In today’s episode Jim and Tyson joined Hamza Khan, a multi-award winning marketer, best-selling author, and global keynote speaker whose TEDx talk “Stop Managing, Start Leading” has been viewed over a million times.
He is a top-ranked university educator, serial entrepreneur, and respected thought leader whose insights have been featured by notable media outlets such as VICE, Business Insider, and The Globe and Mail. He empowers youth and early talent through his work as Managing Director of Student Life Network, Canada’s largest and most comprehensive education resource platform, which reaches over 2.7 million students.
From TEDx stages and international conferences to MBA classrooms and Fortune 500 boardrooms, Hamza is invited regularly to deliver keynotes and workshops around the world. His clients have included some of the world’s most dynamic companies and organizations, including PepsiCo, LinkedIn, Deloitte, PwC, Trivago, and over 100 colleges and universities. Learn more at hamzakhan.ca
9:18 how automations will impact the legal industry
10:50 resistance to automation
13:08 becoming data driven
14:56 eustress
16:49 burnout
18:54 what is enough
20:10 it’s ok to not be ok
23:48 how to support your team
Jim’s Hack: If you’re on the fence about trying something new or doing something differently, think of it like this, the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, the next best time is today.
Hamza’s Tip: Practice especially when you’re overwhelmed, unlock the sense of urgency that is needed to push through.
Leadership Reinvented by Hamza Khan releasing March 9th!
The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal
Tyson’s Tip: To dip your toe into crypto currency try out the Crypto .com app
Watch the recording here.
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Transcript: “Becoming Data Driven” w/ Hamza Khan
Jim: Welcome back to The Maximum Lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim Hacking.
Tyson: And I’m Tyson Mutrux. What’s up, Jimmy?
Jim: Oh, Tyson, the die has been cast. I was out shoveling snow this morning. That’s something I haven’t done. I only do that a couple times a year, but I got up early to clear off the cars because I got a busy day.
Tyson: Wow!
I’m staying home because it’s snow day. So, I’m working. I’m working from home today. I was up late last night. I got into trading crypto. So, it’s been up last night and messed around with some things. I was having some fun.
Jim: That’s how you’re spending your birthday?
Tyson: That’s how I spent the hours of 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. this morning. That’s how I spent it. So, it was pretty awesome.
Jim: Awesome.
Tyson: But, anyways, we have a pretty awesome guest. Do you want to introduce him?
Jim: Yeah. So, we’re really excited today. We have Hamza Khan with us. He’s up in Toronto, Canada. We just had a real nice chat right before we got started. And he’s a speaker. He has a podcast. He’s a coach. He’s been featured in all kinds of media outlets. We’re really excited to have him on the show.
Hamza, welcome.
Hamza: Ey, thank you, guys. Thank you so much for having me.
Tyson, I hope you’ve made some money from Tesla’s recent infusion of into the market.
Tyson: All right, Hamza. We’re really excited to have you on, but I want to hear about your journey. So, tell everyone how you got, from your beginnings, to where you are now.
Hamza: Absolutely. And I’ll do my best to provide the Coles notes version. I could easily just talk you guys’ ears off for two or three hours recapping my story.
But the gist of it is this, I went into the post-secondary system with essentially a broken premise. I didn’t know why I was being compelled to go and attend university. And I attended the University of Toronto Scarborough here in Ontario, Canada. And I remember feeling pressured to attend university. I remember feeling pressured as a result of mostly my father’s desire for me to avoid the pain that he experienced growing up destitute in Mumbai, India. And so, he had big ambitions for me to become a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. The career trinity is what he wanted me to fall into.
But here I was, the child of immigrant parents, being raised primarily in New York, in America, and then coming to here in Scarborough, Ontario, in Canada. So, with my North American perspective being open to and receiving all of these stimuli from the media, from just music videos, comic books, TV shows, wrestling, I mean, I was just fascinated by the arts and entertainment.
So, here I am at the precipice of moving into post-secondary. I’m at the tender young age of 17 and I’m supposed to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life. Meanwhile, just a few hours ago, I was playing Halo in the basement and, you know, trading Yu-Gi-Oh! cards with my friends. Next thing you know, I sort of have to put in my applications. And I go to my pops and I’m like, “Hey, you know, I’m thinking about becoming a graphic designer. I’m thinking about becoming an illustrator. There’s an art school that opened up recently called, OCAD. I’m going to go there.” And my pops just looks at me and he laughs. He’s like, “Hey, you know, we didn’t come across the Atlantic Ocean with a couple of hundred dollars in our bank account for you to, you know, fuck around,” for lack of a better phrase. I apologize to the listeners for that, that expletive back there.
But, you know, fast forward a little bit, I started to rebel. I started to push back on my dad. And you know, there was a whole episode in between where I joined the Canadian Armed Forces as a reservist as my way of rebelling. And that turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me in terms of learning about personal accountability.
Anyways, I find myself at the University of Toronto. I’m dragging my feet. I’m a terrible student. I’m going from Because-pluses to Cs. And, eventually, I’m failing out of courses. And I’m so close to dropping out. And what changes for me, guys, is I received the right message at the right time in the form of a really well-designed poster that somebody invested the time, energy, and attention into creating so that it spoke to me at that particular inflection point in my journey. And what it did was it advertised a leadership development workshop where I got the vocabulary to understand what I was going through – I was going through a transition, but also to appreciate the true value of post-secondary education which is you don’t just go to get a degree. You don’t just go to get a job. You go there to grow personally, professionally and academically. It’s about holistic growth. It’s about entering into the crucible of citizenship so that you exit from it and you enter into society productive, maximized – no pun intended, and able to contribute in a meaningful way.
So, guys, the journey that I’ve followed since high school, through post-secondary, all the way to where I am right now is really focused on helping people to, number one, make that successful transition from high school through post-secondary to their dream job, whatever that looks like. And so, really building a suite of platforms, products, and mostly marketing and communication systems that reach students where they’re at. But, beyond that, I’m trying to help youth and early talent to realize their full potential, similar to what you guys are doing across the Maximum Empire, if you will. Really, helping people to bolster their leadership abilities to become more resilient and unlock peak performance and productivity.
So, you know, I wake up every single day, guys, thinking about, “How can I be valuable to people that are stuck in plateaus, that are stuck in ruts, that need to break through from any constraints and overcome any obstacles that they want?” but really honing in on that trifecta of productivity, resilience and leadership. So that was a sort of jumble of who I am, and where I came from, and how it is that we’re meeting up here in February of 2021.
Jim: There are a lot of different directions I’d like to take the conversation but one of the things you said is very timely. So, I have a 17-year-old son who’s very rebellious. He’s in college. He’s a freshman at San Diego State. We cut a deal that we’d pay for college for him to get a marketing degree. His immigrant mother just went to see him in San Diego and he announced that he wants to become a film major.
Hamza: Oh, no.
Jim: And, just like your dad, she sort of lost it. What advice do you have for us interacting with him? I’d like him to, obviously, reach his maximum capacity. I want him to do what he wants to do in life, but I also want him to be able to make a living. And I don’t know that he makes great decisions at the age of 17.
Hamza: Jim, I guarantee you he’s making better decisions than I was. I was a total shithead, looking back at who I was, when I was 17.
You know, I apologize to my father every now and then for the pain that I put him through at the time. But I remember going to him and saying, “Hey, Dad, you know, I can become a mediocre lawyer at best” because of the program that I went into was political science and business with the intention of becoming a lawyer when I first started. So, very poetic that I’m getting to speak to two very accomplished lawyers over here. I thought that I could cut it in the world that you have made an impact in, but I didn’t have it. I didn’t have the attitude, the aptitude. My heart just wasn’t in it.
Now, was I getting the grades towards the end of my academic career? Yeah. Could I have dragged my feet through it and just trudged my way into law school and become a lawyer? It’s possible, but I would’ve been a terrible lawyer. I would’ve been resentful. I would’ve been checked out.
And so, I went to my father and I said, “Dad. I’m excited and I’m passionate about, and I’m skilled at marketing and communication. I’m a good graphic designer, decent audio engineer. I have a knack for producing music videos. There’s something here and I owe it to myself to explore this. I have a chance of becoming a great marketer and communicator. I’m going to take this chance.”
And I’m not going to lie, guys, like it put a huge rift between me and my father that lasted for several years. I mean, there was a couple of months, if not, you know, more than a year within which we lived in the same home but didn’t speak to each other because of this animosity that had built up between us.
And I hope that that’s not the case, Jim, for you, your son and your partner. And I don’t think it will be because, if anything, we have learned now that your son is going to have the last laugh, if we’re thinking about where the world is trending towards, by the year 2045, if the singularity happens, the way it’s being predicted by Ray Kurzweil and co. What jobs are going to be left when everything that can be automated will be automated? It’s going to be the jobs that require imagination, creativity, the ability to fashion ideas together in creative ways. And I think that your son pursuing filmmaking, as a career, will open up all kinds of possibilities even if filmmaking doesn’t work out to the extent that he hopes it will. I think that the transferable skills that he will learn in the process – storyboarding, imagination, maximizing and optimizing creativity, partnerships, networking – just communication and promotion of product and self, I think those lend themselves very well to the future of work and the jobs that I imagine will be left over once we go through this period of great transition.
Tyson: So, let’s stay on this topic for a second, Hamza, because this is something that really intrigues me quite a bit. And it’s something I’ve been trying to think about for a while. Like, what’s the future of law? Do you think that the law fits into that category of creativity that’s going to be left over at the end of this, once it’s all automated?
Hamza: Yeah, guys. And I’m not going to pretend to know the intricacies of the industry, but I will say this, if there’s anything that requires repetition, if there’s anything that you’re finding yourself just copying, and pasting, and creating templates for, that’s where it gets dicey. So, for example, you see glimpses of this in the profession with LegalZoom, for example, with DocuSign, with PandaDoc. There are so many different platforms out there right now that are extracting repeatable things from your profession, turning them into applications that you can pay memberships to, and making them accessible to people like myself.
However, where I think y’all will thrive is you have gone through the academic rigor necessary to create the capacity to see disparate points and fashion them together in truly creative ways. I mean, all artists are creative, but not all creatives are artists. And I think that you guys, as lawyers, are perhaps the most creative people right up there with accountants in society because you’re able to look at disparate data points, as I mentioned, and extract the actionable insights from them. So, I think that your profession is future proof. But just be mindful that there are elements that, if you find yourself, again, repeating, templating.
Let’s just put it this way. Anything that can be automated will be automated. As much as I don’t want that to happen, it’s already happening. It’s beyond my control. The genie’s already out of the lamp.
Jim: So, let’s talk about that transition itself. We’ve been talking about what happens on the other side of the transition. But we have so many members in our group who are very resistant to automation and resistant to spending the time to build out their practice in an automated way. Talk to us a little bit about life during that transition.
Hamza: It’s going to be difficult. It’s going to require an honest look at the operations of the business and becoming very data-driven, as aphoristic as that sounds, but I can’t underscore the importance of that. You have to look at every possible data point being generated by your business and get very granular with it, too. Look at traffic to the website. Install the right kind of analytics software so you understand the ingress, the egress points – where people are spending their time, what they’re clicking on. So, just thinking about the marketing face of this.
As lawyers, also, you might not be tracking your time in your firm, depending on your level of seniority. And that’s something that I would encourage you to do, sort of slap those constraints on to your work and measure where it is that you’re allocating your time. What kind of projects are you working on? You know, try to generate reports. It doesn’t matter what system you’re using, whether you’re using something like Asana or Trello, or there might be something proprietary for the legal profession. I’m confident that you’ll be able to spit out some reports and view some analytics about the way that you’re working.
Whenever I do this, and I try to regularly audit my productivity, I try to look at my productivity in monthly sort of top-level performance reports. And then, every quarter, I do a deep dive into where I’m wasting time.
Just because I think about the Pareto Principle all this time, this idea that 80% of results are typically dictated by 20% of inputs, I’m always obsessed with trying to find the 20% of where I can spend my time, energy, and attention that will truly move the needle. But the only way that I can determine that is by measuring and trying to get a sense of what 100% of my day-to-day looks like.
So, a very simple thing that I would encourage the listeners and the viewers to do, start with this. You know, look at your week as a canvas. You have 168 hours a week. In one chart, sort of list out all the major activities and how much time you’re spending on them. How much time are you spending sleeping, eating, you know, watching Netflix, doing case work, reading, listening to the podcast, so on and so forth. That’s how you’re currently spending your time.
And then, do the same exercise but now project how you want to be spending your time. And then, try to look for discrepancies between the two and try your best to reverse engineer the steps necessary to move from sheet A to sheet B which is where you’re spending your time currently and where you want to be spending your time. So, a simple exercise like that, becoming data driven in a way that is beneficial to you is what I would suggest doing.
And one last thought on this, Jim and Tyson, it’s going to be difficult because you are going to learn things about yourself and your practice in this process that is going to be discouraging. You’re going to realize, very quickly, that a lot of your time, unfortunately, is spent not getting the right things done. You’re spending a lot of time getting things done but it’s not moving the needle in a substantial way.
Tyson: This is really interesting. I’ve never heard of anybody tracking productivity the way you just talked about when you’re talking about like basically what you want versus what you’re doing. That’s pretty cool. It’s a pretty cool exercise.
People, all the time, are asking us, “Okay, what should I track? What are the specific data points I should track?” So, do you have any advice to people on what specifically they should be tracking to increase productivity?
Hamza: Yeah. I would look— I try to separate your work into two buckets. Let’s do four. There’s busy work. So, this is the work that produces more work or is spent organizing work. So, for example, organizing your calendar, responding to emails, transitioning emails into tasks. That’s busy work. That is the precursor to work.
But think about, again, where it is that you add value. Coming back to the Pareto Principle, what is the 20% of tasks that only you can do? Stuff that you can’t delegate to your team. Stuff that you can’t diminish, delegate, defer, or delete. Stuff that you have to do. So, separate your work into two buckets – pre work, aka busy work, and the actual work.
And to that end, you know, thinking about resilience. There’s this idea that all work is stressful and, rightfully so, right. In order to achieve success, you have to incur some stress. And, you know, I think about how stress can lead to burnout.
But stress doesn’t always have to lead to burnout. We have to look at the dual definition of stress. There’s distress, D-I-S-T-R-E-S-S. The stress that is disruptive, that throws us out of equilibrium. But then there’s eustress, E-U-S-T-R-S-S. The good kind of stress that is helpful, that brings you closer to happiness. And in this way, an hour of work spent on something that’s distressing will feel like an eternity. Whereas, if you were to reframe that same experience, according to the research of Dr. Kelly McGonigal who wrote The Upside of Stress, great book by the way. If we could include that in the show notes, I think the readers would really appreciate it. If we re-frame an experience as one that produces eusstress, that hour seems to shrink, and it goes by a lot faster.
So, again, thinking about the four categories – busy work, productive work, eustress, and destress. If you can sort of map out your products, map out your output on a quadrant comprised of those four ideas, that could be really interesting.
Jim: Running your own practice can be scary. Whether you’re worried about where the next case will come from, feeling like you’re losing control of your growing firm, or frustrated from being out of touch with everyone working under your license, the stress can be overwhelming. We will show you how to turn that fear into a driving force of clarity, focus, stability, and confidence that eliminates the rollercoaster of guilt-ridden second guessing and mistake making to get you off that hamster wheel for good.
Tyson: Maximum Lawyer in Minimum Time is a step-by-step playbook that shows you how to identify what your firm needs and how to proactively get it at every stage of the game so you’re prepped and excited for the inevitable growth that will follow. Name the lifestyle that you want and we’ll show you how to become a maximum lawyer in minimum time. Find out more by going to maximumlawyer.com/course.
Jim: So, let’s talk about your Burnout book. What was the process of writing it? And what’s the reaction been to it? And what’s the main message?
Hamza: Yeah. Jim, to be honest, I didn’t even want to write it. Burnout was something that happened to me unexpectedly. I was making progress as a marketing professional, building leading teams within the Canadian higher education system. And then, suddenly, in the year 2014, I flamed out. And I was so caught off guard by it, so confused and debilitated by it, that I had to force myself to reflect on it because I had nothing else to do. I actually became so sick that I was at home for just over a month, festering in a negative cocktail of emotions – anger, doubt, guilt. I mean, I felt like a total fraud, a total failure. I let my team down. I let my friends and family down.
When I look back at the year 2014. There’s nothing I can point to and say, “I did that.” There was a lot of boasting and bragging on social media about how much I was hustling, and burning the midnight oil, and how crazy and chaotic things were at work but, the truth is, I completely flamed out.
So, in that process of understanding what had happened to me, after talking to doctors and different specialists, I first learned that I had suffered a panic attack as a result of the stress and the burnout that I had experienced. And so, I began to unpack what had happened to me. And, in the process, I discovered that burnout is an epidemic. It doesn’t just affect me. I’m not alone in this. But it is affecting millions, if not billions, of people around the world. And the underlying problem – stress is the health epidemic of the 21st century, according to the World Health Organization. So, I felt compelled to document my experience of going through burnout, explaining what I did to recover from burnout, and how I’m currently staving off burnout.
And the crux of the book is this. It doesn’t have to be chaotic at work. I think that we sometimes go about our work when we’re motivated by external factors – the factors of competition, alienation, society, technology, loneliness, the economy. I think we internalize that as performance pressure. As a result, we don’t feel like we’re progressive enough, efficient enough, perfect enough, satisfied enough, innovative enough. And that leads us into a vicious cycle of overwork – being intense rather than consistent, overcompensating rather than getting the right things done.
So, at the heart of my book is this idea that we have to, as individuals and as organizations, define what is enough. And I’m not talking about this in sort of like an airy-fairy self-help way. We really have to identify the metrics. And thinking about a podcast I was listening to, of yours, earlier, with Dr. Jason Selk, I believe it was, very much talking about the same idea. Like, imagine where you want to be and then reverse engineer that into the present. “Act as if” is what he said. And I would add, as corollary to that, define what “as if” is. Where does your firm want to be? Where do you want to be as an individual? Define what is enough for you and operate within those bounds as much as possible because, when we don’t define what’s enough, the goal post continue to extend and we open up and expose ourselves to the forces of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity that destabilizes people on a daily basis, unfortunately. I mean, thousands of people have died around the world just in the couple of minutes we’ve been recording this podcast. It’s really, really disturbing when you take the time to reflect on it.
Tyson: Yeah, definitely. When you put it that way, it really does put things into perspective.
This actually is a good segue into this next question because we ask the question, you know, if listeners only learned one thing from your interview, you know, what would it be? And your one thing was during this period of great volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, that it’s okay to not be okay. So, will you talk a little bit about that because I think that’s fantastic. Will you talk about it a little bit?
Hamza: 100%, guys.
You know, at the time of recording this podcast, I’m not sure what the lockdown situation is for you guys right now in the States. I mean, are you guys currently, you know, in the red? Is it a state of emergency where you guys are living -ish?
Tyson: Missouri’s kind of open. It’s a mix. It depends on where you are. Like, St. Charles is wide open. St. Louis is closed down. So, it’s kind of a mix.
Hamza: Mm-hmm.
And, Jim, what about on your end? How are things looking there with the quarantine lockdown situation?
Jim: Same.
Hamza: Same. Interesting.
So, right now, here in Ontario, Toronto, we just lifted the state of emergency, almost a year later, and we’re gradually transitioning into a different framework where we have yellow, orange, green, red – different categories other than the sort of gray that we’ve been in.
And I have to remind myself, like at the time of us recording this podcast, there’s still a global pandemic going on. I would say that there’s maybe, perhaps in the States, a triple pandemic happening or North America even. When we’re talking about the coronavirus, we’re also talking about the economic recovery and, you know, y’all staring down the barrel of a recession, similar to us, but also great racial upheaval – racial injustice that you’ve seen play out this past summer with the George Floyd protests and the residual effects of that.
All of that’s to say is, I have to remind myself, even before logging on and recording this podcast with you guys, that we’re not just recording a podcast. We’re not just working from home. You know, in my case, especially, I’m locked in my home, trying to work while coping with the ambient stressors of a global triple pandemic. So, it is okay to not be okay.
And I think that, when we lie to ourselves, and we say, “Hey, things are good and, you know, it could be worse.” I feel like that’s toxic positivity. I feel like that’s obscuring the effects of what we really need to be focusing on to get to the root of how I, as Hamza Khan, and how y’all, as Jim and Tyson, can move forward and make meaning of this. I think we have to, first of all, stop lying to ourselves. You know, when we gloss over our experiences by saying, “You know, things are okay. Things are good.” I think we’re doing ourselves a disservice.
So, on the one hand, there’s that sort of toxic positivity we need to avoid but then even the toxic productivity that comes from, you know, looking at our individual situations and saying, “We’ve got to push through.” But we can’t push through right now. It’s actually impossible because, whether we acknowledge it or not, we’re not at our best.
We’re all experiencing, or at least we experienced, collectively, back in March of 2020, the amygdala hijack. This idea that all the blood from the prefrontal cortex flushed away and went to the extremities of our body and we became prepared to fight, fly, or freeze. And so, our decision making our ability to produce complex creative thoughts was significantly compromised. And this happened at the individual level. And it’s certainly happened at the organizational level as well. We collectively, as organizations, as individuals, as families, as countries, as the world, have been going through and riding the five or six stages of grief, right, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. And so, we’re not okay, right?
To your point, Tyson, I’m glad you asked the question. We’re not okay. And I think it’s actually healthy and productive to acknowledge that versus lying to ourselves and pretending like “this is just another day in the office. This is just another day on planet Earth.” It really isn’t.
Jim: So, where’s the opportunity there? For us, as leaders, how can we support our team? I guess, the first step, as it so often is, is to acknowledge it with our team. And then, where do we go from there?
Hamza: Wow! I’m glad you asked that question.
Okay. So, I think it’s about moving away from VUCA characteristics. So, moving away from volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity and trying to find where – if that is the proverbial hell, where’s the proverbial heaven, right? So, the opposite of volatility would be stability. The opposite of uncertainty would be certainty. The opposite of complexity would be simplicity. And the opposite of ambiguity would be clarity. So, trying to move our teams to a place where there is stability, certainty, simplicity, and clarity.
And, again, I’m loving that, you know, defining what enough is, acting as if, and measuring data points is a big part of that. We, as leaders, need to be mindful that there might be things that we’re doing inadvertently that are burning the people out in our organizations. We’re stressing them out. For example, you know, if we haven’t defined what success looks like, we owe it to ourselves and to our team to create very clear objectives and key results, even if they’re going to shift as a result of what’s happening in the environment.
We also have to prioritize, especially at a time when people are working from home, when they’re confused and making this transition to largely remote and virtual work. We have to prioritize outputs over outcomes. I think, especially in office environments, we would prioritize outputs. We would look at who would show up early, who would leave late, who appeared to be busy.
We conflated busy-ness with productivity, but I think that the pandemic has given us an opportunity to tease those apart. I think also we need to give up on the very outdated Theory X style of leading people. We used to assume, back in the day, you know, at the turn of the century, factory productions, factory boom, that workers were lazy, unmotivated, that their heart wasn’t in it and, you know, they needed to be told what to do, and forced, and coerced, and managed. We need to do away with that because all indications are that younger generations, especially, are creative. They are intrinsically motivated. They are well intentioned and willing to do the work as long as there’s purpose alignment.
I also think we need to now invest in professional development more than ever. We also, you know, as leaders, you guys are running an organization. I’m running an organization. We’re scared and we’re focusing disproportionately on the mission and the longevity of our businesses but that can’t come at the expense of the individuals in the organization. I think Jocko Willink writes about this, in The Dichotomy Of Leadership, you have to balance the needs of the mission with the needs of the people.
And then, finally, prioritize creating a safe environment. It’s not enough to create a physically safe environment. And, in fact, for many of the listeners and viewers right now, that’s a non-issue because you are mostly online. But how can you also create an emotionally and mentally safe workplace?
The end goal here is– I was on a podcast the other day and someone said, “What should we be focusing on right now?” And I clarified the question by saying, “What do you mean?” Like, “What should the human species be focusing on right now?” Pardon my language, but just getting the fuck through this. Like, that is the end goal. Whether you’re in school, whether you’re the leader of a fortune 500 company, or a country, like I think that we can lose sight of the fact that we’re in this together, even though, in practice, it’s not playing out that way. I know that we can get to a place if we all are invested in the idea of helping each other get through this period of great transition. That’s what I think.
And I apologize if I sort of went off topic over there, Jim, but that’s what I think. You know, leaders need to be focused on at every level – political, social, and corporate.
Tyson: Such a good messaging. Honestly, Hamza, we could cut that last five minutes and just make that the podcast. So many so many great nuggets in there.
We do need to wrap things up.
Hamza: Sure.
Tyson: Because I could talk to you all freakin’ day but it’s just been great.
Hamza: Likewise, man. I didn’t even ask you guys questions, man. I feel really bad. This is a very lopsided convo, but I can’t help it–
Tyson: No. It’s great.
Hamza: –you guys ask great questions, man.
Tyson: That’s great. I love it.
So, I have to wrap things up. Before I do, I want to remind everyone to go to the Facebook group. Get involved there. If you’re interested in the Guild, join us at maxlawguild.com. And, if you don’t mind, just taking a couple seconds, at the end of this episode, as we get to our tips and the hacks of the week, that you just give us a five-star review. We will greatly appreciate it.
Jimmy, what’s your hack of the week?
Jim: Tyson, you and I were talking the other day about creating content such as a podcast, or a blog, or writing a book, whatever and we were talking about the message that people always give us which is, ”Oh, there’s too many legal podcasts. Or, Oh, there’s too many books about this or that.” And, to me, what I always come back to is, you know, the best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago and the next best time is today. So, if you’re on the fence about thinking of creating new content, or trying a new channel, or doing something differently, try today. Just see how it goes. You don’t have to have a million views on your first day. And, you know, the slow steady success will really carry you through.
Tyson: I love it. It’s very good.
Hamza, before we get to your tip or hack of the week, do you want to tell people how they can get in touch with you?
Hamza: Absolutely. The best place to get in touch with me is on Instagram. I’m @HamzaK. But I’m also active on a bunch of other platforms as well. Twitter, I’m also @HamzaK. You can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook. All of these links, you know, my courses, my blog and other ways to sort of work with me, connect with me, is @hamzakhan.ca.
And, guys, I’m really excited to share with y’all over here that I’ve got a new book on the way called Leadership Reinvented. And it touches on a lot of different topics that we’ve covered today very naturally. You know, from the future of leadership to post fires leadership, to what flammable leadership looks like – all of that and then some. The book is coming out on March 9th. I know you guys are in the States, I would be delighted, if you’re interested, to mail you guys an advanced copy and I’d love to get your honest thoughts on it.
Tyson: I’m in. You don’t have to twist my arm. I love it. Perfect.
Hamza: There we go. I know you guys have a lot to read already. I don’t want to inundate you. I don’t have an audio book yet but working on it.
Tyson: I love it. I love it.
All right. You can have that as your tip of the week. But we always have our guests give a tip or a hack of the week. Do you have another one for us?
Hamza: I do. I do.
So, define and– again, I’m going to come back to the act as if. I’m such a fan of that. I’ve already started. I’m like about four or five episodes into the podcast but the one with Dr. Jason Selk really stood out to me. Practice, especially when you’re overwhelmed, Parkinson’s Law. So, it’s this idea that work expands so as to fill the time allocated for its completion. If there’s something that needs to be done, but you don’t know where to start, give yourself a time gate. Simulate some constraints, right? Whether you have to prepare a case, whether you have to organize a report. You know, you’re staring into the abyss wondering “where do I begin?” That’s perhaps the wrong question when you’re overwhelmed, and confused, and burning out. Maybe start with the other question which is “Where does this end?” and slap on some constraints. Give yourself a week to get it done. And then, watch as your time, energy, and attention re-configures to meet the deadline.
So, simulate some constraints for yourself. And you can simulate time-based constraints, energy-based, unit-based, feeling-based, and result-based constraints and get creative – feel free to merge two or more together and unlock the sense of urgency that is needed to push through, especially during times like this.
Tyson: I love it. It’s very, very good.
So, I mentioned crypto earlier. It’s something that I’ve been interested in for a while. I’ve not jumped into it.
Hamza: Jim’s shaking his head. I love it.
Tyson: Yeah, but I’ve got to say, if you want to dabble in it, there’s an easy way of doing it. And I downloaded the crypto.com app. And it really made it easy just to get started. I think that there are probably some more advanced apps. I’ve downloaded a few just to see what works best. I’ve got to say it’s actually a lot of fun.
Amy’s my wife. She’s like, “Man, like you’re addicted now. It’s like you got a new hobby.” It’s sort of like a hobby. You know, like you bought— you know, selling high and buying low. It’s been a lot of fun. But if you just want to dip your toe in the water with it, try out the crypto.com app. It’s funny. Jim will make fun of me. That’s fine. But I enjoy it. It’s fun. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to do it. It’s just a little bit of money. It’s interesting.
Hamza: Jim, when the recession and inflation erases our life savings and our networth, it’s Tyson who we’re going to go to and be like, “Hey, can you spare some Ethereum for us plebes, you know?
Tyson: That’s exactly right. I was in on the Ethereum before anybody else. Not before anybody else but like before it got– it got big yesterday. It had a big pump. I guess, [inaudible 00:31:59].
Hamza: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome, man.
Tyson: You see, I’m impressed you know what that is. But, anyway, we do have to wrap things up.
Hamza: Thank you.
Tyson: Thanks so much. It’s been a lot of fun. Like I said, I could talk to you all day, so–
Hamza: Likewise, guys.
Tyson: –reach out. At any point, reach out to us, if you want to talk some more, but thanks so much.
Hamza: I’d love to. Thank you.
Jim: Thanks, Hamza.
Hamza: Thank you, guys. Really appreciate this. Thank you, guys.
Jim: See you, guys.
Tyson: See ya.
Thanks for listening to The Maximum Lawyer Podcast.
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Have a great week and catch you next time.
