?

    Speaker 2 (00:19:56) - Yes, indeed. Well, one of the other things you bring up, I think, is about coaches. And I think there is a real plethora of people that just talk about grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And it is one of the things I personally really struggle with because I think we don't.

    Speaker 2 (00:20:16) - We don't fully explain what grow, grow, grow, grow, grow can look like. And I think all growth is not equal. I mean, you know, there is growth that is very solid, like people's numbers are and their ratios are excellent. The business is healthy and that is good and there is growth that gets very quickly out of control and people's numbers go a little crazy. And and there's just all kinds of things that can happen. So I think that it's important to really hearken back to what is aligned with the client, you know, and when coaches are coaching people, I mean, how have you dealt with that? No doubt you have come across that grow, grow, grow mentality just as I have.

    Speaker 3 (00:21:05) - Absolutely. In fact, I think on my website it says stop growing and start going because, you know, growth for growth sake is empty. And we have to have a purpose because otherwise it's unhealthy, which causes the stress, which causes you to see post on Facebook that say, you know, I hate managing people.

    Speaker 3 (00:21:25) - No, you just don't know how to grow properly. You know, But the growth in your business has to keep up with or I should say your personal growth has to precede your business growth and your business growth cannot go first or exceed you. Otherwise you're always going to be miserable and stressed. But yeah, I see it. And I think that programs that are just, again, just growth for growth sake leave people maybe with more income. Gross Not necessarily net, but. Gross But not fulfilled in the ways that they want to be fulfilled. So I would say that when we talk about growth like you intimated, and that is figure out what that means for you. First, don't let your coach define what that is. You define what that is.

    Speaker 2 (00:22:12) - Yeah. And I think that is such an important takeaway because I think that it it absolutely breaks my heart to see how many stressed, sad, miserable business owners there are and that are literally just, I mean, sinking in, just ickiness.

    Speaker 3 (00:22:33) - And and I don't mean to laugh at that, but ickiness is a nice word. Yeah.

    Speaker 2 (00:22:36) - I mean, it's really bad though, like, and I'll read things and I'll be in mastermind groups and listen to somebody and I'm just I'm really, I have this huge, just empathetic heart for these people who are going through this just growth, growth, growth, growth, growth. And they are so torn up about what their lives are looking like. And I'm like, guys, we are in an amazing profession. We have such amazing opportunities. We ideally are going to be joyful and content and like and I don't mean content in the sense of you don't want to do other things and you don't have other goals, but just like day to day kind of content in your skin, you know.

    Speaker 3 (00:23:19) - I think what sometimes traps people there and why they're so miserable is they don't see that they have other options or that they perhaps created this and they can create it. And so, you know, we all have that choice, right? It's just which difficult choice do we want to make, stay or leave in this situation? So but it's all painful until you get through it, whichever direction you decide to go.

    Speaker 2 (00:23:47) - What are some things that you would say like as you've watched the sale and purchase of different law firms? I mean, what are some of the mistakes you've seen? No doubt you had to have seen some people purchase firms that it was like, whoa, that was not a great move. Or, you know, like, what are some of the, you know, just top three things you would say people need to think about?

    Speaker 3 (00:24:12) - Well, I would say the biggest heartbreak that I have seen is when a person buys a firm and it's a great firm and then they don't continue the firm in the way that it had become so great. And they either start changing lots of things or they just continue to operate in their own way without taking all the greatness that the firm was. And then that diminishes the culture and the income and the referrals and production, everything. And so I've seen that happen twice now. And it is heartbreaking to the seller who still there to witness that for a period of time.

    Speaker 3 (00:24:57) - And there's nothing they can do because, I mean, the new person's not listening. If they were listening, they would have done it differently to begin with. So I would say, number one, if you're going to buy a firm, figure out why you're buying this firm, why this firm? If it's just the income stream, then I would say don't buy the firm. There are so many other ways to make an income stream, but if you want to continue somebodies business and the legacy they've started and the culture, then actually immerse yourself in what they have built and become part of that and then blend over time, but don't do it immediately. That has been the most damaging I've seen. So that's number one. Number two would be a seller who is not vested anymore. And then they are just I wouldn't say. Interfering, but they're interfering through lack of ability to. Have a successful transition. And so even though we might have the perfect buyer, the seller's already blanked out, and that's not helpful to anybody.

    Speaker 3 (00:26:06) - So that's why getting started in the process, before you're burned out, before you're ready to just throw it away is number two. And then that kind of piggybacks into number three. And that is there are a lot of sellers that are just like ready just to walk away tomorrow. So they list their property, their property, their law firm, and then they have this expectation that within 3 to 6 months it's going to be sold and somebody else is going to have it. And, you know, it generally takes a little longer than that. Due diligence takes that long. And so to have an unrealistic expectation, just because you're burned out doesn't mean the buyers are just going to come swarming towards you, even though there's a lot more education out there, even though there's people like me out there finding buyers, it still takes time. And so having reasonable expectations is helpful.

    Speaker 2 (00:26:53) - That's a really good point. I love that and I love the thought of how you you have to be doing this and doing this positioning well in advance of your burnout period.

    Speaker 2 (00:27:04) - Like. Right. Well, talk to us a little bit about I mean, in people who haven't really looked into this might not know when you talk about a seller maybe staying involved in the business, post-sale, what is that called? What what is that looking like? Because it does seem like there's different ways people can structure these sales.

    Speaker 3 (00:27:25) - Well, when someone stays afterwards. Historically, what that means to the outside world is that you have done an earnout, which means that you have not paid all up front for the business. And the business has to achieve certain levels of revenue for the seller to continue to get more revenue. And so the seller has an incentive to stay and make the business successful. That's historically what people think of, but that's not really what I'm talking about. I 100% against earnout. I don't think that they actually benefit either side of a transaction ever. But what I am talking about is like a relay race. You know, there's a baton that has to be passed and there has to be two hands on that baton at some point.

    Speaker 3 (00:28:13) - You can't just throw it to the next person, not without bobbling it and it falling to the ground and you losing your position. So it's when you've got those two hands on that baton. The thing is, how long is that baton? How long are we going to stay together? Buyers often will want a seller to stay too long, a year or two years or three years or four years or five years. And a seller, They may even some of them will want to stay longer, like a year or two. And from experience, I can share this unless you're doing a merger, which is very different than an acquisition, when you're doing an acquisition, it's like a light switch goes off after the papers have been signed, the mentality completely changes the buyers. The buyer are making decisions, and this isn't the best decision for the firm right now that you've been making all this time. I'm going to come and make it the sellers. Like, Hey, I'm still here, I'm still a valuable person and you're just not listening to me.

    Speaker 3 (00:29:11) - You don't respect me. And so, you know, and then the sellers like I have other things I'm interested in. Why am I still here? And so my thing is we want to find out why do we want this transition Now, there are times when the buyer doesn't want to come in and be the lawyer like me. I'm buying a law firm right now. I'm never going to step in and be that lawyer. And so one of the sellers, because it was a partnership, one of the sellers is out immediately. The other seller wants to stay a year, two years, three years. And I know his generation, he doesn't want to go home and I'm okay with that. But because I'm not going to be there on the day to day, I'm still going to operate that firm as if he still owns it. I'm going to respect his decisions. I'm providing support from a leadership standpoint. I will be doing the hiring and and involve him as one of the key individuals. But I'm the one that makes those decisions.

    Speaker 3 (00:30:04) - But he still gets to stay and do the things he loves, like meeting with the clients and going to the golf course now and doing some networking. And so I'm going to let him stay as long as he wants to, as long as he's in a role that supports the best interest of the firm, which is networking and all that. But like when my buyer bought my firm, she wanted me to stay two years because she felt insecure in a legal practice area within what we did. And I can get that. But you know, there's close for that and you can call me for that. I don't have to be here every day, you know? So that's what we need to define is why do you want this transition to be long? Where is the gap of knowledge or confidence? And let's see where we can fill that without the person being there.

    Speaker 2 (00:30:50) - I love that. Yeah, I think that's so great. It goes, though, to your psychology point. I mean, you got to dig under and figure out what what are the fears, what are the concerns? What is driving people's, you know, decisions? Because I think a lot of times if we stay at that surface level, we're not getting we don't really understand what's going on.

    Speaker 2 (00:31:12) - You know, And.

    Speaker 3 (00:31:13) - Yes, people like to stay at that surface level.

    Speaker 2 (00:31:16) - Oh, my gosh, totally. I was actually having a text conversation with a friend of mine just yesterday, and she was commenting about how she feels like everybody just stays at this shallow level of the universe. And she's like, I can barely do it anymore. Like, it's just so and I'm like, I agree. But I think it takes a certain level of vulnerability, a certain level of I mean, self confidence in your vulnerability, which is kind of a weird kind of mix and then just authenticity, willing to just admit like, yeah, I don't know this or I'm terrified of this or whatever.

    Speaker 3 (00:31:57) - Yeah, it does, it does. And through that, being vulnerable enough to say, I don't know that I have all the questions to ask, I don't know where my gaps are or or how this relationship is going to go. And so then they gloss over with, I would say, bravado versus confidence, and then it doesn't go as well as it could go.

    Speaker 3 (00:32:21) - So but but I see that everywhere in least as you do you. In our daily lives. We have to be willing to be vulnerable.

    Speaker 2 (00:32:28) - Oh, yeah.

    Speaker 3 (00:32:29) - So and we can't bring that to the office if we haven't practiced it outside of the office, you know? So, yeah, I was teaching one of my newest employees. He's a sales guy, and he was learning, you know, why you make follow up phone calls and all this kind of stuff. And he kept giving me answers, very surface like textbook answers. I said, That's great. Now stop telling me what you think I want to hear. Tell me what I actually want to hear. Go a level deeper. And it's like he didn't know how. So I'm training him on how to go deeper, right?

    Speaker 2 (00:33:02) - Well, I think that's so critical in the work we do, especially when you think about working with law firm owners, working with, in my case, family law people, estate planning people. I mean, you're dealing with people's lives.

    Speaker 2 (00:33:16) - I mean, like it's hardcore people stuff. Like there's probably there's emotions, there's feelings there. Spears And if we're not willing to dig in, I mean, we are not doing anybody a service because we are just looking at them like a little bot and we are, you know, solving just some surface level issue that might not even touch what the real issues are.

    Speaker 3 (00:33:41) - Right? I learned a tool years ago that essentially you ask the same question until you get there, and that is And why is that important to you and why is that important to you? And while the asker feels like, you know, it feels ridiculous to do it, but the person who's actually answering, if they're into it, they don't even realize you're asking the same question over and over because they're finally getting into the emotion of why this is important. Now, when.

    Speaker 2 (00:34:07) - People come to you and they want to work with you, let's say it's an owner and they're seeing themselves, you know, maybe I don't know, their kid is almost in college and they're thinking, yeah, I could see getting out of this in a few years.

    Speaker 2 (00:34:21) - What are the kind of steps they're going to be taking? I would think. I mean, you're going to have to help evaluate a business or I mean, what does it look like to come work with you?

    Speaker 3 (00:34:31) - Sure. So first of all, we got to get a just a baseline as to what is your firm? Who is your firm? What does it look like? Who do you have working for you? What kind of clients do you have? What kind of referral sources, what kind of systems and processes, all that kind of stuff. It's just basically holding a mirror up and reflecting Who are you today? And then it's where do you want to be or what do you think you need in order to live the life that you're trying to get to and seeing, Are we already there? So all we got to do is get this listed or are there things we need to do to position it to get you the value you need so you can take that next step? And so if we are already there because that's the easier path is we still need the valuation because you're going to list it for a price and then you have to justify that price.

    Speaker 3 (00:35:20) - So we do a valuation and then we do a marketing package, if you will. And so if you're working with us to help you sell it, we actually then have a team of professionals who are very proactive and reach out to prospective buyers or sellers, depending on which side we're on. And we phone call, we email, we do direct mail, things like that. And so that's why our process sometimes is faster, although we can't guarantee any speed whatsoever. But faster than just listing your business on a site like this, buy, sell if you have to position it and if you want or need it to be worth more, then we actually look at in what areas of your firm would be most beneficial to increase the value. Like you wouldn't go in and rehab a living room, you would rehab the bathrooms in the kitchen. Right. And so we look at the firm for the bathrooms and kitchen areas to rehab. And then we also have to consider what timing, because some people may be like, well, there's this gap here, but I can't wait five years.

    Speaker 3 (00:36:19) - I have to do this like by a year from now. Okay, then let's fast track that. There was actually one firm that I've spoken with most recently and they said, well, within the in the next three years, we want to be able to sell it for 3 million. And I said, Well, then I can do the valuation for now to see where your gap is. I know where your income is right now, but I'm not the right person to get you to the three in such an accelerated pace. There are other organizations out there that could probably help you with that. You come back after you're done. So because I can coach people and I do coach people, especially estate planning firms, but also other types of firms as well. When we are looking at systematic structured growth or just specific areas of the firm that need to be positioned well. But I'm not the right kind of coach. If you need to accelerate your income in a short period of time.

    Speaker 2 (00:37:13) - Now, if somebody is trying to sell their firm, let's say like this person for $3 million, is there a certain ratios you're looking at where you're like, okay, your income needs to be $6 Million to sell it for 3 million? Or I mean, I have no idea.

    Speaker 2 (00:37:28) - This is not something I've looked into. So I'm curious and I know a lot of people are curious because people are always I mean, you just see people all the time and you just get tagged in a million things when people are talking about selling their firm.

    Speaker 3 (00:37:44) - Certainly this weekend was a nice weekend. So so I would say that there's certainly rules of thumb. There's, you know, targets you'll hear three times EBITDA, which is earnings before taxes and depreciation and amortization. So I would say, first of all, the type of firm, the services you provide. Are going to have an effect on that. So there's some services that are going to have a higher multiple than other services. For example, I'd say estate planning, trademark business law, those are going to have higher multiples than, for example, P.I. or maybe even family law that are heavy litigation, one time transactions. But you're looking at in general terms, one time. Gross Or about 2.8 times net. But the net is the weird one because net can be manipulated so easily with how much you put into your IRA or how much you, you know, flow through for a tax purpose, but not necessarily a business purpose.

    Speaker 3 (00:38:45) - Purpose. So now when when we are doing our valuations, we rely heavily on what's called sellers discretionary earnings. And that's basically doing a recast of all that personal stuff back in and making it net.

    Speaker 2 (00:38:59) - That makes good sense. Yeah. Is that and that's kind of like I think what a lot of people refer to as total owner benefit. Are those kind of the same thing, correct?

    Speaker 3 (00:39:08) - It is. It is the same thing. However, one of the things that people don't think about, and that is the salary of the owner who's leaving. And sometimes people take W-2 salary, sometimes people don't, and they just pull from the net. And sometimes when they do take from the salary, they're paying themselves either $30,000 a year or they're paying themselves $250,000 a year. And so that is an owner benefit for sure. But we also have to look at, well, what would it cost to replace you with somebody and not just as a lawyer, but you're also the CEO and you're also this and that, that and the other.

    Speaker 3 (00:39:46) - So we do a lot of figuring to to make that real for a buyer's perspective.

    Speaker 2 (00:39:53) - Yeah, that makes really good sense to me. Well, I've thought that when people do those tiny salaries as a lawyer, like if they're the CEO, I'm always thinking that is going to be interesting. If ever somebody has to come in and replace you. Because I mean, finding a CEO for $30,000 a year might not be your best hire.

    Speaker 3 (00:40:14) - Good luck with that. But doesn't it make your profit look so much higher right now?

    Speaker 2 (00:40:17) - Right. Exactly. I find I have to tell you, this is an area of law firm ownership that I find so fascinating is understanding the numbers. Like, I mean, like 2AT, and I am kind of a freak. I mean, my my bookkeeper and CFO team will tell you, like, I literally play these mind games. I'm like, okay, if we're 2% off on our forecast, like, where did we go wrong? And, you know, like, I want to be like dead on and really understand our numbers.

    Speaker 2 (00:40:49) - And then I hear other lawyers and they're like, Yeah, I haven't seen my pal since January. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I would be like a hair on fire, like cat on the ceiling kind of person.

    Speaker 3 (00:41:03) - Last week I talked to someone who doesn't even have panels. I'm like, What? What, what? I'm not understanding. Like, just send me your taxes, then just send me your taxes. How do you operate this way?

    Speaker 2 (00:41:15) - Oh, my gosh. Oh, there's no way. I'm like, I am getting hives when it's like the sixth day of the month and I don't have my PNL because my people are like, We can get it on the ninth. And my last person always had it on the fifth. And I'm like, okay, I'm trying to go for your ninth thing. Like I'm, I'm trying to, you know, be there. But by the seventh, I'm always like, So do you have it a little like.

    Speaker 3 (00:41:40) - It's like a button.

    Speaker 3 (00:41:41) - And QuickBooks just brought it to me.

    Speaker 2 (00:41:43) - I'm just like, I'm so pathetic.

    Speaker 3 (00:41:47) - I'm with you, though. I always in my law firm, I always got it on the sixth. And if it wasn't there on the sixth, man, I was like, calling pound and desks.

    Speaker 2 (00:41:54) - Yeah, well, I think it matters. And I to me, it's a almost like a safety blanket kind of thing. Like a security blanket. I mean, I know exactly what's going on, so if something is going awry, I'm going to know it quickly. And I mean, and I'm going to even have other things more than monthly where I'm going to know if things are going awry. Do you know, so that levers can be pulled?

    Speaker 3 (00:42:18) - Well, you want to see the trends. Absolutely it's not. And that's the thing, though, is even those that have the panels, those that look at their panels, often they are just looking to see how did we do? They are not looking at it at a strategic way to see what is the trend and where's the forecast going.

    Speaker 3 (00:42:36) - And so their businesses could be so much different if they were forecasting versus just historical. How do I do? Did I check the box? Do I get to pat myself on the back today or not?

    Speaker 2 (00:42:46) - Oh, my gosh. I love my forecast to tool. We run a 13 month, you know rolling forecast and I mean it is by far my biggest self competition you know but I find the forecast. Casting tool to be powerful in allowing you to look at things strategically and make those strategic decisions. Because, I mean, you've got everything in front of you, every little thing. And I mean, you can pull levers all around and see what is happening, you know, what it will do to numbers and how it will impact things. And I think it allows you to look at trends right there in your face. Do you know what I mean?

    Speaker 3 (00:43:28) - Like I do. I do. And but what we hear all the time is from lawyers. I'm not good at numbers. I don't like numbers.

    Speaker 3 (00:43:35) - Also can't tell you the number of people who have told me that, that when we then focused on the numbers and they actually started producing results, they liked, they loved being in their numbers. And so what I really take from that is what you don't like is the results you're getting. And that's why you don't like numbers. That's why you don't like to get in there. Because if they produce differently, you would love it.

    Speaker 2 (00:43:55) - Well, and I think I think a lot of us lawyers joke about going to law school because we didn't have to do math. I mean, I was definitely one of those weird lawyers. I thought I was going to be a biomedical engineer. So I was all about math. Like I was totally into math. I kind of got the end of my calculus brain, though, and I was like, Whoa, I don't think I can do any more of this calculus stuff. Like, I am tapping out. But our math is all simple, you know what I mean? Multiplication, adding a little, dividing some percentages, like, you know, it's basic.

    Speaker 2 (00:44:27) - I feel like you get through sixth grade in seventh grade and we're good with our math like.

    Speaker 3 (00:44:33) - Nothing that a basic calculator can't do or map.

    Speaker 2 (00:44:36) - Exactly. Exactly. And so yeah, I tend to think it might be a little bit of an excuse because we got that. We definitely have seventh grade math, I think. Yeah. So. Well, I really appreciate your time today. It just I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. And I know there are so many people out there that are either thinking of buying firms, thinking of selling firms. I mean, it's a point of conversation practically in every setting I attend. And so I just am really happy we were able to bring you on and talk about quid pro quo and what you're doing and how you're doing it.

    Speaker 3 (00:45:14) - Thank you. I'm glad I was able to answer all your questions for all your people.

    Speaker 2 (00:45:18) - Yes, indeed. Well, and I hope you now have your kids. They have gone back to school right in.

    Speaker 3 (00:45:24) - They started last Thursday.

    Speaker 3 (00:45:25) - So, yes, this is the first full week starting today.

    Speaker 2 (00:45:28) - So you're like living it up this week, huh?

    Speaker 3 (00:45:30) - That's right. Just free as a bird.

    Speaker 2 (00:45:35) - Okay. Well, enjoy and enjoy the rest of your week. Now, do tell our listeners and we'll add it in the notes. Where can people reach you? What is the best way for somebody to reach you?

    Speaker 3 (00:45:45) - Well, the best way to become aware of our community is through our private Facebook group called The Art of Buying and Selling a law firm or law firms and otherwise. Our website is quid pro quo law.com.

    Speaker 2 (00:45:58) - Okay, perfect. Well, great. Well thanks again and enjoy the rest of your week and take care of those goats in that tractor and all the things.

    Speaker 3 (00:46:07) - All the things. Thank you so much, Elise.

    Speaker 1 (00:46:10) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Mom podcast, a production of Maximum Lawyer Media. Be sure to subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. See you next time.

    Are you unsure if it is time to hire someone new for your business? In this podcast, Tyson discusses the timelines of adding a new face to the team as well as the financial aspects of hiring. He touches on the difference between capacity versus capabilities when hiring and how to make good hiring decisions.

    The difference between capacity and capability is crucial to knowing when it is time to bring somebody onboard. Capacity is about the numbers. How many people do you have currently and how many tasks are getting completed? Capability is about leveraging the right skills and innovation to grow your business. Focus on hiring someone who will be an asset and will give you the leverage needed to be a better company.

    For many the question is this: When do I know it is time to hire someone new? You need to look at overcapacity and if your team is overworked and staff are stretched too thin. Another important thing is if someone is “wearing too many hats'' and multitasking regularly. The last thing is opportunity cost, which for some might be losing out on clients because you don't have enough team members to take them on.

    It is one thing to know more people are needed on a team, but it is another thing to be able to afford it. It is important to know if a company is in the right spot financially to hire someone new. Considering if a person being hired will bring the company revenue is significant as well.

    Aside from the cost of hiring, culture fit is another consideration. Warren Buffett says to consider 3 things when hiring someone: integrity, intelligence and energy. Focus on these aspects of someone’s overall character and mindset to ensure they are going to succeed in a company.

    Use these tips to ensure you get the right people for the job!

    Take a listen.

    Episode Highlights:

    • 3:41 Discusses the signs of overcapacity 
    • 6:05 Discusses the cost of hiring 
    • 9:56 Discusses the importance of a streamlined onboarding process


    🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

    Resources:

    Transcripts: From Capacity to Capability: Making the Call to Add a Seat on the Bus

    Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast. Maximum lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

    Speaker 2 (00:00:24) - Hey, it's Tyson. And today we have the exciting topic of how to know when it's time to add a seat on the bus. But before starting today, I want to tell you about something that Jim and I have put together that I think is pretty amazing. And I and I'd love to be able to share it with you. It's maximum lawyer and minimum time. It's a roadmap to creating the firm of your dreams. This is something that we give to all guild members when they join the Guild. But if you text stage 1 to 3 145019260, you're going to get stage one completely free. It's a course. You're going to get stage one of the course. You'll get it completely free. There's no strings attached. I think this is something that you're really going to benefit from, so I hope you'll take advantage of it.

    Speaker 2 (00:01:13) - But just text stage 1 to 3 145019260 and we will send it to you. All right. Let's get to it today. So today's conversation is all about understanding the pivot from mere capacity in your firm to harnessing your firm's capability. What we're talking about is capacity versus capability. It's about recognizing your firm when that firm is ready to elevate to its next stage by adding a fresh face to the team. So that is what we are talking about. It's that capacity versus capability. And there is a huge difference between these two words. Capacity is typically about numbers. The number of people you have, the number of tasks that are getting completed capability. On the other hand, what we're talking about, this is something that dives deeper. It's about leveraging the right skills, leveraging the intelligence, leveraging the innovation that you have to grow your firm. There's a great quote that I like on this from Steve Jobs, and it really does highlight this perfectly. He says, It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do.

    Speaker 2 (00:02:27) - We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do. I like this because it gets to the essence of what I'm talking about. You need to change your mindset on hiring. It's about leverage. Stop focusing on what the employee is going to cost you. This is this is a common mistake that we see on a regular basis where people just view an employee as a cost. Instead, let's let's focus on the employee as as one an asset to the firm. But this asset is going to give you leverage. All right. Stop thinking of them as just a cost to the firm, a drain to the firm. That's not what they are. They are there to add value and give you that leverage and focusing on the wrong things. As we we talk about quite a bit, this is going to lead us down the wrong path and we don't want that. Obviously, you want to to be focusing on the right things. All right. So how can you discern that golden moment when adding a new member becomes imperative? Because and I think that's I think that's the common struggle that people have is actually what do you look for? And I'd say that there's three major areas that I look at when deciding whether or not we need to hire someone.

    Speaker 2 (00:03:41) - And really, overcapacity is the first thing I look at. So if you're if you're current team as it currently exist, is consistently stretching beyond their capacity, then this is a very, very big probably the number one telltale sign that you need to add more seats on the bus. So look for that. Look for that overcapacity where you're starting to stretch your team to thin the other one. And that one I obviously that one's seems probably a little obvious, but it's not always obvious to all people. The number the number two thing that I look for is, is that multitasking mania that you probably put a lot of people through. If you have a few employees that are wearing too many hats and maybe it's more than a few, maybe it's many of your employees that are wearing too many hats. One, I think it's important to identify the fact that effectiveness will start to dwindle when you do that quite a bit, actually. But this is another sign that if you've got, I'd say at least two people that are wearing multiple hats or doing too many things, especially if you have, let's say you have a paralegal and you have a receptionist, the receptionist leaves and now you have your paralegal doing some bookkeeping, answering the phone as well, and also doing the paralegal activities.

    Speaker 2 (00:04:58) - That's an obvious situation, but maybe it's not so obvious where same employee where you've got the receptionist, you got the paralegal, but you do have them do doing your bookkeeping activities. And the phone is ringing so much that they're also playing. Receptionist. You've got them wearing too many hats and you've got to start to look at maybe thinking, okay, I need to start hiring more people. And this gets more and more difficult as you become begin to scale because you you start to become more disconnected. Connected from your employees. Just it's natural because you've got so many people. So you need to find a way to check in with your employees to figure out all the things that they're doing. Another thing to look at is opportunity cost, and this is probably one that's overlooked the most. Are there great opportunities out there or that you're that you're turning down or clients that you're turning down or losing? This is a key part of it, or you're losing due to your bandwidth. Are you are you getting fired a lot on cases or are firms choosing not to hire you because maybe you're not devoting enough tension to the front end, the conversion, the intake process? So this is another telltale sign on top of that.

    Speaker 2 (00:06:05) - So those are the big three that I want to talk about. But I do think it's important that it's there's other considerations that we need to take into consideration. We need to think about when it comes to hiring. One of the first ones is really the financial part of things. And you definitely need to recognize the need for for new employees. But I think you also need to be financially shrewd about this as well. I think that's really, really important. You don't want to don't want to overextend yourself because the I think the last study that I saw, the average cost to hire someone stands just over $4,000. And that's that's just the hiring cost. That's not that's not the actual salary of the person. That's solely the hiring cost. So putting a button, a seat just over 4000 bucks and it takes roughly 42 days to fill that position. Our firm is I've talked about our hiring process before and maybe I'll talk about it in another podcast. But our hiring process is is actually longer than that.

    Speaker 2 (00:07:04) - We have a pretty long hiring process and it's intentional, but it I'll get to I'm not going to get into the details of why that is in this podcast. That's not what this is about, but it is a it's time consuming is the point, right? It can take some time. So you also have to contrast this, though. That's where, you know, I told you not to focus on the cost. So this is where I get to the part where it's the butt part of this. You need to contrast that with the potential revenue upswing. So think about the full financial picture. Okay, you've got the cost part of it, but think about the financial upswing and where the where you're going to start to get those revenue gains back. Once you've done that, this is where that full financial picture comes into view. So make sure you're looking at the full picture, not one part of it. Another big part of this is, is hire is hiring for your vision. The the hires that you bring in, the team members that you bring in, they need to mirror the aspirations and the ethos of your firm.

    Speaker 2 (00:08:01) - Every seat on the bus must serve the journey's end goal. All right. That's a very big, big part of this. Don't forget that in the hiring process, you need to make sure you incorporate that. A part of that is firm culture. All right. Warren Buffett says in looking for people to hire, look for three qualities integrity, intelligence and energy. I do agree with that. But I'm going to talk about in a second what we what we do. But if you don't find the first, he says, the other two will kill you. And I agree. So if you if you lose the integrity part of it, if you find someone that's not does not have integrity, then the other two will obviously kill you. But we stole a page. What we look for is and we stole it from Jack Jack Welch's playbook and we call our people peeps for a reason. The last P doesn't stand for anything, but we call it people peeps. And we look for passion, energy, the ability to energize others, edge and execution.

    Speaker 2 (00:08:55) - And I'm not going to go into the detail about each of these. I'll do that in another episode. But the emphasis here is on focusing on culture. The next thing is efficient onboarding. You need to have a streamlined and hearty welcome for your people. Okay? It's going to help you ensure that longevity. It's going to help you with additional things like getting people onboarded quickly, but it's going to help with that longevity. New hires are 69% more likely to stick around for three years or more if you have a good onboarding process. So it's it's a it is a very valuable investment for you to invest on the front end. And I was lucky enough to have been given that advice early on to focus on being able to onboard and have a process in place. It's really, really important. It's also going to give you a massive competitive advantage over your competitors because you're going to be able to onboard faster than others. And I was talking about earlier about we've got an extended a pretty long hiring process.

    Speaker 2 (00:09:56) - That's intentional. Okay. So I'm not talking about that. Ours ours is a very efficient process, but it's intentionally long. Again, I'll talk about it in another another episode. But really, here is your actionable piece of advice. Here's your your main takeaway and hopefully this is one you're going to take with you so you can make quick decisions on hiring. But I want you to start a bi monthly employee needs assessment. You can do it bi monthly or quarterly, whichever one you want, but let's call it an employee needs assessment. And I really want you to write down all of the unattended tasks that that are piling up. Assess all of the work burdens that you're running into. Look for all of those lost opportunities. And if you start to see these things pile up, that is a key indication. That's a really easy way to determine whether or not it might be time to to open up a new seat on your bus or to create a new seat on your bus. All right. Let's close things up here.

    Speaker 2 (00:10:49) - Let's if you don't mind, make sure you subscribe to our podcast if you've not to this point. But I just want to remind you to check out our Saturday episodes. The next one we're going to go over is breaking the email addiction, embracing scheduled checking for mental clarity. Until then, remember, imperfect action will always eclipse perfect. And action. Take care.

    Speaker 1 (00:11:15) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content content. Go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

    Do you want to know how to grow a company to include the best people possible? In this episode, Adela Zepcan, the Director of People and Culture at a law firm, shares her insights on running a law firm effectively.

    Living in a post-COVID world, many companies are struggling with employee retention and high turnover. This has been due to people quitting their jobs to pursue their passions or people leaving for opportunities for more remote work.

    Working in HR means you are selling your culture and company to prospective employees. You are bringing everything to the table including the company’s values, missions and what they can offer someone. It is important to use your resources to find candidates whether it be using your connections or investing in trusted job sites.

    It is important to create a cheat sheet when going through the process. Keep interview questions clear and to the point to get the best possible answers and make sure the questions match the job descriptions. When you are in the process of hiring, you need to ensure it is quick as many candidates don’t wait and will grab the first option they are given.

    During the onboarding process, get your team members involved to assist in giving new employees the best experience. Make sure details like assets and accounts are set up in time and training or manuals are ready to go. If these aspects of onboarding are not prioritized, new employees can feel that companies don't value them or their time. 

    An employee stays with a company for an average of 2.8 years. When someone is leaving, it is crucial employees leave on a good note. Make sure to thank them for their time with the company, celebrate their accomplishments and wish them well on their new venture.

    Ultimately, HR is all about people. It is all about how to attract, retain and grow your company.

    Take a listen!

    Episode Highlights:

    • 2:18 The importance of tailoring job descriptions and investing in the right job posting platforms
    • 4:22 Tips on pre-screening resumes and conducting phone screenings to identify top candidates
    • 8:23 Don't miss out on good candidates
    • 9:10 When reviewing resumes, consider candidates who may not have direct experience but have relevant skills or experiences. Ask behavioral questions that relate to the job
    • 16:02 Tips on how to end an employee's service on a positive note, including thanking them, distributing work, and removing their presence from systems


    🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

      Resources:

      Transcripts: The HR Process with Adela Zepcan

      Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - In today's episode, we're sharing a presentation from Max Lakhan 2022. Keep listening to hear Adela Zipkin as we share her talk the HR process. You can also head to the maximum Lawyer YouTube channel to watch the full video. Let's get to it.

      Speaker 2 (00:00:14) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum lawyer. Podcast. Lawyer, podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

      Speaker 3 (00:00:38) - All right. So today I'm going to tackle a and kind of how we have navigated our system. And thank you so much for the great introduction. So again, my name is Adela, and so my title is director of People and Culture. And what that essentially means, it's the glorified HR lady, right? And so I am going to show you, I think, a perfect system to run a law firm and kind of grow at an exponential rate. Right? We are on track for the third year in a row to triple our size, and that comes with its challenges, of course.

      Speaker 3 (00:01:14) - But making sure that you are prepared for those challenges with the growth in mind and to be prepared to tackle this is it's going to be very important whether you are in the HR profession or you are just an attorney running a law firm, right? Because as small businesses or law firms, startups, we are expected to do everything right from start to finish without any mistakes. And hopefully I can show you kind of tricks and tips that we developed at our firm. So it's I kind of categorized it in four categories. It's not proper HR lingo. I will give you that. So I think of it as four categories my pre onboarding, onboarding, as well as the kind of employee life as well as onboarding, because onboarding is just as important as onboarding. So I will of course tackle the first one and that is how to fine train and keep your talent, especially in this current climate we're in, right? The great resignation Covid hitting us left and right, people wanting and needing to work remote. We have to kind of stay on top of it.

      Speaker 3 (00:02:18) - And what I've realized in the last couple of years or in the past five years since I've been doing this is h.r. Is a sales role and you as running a law firm, being the manager, running the operations, whatever the case is, you are responsible in selling your company, you're responsible in selling your culture. So essentially I hunt for candidates just like you look for clients, I hunt or I sell my culture. I sell my companies values, our core values, our mission, my team. Just like you would pitch your services to your potential clients once you have that deciding factor, I think it's very, very important to recognize that distinction because when you're interviewing someone for a position, you have to make sure to sell and smile. And if you're not smiling, you're not doing a good job at interviewing this person. Right? So here's the kind of overall onboarding structure, right? You know, the job description, the resume, sifting, the interviews, screenings. I mean, I've heard companies where they do like five, six hour sessions of interviews.

      Speaker 3 (00:03:27) - ET cetera. And that is not a good experience. And you wouldn't want your clients to go through that. So why would you want your employees or potential employees to go through that? So I created a cheat sheet. So this is my cheat sheet. So one of the big things you're going to have to do within the job description is tailor it to the big picture. It is not a to do list. It should never be a to do list of the job. It is the overall like what are the key components that this person needs to tackle? For me to be able to, you know, pass on the mantle of this position, make sure that where you're posting, you're getting your money's worth. A lot of times you're not going to get a lot of return on your investment when you post on these job sites. So if you have a niche, the one that works best for you and you get the best candidates, invest more money in that one than the other ones, right? So ours, for example, is indeed for our international and US hires indeed is the best platform.

      Speaker 3 (00:04:22) - Our second best is LinkedIn. And really, honestly, it's word of mouth of employees. A lot of times I find great candidates from part time to full time gigs for our office just by reaching out to my current employees and saying, Hey, do you have anyone in mind that would do this job? And it helps. So as far as the pre screening, when you're reviewing the resume, I want you to think about like what are the key components that this person needs to do in this position and where does it resonate from experience versus knowledge? Like, am I hiring someone that is a five year experienced HR person or am I hiring someone that just graduated and I can't expect the person that just graduated to have five years of experience because they just graduated, right? So that's how you want to tailor that pre screening when you're reviewing and sifting through those resumes. But also keep in mind that sometimes people are really terrible at writing resumes, so you might miss out on really good applicants if they don't use the proper language or terminology.

      Speaker 3 (00:05:22) - Now, what I find is the phone screening that we do pre after they pass the resumes, the phone screening tends to be eye opening and we developed a little script for it, which is on the next slide and I'll show you it. And that has been very, very helpful to. A sieve through your top candidates. And if I find that I'm not getting a lot of return from my indeed post, for example, and I got maybe five maybes in a in one Yes. That I'm kind of like I will pick a couple of those maybes and interview them as well. Right? Because my perception will always be biased because I'm going to look for the perfect candidate. And frankly, we're not all perfect, right? So we can't how can we expect someone that is just filling out a resume to be perfectly writing all the terminologies that you're looking for, Right. And then the secondary piece or like the last kind of interview that we do is phone screen or it's usually either in person if we can make it or a virtual video conference with either one of the owners, the manager, depending on what position I'm hiring for.

      Speaker 3 (00:06:25) - Right. Try not to make it crowded. Don't make it lengthy. Smile. Tell your team to smile. That is interviewing. Prep them before they join this meeting and so they don't ask questions like So what you've been doing in the last five years, right? It's on my resume. Read it. So making sure that your team that is interviewing is, you know, eloquent, prepared, knows the little backstory is very, very helpful and is selling your culture to them at the same time. Right. Because it is a sales pitch and we need to be very clear about that. Then don't scare them. Right? Sometimes you get serious and passionate when you're talking about things and that can be very intimidating. I am at an interview and you're essentially yelling at me, right? In a sense. Right. It's intimidating. And that is the first experience that that person is going to see of your firm. So all smiles. Even if we're talking about a serious subject and a passionate subject, we got to stop, smile and be kind, right? And if you have a clear idea of who is the candidate.

      Speaker 3 (00:07:29) - Right, like everyone on board that interviewed this candidate loved them. So the next step is hire them fast because they're not going to wait for you. They're going to move on to the next company, especially in this kind of climate we're in right now. This is a sample of my little cheat sheet or checklist that I go through when I interview candidates. And the reason I created it, not because I only asked these five, six questions every time, this is my go to point. If I'm having an off day and I'm not on my A-game, I can ask at least ask these five questions within the mindset of like, what am I looking for? Like, what is my immigration like? Are they invested in my company? Can I tell that they're invested in my company based on the questions they're answering? Right. The question tell me a little bit about yourself is gold Absolute gold, because it will let me know how well does this person interview? And it will also let me know how prepared they are for this interview.

      Speaker 3 (00:08:23) - And sometimes people are just clicking right. It's it's easy to click on indeed and apply for a position if you have all your information already filled out. So sometimes people are doing that, but you want to try to engage, right? Just just as pushy as we can be when we try to sell something, we want to be as pushy when we're trying to obtain candidates. So if someone doesn't show up on their scheduled interview, I call them and say, Hey, it looks like you missed your interview. Would you like me to reschedule? Let's reschedule it for this time. Does that work for you? I am pushy because if I know that is a good candidate, I do not want to miss out. I don't know if we're going to have time to cover this, but essentially, I created this little script, right? So when you hopefully most of you guys have an assistant or a paralegal or a law clerk or, I don't know, front desk receptionist, whatever the case may be.

      Speaker 3 (00:09:10) - And when you're looking for that position, you want them to do everything from answering the phones to all your necessities and needs. The job description assistant is very vague and in most cases it's all encompassing. A lot of things get thrown at an assistant position, so when I find myself reviewing resumes, I might pick a candidate who don't necessarily have assistant experience, even though my job post will say I need two years of experience y I'm going to review their history. If they volunteered somewhere, if they've worked on a big school project or, you know, the question that I tend to ask applicants is tell me a little bit about something that you've done that is not on your resume that might benefit you in this position. You'd be surprised how many candidates will tell me great examples of fitting in the category that they're playing for. So try to be inclusive. I tried to ask my six go to questions and I have like a cheat sheet of like 200 plus questions that I tend to use. But I depending on the position, you have to make sure that you're asking questions that correlate to the job and examples of behavioral examples, specifically of the job.

      Speaker 3 (00:10:20) - So for example, if I'm going to do sales, tell me an example where you had to sell something. How do you go about selling it? I remember when I used to work at Oh, it used to be a shoe store. I think I was like 16. In the interview, the person handed me a shoe and said. Sell me the shoe. And that was my whole interview. I had to sell this person as a 16 year old a shoe. And I got that gig. And it was it was a great experience because it makes you think on your feet. So pushing behavioral questions to team members or potential applicants is going to be key. And then if it's a yes, do the basic stuff right? Background check, reference check, send the job offer, be human, called them and offer the job. Don't send them an email. It is impersonal and it does not set a good experience. And then of course, explain the onboarding process when you're offering the job to them.

      Speaker 3 (00:11:14) - When I kind of set up this job offer, I'm already planning two weeks ahead of their first two weeks, right? I'm involving all the necessary team members that need to be playing a role in training this person up. And then if it's a no, notify the client or candidate that it is a no. Right. But pro tip, if you have a second runner up, say there was one team member that said, I didn't like this question, therefore I don't want this person, but I really like this other person. And so you pick your you pick the team member that interview the best, obviously. But if you have a second runner up, tell that person it's no for now. But if I have an opening, I'm going to reach out. I've gotten a lot of good candidates in the past couple of years by reaching out to my old interviews. So you've got to keep those lines of communication open. And then, of course, onboarding. When you're onboarding the team member, develop those two weeks, prepare them, create an agenda, create trainings, involve the rest of the team members, and of course, encourage, encourage and encourage communication.

      Speaker 3 (00:12:16) - The first 90 days are going to be eye opening and, you know, culture shock because they have to learn a whole new company's lingo. ET cetera. Right. So you want to be on top of your game because the first 90 days they're going to be open and okay to ask those questions. After 90 days, they're not going to ask you what is X, Y and Z mean and how do I apply it to my job? And then it's going to bite you in the butt later on because we didn't onboard them properly. Right. So encourage communication. No question is a stupid question is always my go to. I also have a 30, 60, 90 developed in which we cover our core values. The get at one have capacity where we just analyze whether this person gets the job, actually wants the job and has the mental and physical capacity to do the job. And then we analyze their current initiatives like the last 30 days, essentially things we're going to work on the next 30 days and things we can tweak that they have already had exposure to.

      Speaker 3 (00:13:12) - And then the best piece is the questions and concerns piece because it allows the candidate an open platform to or in this case, it's an employee to kind of tell us how the onboarding process is going. Have we sold them or have we overpromise something when we originally onboarded them? And I find that my sales pitch is usually on point and people say, Yep, it was exactly how you sold it to me in Dallas. So it works. And of course we're not done. Focus on the employee life. On average, an employee will stay with a company. This is a stat from like 2020, I think. So it's a little outdated and I'm sure it's dropped now since the great resignation. But it's 2.8 years is the average lifespan of an employee nowadays. So you want to make sure that you are kind of preparing for the future. So planning your engagement for the year, making sure that you're doing a quarterly pulse for the team members, your team check ins. I try to do a monthly check in with every single team member.

      Speaker 3 (00:14:14) - We have managers do biweekly check ins. We do a yearly self-evaluation and of course we try to grow from within. So if I find that I have a job opening and one of my team members, I can train them up to be in this position, they might not. I'm going to get to keep that person a little longer since I've already invested 2.5 years with them. Right. And let me tell you, it costs a lot to replace so the next kind of thing, I used visuals and of course, I shared the PowerPoint with you guys in the app. So you definitely can look at these. But this is kind of how we do the biweekly check ins with the managers. And then another thing that we kind of do on the side two, and it's going to kind of go over this little picture, but this is like the unscheduled drop bys check ins, right, where you're just like passing by their office saying, Hey, how's it going? And you want to kind of fill out the employee, make sure that they're not too stressed.

      Speaker 3 (00:15:06) - And if they have something that is heavy to, you know, like a big project that they're working on, that you can get them enough support to not feel overwhelmed. And then last but not least, don't forget, off boarding, try to make a checklist and stick to the checklist. Don't forget the off wording. It's key. Okay. And what happens when people off board or when a team member leaves, it becomes really sad and people get emotional and sometimes it feels like a betrayal. Right? You're leaving my company. I just invested so much time and. Money in you. And but we have to look at it in a positive and we also have to sell it to the rest of the team. Right. Someone is leaving to tackle on a better, you know, better rate of pay that I can't necessarily afford. Or maybe they're leaving to go finish law school a lot of times. One of the biggest reasons my team members leave is they're going back to law school or getting their doctorates or masters and X, Y and Z, and that is good.

      Speaker 3 (00:16:02) - So that means once they finish school, they're going to come back to me, right? If I ended nicely, right. If we ended platonically and had a really nice parting, we celebrated their success and we celebrated the the work they did for us. So definitely making sure that you're thanking them for the service, making sure that you have a game plan for all the work that needs to be now distributed while you hire their replacement. Make sure that you remove their physical and virtual blueprint. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see like someone's name pop on one of our programs that has been gone a year or longer. And then people are like, Well, who's that and why do you have such a high turnover rate? It's not high. It's just we haven't updated the system. So you want to make sure that the new people are present on the necessary applications and that the the rest of the former team is no longer visible, I guess. And then, of course, do the exit interview and try to analyze that exit interview with leadership to see what what we could have done better.

      Speaker 3 (00:17:02) - And that's pretty much it.

      Speaker 2 (00:17:06) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content content. Go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

      Join us at the Miami Mastermind!

      Are you trying to improve processes within your company? In this episode, Jim and Tyson interview Melanie Leonard, an attorney and expert in legal practice management software. She is also one of the first certified consultants in Clio. They discuss the adoption of technology among lawyers, in which Melanie gives lawyers a low grade.

      Many law firms are behind the times and don't have a well thought out process that will serve law firms well. Melanie speaks to how creating workflows will lead to more efficiency and productivity in a firm. Workflows are simply just steps that people use to accomplish a task. But, not having one or not having a defined one can lead to many challenges.

      Many companies do not have defined workflows because no one naturally thinks in systems. No one is going to add something that is obvious to a workflow. But, every step needs to be documented to ensure nothing is missed and the process is the same for everyone. When creating a workflow, don't assume people know the common sense of it. Add as much detail in there so whether someone is new to the company or a veteran, they will be able to accomplish the task.

      In a law firm setting, it is best to create workflows for routine parts of the job like client intake or billing. They can even be applied to legal work that seems unique or that changes from case to case. Melanie says that creating workflows for things like filing a complaint or a motion can connect together to ultimately create a system.

      Many lawyers truly underestimate how workflows can help them in their practice. Because many lawyers use the same process for different tasks, it makes way more sense to focus on creating that system. The truth is no one wants to recreate the wheel.

      Take a listen if you want to use workflows to elevate your firm!

      Jim's Hack: For those who want to create more content, listen to Gary Vaynerchuk to get more inspired on distributing and repurposing content.

      Melanie’s Tip: Open up whatever project management software you are using and find the workflow feature to document steps in the process of a project. This feature allows for people to be alerted to when it is their turn to work on the next step.

      Tyson's Tip: Make sure you get your quarterly meeting scheduled to talk about planning for 2024.

      Episode Highlights:

      • 2:25 The overall adoption of technology by lawyers and gives a grade to their progress
      • 8:31 Workflows! and the significance of having clear and documented procedures in law firms
      • 10:58 The process of building workflows, starting with cover letters and tracking everything in the packet, and the importance of taking an organized approach
      • 21:26 Advice on starting with workflows for the intake and sales process, followed by billing, and then focusing on substantive legal work
      • 29:25 Advice to use the workflow feature in practice management software to document processes and alert team members about their tasks


      🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

      Connect with Melanie:

      Resources:

      Transcripts: Boost Efficiency in Your Law Firm with Workflows with Melanie Leonard

      Jim Hacking:
      Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

      Tyson:
      And I'm Tyson Mutrix. What's up, Jimmy?

      Jim Hacking:
      Who said, I'm longer? I think you did.

      Tyson:
      I think I did. I was about to laugh because we were just kind of chuckling with Melanie before and I hadn't shaken off the laughs yet. So I felt like I was about to get a case of the giggles to be honest with you.

      Jim Hacking:
      We're really excited to have her. Why don't you go ahead and introduce our guest.

      Tyson:
      Of course, you're going to make me do the bio too. So all right, I'll be happy to do so. Melanie Leonard, she is absolutely amazing. We've had her on before and she's been in the maximum lawyer hemisphere for a while, but she is an attorney, an entrepreneur, and one of the leading authorities on the use of legal practice management software. An early adopter of Clio in her own practice, Melanie developed a passion for helping law firms achieve amazing results. in their own use of practice management software and soon became one of the first Clio certified consultants. In 2018, Melody sold her law practice to pursue her passion full-time and Streamlined.Legal was born. So Streamlined.Legal, amazing company. In just five years, Streamlined.Legal has become one of the most sought after consulting firms in the legal tech industry. Partner-led excellence award in 2019 2020 2021 and 2022. Oh, that's it. Huh, Melanie so she is I will say like we've gotten to Melanie on several occasions has been a great supporter of maximum lawyer So if you do need anything when it comes to systems processes give your will give Melanie an opportunity in the show to say how she can be reached but if you do need to reach her for something you should Definitely do it. Melanie, welcome to the show.

      Melanie Leonard:
      Thank you guys, I am so happy to be here. I'm Melanie.

      Jim Hacking:
      We're so happy that, yeah, you are, you are. And you said, I'm the longest.

      Tyson:
      Well done. That was well done. That's

      Melanie Leonard:
      Thank

      Tyson:
      nice

      Melanie Leonard:
      you. Thank

      Tyson:
      touch.

      Melanie Leonard:
      you.

      Jim Hacking:
      Here's my first question. We're recording this in early August, 2023. And as you look over the landscape of the lawyers that you come in contact with, the lawyers that you find out and about, how do you think lawyers as a class are doing at adopting technology to make their lives easier? Like on a grade scale, like from school, what grade would you give lawyers overall?

      Melanie Leonard:
      Ooh, I'm gonna go with like a C if we're talking about the nation in general. I think that your group here, the Maximum Lawyer group, people that are involved in the Maximum Lawyer are scoring far higher than that just because they have a tendency to want to hear about these things and work on these things and do these things. But if we're talking about the nation as a whole, I'm gonna grade it pretty low. I mean, it's not that long ago that I got out of law school I went into a practice and interviewed, you know, for one of my first jobs at a law school, they didn't even have computers. I mean, I'm not that old guys. Like, I mean, so I really just think that, especially if we're spending time like in these Facebook groups, you guys have an awesome supportive group here and there's others out there as well. You know, these are the people that are asking about this stuff and talking about this stuff and that's awesome, but it kind of gives us a skewed vision of what's out in the world in general, right? And so, yeah, I'm gonna have to go with a pretty low score in general, but for your group, I'd say it's more like a B plus.

      Tyson:
      Nice, very good. Maxwell members do have, they've got a higher IQ overall too, I heard.

      Melanie Leonard:
      That too.

      Tyson:
      Yes, for sure. So I want to ask you about something. We're going to talk about workflows and things like that, but I'm just so curious. So chat GPT, it was rolled out late last year. How many people flooded to you? We've got to incorporate AI in our business. What was that like?

      Melanie Leonard:
      You know, that's been very cool. I just think that there's a lot of shiny new object syndrome with it still, right? Like everybody wants to use it, which is cool. I think they should. But I think that a lot of people, just like a lot of tools in general, they're kind of jumping the gun, right? Like they dive into whatever the easiest or simplest or easiest to figure out thing is, which is great, that can benefit them, but then they're not necessarily taking a step back to look at like… how should I be doing this or should I be doing this or when should I be doing this? I feel like in our excitement, sometimes we skip over the whole building a process or a procedure that's gonna really serve us and we just kind of dive into the fun part, which is fine. I mean, it's not to say that can't help you. It's just if we wanna come up with a more encompassing, holistic approach of how we're gonna use ChatGPT in our firms, then we're probably gonna get a lot more benefit by doing that kind of approach instead of just. jumping into the fun stuff. Now, that being said, I mean, yeah, we use ChapGPT for emails and marketing and all kinds of fun stuff. So it's been a lot of fun.

      Jim Hacking:
      Melanie just spoke at our Guild Mastermind in Austin on sort of automation and the Zapathon 2, we called it. And whenever I think about Melanie, I think about how she saved our bacon at the first Zapathon. Now, let me just set the scene. So Kelsey and I, Kelsey Bratcher and I, worked really hard to put this presentation together. And the plan was for the lawyers, the law firm owners there to sort of. figure out how to use Zapier automation, these kinds of things in their practice and sort of really focusing on how to get software to play nicely together, how to work with the APIs and all that stuff. Tyson is already far ahead of me on this stuff and he was doing a lot of stuff internally in Zoho, but we had this Zapathon out in Phoenix and we had probably 30 law firm owners there and we were in a big U shape and Kelsey started talking. about 45 minutes in, it was just very, very obvious to all in attendance that he was talking way over the head of a lot of people. And we had to literally scrap our entire agenda on the fly. And we got down to brass tacks and we're working on building out this software for people from a really basic place. And Melanie saved the day because we needed people besides Tyson and I, because Tyson and I rolled up our sleeves and we're helping people. But I'll just always remember two things, Elise just holding forth and talking about, she was just very verbal about the pain she was going through trying to get the software to work. And Melanie was bouncing from fighting around like a wonderful bird, just saving our butt, going around and helping people with their very basic question.

      Melanie Leonard:
      You know what? It was a blast. I'm so glad we had that experience. I actually I've never told you this, but I was kind of on the fence about going just because I mean, I wasn't looking to do that much in my own practice, you know, my own business. But I thought what a great network opportunity, all that kind of stuff. So I was really glad to have that experience. And Elise and I had already met prior to that. And so we had a bit of a rapport going there and that worked out well. And then, of course, all the new friends that we were able to. meet and help along the way. And so it was a great experience, as was the last one, frankly, too. Obviously, having been at both the first and second, you could tell the huge difference, obviously. And I thought that the approach that you guys took in the second one was obviously, having learned so much from that first one and every event in between, obviously, was a great, great experience. So yeah, if you have the opportunity to catch the next ZAP-a-thon, I'd highly recommend it.

      Tyson:
      To this day, it's probably the most talked about event we've had. And that's why we brought back Zapathon too, because Zapathon, it was so funny because Jim's right, we were huddled over in a corner, like, what are we doing? We took a break and we're like, okay, the whole agenda for the two days was gone, like done. So it was cool. A lot of cool things happened at that event. But let's talk about workflows though. So let's say that you have a passion about workflows quite a bit. So what does workflows mean to you? And then where should people start to go about starting to build their workflows? Like where's the starting point?

      Melanie Leonard:
      That's a great question. So when I talk about workflows, really, I'm talking about any type of set of steps or written procedure or ideas in your head, which just basically follow first, we do this, then we do that, then this person does that. So it doesn't have to be anything formal. It doesn't have to be documented. Like by default, when we go to our firms and we file a new complaint or start a new matter or do whatever we're doing. we have some default workflows we're going by, right? Like we know in the back of our head what we want to happen, even if we haven't told anybody or if we haven't written it down anywhere. So the first thing is to recognize the idea that these things are already happening in your firm. Maybe you don't know all of them. Maybe you have a team that's helping you with them. Maybe they've created their own workflows in this vacuum of not having any workflows, you know, but. By default, there's something there that's guiding you guys or leading you as to how you're gonna work or what direction you're gonna go in. And that's great. But what gets tricky is if we're not all on the same page about what these workflows contain, what steps they have, when they're supposed to be done, who's supposed to be doing them, that's when we get into a lot of struggle, right? That's when the challenges come up. Like, did this person do that? Or did I do that? Or when am I supposed to do that? Or how's this supposed to happen? Like those are the kind of things that I think All too often we jump to the, you know, we want to help our clients, right? We want to get stuff done. And so we don't always take the step back to figure out how we're going to do it as a group. And we just kind of dive in and hope people figure it out or help them with this part that we think about, or we don't think about that part or we leave that part out. Um, so it can be a real challenge if we're not all on the same page with those workflows. And so that's why I feel like it's super ultra important, but as far as where to start, Tyson. I think just recognizing that you have some default workflows you're already doing, you just may not recognize them as such. And if you take the time to just think about it a bit, there may be a way that you can find like, Oh, okay, well, we maybe we did document that. I mean, we have this checklist, right? The checklist is a great place to start. Here's some steps that we take. Or you know what, I know that we wrote out some instructions when that paralegal started six months ago, like maybe that's a great place to start. So chances are you do have something somewhere that you can start from, and you don't necessarily have to just imagine the case from the start all from scratch.

      Tyson:
      AGM, you're on mute.

      Jim Hacking:
      Those are some great points, Melanie. You know, when we first started building out our workflows, we started with our cover letters, like our cover letters encompassed everything that we put in there. And we said, okay, well, how do we get the cover letter to track everything that's in the packet and then putting the packet together? So you're right. I mean, a lot of this stuff is stuff you're already doing. It's just not written down. So that's great. So you'll be really proud of us. We are, we are building out Salesforce and we've spent six weeks designing it. Like we haven't actually touched the software. It's just been six weeks.

      Melanie Leonard:
      Nice.

      Jim Hacking:
      of getting all of our processes and getting everything out about how it's currently done. And so we really had a problem because we had like duplicate custom fields and we had data all over the place. And so taking an organized approach, it's very foreign to me. I've been running this firm for 15 years or 16 years and I'm a 10 quick start. So to spend that time without having built anything in a way, but in another way, having built everything, it's just great.

      Melanie Leonard:
      I agree and congrats to you because like you said, this doesn't come naturally to everybody, right? It's not like you just think in systems. Now there are people that think in systems and that's one thing, but for most people, this is not like a natural way of looking at life or your business. And so I think that, you know, actually forcing yourself so to speak, or recognizing that this is an important step. I think is critical and yeah, congrats to you for doing that because I think it's only going to make your build that much easier. You know, and that's the thing. People come and they're like so frustrated with software. They're so frustrated with build out of software and all this kind of stuff. But I always look back at well, did you know what you were trying to build first? Right? Like, did you just dive in and start building without knowing exactly what you wanted to build? That's always going to make it harder. Right? So I think that's gonna be an awesome step for you guys. And I would imagine it's gonna make your build go that much faster, frankly.

      Tyson:
      So, Melody, Kashif, he's our CTO, he and I have been working on over the last few months and then we're planning on a new rollout by the end of September where we've gone through a lot of our processes and we started just removing things, like just gutting a lot of the stuff that we had in there because what we're realizing is we've really been overworking files is what we've been doing. Are they great looking files? Absolutely. But are they all necessary? No. So I wonder how much you see things like that and then what you might recommend people do to prevent that from happening.

      Melanie Leonard:
      Yeah, that's a great point. I think that I do see that. I think it's more common though to see the opposite, right? I more often see workflows that have steps left out, right? Because again, if we're talking about someone who thinking in a system or thinking in a workflow doesn't come naturally to them, they may leave out very often things that just seem obvious to them. Well, of course I'm going to email the client, right? Or of course I'm going to send them this. Well, okay, that's good that it's in your brain, but we need to get that out onto the paper or wherever we're documenting this. So more often I see steps missing. And to solve that issue, I usually tell people, work in a team, right? If there's three of you in the room, chances are one of you is gonna think of something, right? That maybe the other two forgot or something like that. So if you can bring this kind of process of building these workflows to your team, I think you're going to be a lot more successful and a lot faster, right? Because they made no steps that you're not even paying attention to because you're worrying about other things, right? So that can be a real great benefit. Now on the flip side, if we find that, you know, we've got just all these steps that are just, you know, taking all this time and energy and really what for? I think a great way to start with that is like, let's look at all the steps we have, just like you described, Tyson. Let's look at all the steps we have. and figure out why we're doing them, right? And if there's a really awesome reason, right? I'm sending copies of this to my clients so that they stay informed and they don't call my office 100 times wondering what's going on and someone has to call them back and review the file and give them an update, right? Like if there's a good reason for doing it, well then yeah, we're gonna keep it in there. But if we come across the idea that we just did it because I don't know, out of habit or because we're used to doing it or something like that. That's in my book. That's never a good enough reason. Like I know a lot of times I'll go into firms and I'll say, Oh, tell me why you're doing it this way or what made you do it this way. And they'll say, Oh, well, I mean, that's just the way I was taught or, you know, that's just the way we've always done it. And I'm like, okay, well that's good. Um, but why, you know, and if again, if there's a good why, then let's keep doing it that way, but if we've lost touch with the Y or maybe the Y doesn't even exist anymore, um, you know, that. For me, that's not a good enough reason. We should come up with some better reason or just ditch it altogether because obviously it's wasting time and energy. I remember I was working with a firm down in Atlanta and they had this issue where they were paying overtime to one of their admin team members to be filing this paperwork back into the paper files. And they were spending all this time and money and the person didn't really want to, like it wasn't a highlight of their job, right? So no one was really happy about this. And so we started going through the, okay, why are we doing it this way? Why are we doing this? And at the end of about 30 minutes, the conversation got around to, why do we have these paper files? Like, is anybody looking at this paper that you're spending all this time and money filing? And it turned out no one was looking at it. Like it just was there. And I'm like, okay, well then I guess we don't need paper files anymore, right? So, but that's those kinds of things that you don't necessarily figure out if you're just kind of going with the flow all the time. Right? I love to reevaluate our workflows on a regular cadence, whether it's once a quarter, once a year, whatever, because things change. And if we're not always reevaluating those or looking at those, we may not catch that change in our workflows.

      Jim Hacking:
      There's a great scene in Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs where Steve Jobs is there with some Apple developers and they're behind one of those two-way or one-way glasses and they're watching somebody like use a mouse and try to clicking around and like all the developers are standing around Jobs yelling at the glass to the people like no you click there you click there and they're like it's so obvious it's so obvious and Jobs is like dude if they can't figure it out then it's by definition not obvious and I bring that up because when you were talking about workflows and everybody not necessarily knowing things, one of the things I hear around here a lot is, well, that's so obvious, or that's just common sense.

      Melanie Leonard:
      Yep.

      Jim Hacking:
      So what do you say to the people that say, and I think it's, how do you draw that line between not just micromanaging, but putting every effing detail into the workflow versus keeping it loose enough so that things don't get bottlenecked? It's a hard line.

      Melanie Leonard:
      Yeah, I agree. There's no like perfect place or perfect way to do that. Um, but I think that there are some guidelines I look at. Um, so first of all, I don't assume anything is um, common sense or everybody should know that or anything like that, because I think that kind of just shows our own biases, right? Like, yeah, it's common sense to me, but here's my experience in life, right? But it's not common sense to the person I'm about to hire necessarily. So, I lean towards putting more in there, but I do understand in a situation where, you've just got volumes and volumes of detail, how that can become a bit overwhelming, right? The first thing I say is we like to break it out into like discrete tasks, right? That we can put into our practice management software. And what I think that does is that, People become used to, okay, this is what this task looks like. I've read it a hundred times. I know what it means. I know what I'm supposed to do. They don't necessarily have to read it every time, right? But you recognize it as, Oh, this is that task. Okay, I'm going to go do it and check it off. But for the people that are new or the people that maybe don't have that level of familiarity, they're going to look at it and love that level of detail, right? Like that's going to be like gold to them because now they don't have to guess at what we were expecting or what we needed to have done. So I think that there is a great value to having that level of detail, but I'll tell you I've had firms where they'll actually develop two different types of two workflows, right? It's the same workflow, but they'll have the detail listed on this copy for, you know, the newer people or the people just coming in or whatever. And then they'll have like the stripped down version of, uh, for the more experienced or, you know, more people that have been there longer. And I think that can be helpful too, because I agree, you don't want to get bogged down the detail. But on the other hand, you don't necessarily have to reference the detail every time, right? Depending on your software and how it's set up and all that, if you can make it such that, you know, it's recognizable, they can reference it and move on, then I don't think the details necessarily getting in the way. I will say, if you guys haven't read that book, The Checklist Manifesto,

      Tyson:
      Great.

      Melanie Leonard:
      great

      Tyson:
      Yeah.

      Melanie Leonard:
      book. Yeah. He talks a lot about, you know, what… whether or not you need a level of detail, right? Now I will say, I think there's a difference between a checklist as he refers to them and a workflow as I refer to them. And a lot of that is that level of detail, right? If I'm in the operating room, and he uses that example a lot, if he's in the operating room as a doctor, and you just need to make sure that this patient doesn't get infected, then yeah, I'm gonna quick something I can reference and move on with my surgery, right? But I mean, if I'm in a law firm and I want to make sure that level of detail does get attained, those margins are correct in the document or those, you know, font is appropriate or else it's going to get kicked back from the clerk's office. Then yeah, maybe I do want that level of detail in there. So I agree, Jim, there's no perfect answer or where you start or stop. But I do think that I would talk with my team so that any level of detail I put in there, they're not taking it as a personal like, I don't think you know what you're doing. It's more of a, this is a great resource. If you don't need the resource, you don't need the resource, but it's there for people that need it.

      Tyson:
      So I don't know if you've read this yet, Melanie, but A World Without Email by Cal Newport.

      Melanie Leonard:
      I haven't yet.

      Tyson:
      You've got to read it. It's absolutely amazing. And you take Checklist Manifesto, put it right on top of A World Without Email, and you have a great starter pack for any law firm.

      Melanie Leonard:
      Awesome.

      Tyson:
      But you should check it out. But with that, I'm going to give you a scenario. So let's say you've got a brand new law firm, starting from absolute scratch. Money's no factor. What what's actually I'm not gonna ask you the software question What what workflows should they start building out from the very beginning? So and you don't give me all of them But what are some of them?

      Melanie Leonard:
      Yeah, and let's be clear that this is of course an imaginary world because in the real world, we actually have to run the business while we build it essentially.

      Tyson:
      Absolutely. Yep.

      Melanie Leonard:
      So

      Tyson:
      This is imaginary.

      Melanie Leonard:
      that's the real world. But in our imaginary world, I am a fan of looking at what are the things that we're going to do most often, right? So for most law firms, talking to potential clients… is a pretty high volume kind of thing because not every potential client is going to actually hire you, right? So you're going to actually have to interact with more potential clients that are actually going to hire you. So I think that whole intake sales process is a great place to start just because I think it's something that can be systematized workflow oriented, is very workflow oriented. So I think that's a nice place to start. But then after that, one of my favorite Oh, okay. I'm going to throw in billing here because of course we have to make sure that money's coming in or else we've defeated the whole purpose of having the business. Okay. So after the billing, one of my favorite places is looking at that substantive work. I feel like a lot of attorneys underestimate the ability of a workflow within their legal work to be effective. Right. So a lot of attorneys think, oh, well, you know, If I'm not doing immigration or estate planning where it's very linear and I'm doing the exact same thing every time, right? Well, Jim will tell you it's not the exact same thing every time, but if I'm not taking the same steps every time, I do litigation, right? And litigation, you can't put it in a workflow because there's just too many options, right? What if the judge does this? What if this gets thrown out? What if the party's subtle? What if, what if, what if? I would beg to argue that the ability of… the workflow to adjust to a what if situation is very strong. So I can make a workflow for filing my complaint. I can make a separate workflow for filing my motion. I can make a separate workflow for responding to the motion. And then I can use those workflows as they come into the case. So I may never get to the trial workflow. That's fine. We settled. I have a settlement workflow that I can use. So I feel like sometimes we think of our actual legal work as so specific and so, you know, unique to each case that it doesn't work well in a workflow. And I absolutely disagree with that. I think just by virtue of the fact that we have rules of civil procedure, you know, that's, that's a workflow in and of itself. Like there are rules I have to follow in timelines. I have to meet within litigation that I can build into a workflow. Right. So I really think that, um, While some of those more administrative like the intake and the billing are super, super important, I'm going to start with what I do the most of. And what I do the most of is probably that petition or that motion or something like that and probably less likely of a trial. Right? How often am I going to trial? Not that often. I'm going to build that workflow last. Right.

      Jim Hacking:
      Lawyers that think that what they do is an art, I think are the ones that are having the biggest amount of headaches. Those that do what you just said. I mean, to me, it was a huge game changer for me when Kelsey and I built out a chat bot because I realized this shit is all just if this, then that. That's all that this is. Like, and that's how the computers are gonna replace a lot of what we do because it's if this, then that. And if you spend enough time. work flowing out enough of the stuff and you have the capacity to connect it all together, then you have a lawyer, then you have a law firm, then you have a practice.

      Melanie Leonard:
      Yeah, I think, have you read Mike Whelan's book, A Lawyer Forward?

      Jim Hacking:
      I read the first half of it.

      Melanie Leonard:
      Okay, so he talks a lot in that book about the difference between, I can't remember what he calls it, maybe like the specialist and the practitioner or something like that. But basically the idea is that there are lawyers that are really, really focused on and appreciate and enjoy the, you know, the researching the new legal issue and the, you know, really diving into the really intricacies and, you know, uniqueness of a different field in a different case every time. And I think that there's a lot to be said for, you know, the new case law that comes out of that kind of thing and that kind of stuff. But if I'm trying to run a business, I think that's a very difficult proposition because I think you have to structure your business and price your business so differently in that type of esoteric, you know, research kind of base practice, then more. I don't know, a more, I want to say like, um, I don't know, just a practice where we're actually helping a larger volume of real people. Right. Um, and not to say that the, those types of practitioners are not helping real people, but it's just a different type of practice. And so I feel like though, even with those research, more research-based practices, you still have things that you do to get to the research of that problem, right? You still have to engage your client in some way. you still have to help them solve their problem in some way. So I think that while there are different types of practices, I agree with you, Jim. I think a vast majority of them are underestimating the ability of the workflow to make your legal practice easier, whether it's the research or the filing or the drafting or whatever it is. All of that can be made easier by these workflows, if for no other reason than just to buy you more time to do it, right? because if you're looking at everything as recreating the wheel, then it's gonna take you a lot longer and I hope you're pricing your services that way.

      Tyson:
      That's great advice. All right, Melanie, this has been great. I would love to be able to talk for another 30 minutes, but we're about at time. So I do want to start to wrap things up. Before I do, I want to give you an opportunity for you to let people know if they want to work with you in Streamline Legal, how do they get in touch with you?

      Melanie Leonard:
      Absolutely, we are very prominent in social media, but our website is found at streamlined.legal, and we're on Facebook, we're on YouTube, we love putting out videos that help you with your practice in the areas of workflows and practice management and document automation and all kinds of great features that your practice management software probably has that you may not be using. So feel free to look for those videos as well.

      Tyson:
      Love it. All right. Before we get to our tips and hacks of the week, I do want to remind everyone to join us in the big Facebook group. Just search Max Malheur on Facebook, find us there. And if you want a more high level conversation, go to maxlawguild.com. Join us for just absolutely great people and great events. Our quarterly masterminds are a huge hit. And in addition to our other things we do like the Zapathon 2 that we did in Austin, which Melanie was a huge part of. So thank you so much for that Melanie. giving us a five-star review while you're listening to the rest of these episodes. This episode we would greatly appreciate it. Jimmy, what is your hack of the week?

      Jim Hacking:
      When I started the firm in 2007 or shortly thereafter, I didn't know much about marketing. And I read two books that had a great big impact on me. One was Tribes by Seth Godin, and the other was Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk. I have been listening to a lot more Gary Vaynerchuk lately, and it's a constant reminder that we're not creating enough content. And if you just wanna get motivated to do some more content, listen to a couple episodes of Gary Vee. It'll get your mind right. It'll get you thinking about. content that you can create, how to distribute it, how to repurpose it. And in my mind, Gary is very optimistic and encouraging. And I think that you'll find that they'll get you off the schneid if you have been slacking on content.

      Tyson:
      It's interesting, I've not heard you talk about Gary Vee in a while and I've not seen Gary Vee on any social media recently, but I also have not been consuming as much recently. So I don't know what that says about my viewing habits, but it's interesting. I had not thought about Gary Vee in a long time. I bet I've not seen him in three months, which is just wild to think about. But anyways, Melanie, what is your tip or hack of the week?

      Melanie Leonard:
      So my hack is that I want you to open up whatever practice management software you are currently using And I want you to find the workflow feature that's in there because I really think that as you begin to think through these processes That's a great place to document these things and to benefit from them by having your team You know alerted to when it's their turn to do a particular step in the process If you're using Clio, they're going to be Clio task lists is what they're called. If you're using my case, there's a workflow feature in there as well. They've all got them. It's just a question of what they're calling them.

      Tyson:
      It's great advice. I know you're always an advocate of using the software you have, so that's a good one. My tip, so by the time that this episode comes out, we're going to be either in September or nearing September, which means that Q4 is rapidly approaching. And so my tip is to make sure that you get your quarterly meeting scheduled because… Planning for 2024, believe it or not, is right around the corner. So you need to start getting ready for that. So get your Q4 quarterly meeting scheduled. And also if you do a separate annual meeting, get that scheduled as well because now is the time to do it because things start to get busy. And then next thing you know, if you don't do it now, it won't happen. So make sure you get those scheduled now. Melanie, thank you so much for your support of the show, your support of Maxim Lawyer, and just coming on here and sharing just wonderful advice.

      Melanie Leonard:
      Thank you guys,

      Tyson:
      We appreciate

      Melanie Leonard:
      it's my pleasure.

      Tyson:
      it.

      Jim Hacking:
      Thanks, Melanie.

      Tyson:
      Thanks, Melanie. See you later. Appreciate it.

      Melanie Leonard:
      Bye.

      Tyson:
      He always jumps so…

      In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, host Tyson Mutrux explores the powerful influence of personal networks on goal setting and achievement. 

      Drawing on scientific studies and personal anecdotes, Tyson emphasizes the impact that our connections have on our behavior, habits, and overall success. 

      He encourages listeners to intentionally curate their inner circle, surrounding themselves with supportive and inspiring individuals. Tyson provides practical steps for evaluating and refining personal networks, including conducting a "five person audit." 

      Take a listen!

      Episode Highlights:

      • 00:25 The influence of personal connections on behavior, habits, and goal attainment, citing scientific studies and examples
      • 06:34 The importance of evaluating and removing relationships that hinder progress and prevent achievement
      • 08:44 Intentionally surrounding oneself with supportive and inspiring individuals for personal and professional growth


      🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

      Resources:

      Transcripts: Cultivating Success: The Influence of Your Inner Circle on Goal Attainment

      Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum lawyer. Podcast. Lawyer, podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

      Speaker 2 (00:00:25) - Hey there. It's Tyson. And today I have what I think is a pretty exciting topic, which is the profound role that our personal network plays in our goal setting and goal achievement. Before I do get started with that, though, for those of you that have been following me on social media, you know, I've kind of gotten into this cold plunge craze. And if this is something that you'd want me to cover on the Saturday show, I'd love for you to let me know about it. If you if you do want me to cover it, I'm happy to do so. If you do, just shoot me a text and I will be happy to. I'll talk about how I got started in it, my setup, how I use a chest freezer for my cold plunges.

      Speaker 2 (00:01:06) - It's actually a pretty cool setup. If you want me to cover it, just text me (314) 501-9260. If it makes it easier for you, just shoot me a text with the word plunge and I'll know exactly what you mean. Just shoot me a text. I'd love to hear from you. All right. So this morning I was talking to my personal trainer, Scott Shooty. He also has this pretty excellent podcast. It's called Becoming the Ultimate Coach with the Jock and the Doc. He's his partner as a as a doctor. And they talk about a lot of cool things when it comes to fitness and coaching. But we were talking about how a mutual friend of ours is starting yet another business venture, and this is a guy that's already had a lot of success, very, very successful. And it really got me thinking about all of the great connections in my life and how much better it's made me. From Ryan McKean to Jason Selke to John Fisher, you name it. These have been amazing relationships for me and they've been instrumental to my growth as as both a person and as a lawyer.

      Speaker 2 (00:02:15) - And I'd even say as a father, these roles, these people that have been in my life, I owe all the credit to when it comes to my growth, because without their wisdom, I definitely would not be where I am today. And if you've I'm sure that many of you have heard the quote from Jim Rohn, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. This isn't just a catchphrase, even though I think that some people, they try to they like to use it as a catchphrase. It's not really a catchphrase. There's some science to this. There's a paper that's in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, and they show that people who associate themselves with with others, they have the others have a significant influence on our behavior. They affect our habits, our mindset, our goal attainment. There's also a 2016 study from Harvard that shows that if a close friend becomes obese, this is really interesting to me. Your risk of obesity increases by 57%, which is insane.

      Speaker 2 (00:03:19) - And that's just one example of how that how our habits, they closely mirror those that are around us. That's why I mentioned the people I mentioned before. Many of my activities, they really patterned the people that I hang out with. You can even look at history. A brief history just recently. If you look at groups that thrived due to this collective ambition, just look at Silicon Valley. It's a prime example. You've got a hub where innovative minds have thrived in clusters. You can look at a Stanford Business Review paper where they indicated that these collaborations, these environments, they could increase your personal your individual output by up to 30%. And I think this is why you've seen a lot of success with business incubators around the country where you've seen a lot of growth in these companies because they've got they've gotten these companies together and these collective companies have taken taken massive steps in growth when it comes to their businesses, their individual businesses. Now, you know, a positive circle, it's going to propel you forward.

      Speaker 2 (00:04:24) - But just like that, a negative one can pull you backwards. If you look at the study out of the University of Memphis, they show that a 40% decrease in achievement can happen. When you you're around individuals that have that are negative influences on you, especially close acquaintances to you. Those can have the the greatest impact on you. So what we want to do is we want to focus on creating that inner circle. And the reason why is because this inner circle, it will boost your goals. It's going to boost everything around you, not only your goals, but your daily activities. But it needs to be intentional. That is an important part of this. Your actions have to be intentional. They have to be all your interactions with them have to be fairly strategic. So, you know, what does this mean? Well, this means that having coffee with people that are what Jason would call. A center of influence. You want to attend conferences where you know there's going to be successful people there.

      Speaker 2 (00:05:29) - You are going to want to join groups that have goals that are aligned with your own goals. This is essential. You're going to want to network, but you're going to want to network with a clear intent. You're not going to network just for the sake of networking. You're not going to meet with people just for the sake of meeting with people. You are going to meet with people with intention. Some of you know that I. I like to garden a little bit. We actually didn't do a garden this year, but we normally do. But and just as a gardener, they prune away dead limbs and branches that allow a plant to thrive. That's a big part of it. We kind of sometimes have to do the same thing. We've got to call our inner circle to foster our personal growth. That's an unfortunate part of life, but it does happen sometimes. We had to get rid of some of the negative influences. So while building a supportive network, it's absolutely essential. Essential. It's it's equally it's equally vital to evaluate and remove some of these relationships that can hinder the progress that we want that can even inflict harm.

      Speaker 2 (00:06:34) - I think many of you know what I'm talking about. And these could be relationships that are steeped in negativity. These could be employees as well. There may be complacency, there may be jealousy. These are all qualities that that can permeate throughout you, your own mindset and throughout your organization. So holding on to these ties can really weigh you down and they can prevent that achievement that you're looking for both both personally and professionally. So by regularly assessing and refining your social circles, you're really making room for people that are more aligned with for you, with your goals and their more uplifting relationships that help you ensure that that you're in an environment that consistently nurtures your aspirations. And I know that that may seem a little bit selfish, I get that. But it's about personal growth. And I would say that the people that have that negative influence on you are usually the selfish ones, not necessarily you, but how do we implement this, right? These are these episodes are for actionable takeaways. How do we how do we implement this? Well, I want you to carry out what I would call a five person audit list out the five people you spend the most most of your time with, and next to each name, I want you to write down the positives or negative traits about these people and how they have an impact on you.

      Speaker 2 (00:07:53) - And I want you to really reflect on this list. And if you find any patterns that don't really align with your goals or your values, it may be time to make some changes. All right. I'm not. Maybe not. Maybe. Maybe the people that you surround yourself with are great, and that's perfect. I love that. But maybe not. But next, I want you to list the five people you would like to associate with and that are that are not in the five you just listed. And once you have this list, you can begin sort of finding out what circles they hang out in, what Facebook groups they're in, what conferences maybe they go to, and you can start to coordinate your networking activities according to that. But remember, you have to be strategic about this. And LinkedIn would be a really good tool to to find out this information. You can do a lot of research on social media, but you're going to want to actively seek out these individuals whose traits they mirror the aspirations you have.

      Speaker 2 (00:08:44) - And I want to be clear about this. This is not about discarding friends, but about it's really about intentionally allocating more time to those who they uplift you, They challenge you and they inspire you. Those are the sort of relationships that that you're really looking for. And I kind of think about the words of Tony Robbins, who said, the quality of your life is the quality of your relationships. And that's such a deeply true quote because it really emphasizes the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people and the profound impact they can have on your life. You really have to curate your inner circle. You know, curating your inner circle isn't merely about comfort. It's it's a calculated stride towards success. It's really easy to to have a group of people that make you comfortable. But does that really get you to where you need to be? All right. I don't want to go too much further than this. I think you get it. Let's wrap things up. I do want to remind everyone to stay tuned for our next episode where I'm going to be discussing when it's time to add a seat on the bus.

      Speaker 2 (00:09:58) - So basically, when it's time to hire or create that new role for a new hire. Until then, I want to remind everyone that imperfect action always beats perfect in action. Take care.

      Speaker 1 (00:10:14) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content content. Go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

      In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, guest speaker Brett Trembly shares valuable insights on time management and productivity for lawyers. He introduces the OI90 formula, a three-step business system consisting of office hours, an issue matrix, and a 90-minute weekly team meeting. 

      Brett shares the importance of protecting one's time and focusing on high-value tasks. He suggests implementing office hours for both team members and clients to minimize interruptions. 

      Additionally, he suggests using software tools to streamline operations. Brett's practical tips and strategies provide actionable steps for lawyers to improve efficiency and success in their practices.

      Episode Highlights:

      • 00:40 Introducing the OI90 formula and how it has been life-changing 
      • 3:00 The challenges of running a one-man show
      • 8:43 The importance of spending time on high-value tasks
      • 12:15 A three-step business system that includes office hours, issue matrix, and 90-minute weekly team meetings
      • 15:58 Setting office hours to minimize interruptions and increase productivity
      • 17:08 Determining when interruptions are allowed based on specific criteria
      • 18:01 Running productive 90-minute weekly meetings to address issues and push the business forward


      🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

      Connect with Brett:

      Resources:

      Transcripts: The OI90 Formula: A Massive Time Hack for Lawyers with Brett Trembly

      Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - In today's episode, we're sharing a presentation from Max Lakhan 2022. Keep listening to hear Brett Trembley as we share his talk. The I-90 Formula a massive time hack for lawyers. You can also head to the maximum Lawyer YouTube channel to watch the full video. Let's get to it.

      Speaker 2 (00:00:16) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum lawyer. Podcast. Lawyer, podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Tricks. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

      Speaker 3 (00:00:40) - So I'm just really glad to be here today. I would be remiss if I didn't think Jim and Tyson for having me and Becca for everything she does for this conference, the I-90 formula. Very excited to talk about this today. It has been life changing business, changing everything for me as as I've started to implement these things only a year and a half ago. I wish it had been a lot sooner. So it says three easy to implement tactics to eliminate work interruption. A massive and I am not exaggerating here a massive time hack for lawyers time hack.

      Speaker 3 (00:01:12) - Why do we use hack? Everybody likes the word hack. It's going to save you so much time, which I hope you get that takeaway from this. So there we are already was introduced get staffed up and trembly law, which I'll weave in a little bit about, is sort of my journey. So why the why is always first Simon Sinek says start with why. Why do we want to save time? I think we can pretty much agree that being overwhelmed and really stressed sucks, right? Like that's that's not something anyone's going to argue with anyone like being stressed and having no time to spend with their family. Okay. I don't see any hands, but that's what happens a lot, a lot of us lawyers out of necessity when we start, but then just out of maybe not knowing what we didn't know or not taking the right action, we end up running a hot dog stand on the corner where the entire business is us. And if we're not there serving those hot dogs, then business isn't happening.

      Speaker 3 (00:02:04) - There's no money coming in. You go on vacation. And it's even more stressful because. Because where's your next client going to come from? Your business essentially shuts down. And that was my story. I started Trembley Law in 2011, three years out of law school. I thought it was awesome. My first month got some new clients and friends brought in like ten grand and I thought I was rolling in the dough right That very first month, second month, about half that. My third month in business. January of 2012, I brought in $0 and the stress really kicked in. What am I doing? How am I going to solve this? You know, I just thought I would you know, I think I'm a good lawyer. Everybody thinks you're a good lawyer. I think I know what I'm doing right. I've been a high achiever. Let me just go and kick some butt. And it was two years of just getting in my own way, doing everything myself and all the hats. I was the hot dog stand on the corner.

      Speaker 3 (00:03:00) - If I showed up and I worked hard, sometimes I could bring in the business. I hit a ceiling of about $9,000 a month. I just couldn't get over that and I couldn't figure out why. And it was really frustrating. So essentially, you don't lack time. You lack focus, thoughtfulness or clarity and not thoughtfulness. Like you're on thoughtful, but you don't take the time, as Glenn was talking about the mindfulness, to be more thoughtful about what you're doing or you lack clarity or you're just too busy to be less busy as we often say, you, I don't have time for this. I don't have time for that. I don't have time to hire. I don't have time to train. I don't have time to do more. And what it is, is a lack of focus not on your business, because I think we're all here because we work hard and we want more. But on specific tasks within your business that are going to push you to the next level. So in 2014, I finally hired someone double my law firm revenue the next month and I'll give myself credit.

      Speaker 3 (00:04:01) - At this point I just rinse, repeat. And I started moving the needle and spending my time on areas that we're going to push my law firm forward. So the five entrepreneurial stages which which, by the way. So for my law firm, again, just me, myself and I when I started and now we have 12 attorneys, 36 total people, Inc 5000 lists two years in a row, definitely won't be on there this year. It's hard to maintain that, but I'm just saying that for the credibility that I've been through most of these stages, I am now at the point where I'm trying to do more and spread a message with my second company with Get Staffed Up, which is Delegate your way to freedom, right? Trying to kind of reach that influencer stage. But whatever stage you're in, we have something for you today. This this system oh, I 90 is going to help you regardless of the stage you're in. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. So the why should be clear because we want more.

      Speaker 3 (00:04:58) - We want to do better. We want to have less stress. We just want to have a better life. So what what should I spend my time on if I'm not spending it on doing everything myself, answering my own emails, just constantly being a slave to my email, to the phone, to scheduling? I'm networking. I'm working really hard. Well, what should I spend my time on? Anybody heard of Perry Marshall or read any of Perry Marshall stuff? His book, 8020 Marketing, is one of the best business sales and marketing books I've ever read. A real guru in some of his other stuff, he talks about ten versus 100 versus 1000 versus 10,000. Dollar activities. And if you can read that, I'll read some of them for you. But essentially $10 an hour. Anybody still run their own errands? Right. Probably a lot of us doing expense reports, cold calling or emailing, talking to unqualified prospects. Right. Doing doing, setting up your own consultations instead of having them set up for you.

      Speaker 3 (00:05:58) - This one, I love spelling everything perfectly. One time I got an email response from somebody who I had sent an email newsletter to is like, Well, if you can misspell a word, then certainly we're not going to use you. And I, you know, we're not all perfect. So I look up this lady, no employees got her dog on our website and I'm like, Man, I wish I could help this lady, but some people can't get out of their own way. But I was practicing mindfulness and I didn't respond with what I wanted to say, so. All right. So pushing ourselves to the next type of activities, right? I was just completely stuck in this column except for one hour per day on average, I could squeeze in for legal work. And if you're a true solo, that is the average amount of time that you will spend on legal work is one hour per day. And a lot of times those hours come on the weekends and at nights, right when you're already tired.

      Speaker 3 (00:06:49) - So getting yourself to the if you're at ten, the 100 per $100 per hour activities such as creating marketing tests and experiences, managing pay per click campaigns, doing social media well, this is pretty rare. Outsourcing simple tasks. Customer follow up. Right? But how do you get there? Well, you've got to have someone else taking care of all of the $10 an hour tasks. Again, if you're running the hot dog stand and you start doing higher level like promoting, someone still has to be there to take care of the business. And that's the part that most people sort of like. I couldn't get over. I couldn't be convinced that I needed to take the step to hire somebody. But what do I spend my time on now? A thousand and $10,000 per hour task? Sure. Some of the other ones creep in, right? But instead of managing your pay per click campaigns for example, it's creating pay per click campaigns, judging your marketing materials. How much time do you think I spent on creating these slides? Zero.

      Speaker 3 (00:07:49) - All right. That was a softball. I don't need to do my own slides anymore. Anyone have a marketing team that can do this stuff for you? So you can you can get out there and speak. You can get in front of different events organizations and still take care of all the other high level activities your business needs done, but you're not doing the lower level activities. All right. It's a great feeling. Anybody have business that's coming in? As you sit here today, your phones are being answered, Consultations are being scheduled. New clients are signing up. The legal work is getting done and you're getting paid again. Great feeling when you can get there. It doesn't happen overnight, but when you start focusing your time on just pushing yourself up the ladder, that's when it gets better and better. There's a quote here from Perry Marshall. I think it's on the next slide. When you move from doing $10 an hour to $10,000 per hour work, the least valuable minute in your day is worth $0.19.

      Speaker 3 (00:08:43) - And the most valuable minute is $166 to you. Now, you're not going to. Maybe someday you'll get there, but you can't just say, I'm going to spend all day doing $10,000 an hour task. It doesn't really work that way, right? You're not going to be able to speak for eight hours a day. Essentially, you want to find yourself in the $1,000 an hour task. So there is this book, if you will. If you want to copy this book, you can go online and grab it if you want a free copy. I love sending this book to people. It's not my book. Someday, hopefully, I'll have my own book to send out. Right? I'm promoting Perry Marshall here, but he is so good and so clear of what he does. The book is called Detox Declutter and Dominate. If you text the word delegate to (833) 899-3272, we will send you a free copy. It is only about ten pages. It's mostly visual and it's mind blowing on how good it is.

      Speaker 3 (00:09:35) - So again, just write this down and at the end there'll be a landing page where you can also grab it. But text the word delegate to (833) 899-3272. So we talk about this. This is a fun one for me. I tell my team, hey, I need a slide that shows the feast and famine when you spend time. I need to show like a guy or a girl working really hard on marketing and then you go to and then you make some sales and then you bring in the legal work and then you get paid and then your business grows. But the other ones go back down, right? Because now you're doing the legal work, but nobody's spending the time on the marketing and the sales. And so it's the feast or famine cycle. So anyway, that's what they came up with. So here, if you start hiring though, then marketing, right? You start doing better marketing. Well, you don't just move on and stop marketing because you've put systems and people in place. So then you bring in sales, you bring in legal and that's how your business starts going.

      Speaker 3 (00:10:28) - I think we all know this intuitively, but for some of you who are like me, it really needs to be hammered home that it is possible you can do it. And the what again is. Is what you need to spend your time on. So going back to the five stages, if you're a hustler, you know, you've got maybe, maybe none, maybe 1 or 2 people. You just got to you need that personal assistant to take care of all of the things that are getting in the way of you going to higher level activities like legal work, for example, on average, what, $3,350 an hour? We should be pushing ourselves to do as much until we can hire attorneys of that type of work and get rid of all the other things that get in our way. Experimenter You've got about five people. You're starting to to figure yourself out how to hire, who you want to bring in, what your message is, your culture, your core values, right? And you keep growing your team, you become a visionary.

      Speaker 3 (00:11:20) - So you're just dictating this big nice picture and you're selling it. You start to set up systems because you want to scale, and then you start scaling and you turn into an influencer. Now, the problem is, as most of you have found out, when you start hiring and you start bringing people on board, you want to delegate and you want to get rid of things. But are things always done perfectly for you every time you just find those great team members? No, it doesn't work that way. It takes time. You got to train, You got to have again, create more and more systems. You got to give feedback and you have to grow. So even though you're pushing yourself up through the levels of entrepreneurship as a business owner, as a law firm owner, trying to get to the because every lawyer has a message, right? I think every lawyer really deep down wants to get to the place where they are shouting from the rooftops about what immigration should be because you're the best, most passionate immigration attorney or criminal law.

      Speaker 3 (00:12:15) - You know what the legal system should look like. And, you know, getting stuck with all these people who need your time and not creating those time barriers is, in my experience, what holds a lot of people back. So you don't have to only work on your business to grow. You can work in your business, but it's focusing on the right types of activities and then protecting your time. So let's talk about protecting our time then the I-90 formula. This is just a three step sort of, you know, business system that we came up with. A lot of it is taken traction. Anybody use iOS or traction out there? I see a few hands. Just a phenomenal, unbelievable system for running your business. But it's not a cure all. It's not going to do everything for you. You're still going to need those mentors, those guides. They're going to go deep on the people and the systems. But the other parts of your business, you you're you're going to need resources for.

      Speaker 3 (00:13:08) - So always for office hours is for issue matrix and 90 is for the 90 minute weekly team meeting or departmental meetings. And let's go through those office hours. Anybody remember office hours in law school? You went and you sat outside of your professor's door. You try to get there 30 minutes ahead of time, but there was already 15 of the same people who were there every Tuesday or Thursday, and they were always in front of you. And they all seem to get the good grades, right. Nobody's bitter. It's the same concept. And it's unfortunate that it took me so long to figure out how much time this can save. One of the biggest time sucks in our business is scheduling small meetings. I've got some time here. Email back and forth. Go to my link. Well, my my calendly link has 15 minutes, so sometimes people cancel. Now you're waiting and then you only you only need five minutes, but you schedule the 15 minutes anyway. It's just such a pain. And to me that's why office hours are just so mind blowing.

      Speaker 3 (00:14:10) - You can hold office hours with your team every day if you want, but normally 1 or 2 days per week for one hour and it's a set time. And when you're ready, your assistant sends a message to the team and says, Jean's office hours are open. Team, go ahead and run in there. So what does it look like? Somebody goes to your office hours and they're in the waiting room. Host will let you in soon. Hold office hours on Zoom or virtually even if you're back full time and everyone's in your office because you don't want people getting up and walking around the hall and waiting for your time and knocking and who's next virtually is just makes it so easy. Someone's in the waiting room, right? And this is what it looks like. You let someone in, for example, this is one of our office hours talking to Juanita, one of our associate marketing, our associate marketing director, handling an issue. You can see up here, these are all, I don't know, five, six, seven people in the waiting room.

      Speaker 3 (00:15:01) - You know, they're doing their work just waiting for you. That's the point is, if your office hours start at one and you can't get to some people to 145 or 150, they're doing their work, their screens open, and it's not a time waste for them either. You need someone else and you bring in Oh, I need to talk to Joe and Juanita about something we're all working on together, so I'm going to let them in at the same time, and then I'm going to finish my work with them and I'm going to move on and let the next person in. It will save you hours and scheduling and hours on the wasted time going back and forth. Boom. Next issue, next issue, next issue, Next person needs you. Next person needs you. The best part of this, though, is that instead of people interrupting your time. And interruptions are what kill our productivity is business owners. And as lawyers, instead of interrupting you every time you're you're maybe you're handling legal work, maybe you're writing a brief, maybe you're coming up with a great argument.

      Speaker 3 (00:15:58) - You're preparing for trial, whatever it is, Right? Maybe you just need mindfulness and headspace and people interrupt. They need your time. And it's so frustrating because it's such a productivity killer. They will not waste their time trying to interrupt you and your time will not be interrupted if you have set office hours. One of my favorite responses now, when people send me a text or a message again, I don't have those things open all the time is I respond with two words. Office hours. I'm training my people to not interrupt me unless you need to be interrupted. So on the issues matrix, this is very particular per firm, right? These are the issues that if you answer yes to any of these issues, if your team does, they will be allowed to interrupt you. Again, you adjust these according to you. These are just some examples. Will this influence a single purchase of $10,000 or more? Will this improve our systems, impact more than $10,000 of sales or affect our reputation? By me not answering right away, will we lose out on 5000 or more dollars as the question already been directed to everybody else who can potentially answer this question? Because that's really running up the ladder the way it should be.

      Speaker 3 (00:17:08) - One of my favorite not on here, but for us it's can this wait to the 90 minute weekly meeting? Right. Which I'm going to talk about next. These are the things that will help guide. You can't just say, don't talk to me in offsite because what if there's a media opportunity? I almost missed out on being on the news one time because somebody couldn't get in touch with me. Right. Thankfully, we work that out. There are times where you want to be interrupted. VIP client gets client calls. You probably want to be interrupted. And by the way, speaking of clients, you can also set office hours for your clients so that you train your staff to tell your clients, Hey, from 1 to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, LC makes calls to her clients. Will you be available during that time this Wednesday? Good. She'll probably call you around 105 110. So they're waiting for you and they expect your call, but they're not calling you and interrupting you. I know it sounds funny.

      Speaker 3 (00:18:01) - I lot of my clients would like that. If you're very courteous about it and you explain why, it can be very, very powerful. So what is the 90 minute team meeting? If you raise your hand, if you've read traction, if you use EOS, you will recognize this. But to me, how you run your meetings is how you run your firm. And when you see tweets and memes about, oh, you know, meetings are terrible and the people who like meetings don't like getting things done. When you run meetings the right way, it becomes really a powerful way to push your business forward. I cannot imagine running a business without 90 minutes meetings every week per department or if you're not quite big enough for the entire team. So a typical meeting agenda, five minutes. Good news. Personal good news business. It's a check in, right? You're just you're just getting into the meeting. Five minutes, reviewing your KPIs or your scorecard. If you need ten leads a week and you've gotten you've gotten seven, that's probably still a green.

      Speaker 3 (00:18:54) - But if it's five, four, three, that's a red indicator. And you start seeing red, you start to notice issues that jump out at you. This is a great way to keep in touch with the high level numbers at your business you need to look at every week. The next one is reviewing your rocks or your objectives for that quarter. Five minutes on track, Off track. You're setting issues, employee headlines or customer headlines. Something big happening next. Five minutes, the following five minutes. You're reviewing your to do's from the prior week. And then the 60 minutes is you're solving issues. You have employee leave and you open their desk and you just find like, what on earth were they doing with this stuff? You can't even believe all of the things in their desk that they were hiding or not talking about. We had one time somebody mouse was working in the not working for like six months and they just never told us. And I was like, You know what? I'm going to own that one because we didn't give them an opportunity.

      Speaker 3 (00:19:45) - This is pre 90 minute set weekly meetings where people could come and you give them an opportunity to bring up issues and present them to you so you can help or your leaders or the department chairs or your senior attorneys, whoever it is, can help solve the issues to move the business forward. And the last five, you're basically rating the meeting. So the best part about traction to me is the software. You don't even need an iOS coach to use traction. But if you use traction tools or 90 IO, the software is so good and so helpful for your business, that will be a big one for you. That's again, Traction tools or 90 IO. I have no affiliation with either. I just love them very much and I think they're amazing. Again, you can scan this QR code. We have a resource. We will upload this presentation. And and also give you there's some other things on there. And that's it. Again, I want to thank my time's up. I want to thank Jim and Tyson and just encourage you that if you put in safeguards and you and you protect your time and then you focus on higher level activities, that's how your business will grow.

      Speaker 3 (00:20:56) - And hopefully you will start to realize your dreams. That's all my time. Thank you guys so much.

      Speaker 2 (00:21:03) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content, go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

      Join us at the Miami Mastermind!

      Are you looking for ways to maximize your work week and have a more productive mindset at work? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, hosts Jim and Tyson discuss the most valuable parts of their work week. Both speak to 3 things they do each week to help with productivity.

      For individuals who own their own company, it is important to spend some time at the beginning of your week going over your priorities and to-dos. Jim talks about how spending 15 minutes with his personal assistant each week allows him to know who he needs to connect with, what meetings he has and go through his emails. Having that support allows you to delegate your tasks to other people so you can take some of that workload off of you.

      Physical and mental health is so important to ensure you have a good work week. Both Tyson and Jim speak to the importance of prioritizing self care before they start the day, which helps get them focused and in the right mindset. Whether it be working out first thing in the morning or having a standing massage session in the middle of the week, these self care moments allow for you to recharge and refocus to continue your day.

      Having weekly leadership team meetings is a huge part of not only having a successful company, but ensuring members of your team are on the same page and working well. Think of these meetings like a football team huddle, where you get in, figure out your game plan and “break” to get back to business. It allows for everyone to understand the goals for the week and speak to any wins or challenges.

      For those in the legal field, mastermind sessions are a great way to network and learn from others. It is a chance to share your struggles with other law firm owners who will advise you on how to work through them.

      Implement some of these strategies into your work week to achieve more productivity!

      Take a listen!

      Jim’s Hack: In every conversation you have you are being presented with content ideas. Notice, pay attention and write it down!

      Tyson’s Tip: Grab the YouTube Transcript Extractor Chrome Extension!

      Episode Highlights:

      • 2:42 Jim discusses the importance of spending 15 minutes each day with his personal assistant to delegate tasks and clear out his calendar and email inbox.
      • 4:16 Tyson talks about the significance of his daily workouts in helping him stay focused and release extra energy, as well as the added benefits of cold plunges.
      • 8:53 Tyson highlights the value of the L10 meeting, a weekly leadership meeting where the firm's leadership team comes together to address issues, align goals, and move the firm forward.
      • 11:35 Speaker 2 emphasizes the need to take time to rest and relax in order to have a clear mind and come up with innovative ideas.
      • 13:51 Speaker 3 explains what a mastermind is and how it involves sharing goals, wisdom, and problem-solving among law firm owners.


      🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

      Resources:

      Transcripts: 6 Valuable Ways to Maximize Your Work Week 

      Jim Hacking:
      Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

      Tyson:
      And I'm Ty Simutrix. What's up, Jimmy.

      Jim Hacking:
      Oh, just dealing with the joy of having a 21-year-old and three teenagers. It's lots of fun these days. My mother-in-law always used to say, little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems. So it's funny how that has sort of played out.

      Tyson:
      It's funny, I've always heard that too. And it's hard to believe sometimes where, because it can be really hard when you're young. It can be really, really hard. But it's hard to believe that it could get more difficult. And I'm sure it does. It's…

      Jim Hacking:
      It's just different. I mean, it's more fun too. I mean, you have these little adults running around and you have these great conversations. And I'm at this stage now where my kids will say something to me that's actually pretty insightful about myself that I didn't recognize. So it sort of cuts both ways.

      Tyson:
      Yeah, that's the part that I think is cool is like the just seeing them grow and develop. It's just the coolest thing. And like having I remember the first time I had like a Quasi-intelligent conversation with Jackson and I'm just like this is this is cool Like I like you're I can actually talk to you down like I connect actually we can actually communicate back and forth And it's not just like hey, that's a toy. It's it's a it's more advanced than that. But so today we're gonna talk about two things we're gonna talk about The most important parts of our work week and Um, two of those are, it's funny because of the same for each of us. Um,

      Jim Hacking:
      Well, actually,

      Tyson:
      and the,

      Jim Hacking:
      I've changed my mind, and I now have

      Tyson:
      okay.

      Jim Hacking:
      one, so we don't match, but I can still chime in on yours.

      Tyson:
      Okay, very good. I like it. And then I'm waffling on one of mine because it's so new to me. You probably know what I'm talking about. I talked about it on the previous episode, but it's so new to me, but it's so,

      Jim Hacking:
      Yeah, no,

      Tyson:
      it's

      Jim Hacking:
      you gotta

      Tyson:
      really

      Jim Hacking:
      pick a different

      Tyson:
      cool.

      Jim Hacking:
      one, because you just talked about that.

      Tyson:
      Yeah, I can't do it, but I won't, but I'm going to mention it at least. And then we're going to talk a little bit about the Guild Mastermind a little bit. So right now we're going to talk about, let's start with our first, we'll go with our number one, okay? What is our number one most important part of our week? So most valuable parts of our week. So I'll let you go first. I wonder if your number one is still the number one.

      Jim Hacking:
      So my number one is definitely the 15 minutes I split up over the course of five days. I do 15 minutes every day for five days where I talk to my assistant and my personal assistant and having her sort of leverage my communications with other people, my meetings with other people, clearing out my calendar, clearing out my email inbox. That time that I spend with her, it's like getting another 40% of me. just by having her do a lot of the stuff that I don't want to do.

      Tyson:
      Interesting. I do not have that on my list, but it maybe should have been on my list, but that's why I'm making it three. I'm going to keep it at three though. No. And we talked about, for those of you that have not seen it, go to the Facebook group and we did a presentation on executive assistance. But it's… Yeah, it's extremely valuable because it really does. It keeps me on track. I can only imagine with you, you need to be wrangled quite a bit and reeled in. And so I'm sure that that's keeping you on track is, you know, it would be a nightmare. It would be for me, if I were your executive assistant, it would be a nightmare for me. It would absolutely be terrible. But I'm glad. You know, I'm glad that you have one now, but that's really valuable. So my number one though is, I told you I was going to do like a more personal one. This one is, I mean, my workout, like getting, getting my workouts in and, and it allows me to get focused. Like it's rid of that extra energy that I, that I, that, that I don't really need. It's like extra energy that. I don't know about you, it's almost like a nervous energy, but once I've done my workout, I come to the office and I'm just focused. But with that, so there's this new thing I've started doing with, and it's the cold plunge stuff. But so doing these, the cold plunge is. There is an energy that lasts throughout the day that is just incredible, man. I cannot stress it enough, but I'm putting those two together in one because I usually do them back to back. I'll do the workout. I'm actually still cold from doing mine this morning, but it is… For those of you that have not done them, I think it's really viable. And those of you that have ignored your bodies and your health, please stop doing it. Take care of yourselves because that is really what dictates what you're able to do in your firms and for your families. All right, what's your number two Jimbo? All

      Jim Hacking:
      Well,

      Tyson:
      right,

      Jim Hacking:
      before

      Tyson:
      you got

      Jim Hacking:
      we get

      Tyson:
      more

      Jim Hacking:
      to

      Tyson:
      to

      Jim Hacking:
      that,

      Tyson:
      that? Yeah.

      Jim Hacking:
      I want to chime in on yours because I had it on my list and then I took it off and that's the exercise. So, you know, I had ignored my body for a really long time and I got really out of shape and about a year ago I made a commitment to workout cardio 45 minutes every day and then do a little bit of weight training on extra on some of the days. And so that then and I've started off my day with that. So I'm at the gym at five every morning and it really helps me. You're right. It helps me calm my mind and sort of sort things out. And unfortunately for you and Becca and Amra, my assistant, that's also a time where I like to send lots of texts. Cause that's when I have lots of ideas. So it really helps me get into a sane place. Um, and plus, you know, I don't, I don't get in the ice bath, but I do get in the, um, steam room and so I'm sweating for pretty much an hour straight. And I think that getting those toxins out, um, really, really helps. And also, um, And the work I'm doing, I'm walking at a very steep incline, 45 minutes, my heart rate's up at about 133. And when I go for walks with people, I'm like, I'm like laughing, I'm like, I'm just way far, my kids couldn't keep up with me on walking, so it's pretty funny.

      Tyson:
      Yeah, some of my favorite days when I go gym, sauna, cold plunge.

      Jim Hacking:
      Hmm.

      Tyson:
      And those extremes are just, it's a great feeling. But yeah, and wouldn't you say your mental acuity, your stress, all that's changed since you started working out more?

      Jim Hacking:
      Yeah, for sure. Yeah, my stress is still my stress, but yeah, I think I have better ways of dealing with it and I certainly think I'm sleeping better because I'm using my body and I'm tired.

      Tyson:
      100%, absolutely. All right,

      Jim Hacking:
      So

      Tyson:
      let's get to your number two.

      Jim Hacking:
      for my second one, one of my most important hours of the week, and I just did it yesterday, is my massage. So I get a massage for an hour and a half every Wednesday, or I move it around if I have to, but it's on my standing calendar, and Wednesday's at one o'clock, and I'm 53, and I'm tight as hell from all that damn time on the treadmill, and… It's really, really helpful to move those joints. My massage lady just learned some new things where she's pretty much pulling and stretching on my legs and twisting them all around. And it's really, I mean, right just now I'm thinking about like I wanna yawn because I just, you know, you get that feeling when the muscles are getting the oxygen moving and things are sort of working themselves out. It's hard to beat that hour and a half a week. I'm hoping to do two. two massages a week at some point, but that shit is expensive.

      Tyson:
      Yeah, I do mine monthly. I don't do mine weekly. Um, I, my massage therapist, she said there's no point in doing it more than, uh, every once a month. So I know

      Jim Hacking:
      I disagree

      Tyson:
      I'm

      Jim Hacking:
      with that.

      Tyson:
      sure you enjoy it. Well, I listen,

      Jim Hacking:
      And she's

      Tyson:
      I,

      Jim Hacking:
      part of the sales prevention department then, if that's what she's telling

      Tyson:
      yeah.

      Jim Hacking:
      you.

      Tyson:
      Well, she, well, she's like, it's funny because my massages, they're not super enjoyable, like she's like dig it in there. Um. but she just has a different approach. But you are right though, there's just a, for people that aren't doing them, 60 minutes is a waste of time, do 90 minutes. 90 minutes is the way to go. And they are, there's a bunch of benefits to them. So I definitely recommend it. My number two is our L10 meeting. And our L10 meeting, it's an opportunity for our leadership team to get on the same page with things. It's our opportunity to see if there's any issues. resolve any issues and move the firm forward generally as a whole. And it's an extremely, L10 is a term that we basically just stole. It's from scaling up, but we like, or not scaling up, it's from,

      Jim Hacking:
      section.

      Tyson:
      what is it Jim? Traction, it's from traction. but it's our weekly leadership meeting. So if you're familiar with traction, you're familiar with Elton, we're more of a scaling up firm, Jim's is more of a traction firm, but it's a great opportunity and we've trimmed ours down to it's 50 minutes. It used to be a lot longer, it's now 50 minutes and we get in, we execute, we get out. And it's a really beneficial time for our firm, our leadership team to get on the same page and move things forward.

      Jim Hacking:
      So it's the one time during the week where everybody on leadership is dedicated towards working on the business, fixing things as opposed to the triage or fires of the day. So yeah, you've gotta be spending some dedicated time each week. where you're actually moving things forward, fixing things, and sort of future-focused as opposed to living in that time of urgency. So yeah, that was one of mine too that I dropped so that you could use it, but that's definitely an important, for us, hour and a half of our week.

      Tyson:
      Love it. Well then, what is your number three then?

      Jim Hacking:
      So my number third one, I thought about this for a while and I think the third most valuable hour that I have each week is the time that I spend with my therapist. I think that I'm a complicated dude with lots of things to talk about, lots of moving parts in my life, and I think that the time that I spend with her is invaluable and it sort of, I went yesterday, I go, it's funny, my massage. therapists and my head therapists are next door to each other. So I do it back to back. And so it's really great. You know how like I think our eight o'clock show on Saturday mornings for people in the guild is so good because we just woke up. There's no bullshit at eight in the morning on a Saturday. There's also no bullshit when you sort of wake up from a massage and go right into therapy. You're like, Oh yeah. And you're also much more malleable and willing to listen. And it's, it's a really good routine for me.

      Tyson:
      So you do that weekly?

      Jim Hacking:
      Mm-hmm.

      Tyson:
      Wow, that just seems like a lot, but that's great. I

      Jim Hacking:
      It is a lot.

      Tyson:
      mean, clearly you're getting something from it, but that's a… What I think is interesting is when you start to dissect successful people and what you start to find is like, they spend so much time on their body and their mind, as opposed to… the average person. Would you say that that's true? Like that they

      Jim Hacking:
      Yes.

      Tyson:
      that I mean, but you're not like when you're younger, you don't think about that stuff. When you're younger, you think, oh, I just got to do the work, just got to do the work, you got to do the work. And you ignore the fact that part of the doing the work is taking care of your body and your mind. It's really interesting.

      Jim Hacking:
      Well, and eventually when you've been around for a while and your firm has grown to a certain size, then your actual, the actual work that you're supposed to be doing is the thinking about how to make things better. It's the bigger picture stuff, the visionary stuff, the stuff that doesn't involve grinding, but rather thinking. And so in order to have your mind and body at the best, I think you've really got to take time to rest and relax. And, you know, it's when you get in that ice bath or get in that steam room your mind sort of wander and think that's where that's where your best ideas come from.

      Tyson:
      Man, I'll tell you what, my mind does not wander much when I'm in that ice bath. I'm focused on the clock and I'm like, ah, when that timer goes off, I'm out of here. But the sauna, definitely, oh man, yeah, it's all over the place. So for my third one, I'm gonna go with my weekly CEO report. It's a video that I put out every week at the same

      Jim Hacking:
      Mmm,

      Tyson:
      time.

      Jim Hacking:
      this

      Tyson:
      And

      Jim Hacking:
      is

      Tyson:
      it

      Jim Hacking:
      interesting.

      Tyson:
      used to be a written one. Yeah, it used to be a written one. It was more complicated for me to do because I would have to sit down and write it out. But this one, now I do it via video and it's basically my, I'm talking to the firm about, you know, what I'm, I've got a form I used to fill out, but now it's sort of a script I go off of where, like what I'm thinking about. And it could be whatever topic I've been thinking about for that week for the firm. And then after that, I go through. anything that's new, so any new announcements, and then anything from the leadership team that I need to tell people about. And then I go through the numbers for the week. So I go through new cases, I go through new Google reviews, through checks that we've received, any errors we had when it comes to systems, and then there's like four other things, or our current caseload, and then I can't remember the other three.

      Jim Hacking:
      Probably section on how cool Jim is, I would think.

      Tyson:
      Absolutely, that is absolutely what it is. But yeah, but I go through those and it's basically an update on the health of the firm essentially. And I think it's pretty valuable.

      Jim Hacking:
      You're listening to the Maximum Wale podcast. Today it's Jim and Tyson. We're talking about the things that we look forward to in our week that really help us move forward. And now we're gonna segue into another topic and that is what is a mastermind, the power of a mastermind and sort of. how has the mastermind served some of the members of the guild and us as law firm owners? So Tyson, why don't you explain to people who might not know or know the concept of a mastermind, sort of what is it?

      Tyson:
      Yeah. So what it is, it's the first time I was ever introduced to it was, you know, through John Fisher's mastermind. Had no idea what it is. And I had heard the concept before, but I'd never really been to one, but it's really what it is, it's, it's about synergy and really wisdom and shared goals. Um, and it's really about, you know, getting in a room and you. you're open, you're vulnerable, you tell other law firm owners what you're struggling with. And then other law firm owners that are in the same room with you that have been there before or that are going through the same things that you're going through, they help dissect that issue and then help solve the problem is really what it is. And they do that through a lot of asking questions. They sometimes will ask pointed questions. Sometimes they will give you advice that you don't want to hear but you need to hear and it's you know we've seen quite a few break free the breakthroughs over the years by doing these and it is it is an extreme there's what we do have four times a year is because it's extremely valuable thing for members to do

      Jim Hacking:
      Yeah, I've really enjoyed the masterminds. I've always gotten things out of it, like you said, by hearing the advice that other people give. But you know, it's such an interesting dynamic. I mean, again, we talked earlier about, you know, working on your business. So these are law firm owners who are willing and able to step away from their firm for a Thursday afternoon and an all day Friday to go and share and listen to other law firm owners talk about the issues that they're trying to overcome. Those hot seats are powerful when you're, quote unquote, on the hot seat. You know, you're gonna go for five or 10 minutes about what's bothering you, and then everyone's gonna tell you how dumb you are and how you need to think about this and that. And then for me, you know, I'm taking a ton of notes because you can hear things from people who have a law firm that's a year old. You can hear from people who have a law firm that's 20 years old, and you'll get great value out of that. But for me, the real value of the mastermind comes from when I tell other people what they're doing wrong, because invariably, that is something that I need to hear. I tell the story about one of our Mastermind members who was talking about, I just wanna sign up cases and bring in as many cases as I can and then let everybody else figure out how to deal with all those cases. And I really got sort of indignant at that person and then I realized that person was me, that that's what I was doing, that's what I wanted to do. I just wanted to. you know, grow at breakneck speed, not give any real sense to capacity and to, you know, how much the team could actually produce. And so that really struck me when I was telling him how dumb he was when really I was talking to myself.

      Tyson:
      Yeah, so, and you know, we're big on confidentiality, so we're not gonna mention any names or anything, but there was a member in one of ours, in our group where… he is struggling because he runs the firm, but he wants to get back into the litigation and wants to get back into trying the cases. And he's sort of given that stuff up. And it's interesting, because as I was giving my feedback and asking questions, I was kind of thinking, like, this is something that I struggle with. This is something that I've been through as well. And I think we did, really good plan for him to pivot and get back into the courtroom like he wants to do because like that's where his passion is and I think I think I think it's okay though it's absolutely okay to pivot and you know, shift where like you have a vision for something and you figure out, okay, that's not quite where I wanted things to be. I want to, I want to shift and my vision has changed a little bit and that's, that's great. But I think that there were a lot of great breakthroughs that he had that's going to allow him to get to fulfill that true vision that he has for what he wants out of his career. And I think there's like great breakthroughs, but to your point though, it was interesting because I was, as I was hearing him talk initially, I'm thinking like, oh, I, this is, I know this exact struggle. And that is, you're right, that's how it is sometimes with the advice you're giving is the advice that you're really telling yourself.

      Jim Hacking:
      And the concept of a mastermind comes from Napoleon Hill, which in his book, Think and Grow Rich, he talks about the power of the mastermind, that in other words, it's the collective. You know, I always tell people at the beginning of our time together, I was like, you know, this is the one time where the 14 of us or the 16 of us, the one time we're going to be together, this particular group. And it really is the collection of all those minds thinking really hard when you're done. With those days, it's like sitting through depositions all day. It's like you've been doing intent listening and hopefully, you know, chiming in here and there. It's not for the faint of heart. But, you know, when I think about masterminds, I think about a couple of quotes, which are, you know, you are the sum total of the five people you spend the most amount of time with. That's something that I think really comes through, that if you're in these rooms and you're talking to people and you're trying to succeed, then you're really not… with people who are losers or people who are just Debbie Downers and those kinds of people. The other quote that comes to mind when it comes to the mastermind is, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're probably in the wrong room. So we all have something to learn. Tyson and I always come away from the mastermind learning things about our particular law firms that we can either it's during the actual hot seats. And then the other thing that I should mention is that To me, some of the best value out of the Mastermind have been those offhand, sideways conversations with people, the dinner after, the lunch during, you know, the breakfast, talking to people, and you never know where the next best idea is going to come from. So if this is something that interests you, you should think about joining the Guild, because you have to be a member of the Guild to join, and our next Mastermind is going to be in Miami, and I'm looking it up. It's on Thursday, October 19th. Friday, October 20th. It's going to be a lot of fun. We've already got a fairly good number of signups, so we might have a couple of extra groups, but we'd love to have you if that's something that interests you. I think it's going to be a great one. The one we just had in Denver was certainly well received. And, you know, there's also that sort of clarifying of just getting away, resetting, and just sort of having that ability to come back fresh with new ideas. And one of the last things I'll say is that one fun thing that sort of happens. at the after the masterminds is sometimes people come back and hire new people and that's a great thing and sometimes people come back and fire old people. So there's just a lot of growth. It's really just thinking of it as an accelerated opportunity to make a big jump as opposed to the daily or weekly innovations and improvements which are also important. This is just another way to do it sort of on a faster pace.

      Tyson:
      Or like another member, they were going to go back and fire a long-term member, and that long-term member ended up resigning. They posted in the group the other day about that, so I thought that was really interesting. It was going to be a really difficult conversation for

      Jim Hacking:
      Oh, I missed that.

      Tyson:
      the member. And so it was a big thing. One of my favorite parts though, and then we'll wrap things up, but one of my favorite parts though is where… you know, the accountability part where someone will say, well, okay, you're saying that you've said this six months ago at another mastermind. What are you going to commit to? They'll say, they'll pin them down and say, okay, what are you going to, are you going to do these, these things? What are you going to do? And I'm going to, and it, it forces them because they said that they were going to do these things. They didn't do them. And now they're holding their feet to the fire or they'll just before it even gets to that point, they'll hold their feet to the fire before that. and they'll make them make that commitment, which I think is fantastic. That's one of my favorite parts. But you're right though, the dinner sessions where you're like afterwards, like, hey, like I thought about that a little bit. What do you think about this? Or what do you think about that? Those are always really good. But all right Jimbo, let's wrap things up. If you do wanna join the guild, you can go to maxlawguild.com. If you are interested in our mastermind in Miami, that's where the next one's gonna be. Go to maxlawevents.com. So and if you want to if you're interested in both you can just go to maxlawevents.com and you could join and Get your ticket at the same time. All right, Jimmy Before we get to our tips and hack the week if you all would give us a five-star review We would greatly appreciate it. It's helped spread the love to other law firm owners by You know the more Google reviews you get the more likely that the podcast channels are gonna be willing to show us to other members, so If you'll do that, we would appreciate it. All right Jimbo, what is your hack of the week?

      Jim Hacking:
      There is a river of content ideas passing you by every day and you haven't been paying attention You haven't been writing them down But in every conversation you have whether it's with a paralegal a client another lawyer You are being presented Continuously with content ideas. You might not have the glasses on to spot them yet But they are there and when you pay attention and write them down you will have a never-ending supply of content ideas. I Refused to buy this idea. I don't know what to talk about You know exactly what to talk about because you talk about it all the time And if you don't know the answer to a question that somebody asks you go figure out the answer to that question and then make A video about it because if somebody else has that question If someone has that question someone else does too So you do not need to buy a book or hire someone for content ideas Just pay attention to what goes on each day and find a way to record it

      Tyson:
      It's figureoutable as Jim likes to say. It's figureoutable. I like that one. So mine's a fun one. I think you might like this one. It is the YouTube transcript extractor Chrome extension. And so you can, yeah, exactly right. And so it's a Chrome extension. You could be watching a YouTube video. And if you wanna extract that transcript, it's not just yours, anyone's YouTube video. You click a button and it'll give you two options. You can have a summary of the video or you can have a transcript of the video and it is really, really cool. So I recommend it. YouTube transcript extractor Chrome extension. So if you go to just, you've got Chrome, this won't work in other browsers. So, but if you do have Chrome, just go and get that extension and add it to your browser. It's pretty awesome. So that is my tip of the week. So. Jimbo good talk to you. We got three to go baby.

      Jim Hacking:
      Thanks,

      Tyson:
      I think

      Jim Hacking:
      brother. Good stuff.

      Tyson:
      Yeah. All right. See you man

      Jim Hacking:
      Word.

      Tyson:
      I was going to tell you.

      This week on Maximum Mom, your host Elise Buie is joined by Amy Cote. 

      Amy started Think Out because for most organizations prevention is an afterthought. With communication, consistency and execution, employees will perform well as teams that are prepared for the expected and unexpected. 

      Thanks to Amy’s training and experience, she has strong skills in leadership, communication, change management, operations, labor relations, policy development and best practices.  

      Thanks to Amy’s genes, she has an obsessive curiosity, keen ability to think out, problem solve and counsel. 

      If you have questions or just want to think out loud together, Amy would love you to take action and advocate for yourself, your people, your business, your future!  

      Take a listen!

      Episode Highlights:

      • 11:34 How curiosity and innovative thinking play a role in Amy’s business
      • 19:29 The need to question traditional ways of doing things and the benefits of thinking outside the box
      • 20:38 A businesses to plan for the future 
      • 32:08 Amy starting her own business, including the initial uncertainty and the importance of perseverance
      • 44:08 Personal growth and self-discovery that comes with owning a business


      📹 Watch the interview here.

      Connect with Amy:

      Resources:

      Transcripts: Revolutionizing Education: Innovations for the Future with Amy Cote

      Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Welcome to Maximum Mom with Elise Buey, where you'll hear from women who are navigating the same messy journey as you lawyering, entrepreneurship and mothering. What a trifecta. We're here to share tips, resources, wins, losses and encouragement for moms who are raising a family while building a law firm so you feel less alone in your journey toward a fulfilling career and being the best mom you can be.

      Speaker 2 (00:00:30) - Come on. Welcome to the Maximum Mom podcast. I am so happy today to welcome my guest, Amy Coyote. Now, did I say that right? You did indeed, yeah. Thank you for having me. I know, But sometimes even after I hear somebody, I mess it up. And so I always. This is one of those name things. Amy and I were just talking before we got on her name, you know, has an accent at the end. And then tell us also, you said it has the tent on the Oh as well, correct? Yes. Yeah. So if it was if it was really done in French properly, it would have the tent on the.

      Speaker 2 (00:01:05) - Oh the accent on the E but nobody can even get the accent on the E So we just that's enough for people without adding the O as well. Yeah. And I was saying, I mean I spent my whole life, you know, with this name Elise. And I mean, my real name is Elizabeth, but my parents immediately, like on my birth certificate, they put Elizabeth. But I mean, you know, the moment I got there, I'm adopted. I was named Elise. So everybody calls me Elise. But every teacher, I mean, from day one until law school has messed that up and said, Elsie. And I mean, I have had to, like, call out every teacher. I'm like, Could you just sound it out? You know, that's so funny that, you know, it's like gap filling with your brain, right? Like that. They just want to make it one way and it's really another ways. It's great. Yeah.

      Speaker 1 (00:01:58) - Yeah, it's.

      Speaker 2 (00:01:59) - I don't.

      Speaker 2 (00:02:00) - I'm very careful with people's names. But so my youngest daughter, Lucy, her first name is actually Rebecca because I'm a fifth generation Rebecca. My middle name is Rebecca. It's always the second born daughter and it's always rotating between the first and middle name. And so when she was born, I said, Well, we got to go with the tradition, but we didn't want to call her that. And so we because there's a lot of them in the family, obviously. And Lucy is also a family name, which means I get the cookie jar from the family. But we we have always called her Lucy. And it's, you know, so we always put our period. Lucy But most people start out the school year saying. Rebecca And she says, My name is Lucy. You know, like, oh my gosh, it is something. I think it's kind of, I don't know. It's one of those things that I think we could all do a better job, kind of like you mentioned, of just listening to people, what their name is and asking and then repeating it.

      Speaker 2 (00:02:59) - And no doubt I mess up and have to ask again sometimes or but I mean, just. Really trying, because I think in our diverse culture, you just can't look at a name and assume it. It is said one way or pronounced one way. I met an attorney recently and his name is spelled R, i a N, and people would say Ryan a lot of times. But it's Rian and and again, you know, I think it is just so important to ask. And I sometimes feel, though, that I'm a little annoying because I ask people all the time, you know, like even if it's just a little bit questionable to me, I'm going to ask. Yeah. Because, you know, I don't know. It just feels I think probably because I had that experience as a child constantly being called the wrong name. And obviously with Elsie, it became Elsie the cow. So then everyone would, you know, make fun of it. I mean, so I got to be a little snarky with my teachers, you know, after a couple of grades, you kind of have to put it into that, you know, or the other kids will kind of pile on.

      Speaker 2 (00:04:07) - Right, Right. I try to listen. I think it's challenging and helpful now, actually. I mean, to say that people put the pronouns on their email addresses because not I mean, anybody can choose any any name that they want, Right? But not every name that's masculine is for a male and the government is the worst. They don't put their pronouns on and they'll and it'll be some name that like, like a Peyton. And you don't know if it's a man or a woman, and you're supposed to email this person back and say the thing and ask the question and you don't know. You want to be like, Hello person or hello individuals. You know, you can't say the thing. So sir or madam, you know, which is why that exists, right? Because people wouldn't know. It's very challenging. I try to be extremely aware and ask a lot of questions, but that's just in my nature. Well, I was going to say that. I mean, let's talk a little bit.

      Speaker 2 (00:05:09) - I mean, let's back up first. Tell us who is in your family. I always just like to start with that so people know kind of who you are and what does your home look like. So there are five of us. My husband and I have three children and we have two girls and a boy in the Middle East bookended by the girls. My oldest daughter is Ada, who often people want to say Ada is her name, which is strange to me because it's just Ada. And if there was an I like some people want to put on there, it would be Aida, which is Hispanic. So I don't know. But you know, Ada is an old English name and Irish, so Ada is 16. She's a rising senior. She's young for her grade. So we're doing the whole college deal with her right now. And then my son is James. He's 15, so he is going into 10th grade. And then Lucy is my youngest. She just turned 13 and she's going into ninth grade.

      Speaker 2 (00:06:08) - So she is considerably young for her grade, but she is on her own little trajectory of things. So that is where she lands. So there's there's all of us And a dog, big dog. It's a it's a pretty wild place to be most days. I mean, just the memory of having three children in high school. I mean, you are going to have yourself one fun year. Yeah, this year is going to be interesting. It was I keep telling people we're in like the fifth circle of hell with three teenagers right now because it's just so much there's like we're determining now we really need another vehicle and. It's, you know, it's overwhelming at times. But yeah, so that is what our household looks like and everybody's very busy. I think we just did something like 24 soccer games and 11 days and oh my gosh, just like, Oh yeah, I've been there, done that and I do not want to go back to that. I have to say, like it is a wild experience to shepherd kids through these high school years, their activities, college cars, you know, all the pitfalls and pit stops of teamed them.

      Speaker 2 (00:07:24) - Yeah. And I'll be honest, it's worse, I think, than ever before because it's not just the onslaught of the internet and social media and telephones on your hip every two seconds or in your hand non-stop, which we're really strict about. But it is in this wake of the pandemic. These kids are just. I think the human population in general is very angry right now. People are very angry and they're full of angst and sorrow and no one has properly grieved this whole thing we went through in all of the loss that we've had. And there was loss. I mean, whether you lost a physical being from the planet or not, there was a lot of loss of people didn't get to go to their graduation, You know, whatever it was, there was a lot of loss. But hugely into that was the loss of maturation, right? Like these kids were just and we're great. We were great. We were on the Ponderosa, We were all together. Everybody was happy. We did the thing.

      Speaker 2 (00:08:25) - It was frustrating for me at times running a business when the kids were like, How do I do? How do I log on? You know, like, you know, stop talking. I'm doing this. Not every household is like that, right? Not every household had a great experience being home, and now everyone is just no one knows how to behave. And so it's very challenging. You know, teenage girls especially can be super cool, but now in this pandemic wake, they're all they're awful. At least they're just awful. So we we really are looking forward to our daughter getting out of high school, getting to college, like being with kids who have chosen specifically to be at a place which I think comes with a different headspace. Right. So like their mental game is going to be similar in some fashion. And so hopefully she'll find a good group of kids to be friends with and be around and enjoys what she's doing. It's just been it's been very challenging, very challenging. Kids are.

      Speaker 2 (00:09:25) - Kids are not. They're not I mean, they're not kind to teachers like it's just a lot. Oh, it is. I mean, I think you have I mean, just barely scratched the surface, though, of what I mean. And I don't think we've slightly addressed what these kids have gone through. I mean, I really do not. And I mean, as you probably remember, I mean, I have a 21 year old son, So I mean, he was right in that end of high school, junior senior year, freshman year of college during this kind of three year pandemic period. And it has been not linear, to say the least, you know, as far as watching him and and again, like you, I mean, we had many very positive things, you know, in the home and, you know, just in our lives being able to just pay our bills and, you know, do our regular things. So clearly, I don't mean to come at it from a place without the appropriate gratitude for, you know, the situation we had.

      Speaker 2 (00:10:24) - But there was some real social implications, I think, you know, for kids and missing graduations, missing that whole go off to college thing. And, you know, just it's been really interesting. And I think that I just think there's so much change in what these kids even think is needed now because they watched this pandemic period. And depending on their family circumstance, they might have seen their family thriving financially, you know, in the pandemic, working from home, whatever. And I think even college is becoming a bigger question mark, even for a lot of kids. Agreed. Agreed. And it's not you know, it's not for everybody. Right. Like, of course, trade, school and all the things that exist. But so I'm hoping I was very hopeful during the pandemic that we were all going to come out as a human race in a much better way and have evolved from this thing. And I think initially the answer is no. And I'm hoping that there's going to be a lot more transition in other things.

      Speaker 2 (00:11:34) - You know, we're supposed to have this whole innovative re reformation of education. And I know that some colleges are doing that, like there are some colleges that have. Mechanics programs for building sports cars or engineering vehicles, which don't have to be, you know, an engineer with a four year degree to design a vehicle or an engine or something. And so they are definitely rethinking. Who are we attracting as our ideal student and what programs are we putting them into? And it's it's interesting to me, though, because the cycle is always behind, right? Like you just everybody figures it out a little too late and they're not thinking proactively, which makes me nuts. Well, and that, I think, is such an interesting point coming from you in particular. Tell us a little bit about your business. Think out. I mean, I would think innovative thinking and curiosity and innovation have to be some of your just like lodestar, you know, things. Yes. So I practice preventable law is what I have figured out to say to people.

      Speaker 2 (00:12:43) - I was a certified preventable reader in the state of New York related to public motor vehicle collisions. And so it could be big bus, big truck ups, trucks. You know, transportation authorities especially are government rated. And so that really clicked a light bulb with me where I thought like this, I am so good at this because it's not always the thing that happens on the road that causes the collision right then and there. It's six months ago where somebody in HR let that guy back on the road and he had a shoulder tear and, you know, turns out he couldn't do £80 of pressure, which is what happens when you lose your power steering. And so collision occurs and people don't really think like that. But I do. So it's it is a blessing and a curse for sure because I am obsessively curious and want to know everything there is about everything, but not everybody else does. And not, you know, most people I think, share with me pretty well because I'm authentically curious. And so I'm talking with them.

      Speaker 2 (00:13:44) - In fact, my husband, when we go out to dinner, he's like, Could you please not talk to the waiter about his or her life tonight? Could could we just have dinner? Because could you not help people tonight? Because I'm always like, Oh, and how are you? What's your deal? Oh, you seem upset. What's going on? You know? And the next thing you know, they're telling us their entire life sob story and I'm connecting them to this person and this person and giving them Justin's and the whole thing. And, you know, they're sitting down at the table with us and he's like, Can we just eat? Because we don't go out very often at all, like ever. And so on the rare occasion it's happening, it's like, can we just have a solo night together? Just us as a couple. But you know, it's all very well intended. So yes, I'm very I am obsessively curious and it is what makes me really good at my job.

      Speaker 2 (00:14:31) - I'm a digger, I tell people. So I'm digging through all the things and then we just sort of rebuild, Right. So it doesn't always have to look like how it was once before, right? Who is your ideal client? Is it always, you know, big companies, these transportation authorities, or right now in your role, who is your ideal client and how do you find your ideal client? Like I find your practice, I mean, fascinating actually, because I tend to be like you. I'm like, Ooh, could we figure out what caused this problem we're looking at? Because usually it's way long ago, you know, some little cycle of events. And I'm like, Let's figure out where we went awry in our decision making a while ago so that we're not repeating it. I find a lot of people, though, just want to kind of like push it under the rug and move on. And I'm like, Oh, no, we are going to dig and we're going to figure it out because I hate to make the same mistakes twice.

      Speaker 2 (00:15:28) - Right? Of course. Of course. So so the ideal client really is not any specific. Organization. I mean, I will say I love working with municipalities and for me, that's because the ripple effect is so grand. You know, if I can make the city school district better, everybody in the community wins. Right? Because those kids ten years from now are the leaders of our community. And so wouldn't it be nice if they actually got to spend time learning and becoming better humans like high school is supposed to teach you to be instead of focusing on some of the other things that are being focused on. So, so those really are passion projects for me. But I really I think the the prime candidate of a of a client for me is really the one that cares. Like they I'm all about continuous improvement. And if the client wants to do that, you know, they want to come to me. And so it's not they want to come to me and they want to do that and they want to have these back and forth conversations and get to the root cause of the thing and sort it out and prevent it for future.

      Speaker 2 (00:16:30) - I mean, I don't want to see anybody. There's a time and place for litigation. Probably 95% of what is occurring right now in New York State should never be there. And that really happened. I mean, I can tell you, when I was working for a law firm last, I've had this business for just over six years now. And when I last worked for somebody, every single trial that I went to court and tried the case. Should never have been a trial, like it never should have happened, let alone going to trial. The incident never should have occurred. And unfortunately, there's older men who run these law firms who don't want to go to the client and say. This shouldn't have happened. You really need to do X so that this doesn't happen. That's not a popular conversation, right? So because it doesn't make the law firm money. But it really should be said, and I think people appreciate that about me and my candor, that I can come to them and say, You don't want to pay me, you want to go do this other thing.

      Speaker 2 (00:17:30) - And I mean, I have one time right now that is probably I have the greatest client right now and the worst client right now. And the worst client is because they're just like trying to check a box to say they had the conversation. And I keep telling them, because you've had the conversation, you're now going to be on legal notice that you. Yes, correct. The thing like your liability has just gone up. Yeah. So and they're just terrible, you know, they're like responsive and they don't really care. And they're the well, this is the way we've always done it, people and we've never had an issue. And I keep telling them, So what happens when somebody comes in and. You know, I don't want to give too much away, but so they house weapons for people and I keep digging and asking more and more questions about how the lockdown is and who has access and can you get in through the website and is there a digital platform and do you have cyber security and who's watching all these things And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, all the answers.

      Speaker 2 (00:18:33) - And then I had to spell out for them like, so what happens if somebody breaks into the building and they take the weapons and they go and kill a bunch of people at their place of employment? Oh, I know what happens. You're liable. Well, no, the guy would know. No, you're liable. And, you know, and so, like, that was kind of eye opening to the point that some people actually left the organization because as a whole, they couldn't wrap around that. That was really the responsibility. They are not a great client. Like that's it's not fun work for me because I can tell them all day long what they need to do and ask them questions and they're just kind of like, So that doesn't feel great, right? No. And I think to your point, though, I mean, I think it just and it's an unfortunate stereotype, but it tends to be really true, you know, that whole kind of older generation, even older than me, you know, that just as like this is how we've always done it, this is how it looks.

      Speaker 2 (00:19:29) - And I'm like, Can we flip that thinking completely and actually think, okay, this is how we've always done it? So let's imagine flipping that completely like all kinds of different ways. Throw some color on it, flip it, you know, 180 degrees, tweak it a little sideways, you know, put some polka dots on it, and then let's look at it and see if what you were doing actually made any sense. Like, Right. This mindset of this is how we've always done it absolutely makes me like a psycho person. I mean, yeah, like so, you know, appreciate when I was still in-house at the Transportation Authority, we had big buttons made that said, This is the way I've always done it with the big line through it and the red circle and the line. And any time somebody would say that to me, I'd pull the button out and say, Not an answer, not a valid response, you got to come up with something else. And a lot of the older generation people did not enjoy it, you know? And I think, honestly, that's why we're having this mass retirement now.

      Speaker 2 (00:20:38) - Right? Because people are saying, I don't want to do it the new way. I don't want to do this new software program you're downloading and making me train on. It's too exhausting. I was on the cusp of retiring. I probably would have stayed 5 or 7 years longer, but now I'm out. Right? And problem, right, because there's no pipeline. I hate that word pipeline. But in this instance, like, I don't know a better word, but, you know, they have they have not been thoughtful enough. Right. Like that is occurring. And nobody was preparing for it 15 years ago. And there's and again, to your point, preparing 15 years ago, like in dealing with this succession planning. And I mean, I think as a business owner, I mean, I've become a little kind of crazy with succession planning. I mean, I've unfortunately had some situations that have kind of required me to do that with, you know, losing a bookkeeper and a plane accident, things like that, where it was like, oh, whoa, okay.

      Speaker 2 (00:21:34) - You know, this, you know, proverbial hit by a bus really does happen some. Oh, yes. Yeah. And, you know, you need to be prepared and that that doesn't just mean one role needs to be prepared. Every role needs to have succession planning. People need to be thinking about it in their day to day work constantly. Like how how are we preparing for, you know, the proverbial bus or you have emergency surgery or whatever the case may be? Yeah, you know, and I think that as business owners, a lot of times we put our head in the sand and we just think we'll deal with it when it happens. And that preparation is game changing, at least not only to your business operations but to your level of peace. I mean, the times that I have been completely prepared in our systems have been followed. And, you know, it's literally been like a 30 minute ordeal to go in and be like, okay, I'm going to move tasks from this person to this person and, you know, maybe have a one big 30,000 foot view meeting and whatever versus those times when we haven't been prepared.

      Speaker 2 (00:22:44) - And I'm like, Oh my. Like, we need to, you know, dig in for two weeks and figure out everything this person's been doing. And, you know, I mean, you know the routine. Yeah. The problem is no one thinks their house is ever going to burn down. Right? Right. No one ever thinks that's going to happen. No one ever thinks they're going to get hit by a bus. And I mean, obviously, you experienced it, right? Your bookie bookkeeper went down. And that's a huge challenge. And if you don't have something in place for the if come. Then it's scrambled. And now you've lost all this time just to ramp up and cover. So I really like the clients that are like, Oh, I've never thought of it that way. Thank thank God for you. Thank God for you for asking that question, because I don't know if I like to make a difference. And so I guess that's really it, right? Like I'm fulfilled through service.

      Speaker 2 (00:23:32) - And if I can't be of service, then it's not fun. So. Right. Do you end up helping clients a lot, like get insurance for some of their if's or, you know, in addition to do you also kind of dig into their processes and see what you can do to kind of build out better processes? Yes, because so, for example, if I'm going to help an organization have an emergency ops plan or have a new contract with one of their vendors, if I don't fully understand how that affects everybody on the ground, then I can't put into the contract because. Right. The contract is just a I explain this to everybody all the time. It's just a roadmap for the if something happens, the car breaks down, do you turn right or turn left or do you call XYZ person or do you go backwards? You go to the contract and it tells you what it says. And any judge is going to look to that contract, too, and say, well, you guys didn't put it in here, so I'm going to decide for you.

      Speaker 2 (00:24:32) - And you may not like the decision, so let's just put it in there and let's not make it crazy legal jargon. Let's make it super clear, especially when I work with a lot of construction firms and they might be massive, you know, hugely successful large construction firms, but you're still working with people who are throwing a hammer for a living. Right? And most of these business owners grew up throwing a hammer and now they just happen to be the leader in charge, but they don't necessarily know what all these things are. And so those are fun companies to work for, too, because you can talk to the person and say, Well, tell me about the I need to understand, you know, when you're throwing this hammer, like exactly what's happening, where are you going? And because, of course, then everybody wants to share their story. And so they're happy to do that. And then I can say, okay, so if you're throwing your hammer this way and then you do that on Saturdays, sometimes it doesn't make sense to have payroll necessarily process on a Monday.

      Speaker 2 (00:25:26) - Right? So there's there's a lot of operational stuff that goes into it. So if another contractor comes in and says, Well, we want payroll processed on Monday, I have to kick back and say, no, no, no, you know what? I'm making all this up, but we have to do it on Tuesdays because we've got guys who work on the weekend and then they go, Oh, really? Okay. So it's it's it's very interesting to me to have to solve that problem. I started this business because when I was in-house at the Authority, I was well, we went from a $40 Million deficit to a $30 Million surplus. And so yes, it was a very, very, very big deal. Very big deal. And we were advocating on behalf of all organizations that are municipal arms or actual transportation authorities or arms. And so we were going to Albany and saying, you really need to do things differently. And here's what we suggest. And it's worked for us and it could work for others.

      Speaker 2 (00:26:20) - And not everybody listens. But there were a lot of really pivotal moments there where we challenge the status quo. And one and everybody stood back and went, how did that even happen? And it's well, because because we're doing really good work here. So I was going around the country on a circuit of conferences and explaining how we had made these great changes and the things that we had done. And a lot of people were then saying, and there's no competition in government work, right? Like it's all one shareable pot. So everybody is anxious to share all of their ideas. So I ended up getting hired by other municipal entities around the country to go and help them. And so, so one of the ways is an example. I love the story. I went down to a transportation authority in the South and they didn't know the CFO knew they were losing money and knew that their insurance policy premiums were way too high and had spiked but didn't know what the problem was. And they took a really strong employee who was in the safety department and said, You're now going to be in charge of the risk management department.

      Speaker 2 (00:27:29) - And he was having a complete freak out because he said, I don't know anything about risk management and the, you know, the people in the leadership positions. We're saying, yes, you do. You do safety all day long. And he was like, no, no, no. It's two different things. Like, this is crazy. So he was having a freak out. And when I when I got involved, I read all of their policies and procedures, all of their paper, anything that's on paper, I read it. Job descriptions, contracts, vendor agreements, whatever. And then I went down there and prepared to ask every single one of the employees in this now like 45 person department who literally, at least when I walked in, were screaming at each other. One lady was sobbing at her desk. Another series of people were screaming at each other like everyone was. And I said, Where did I walk into this? So the main guy, like, took me. You know, we went and talked.

      Speaker 2 (00:28:20) - I interviewed everybody and some of them were really angry and screaming and but I got everybody calm down. In fact, there was a man who happened to be in the same room with one lady who was really upset. And after I got her calmed down and talked to her and answer all the things, she left and he said, how did you do that? How did you. And I said, What? You said She was like a crazy person and you just made all of that go away. And I said, It's all about trust and listening and doing the things you say you're going to do. So now that woman knows I'm going to do exactly what I told her to do because it's me doing it and not the organization or whatever. But I walked out of there and it turned out the head risk manager was stealing money and stealing time. And we uncovered all of that. And that was part of the reason people were so upset because they sort of knew it. So I went to I went through and had to prove it.

      Speaker 2 (00:29:10) - And in the end, when I gave my leadership presentation at the end of the week that I was there, I said, you know, I'm not a forensic accountant. I can't tell you. But from my rough numbers, it's like $1.4 million, like this is you need to send her to prison. Like this is a problem, Right? And so I gave them my list. There was 27 things they needed to do. They did four of them that day, which included terminating her. And they offered me a job on the spot, which was fascinating. But I came home and I had this big goofy grin on my face and my husband met me in the driveway and he said this This is what you should be doing for a living. And I went, I don't want to own my own fur. I can't buy insurance. And here's my own continuing editor. I don't want to do that. And I wasn't ready. But fast forward ten years when it all just came upon, you know, it just like choice by circumstance, right? Like I just did it.

      Speaker 2 (00:30:06) - And but it's funny. I knew I had to grin because I knew what I had done and I knew how good it was going to be in two weeks later, they called me and they said, We don't know what kind of rabbit you pulled out of the hat, but people are literally whistling while they work, and we cannot thank you enough. But it was great because it was I mean, some things like it's not all rocket science, right? Like, right. We were looking at the guys who pull video, the guy who pulls video and not had a vacation in two years because he had no backup person. Right. And I was like, wait, what? So that's like I kept saying, but if you work tomorrow, who's pulling the video? Nobody. So why have the video at all like this? Makes sense. No backup plan like so. So there were things that were like points of frustration for people that literally were burning dollars and making people worse. Right? People.

      Speaker 2 (00:31:03) - And that was a great I love that project. That was such a good project. But yeah, yeah, that was amazing. Yeah, it was. They they literally saved millions of dollars and every once in a while I'll call them and say, This is still going well. And they'll say, We still want you to come down here at work. It could still be that much better. Thank you. I can't handle the humidity. It's bad enough up here. Oh, my gosh. I love that. That is amazing. Well, if you were going to give some of our listeners, I mean, people, you know, who are lawyers, mothers, entrepreneurs, I mean, what is your like think of your top three things. I mean, how do you. Recommend that people do and feel confident to start their own business. I mean, what are some of the things that you think you had to kind of overcome in that initial grin in the driveway to the day you did start your business? What are some of those top three things you had to overcome to feel confident to run your own business, I think.

      Speaker 2 (00:32:08) - Well, I mean, for one, mine was really choice by circumstance. I went to I left a job to courted for two and a half years. I finally said yes. And I was doing great work. And they were not ready. Right. They were the bad client that was not ready for somebody to come in and make change. Right. Which I'll tell you that whole story another day because it's pretty bad. And in the short time that I was there, I did some really major work with them, some major, major work, which was great. I mean, it was really great. And some of those stories are some of my most memorable and fun to share also. But I never stop, right? Like, I'm always like, you just have to keep going because there's no other option, right? I don't know how to stop. So I literally just said, I'll spend $35, I'll file a DBA. I can worry about the rest later. I'll see if I get some clients.

      Speaker 2 (00:33:00) - If I don't, I can go apply for a job. But I know I'm just going to see what happens. And it turns out immediately people were excited to know that I was available just to get to me without going through somebody else. And so that happened. But I guess I would say to people, you know, there I just said this the other day, there are successes and there are sadnesses in owning a business. And when you're working through the sadnesses, you just have to remember. That what you're doing matters and what I do makes a difference. And although it's not always the difference today, it is a difference in the long run and I know it and my clients know it and they thank me for it every day because they can. They see it. And especially I have a client I've been with six years now since the beginning, and they now are really, really starting to dig in with the millions and millions and millions of dollars that they're saving because of the hard work that I'm doing.

      Speaker 2 (00:34:02) - And it was hard at the beginning. You know, not everybody trusts an outside person and it's really difficult for them to get to that space. And so they're really starting to see this output that is not always visible to everybody at the beginning. And I think that's sort of the hardest, the hardest part that and finding out what motivates you, right? Like why do you want to own your own business? What do you want to do? Is it something that matters? Is is it a niche that not anybody else has been in? And if it matters to you and you know you can make a difference, whatever it is. You know, if it's entertaining and putting a smile on somebody's face like we're cooking or whatever, like, then, then, you know, if it's what fulfills you, then it's something worth pursuing. Right? So. Right. That I mean, those would be the two biggest things I think, to keep, to figure it out and then to keep going. And then also, I guess the last thing would be just, you know, at the beginning, there's so much that bogs you down.

      Speaker 2 (00:35:00) - Oh, yeah. You know, like corporate formation. I'm not a corporate attorney, and so I just did this DBA at the beginning, and now here I am all these years later and I'm restructuring some things and I'm doing more and some of it's okay, but some of it's a nightmare. You know, moving, moving just email platforms is a huge nightmare, right? Like everybody starts out with a free Gmail account and then you move to the paid premium Microsoft deal and they don't communicate. They don't like each other. And it wasn't for lack of trying. I mean, I asked everybody, what do you do? What do you do? Because I'm not a techie. I don't know. What do I do? What do I do? And I followed the bits of advice that were common among all of the expert advisors that I reached out to. But all these years later, I'm just like, Oh my God, it doesn't work, you know? And so you want it to work that and for people, I mean, because you're a mom and you have kids and you did this when your kids were younger, like mine and.

      Speaker 2 (00:35:57) - You know, I didn't I did not want to have kids, at least I don't know if you know that about me. We were not going to have kids and we feel very lucky that we did that. Things did not go according to plan. We would have missed out on quite a bit if that was the case. I got pregnant on the pill the first two times and then the last time I was not taking it and we were doing other things that clearly also did not work. And so we were unsuccessful. But but, you know, I have very healthy kids and I was very good at being pregnant. And so it worked out. It's very challenging. Now. There are days where I'm like, This is why I didn't want to have kids. And it's challenging with the business, but it's all sort of, you know, you navigate it right? You navigate it because you have to, but you also navigate it like the kids sometimes are, like you're working too much, you're working too much.

      Speaker 2 (00:36:49) - And I think but that's what's fulfilling to me, right? And I think that's one of the biggest things. Like I've said to everybody, the hardest part about being a mother is that you oftentimes get married, so you become a wife. You're already a daughter, mostly a sister, a cousin, you know, your sibling, whatever. Now you're a wife, then you're a mother. Somebody's calling you mama. Somebody else is calling you baby. You know, you just all of your identity sort of folds away. And for a while, I felt like a caged bird, right? Like, I just was like, sometimes I need to just go out and do something and and do my own thing. And it was really great to be able to have my own business because you can do it your own way. And, you know, there's, you know, there's a group of us that sometimes we say we're unemployable at this point, right? Oh, yeah, because we do things our own way.

      Speaker 2 (00:37:38) - And somebody said to me that day, I don't know that I would necessarily frame it that way, but it is sort of true, right? Because we want to just sort of question And when I look back to all of the things that I did as a kid, like, it all points to this one place completely, right? It all points. And so I think if somebody is sitting in a desk listening to this and has a side hustle and they're just like looking around and resentful towards all the things happening around them and going, Well, if it were my decision making today, I do it this way like it's time to get up from the seat and not look back. Exactly. And start making those decisions. Yeah. I mean, everyone I know, I'm sure you've heard this before too, but everyone I know that has built their own business. We all feel like you're building the jet as you're flying it completely. I mean, I think building the jet while you're flying it and it's on fire and you're maybe like flying through like some kind of knife or maybe even like Seafair, where you have the Blue Angels flying around you at like, yes, I mean, breakneck speed and you're supposed to be doing this all fine.

      Speaker 2 (00:38:52) - I mean, it is a wild adventure, but I mean, don't know how to do it any other way. And I cannot imagine life sitting at a desk just taking those decisions, coming down and just being like, okay, sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know that I. So I recently got myself into trouble. I guess it was like, well, Covid has sort of time warped our sense of time recognition. But so it was pre-pandemic. I was at a baby shower for one of my very dear friends, who's also an attorney. And so, of course, other female attorneys were there and one of them who works at a law firm I had been at previously, and so had the woman who was having the baby. But a bunch of us were there. And I kind of made the joke of like, we should do a ladies Who lunch for those of us who've left the firm because there's so many of us because they just don't ever learn, right? And it's because as long as there's people coming out of law school who are willing to take those jobs because they don't know better, they're going to just keep doing it that same old way.

      Speaker 2 (00:39:54) - But this one woman in particular was still there. And she's such a lovely human. I adore her. She's lovely and amazing and she's smart and charming and and she's very free and easy, right? Like everything is just breezy and fine, and I'm not that way, right? Like, I've been just kind of fire. Everything is like, I got to go. I got to go. And, you know, and I work on that on a daily basis. But she's so calm and and relaxed about stuff. And she's she was just recently made partner right before this party. And I said to her, I don't know how you can do that. Like, I wish I had more of what you I need more of what you have inside of me because I need to be okay with things. Because not everything is my fight, right? Like I'm always fighting for the underground. I'm always fighting for justice. Always, always, always. But not everybody wants to hear it. And not everything is picking up the sword for right.

      Speaker 2 (00:40:55) - Not everything, right? Is your battle. So and I've been doing that much better as an older person than ever before when I was a kid. But I am just this I mean, this literally. I was two years old. Did the bus stop telling the older kids, my sister's seven years older than me, I was like, stop picking on my sister, you know? But this woman, I said to her, I really like sincerely, I wish I knew. How do you do that? Could you? And she was like, What do you mean? And I said, Well, you know, you have to go to those tables and sit with all those people, all those men. And this is how I'm saying it to her. And you have to listen to their bullshit and you have to vote with them and you have to just go along with whatever decision they make. Like how do you just sit there and not tell them how stupid they're being or how terrible the decision is? Like, how do you not say those things to them? I can't do that, which is why I left there, by the way.

      Speaker 2 (00:41:49) - And and she just I she got really offended. And I truly was being complimentary and was truly saying like, I need more of that in my life. But she got really offended and I don't know if she sort of internalized and was like, do I go along with things that everybody says? But I'm telling you, she does all of them too, right? They all just sit around that table and go, Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. That's a good idea. Sure. You know. Well, and even if she's disagreeing, I mean, there's not enough of her to make a tide change. Do you know what I mean? Like. Well, and I don't think that she I don't think she's even saying if she disagrees because in maybe and maybe I'm just making this up because I'm not inside of her head, but I imagine in her world that's not worth fighting over. But for someone like me, it totally is, because you're wasting money or you're wasting time, or you're making it so that people, which is money and time all over, but you're making it so that the paralegals can't do their job efficiently, whatever it is, or you're making the paralegals feel so much less than or the administrative assistants feel so much less than because you're telling them, No, no, no, you can't be in this room or have that space or whatever the thing is.

      Speaker 2 (00:43:06) - And that creates negative feelings, which makes people not work to their greatest ability and makes them not loyal. Right. And so they're going to go out on the street and have these other conversations that are negative in appearance, whether true or not true or feelings or not feelings. And so to me, it's just like, why would you not stop that at the pass? And so it's really it's interesting when you own your own business. You do have to sort of be on all of the time. And I've had to come to this reckoning of like. People will be okay with me as I am. Right. And and so and I only want to work with people who want to be with me as I am. And so. I guess it's okay that I've been kissed by the fire. Some people really like that, right? Right. And if they know they shouldn't be clients, I guess. No, you need to refer them to somebody a little more chill. Right, right, right.

      Speaker 2 (00:44:08) - Who wants to go, you know, ten miles an hour for the next 100 years? Right. And and just make small incremental steps. Yeah. No, it's I think it's just fascinating. I mean, I think I think owning a business has been the most personal development I have had way more than dealing with these six kids and, you know, all of that. I mean, I thought I thought raising teenagers was a wild ride. I mean, owning a business has been so much wilder. You know, just the the reality of becoming your true, authentic self and really asking yourself, like, what do you believe in and what matters? I mean, I was seeing something just today and somebody is like, you know, talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger and you know what a great guy. And I'm thinking, really? We actually think Arnold Schwarzenegger is a great guy. Like, I mean, I have all kinds of you know, I mean, obviously, he's a mixed bag like many people.

      Speaker 2 (00:45:09) - I mean, I can never look to somebody who I cannot respect and who has, you know, Right. Done things that I look to as being just kind of wildly outside of my core values. And, you know, but I find a lot of people in business, they can turn a blind eye to somebodies lack of core values or, you know, okay, we're raising the housekeeper's child, as you know, not our own for years. I mean, like what where do we draw the line on what's reasonable? And sometimes I look at business owners and I'm just like, I can never be you because I'm never going to be able to turn that blind eye. I mean, I am like you in that there are certain things I'm going to fight for and I'm going to fight for what's right. And I don't care what that means in the collateral, whatever. There are certain things that are right and certain things that I'm not going to be able to roll with. That is so me and it's, you know, it's lost me jobs.

      Speaker 2 (00:46:18) - It's oh, yeah, it's, you know, it's alarming for other people, I guess. I mean, so you'll appreciate based on what you do. When I was a baby lawyer, somebody sent me to handle a family court proceeding. It was just like a calendar call, something, something. And they were double booked in another courtroom. And so they said, Amy, you go do it. And they handed me the file as I'm walking out the door and I'm like, What am I looking at? I don't I don't know what I'm doing and I don't want to practice in family court. You know, family court is on level two in the courthouse. I was always training. You don't get off at level two. Like that's not where you go. So I get off and I go in there and there was the attorney for the child and the attorney for the spouse. And I had the husband and I don't remember what happened, but something had happened. The father had not seen the child in six months.

      Speaker 2 (00:47:11) - The child was four years old. I think there were two kids. One was two, one was four. Six months is a lifetime for a two year. Yeah. Four year old to not see a parent and the attorney for the child and the other attorney. Oh, and the social worker. So the three of them and me. And they're kind of like, What are you doing here? And the wife was asking for a delay and they were all fine with it. And I said, Absolutely not. And here I have no idea what I was doing. And they said, What do you mean? I said, I'm not doing that. Like, we're talking about a two year old and a four year old that haven't had visitation for six months. I'm not going to remember who their father is by the time he gets to see them. And why? Why is that? Oh, because you're waiting for a court proceeding to decide something about something. Something. I don't even remember what it was.

      Speaker 2 (00:47:55) - And so I kind of went off at the mall and said, Are we all in the same place? Like, are we all talking like? And I looked at the attorney for the child and I said, This is your job, right? You know, I'm fighting for the dad, but you should be making the argument that I'm making. This kid can't be without his dad. What are you doing? And everybody sort of looked like I had four heads for a moment and I just said, I'm going to walk away now while you guys figure out what you're going to come up with that's going to satisfy me. And then I'll come back and we can go into the courtroom and tell the judge what's going to happen. But it better look like that my guy gets to see these kids tomorrow, Right? So so that's what happened. Like, ultimately, there was an agreement. It was, you know, and we went into the court and they were like, well, this one, you know, and he's like, who are you? You know, not just like, I'm nobody.

      Speaker 2 (00:48:44) - Just do the I'm the one who got off on the wrong floor. Right, Right. But seriously, like, I just, you know, I just don't know how to keep. My mouth shut about the things that really matter. Right. And so I do. And I think it is fascinating. I love that I have gotten to know you. And I just think the world needs more of that, though, because I think sometimes that deep authenticity gets so lost in everyone trying to, like, put on their best behavior and don't even know what they're trying to do, like curate a life and a social media reel. And I'm just like, it just isn't like that. I just find that being able to be blunt, real authentic, mean what you say and say what you mean every single time. Right? It is just to me as such a more comfortable way to live. I have to admit, my children have bristled at it at times, you know, because there's times that I say something.

      Speaker 2 (00:49:52) - I mean, I remember saying to my daughter once, I'm like, Is it dressed like a hooker at school day, you know, today? And I was like, What are you wearing? She was like, How did you just say that to me? And I'm like, How did you just get dressed like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's so funny. It's the same thing, right? Like, my oldest daughter is far more sensitive. Like, her superpower is being sensitive, Right? And mine is not. And. But my. But Lucy is more like me. So I could say to Lucy, you're not wearing that. That's a hooker dress that could wear in the store. And she comes out, but the older one will be like, What's wrong with it? What? Why would you say that to me? That's so mean, You know? No, I'm not being mean. And in fact, when they ask me about like, does this look okay? And I say, Oh, that looks great, you know, I would change, pull the sleeve up or put it down or something.

      Speaker 2 (00:50:42) - And they're like, Really? Really is there, okay? And I look at them and go, If it didn't, you know, I wouldn't tell you. So why are we having this conversation? Why are we having this? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's so crazy. It is true. And I would I think that's a good point that you were making, though. Like you have to do it every single time. And so whatever your core values are, every single time is what you have to do. And I know that it is like I constantly am saying it's lonely out in front of the crowd, doing it your own way or being the only one to speak up. But I don't know what else this is all for. If we all can't be our own person and bring our talents to the world to benefit everybody in this way that we will, then I don't know what it's for. And although it is very difficult at times, I mean, you know, it's extremely challenging to lose your job because it's not the right fit and you have to change the lens and understand that it just was not the right fit and I have to move someplace else.

      Speaker 2 (00:51:44) - And it really is where people say, you know, I'm glad that this happened to me and whatever. And and that last time when I lost that position and started this company, I found myself reflecting on that. But I was saying to people, I would not want to live through this again. I'm glad it happened. I'm glad the outcome is what it is. But this sucked. Like this was really bad. And you come to terms with this idea that it's just that there is a place for everyone. There is a piece of the pie for everyone. There's a space in place for us all. It's big enough in the world. And so going out on your own and doing the thing that you're passionate about is really a great path. Unless you're okay. Sitting at the desk doing what the big man tells you to do, right? Like, clearly neither of us are that people. No, no, definitely not. I really appreciate your time today. Amy and I so look forward to spending more time with you coming up soon.

      Speaker 2 (00:52:43) - And so thank you for joining us. Tell us, how can people reach out to you if they want to learn more about your practice, understand how they can work with you? What is the best way for people to reach out to you? I'm okay if people want to email me directly, my email is Amy at. We thank Outcome. I love that and I love we think out and it's just brilliant. I just I mean, it suits you so well. I'm glad. I'm glad to know it because most people think it's like the dumbest name ever, so. Oh, I think it just suits you perfectly. Well, I hope you have a great rest of your day. And I cannot wait to hear about your adventures with three in high school. You are going to have one wild year. Yes, for sure. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to see you and spend time with you. Absolutely. Thanks so much. Enjoy your day. You too. I'll talk to you soon.

      Speaker 2 (00:53:35) - Okay. Bye. Amy.

      Speaker 1 (00:53:38) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Mom podcast, a production of Maximum Lawyer Media. Be sure to subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. See you next time. You.

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