Things don’t always go our way…
In this episode, Jim and Tyson are talking about how to stay motivated, focused, how to keep going; how to get past all the negativity.
As lawyers we will have those moments when we are down, when we are bummed out, when a case goes against us; clients won’t stop calling and they are mad at us. The headaches of collecting money, paying bills… STAY OPTIMISTIC. STAY POSITIVE.
If you have people in your lives who bring you down or complain all the time and they’re constantly bringing their negativity to you, just don’t spend time with them, cut them loose, they will bring you down! If you spend any amount of time with them, you are gonna spend all your attention focusing on them and not on bettering yourself, not improving your firm, not improving your results for your clients. Surround yourself with people who are motivated.
What do you do to keep on task? To stay motivated?
Hacking’s Hack: A podcast from Seth Godin. www.buildingnewlaw.ca/about/. It’s on iTunes.
Tyson’s Tip: An app; Spoil. You can send gifts the same day. Check it out! https://www.spoil.co/. The Simplest Way to Give Beautiful gifts, delivered same-day, anywhere in the US.
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Transcript: Stay Motivated
Jim Hacking
We all have those moments when we’re down when we’re bummed out when a case goes against us when, you know, clients are calling in, and they’re mad at us, we all have those kinds of moments in the practice of law, the headaches of collecting money, paying bills, keeping the lights on all the stressors that keep you up at four in the morning. And the one of the things that I like about you, Tyson, and one of the things that I think has resulted in our friendship is that I think both of us are sort of optimistic and positive. And we don’t really spend a lot of time with negative people.
Tyson Mutrux
Both of us really think it’s important that we kind of get rid of the negative people in our lives, or to the extent we can’t get rid of them, just minimize them. It’s extremely important that we surround ourselves with positive people.
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm, the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking, and Tyson Meatrix. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm.
Jim Hacking
Welcome to the show. Welcome back to the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Tyson Mutrux
And I’m Tyson nutrix. What is up Jamie
Jim Hacking
Tyson, good to hear your voice. I’m glad you’re feeling better.
Tyson Mutrux
I’m feeling 1000 times better. So I appreciate that.
Jim Hacking
So this week, we’re talking about how to stay motivated, how to stay focus, how to keep going, how to get past all the negativity and all the things that drag us down the day to day drudgery of practicing law and how we focus and find ourselves working towards a bigger purpose.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, and I think it’s actually a really good podcast we’re going to do just so people know, we’ve already recorded this once. And we both forgot to hit the record button except for halfway through. And so we’re just going to redo this. I do have to say my energy level is a little bit lower than we did the last time we did it. But I think it’s because I was sick. I thought we had a really good one. I think we were both really happy with the last one until we figured out we had not hit the record button. But I think we’re both still motivated to do this one. So I think it’s still gonna be a good one.
Jim Hacking
It’s a metaphor for the show, because things don’t always go our way. And I will pick us up since you are feeling low from your battle with the flu for four days. I’m feeling good and strong. I had a great weekend. I got myself a new Fitbit, too. And I was walking and moving and running and swimming. I was all over the place. So
Tyson Mutrux
let’s go back if you get the Fitbit to what is the Fitbit to
Jim Hacking
I don’t know, it’s the newest version of the Fitbit, the slim Fitbit. It’s 150 bucks and money got it for me at REI pro my requests. I’ve been asking for it for about two months.
Tyson Mutrux
How much how much was $150? Why don’t you spend the additional dough on the Apple Watch?
Jim Hacking
Yeah, I could have but I just, I didn’t want all that other stuff. I just this is perfect for me. I just want to keep track of my exercise and my movement and round.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, it’s something that you I guess we can get into the motivation thing. Now it’s funny because you bought a tool to help you stay motivated, I’m assuming because you’ve been walking a lot. You’ve been walking a lot for a couple of years now and you got is how did you get started on the walking part of it?
Jim Hacking
Well, that’s how I lost my weight in the first place. When I weighed 320 pounds. That’s how I got down all my weight loss was by mostly walking and swimming. So I’ve been trying to get back to that, as I’ve sort of gained the weight has crept back on so yeah, so swimming and walking as my main thing I’ve been running a lot too, but that just hurts my knees
Tyson Mutrux
running is does get painful. I do it quite a bit. But it’s it’s it gets painful. So I hear you I hear so
Jim Hacking
speaking of pain, we all have those moments when we’re down when we’re bummed out when a case goes against us when you know the clients are calling in and they’re mad at us. We all have those kinds of moments in the practice of law, the headaches of collecting money, paying bills, keeping the lights on all the stressors that keep you up at four in the morning. And the one of the things that I like about you, Tyson and one of the things that I think has resulted in our friendship is that I think both of us are sort of optimistic and positive. And we don’t really spend a lot of time with negative people.
Tyson Mutrux
I think it’s the both of us really think it’s important that we kind of get rid of the negative people in our lives, or at least to the extent we can’t get rid of them just minimize them. It’s extremely important that we surround ourselves with positive people. The quote is, you know, we’re the sum of the five people we spend most time with. Yeah, that’s
Jim Hacking
a quote from Jim Rohn. He’s a motivational speaker that passed away a few years ago. But that’s his quote.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah. And it’s I think it really does. It speaks volumes. And it’s true. I mean, I think both of us we surround ourselves with very positive people. And I think if you talk to other attorneys, and you ask them, Who are the people that really motivate them, the positive people in their life and you ask them, the negative people in their life, or if you just ask them, Hey, who are the important people in your life, it’s probably going to tell you if they’re a positive or a negative person, because of just think about if you ever worked a job and many people listening to this may be in the same position where you’ve got a bunch of the people that work with you and they complain all the time and that’s just because they Have no positive people in their life. But if you sir, if you talk to people that really liked their job, they usually have surrounded themselves with positive people, whether that be mentors, whether it just be family members, whether it be friends, whatever it is, they’ve gotten rid of the negative people in their life and it allows them to take a more positive view on things and allows them just to be more motivated. Anytime you have some of the negative just take something out of you every time it just takes a little piece out of you.
Jim Hacking
So I had an interesting experience this summer I or this year, I went to two different conferences. One was at infusion con iKON 2016.
Tyson Mutrux
And and that doesn’t just pump you up every time you go to that. Yeah. And you weren’t able to go this year. Yeah, what is your 15 is whenever I want, yeah,
Jim Hacking
this year, the MC was not the guy that worked at Infusionsoft. But rather, it was a guy who sort of does public speaking, and he’s from Australia, and he was just a great motivator each day. And you know, I sort of liked that stuff. And the thing about it, though, is that everybody that was there was there for the same reasons, trying to improve their business, trying to do better trying to systematize things and maximize output and, you know, try to really build something to help people. And I also went to a convention in Las Vegas of everyday immigration attorneys. And that’s just a very different crowd, it was sort of negative and sort of woe is me, and a lot of sort of complaining about the government or about clients and just a totally different mindset and approach to things. And, you know, I just came away from the one conference feeling energized and revived. And I came back from the other one, and I was just feeling like, a bunch of blah.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, it’s funny, I think GK I see is a good mix of both, I think he had a mix of a lot of positive people, and then a lot of people just completely negative, they’re down on their luck, you can look, you could scan the entire auditorium and see who’s the people that are kind of negative and either positive before.
Jim Hacking
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, for sure. But just generally, on a one to one basis, I think that if our listeners, if they have people in their lives, who bring them down, or who complain all the time, I have those people in my past, I just don’t choose to spend that much time with them. I’ve had some really good friends who I’ve just chosen to not spend so much time with and, and that was hard and an adjustment. But I just think that, you know, surrounding yourself with people who get it who are motivated and are self motivated and driven towards something bigger than themselves. That just goes a long way with me and I, I just get a lot better energy and more camaraderie and more wanting to be with those kinds of people.
Tyson Mutrux
And I don’t think either one of us are saying, you know, if you got someone down their luck, don’t help them out. I don’t think we’re saying that. And I know, we’re not saying that. And if you live the Go Giver principles, which I try to the best I can, I think it’s impossible to on a minute to minute basis. But I think you should admit, you try to help people out the best you can. But if they’re never willing to change, and they’re constantly bringing that negativity to you just gotta come loose, I mean, you you have to, I know it sounds harsh, but they will bring you down, I guarantee it, I then you spend any amount of time with them, you’re going to spend all your attention, focusing on them and not on bettering yourself not improving your firm and improving your, your results for your clients, I think it’s extremely important to keep that positivity,
Jim Hacking
I think the 8020 rule really applies here, you know, a lot of people are somewhat positive. And then you have a subset of those people who are very motivated and working towards a higher purpose. And even within lawyers, you know, you’re gonna have lawyers who are, who are working hard doing good work, and then you’re gonna have ones that are really exceptional and striving and then you keep going through that. And you’re getting to people who are really doing some amazing things. And I think that if you’re the smartest person in the room, if you’re the most motivated person in the room, then you’re probably in the wrong room. And you need to spend more time with people who are doing what you want to do, just doing it better.
Tyson Mutrux
It actually, I’m glad you said that, because I was just thinking about something. Because if you think about the characteristics of the highly motivated people, the so called smarter people in the room. I mean, it’s not just that they’re positive, or they’ve done other things in their lives to keep the positivity going, keeping them on track. And I think I mean, I may be wrong on this. But I would say the vast majority, those people do things like we do, where they set goals, you know, they set daily goals, they set weekly goals, they set monthly goals, and they do a lot of other things. They organize their time better. So it’s not just the fact that they’re positive people. There are other habits that they have that you pick up on, that allow you to improve yourself. Yeah, I mean, positive
Jim Hacking
thinking only goes so far. And we’re not just sitting here saying
Tyson Mutrux
rah, rah rah, isn’t the secret. The secret,
Jim Hacking
right? We’re not saying everything’s great. And ooh, just you know, if you think it’ll come to you, and you can envision things and they will manifest themselves. That’s not necessarily what we’re saying. What we’re talking about, I think, is, you know, getting together with a group of people who are smart and motivated and who have good ideas who you can mutually benefit each other, sort of like our old mastermind groups that we had or the groups that we did with John Fisher. I think that you know, And that’s sort of what I was getting at with the 8020 rule is that so many lawyers wouldn’t take a day out of the office, or so many lawyers wouldn’t take time out of their day to do things that are, are bigger than just working on the tedium of the day.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, and having those people hold you accountable. That’s also a big part of it, too. With our old mastermind group that we used to do, it wasn’t just attorneys, it was a variety of people. And that was a big part of it. Because I’ll tell you what, going into that room, it was a, I came around the people, we had six, eight, I was more than six as I think it was eight, eight people. And every six weeks, we would do it. And I’ll tell you, what, if you go in there, and you did not have your ducks in a row, it was embarrassing. i To me, it was. And so there was a part of us being accountable for your actions and be able to go to the group and say, I’ve done this, this, this, and this, you know, I feel very proud about it. And then also the same thing with John Fisher’s mastermind, the mastermind experience, I think that’s also great. Another part of the accountability is we’re you got the Facebook group. And you’re everyone’s mostly, I wouldn’t say everyone, most of us are engaged in that. And so just posting on there, posting your progress is another way of keeping you accountable. Keeping moving forward, I mean, just one tiny example, John’s weight loss goal, right. And so he posted on there that he wanted to lose a certain amount by certain day, he missed it, we stayed on him and he lost the weight. I mean, it’s just, it’s as simple as that. You’re around highly motivated people that are going to challenge you, they’re also competitive people. That’s a way of keeping you moving forward. And so I guess just a takeaway for some of the people that are listening to this, if you are in your office, let’s say you’re in your shared office, or you get a little office space somewhere else for someone or you’re running a solo firm, get the hell out there and start getting with with other people, mastermind groups, get out, go out there and talk to the bigwig attorneys, the ones that are performing really well have lunch with them, hang out with them, you’re going to pick up these traits to to be able to take home and improve on yourself.
Jim Hacking
Yeah, I mean, certainly the idea of a challenge and being you know, public about the goals that you set for yourself. I think that’s something to be said, for that John got us going on that 10 Day Video Challenge. And I basically haven’t stopped and that was like 35 days ago. So I’ve probably had a few days where I’ve missed. But just getting back into that routine, because of the challenge John raised that that really helped me out a lot. Yeah, Jim,
Tyson Mutrux
it’s kind of like the story that someone told me about if you want to start walking or running, you don’t start by running a marathon. So you want to run a marathon, you don’t start by running a marathon, what you do is the first days you go on a mare on the treadmill, and you just stand there for a day for a minute. That’s it, you know, just for a minute, you get off. And then the next day, maybe you walk for a minute, and then the next day, maybe you walk for two minutes, and then you build gradually, it’s a daily thing, you go more and more and more. And so what John did was jumpstart that he said, Okay, 10 Day Video Challenge, you did one video a day, you didn’t do 100 videos a day, right? You did one video a day, it’s very simple. It’s a couple minutes of your day. And then the next day, another one, another one, another one, another one. And next thing you know, you’re doing videos every day for 35 days, or whatever you said it was. But it’s baby steps. And so I think this is important, because this is part of the motivation. I think people look at the mountain and they say, oh my gosh, that’s too high of a mountain, I can’t climb it. You don’t climb a mountain by just jumping to the top of the mountain, you have to start slowly, and you build that momentum, you don’t just start that momentum every day and go full blast, you have to build up that steam.
Jim Hacking
I agree. And you know, I’m all about small wins, and that you get momentum. And it’s so hard. If you’re trying to drag a train behind you, it’s so hard to get that train moving. But once you get a little bit of momentum behind you with some small wins, in whatever aspect of change you’re trying to do that that’s definitely a plus. But I think that the overall lesson that ties into today’s podcast is that what we’re really talking about is getting to with people who would even think to challenge you who would even think to call you out who would even care enough to want you to be your best and to do your best.
Tyson Mutrux
Absolutely. I think without those people, you’re just not going to get the most out of yourself. You can’t do it all yourself. It’s one of those things where running a law firm. And I think you and I both talked about this, it can be a lonely thing if you allow it to be but if you involve these other people in your life, and they’re gonna get the most out of you. So do this. What are some of the things that you do to keep you on task to keep you keep you motivated to keep things moving?
Jim Hacking
Okay, so each morning, I meditate for 10 minutes. That’s very helpful. I’m going to try to start doing that in the afternoon as well, but I haven’t yet that just helps me get focused on the day, listening to podcast, mostly Gary Vaynerchuk Seth Godin. And there’s a guy that I really like named Eric Thomas. He’s pretty motivational and he has a YouTube channel. I love his videos and those get me pumped. I listen to music. I try to get away from the work And, you know, center myself, I think it’s just really important to give ourselves space throughout the day and throughout the week, to be away from the tedium of the day.
Tyson Mutrux
So I actually think the last part, you said is very important. And I think that’s why working out is extremely important. You just allows you to clear your head and keeps just, I guess, restart your engine, that’s a big part of it, you know, something I do, and I try to do this, I’ve been doing it less and less, the last couple of weeks, it’s been busy, but it’s very motivating to me to actually clean my desk off within the day, and then coming in next morning, and it’s empty, it’s a clear desk, so I can just kind of get a fresh start. It’s a really good, I don’t know, just a small little tip, you can kind of get the day running. It’s after I set my daily goals and everything. Or sometimes, if I haven’t set them the night before, I’ll actually set them I’ll sit at the table with a clean desk, you know, and I’ll actually write out my goals for the day, which is a really big part of it. Yeah,
Jim Hacking
I think that also just the small victories in the morning, eating the frog doing the hard thing first gets you unblocked, and I’m in estimating the time that I think it’s going to take me to do stuff the next day, things I might have been putting off. And I’ve been interested to see that I often overestimate how much time it’s gonna take me to move these things that have been blocking me. So that’s been sort of funny. What do you mean? So like, there’ll be, I make my list of the six things I want to get done the next day. And next to it, I will estimate how long I think it’s going to take me and I’ll have something that I’ve been putting off. And I say that’s gonna take me an hour and it ends up taking me 15 minutes. So I think I’m building these things up in my mind, of the things I don’t want to do. When in reality, if I just knock it out, it’s it’s sort of over.
Tyson Mutrux
It’s interesting. That’s actually a really interesting study. You should do. Should you track all this? I think that’s actually really interesting. Yeah. Wow. Very cool.
Jim Hacking
Yeah. So speaking of podcasts, and things that get me motivated, you know, my wife, Amani is not a big podcaster. But I have been sharing some things with her. And I shared a Seth Godin interview with her that I also shared in John’s group, Seth Godin, who is probably one of the smartest marketers around, and one of the smartest people around that I really, really like, somehow, the small little legal podcast got him on their show, which it’s their 10th episode. And we’re now almost to our 20th episode, and we don’t have Seth Godin on our show. But anyway, we can put a link to the show notes, but the name of the podcast is building new law. And new law is one word. So building new law, it’s on iTunes. And Seth gave a 50 minute interview where he basically does he takes what he knows about marketing and about thinking about the world and about how the legal landscape is changing and how big law is really going, by the way of the dinosaur. And he takes all that infuses it with legal stuff, which I never knew I’ve been following Seth, I read the book tribes. I’ve been listening to Seth Godin. For years, I read his book, tribes, it was one of the things that got me motivated to go out on my own. So to have him actually talking about lawyers, his grandfather was a lawyer, his wife was a lawyer. So he has a ton of information. It was funny because of money, loved listening to the podcast, and she thought for sure that he was a lawyer after listening to it. So it’s really tremendous.
Tyson Mutrux
Interesting. I know you share that with me, I haven’t had chance to listen to it. I was kind of busy the last few days. So I’ll listen to it on the way home today. How long is the podcast? It’s 50 minutes. Oh, it’s not too bad. Well, I’m gonna give you the tip of the week for me. And it’s actually an app. It’s called spoil. And it’s actually an app where you can just send a gift, same day, you can send I’m just swiping through this really quick for 35 bucks, you can send champagne $30 candles, $30 truffle cookies, cupcake cupcakes are $10 flowers are 12 bucks, doughnuts are $14. What you do is you select these and then let’s say I’m thinking if you get a referral from someone, you just type in their name really quick, and they get it the same day. So it’s pretty incredible. So you get the referral and you type in their name and send it to them they need at their house they need at their office, whatever it is. It’s a very, very easy way of sending a gift the same day, which if you’ve ever tried, I don’t think you can actually send gifts like you can somebody sent gifts with flowers. I think it’s really hard to send gifts. Same day. I’m not positive about that. But yeah, you’re right. So this app makes it really easy. So I’m gonna I’m gonna try it out sometime in the near future. So refermate case jam and Olson Yeah, again,
Jim Hacking
when you send it was called spoil. And then he told me about the app. I thought you were saying that they were going to send people to stuff that was about to spoil. They could do it the same day because it was gonna go rotten in a day or two. And it was like an efficiency thing.
Tyson Mutrux
No, that’s funny. I don’t think that’s what it is. But I’ll send you a gift and we’ll find out but spoil. Alright, man. So that’s all I got. All right, buddy. Good talking to you. It’s on you.
