What to Do When Your Law Firm Hits a Plateau

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, hosts Jim Hacking and Tyson Mutrux explore the milestones and challenges of achieving stability and success as a law firm owner. They share personal experiences, emphasizing the importance of financial stability, client acquisition, and effective management systems. 

This episode highlights the emotional rollercoaster of running a firm, the significance of cash flow management, and the impact of personal financial decisions on business growth. Jim and Tyson also stress the need for clear benchmarks to measure success and the value of setting meaningful, personalized goals. Their insights offer valuable guidance for law firm owners striving for sustainable success.

Jim’s Hack: Re-read books. Like:

•  Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear  https://amzn.to/3ARbSiM
• Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman https://amzn.to/3AG7jba
• Limitless Expanded Edition: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life by Jim Kwik https://amzn.to/4g4tTdV

Tyson’s Tip: Rethink the things that you are saying

Episode Highlights:

• 04:15 Recognizing financial stability 
• 06:47 The necessity of focusing on acquiring clients for law firm success.
• 09:19 The importance of managing cash flow
• 12:59 Different growth stages of a business 
• 16:25 Essential benchmarks for managing a law firm effectively
• 18:35 The challenges of taking time off as a law firm owner
• 20:29 The pressure to respond to clients promptly, affecting his mental health
• 21:39 The importance of aligning goals with personal aspirations for success
• 22:10 Understanding what one truly wants in their practice

Resources:

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Transcripts: What to do When Your Law Firm Hits a Plateau

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

Jim Hacking 00:00:23 Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer podcast I'm Jim Hacking.

Tyson Mutrux 00:00:26 Well, damn, Jimmy, that's pretty damn flat. And I'm Tyson. What's up bro?

Jim Hacking 00:00:30 Oh geez. You're the one. You're the one who's sick, not me. I should bring the energy. Bring the funk.

Tyson Mutrux 00:00:35 Bring it. I was expecting you. Normally will bring this like, let's go. And I. Well, that's.

Jim Hacking 00:00:41 Because usually we recorded eight in the morning. Now it's 230 in the afternoon.

Tyson Mutrux 00:00:44 Yeah. You know, and we do every once in a while do some of these in the afternoon. But the, the morning ones like that's where I like to do like my best work in the mornings because like I can, like I've got the energy because afternoon right around this time is usually whenever I start to kind of to hit that wall and it's not even a wall.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:01 I started to decline in quality, but for sure. Yeah, today I'm still I'm fighting off Covid. I've been in bed, so I actually have a blanket over top of me. Now I'm in my basement and I've got the bar behind me. There's Diagon Alley, obviously that, but that's, I see it, that big old Lego set behind me. But no, I've been I don't know if I've ever been sick where I've been in bed for this many days in a row. Like from Monday night until today, I've been, like, sick. So in yesterday I went and got. I think it was yesterday. What's today? Today? Thursday.

Jim Hacking 00:01:32 Yeah, it was yesterday.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:33 Yeah. Yesterday I got get tested and I got Covid first time. First time since this all started. I've got Covid that I know of. Who gave.

Jim Hacking 00:01:42 It to you I.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:43 Don't know Amy and I were talking about this I think the. So there was this guy I went to jiu jitsu. So I've still been going to jiu jitsu, even though my shoulder, I've got a torn labrum, but I've been I've been like going and just essentially watching.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:57 And I'll do some of the things that I can do But there was this guy the other day. It was on Saturday and I was looking at him and I said to him, I was like, man, you look tired today. And he was like, yeah, just like, you know, having young kids and everything. And he just was not didn't have the same energy. And I would bet money that he has Covid, but he gave me Covid because it's like, you know, when you look at somebody, there's not the same when they're sick. That's that he had the sick face. And so I this is me in hindsight looking at at the time I didn't realize that but I so I think it's that guy. I'm not going to say who is Nate what his name is. Not that anybody would know, but I.

Jim Hacking 00:02:35 Would suspect airplanes myself.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:37 Well, I haven't been on a plane lately, so you're the one. I think that every time you've gotten, you probably got on an airplane.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:43 Well, one.

Jim Hacking 00:02:43 Time Ismail gave it to me, and that was after flying to San Diego. So, yeah, probably all three.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:48 Are you at four times? I think I told somebody three times. Okay. Three times. I told my doctor yesterday, I was like, yeah, buddy might have it four times okay. Three times, three times. So it's just a matter of time. You get your fourth one.

Jim Hacking 00:02:59 Oh, God, I hope not. That was this last one was the sickest I've ever been in my whole life.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:03 Well, I've kept like in my head. I keep saying like, okay, it's not going to be that bad. It's not going to be that bad. It's because like, because of what you said. And then everyone else I hear that's gotten this strain, it's really bad. I mean, what's weird is, is that it's not it's not like the flu, right? Like the flu, I feel like is like this consistent thing where you hit this peak and then it kind of goes away.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:22 I feel like Covid is more like this thing, like you hit you in waves, like wave after wave, and the waves keep getting stronger. And I think I've finally gotten past the strong waves where it's starting to kind of hit the cell. These waves will have these boost of energy, and then it'll go away. And like the heart, I don't know about you. Like the hardest part for me has been the energy just sucked the energy out of me. And like, that's the part that sucks for me.

Jim Hacking 00:03:46 It was the coughing. My chest hurt, my throat hurt. I never cough that much.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:50 So I've had very little coughing. When I do. It's it's this. I feel like it's almost random. I don't see it coming. It's very dry cough, but it's only happened a few times. It's mostly mucus buildup in my nose. That's the main. That's what's driving me crazy. Other than the energy. Yummy. It's. Yeah. It's fantastic. But now, with that nice, nice introduction, you want to introduce our topic.

Jim Hacking 00:04:15 So you came up with it. So we were kicking off topic for today and you did come up with one that we both sort of liked, which was how did we know when we had sort of arrived or that we were going to be okay. And I think that's a good that's a good topic for discussion. I think. I mean, I think there's an ebb and flow to all of it, but I do think there's sort of plateaus that you get to in your career. And for me, the first one was when I sort of literally had to stop, like looking around for money to make payroll. Like that was the first time where I really felt like, oh, this is nice. I have enough money every two weeks to pay Adela. And that was just a real turning point for me. I thought, yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:04:55 I think that that kind of comes and goes, though, in a way like especially as you scale a little bit, like you have to like you kind of go to achieve that next level.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:05 I do think that that kind of it gives you more of that cash crunch a little bit than anything. But it to me it's the same. It's very similar, though it is. It's like whenever you have that amount of money where you're like, like you're making enough money, where things are consistently coming in, where you're like, okay, I don't want to worry about paying for dinner. Like I don't have to worry about, you know, get paying for groceries I'm okay with, like, we're going to be fine with our mortgage and all that. There is a certain point where all that kind of just disappears and you don't think about it anymore. Kind of. The reason why I want to talk about this, too, is because a lot of people write when they're about to make it, they give up, you know, like they say, okay, I'm, I can't do this anymore. But if you stick it out, a lot of this is just it's just a matter of sticking it out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:53 And as long as you can stick it out for long enough, you can take the heat, take the pressure. It'll turn into something good that you're going to get to make a really good living off of, or at least a decent living. You're going to have, you know, freedom. But it's going to be a different type of freedom than working for someone. But it's a lot of it has to do with I think it has to do with making money. What's really funny is I'm always talking about processes and systems, and you're always talking about getting cases in. But from the beginning, the thing that I cared about the most was getting clients. And whenever I would go speak to classes, I would say, I would ask, ask them what? What's the most important thing about practicing law? And I would get all these answers. And none of them was getting clients. Not one of it. Not one of them would say not. And I don't think ever in the history of me asking that question, as a student said, getting clients, it's always about, oh, you have to be ethical and you have to you have to make sure you're doing a good job, yada, yada, yada.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:47 And I would say, like, those are all all really, really important things, but you can't do any of that unless you get cases. And that's what you've got to focus on is getting cases even if you're working for a firm. And I tell the story about Debbie Champion, the one that she told in your class about, like, the ones without cases are the ones that are expendable. And so you have to, at the beginning, focus on getting cases, because otherwise it's it's going to be a really tough road to hoe.

Jim Hacking 00:07:13 You and I had the opportunity to talk to a lawyer this week, a law firm owner who hadn't signed up any cases for two months. And I think it both it gave both of us a big kick in the butt and we were like, oh, what's going on here? Like we had to do sort of a little bit of a different analysis.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:28 Yeah, that was a, What was the feeling you had when you heard that?

Jim Hacking 00:07:32 Well, the person didn't seem too overly worried about it.

Jim Hacking 00:07:35 I had the sense that they had some kind of other cushion, that maybe it's cash in the bank from being out in private practice, you know, for a big firm for a long time. Maybe they had a partner that sort of helps them through month to month. But, you know, for you and I, when we were the primary breadwinners, that would not have flown, right. That just wouldn't do it. I think that, it would have scared the crap out of me.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:57 I mean, I had a feeling of almost despair when I heard it. I just that would worry me if that happened to me or you right now, especially when we have so many employees, that'd be really bad. But if you've I mean, back then, I mean, even back then, I don't know if I ever went two months without having a client. I mean, that would have been that would have terrified me. I remember going a few weeks without getting a client and thinking, oh man, like, what am I going to do? What? What's going to happen if this stays the way it is? And the thing that you said, maybe you're right.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:28 I mean, maybe, maybe they do have a partner. And we didn't we didn't dig into that. Maybe we should have. In hindsight, their.

Jim Hacking 00:08:34 Hair was on fire. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:35 I feel like it's like I feel like maybe it should have been, don't you?

Jim Hacking 00:08:38 Yeah, yeah. And actually I was talking to my son this email today and he said he's sort of at a plateau and he sort of feels like things are cooking and he sort of wanted to do next what to do next. And I said, go get more clients, go get more clients. That's what I said. That solves a lot of problems. It can bring its own problems. But, you know I wanted to say something to you that you often come back to and garyvee often comes back to when it comes to that those plateaus, or those times where you feel like you've sort of arrived. And that is a lot of it can depend on how much cash you're pulling out of the business. So I think we become so intertwined with our firms and they become so much of our personality.

Jim Hacking 00:09:19 And obviously they take up a big all of our working day and a lot of our energy and time that we think that we can just pull out cash like an ATM. And we don't really. I think sometimes lawyers don't even have an accurate evaluation of whether their firm is working or not, profitable or not, because they're taking so much money out of it. And if they left it invested in there, like Jeff Bezos did with Amazon for decades or years and years, where, you know, if you have to evaluate the firm on its own two feet, or if somebody else were evaluating it and just treated you as a salaried employee with X amount of expense. I think that that's one thing that really sort of gets in the way of people feeling like they are safe or arrived, because they haven't been very disciplined in how they keep boundaries between themselves and that money sitting in the operating account.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:12 I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but if you if you look at some of our peers, like we if you and I wanted to like we could we could really go barebones with our operations.

Jim Hacking 00:10:25 You're always proposing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:26 This. No, no, I'm not proposing it. I'm just saying we could if we wanted to. We could go really bare bones with our operations. And we can make, like, firm. From a personal standpoint. We could make a lot of money and we could, you know, like, you know, look like ballers and have these. We could probably pay for Ferraris and all that, like, like that cool stuff. Right. But we've we've instead chosen to take a different route and take make some sacrifices and Not take the money out and keep it in and continue to build this thing because we have this bigger vision for it. And so there there is a point where you have to make that decision, okay, are you going to. Is that what you want? Do you want to build something bigger with a bigger vision, or are you comfortable with just kind of stay in the way you are and just sucking that money out of the business? And there's neither way is the right way.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:16 But just know that if you were going to do it the way where you're going to suck the money out of it and just take that money for you personally, you're not going be able to grow it. I mean, you're not going to grow it the way you want to. You're going to have a really cool, awesome personal life. But I also think you can have an amazing life outside of the firm by paying yourself a, you know, a good salary. I'm taking good draws from the from the firm that are based on schedules and percentages and all that. But you you could have both and that you don't have to just take all that money out and use it on yourself personally, because you're not. I don't think you're going to be at the end. You'll be as fulfilled, right? And that's just my personal opinion. But, I mean, I guess maybe some people are happier with the other way, but you and I, I think just chosen a different route.

Jim Hacking 00:12:02 Well, if you are I mean, it's sort of simple math.

Jim Hacking 00:12:05 If you're pulling too much money out too often, that's going to hinder your ability to hire people to help you do the work. So therefore, you're going to be doing all the work and you're really just a hamster on a wheel. You have a job, but you're your own boss, right? So but you still have a job. If you delay that gratification and keep that money around and don't take it out and use it to pay salaries of other people in whatever areas of the firm that you want or need them to be, you can really get to a point where you have lots of people doing lots of the work so that you can do what you want to do, and you can take long vacations and you can be away from the office. And but as long as you're not progressing in hiring and growing, then you're just going to be stuck in that same wheel that you've been in for ever since you opened the firm.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:54 Yeah, so I read this. I think it's a post from her Mozzi this week.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:59 And it was the difference between getting from 1 million to 10 million. Okay, so it was getting from 0 to 1 million was essentially having something that's like a fourth of the way built. Right. So you're like you you've kind of have it working. Right. And then getting from 1 million to 10 million is having this thing that's half built. And then getting from 10 million to 100 million is having this thing's like, that's like three quarters of the way built. And I thought that was an interesting way of looking at it, because it is kind of true. Like whenever you do get to that million point, it's like, okay, I kind of have this thing that works, I'm making this money, but you have all these other areas that need work. And then once you like, when you grow from there, like you're you're constantly it's like whack a mole sometimes, but then sometimes you get these areas that are okay. They're running very, very, very well. And then you move on to this next thing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:56 But like I think it's a really interesting concept like we're like and I think it's also a concept that if you with like with the topic that we're talking about, like, you know, when did we know we were going to be okay. Like if you're, if you got things like a fourth of the way figured out and you're, you're to seven figures, okay, you're okay. And I actually okay is not even saying seven figures but like, okay. Like you're, you're making enough money to, to pay all your bills and you're, you can make payroll and all that kind of stuff. But like, what do you think about that idea, though, of, you know, something quarter built, half built, you know, three quarters built?

Jim Hacking 00:14:32 I think any time you can get it to objective standards versus your gut, it's better. Like right now I have a great aunt who's sick and she's going to get sicker. And so to try to take the emotion out of it, I said, you know, we don't know what's going to happen over the next 2 or 3 years.

Jim Hacking 00:14:49 Let's try to put in benchmarks so that when something happens, we know what to do. So sort of like that. In case of fire break glass. Like if you if you know that or if you, if you give yourself these benchmarks to hit, that's when you maybe get through. I mean that's going to make you work harder to.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:05 Yeah. You know it's people are so avoidant to that of that though. Like in case of fire break glass like I had, I've assigned this task to three people and none of them have completed the task where I wanted them to create a list of things that that are unlikely to happen, but they could happen and what to do in an emergency. And like, they've all like gotten like some of them done, but not many of them done. I think people are so averse to actually thinking about that, that what I think is because I don't think it's going to happen. But I think part of it is that they they don't want to think about it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:39 Yeah.

Jim Hacking 00:15:39 I'm not worried about that so much. I'm more concerned. So like, Dean Jackson has a list of signs that he's living the life the way he wants to live. So I know I'm doing well when write something like that, It doesn't have to be break glass. It can be anything. But, you know, sort of. And I think that's where a lot of the value of maximum layer comes is that people have seen us sort of hit those benchmarks and know, you know, the scary thing, I think, is when you're in that first phase, when you don't know if you're going to get somewhere where you're going to get and what it's going to look like and how you'll know when you get there.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:10 Yeah. There. Yeah. There are those certain things like that. You you need to make sure that you're hitting like, if I, if I'm just kind of spitballing here with you as to like the things that you need to make sure that you're, you're hitting, you got to make sure that you're generating clients.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:25 Right. You should get that have like, at least like one like referral source where you're regularly generating clients, not something where you're just randomly generating, but something where you're regularly generating clients. You got to make sure you got someone that's going to answer your phones, make sure you're managing the cash flow. I mean, you have to make sure that you that.

Jim Hacking 00:16:44 Your cases are being handled properly and in a timely manner, that you're closing out cases Pieces properly. You know, I took a long time before I was like, actually closing out cases. I like to just keep them open in case there was more to do or someone wanted to hire us. Again, just having good structures and systems and, and I think the best benchmark of all is if you're not doing everything when when someone tells me they're doing everything, that's just to tell that they're stuck in their control freaks.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:09 Yeah, the number of cases I remember. So I was in that suite with a lot of other attorneys for a while.

Jim Hacking 00:17:14 I remember.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:15 And the thing used to be like, how many cases do you do you have how many cases do you have? And it's such a misleading, a bad metric because what you just said, you might have a bunch of cases because you're not closing anything out. So you you sign up a bunch of cases and then all you, you've got this massive caseload that's swell, that's swollen, and you can't do anything with it because you've got so many of them and you've already been paid on some of them. So especially like people that do take money up front, you know, like they've been paid on the case. So they they're incentive to close it out. It's not great Right. Like we're like, the way you do it. I think you get paid a little bit up for, I don't know, but a little bit up front. You get paid some up front and then some at the end whenever you're closing it out. So you have an incentive to close that case out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:59 Like, I have a massive incentive to close the case out because I don't get paid anything. I'm going. I'm actually negative money until until we get the case settled. So. But other people like that, you may yeah, you may have a great massive caseload, but that doesn't mean shit like that doesn't mean anything. That just means that you're not closing cases out fast enough.

Jim Hacking 00:18:18 I think another benchmark in the scheme of things is when can I take a day off from the office and things keep moving? Oh, I like that. And then when can I take a week off without contacting the office? Like, that's those are some pretty big personal headspace kind of benchmarks, I think.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:35 How long it is starting your firm, do you think that you were able to do that, whether it's a day off or a week off or whatever? How long do you think it took?

Jim Hacking 00:18:44 When I showed up at Strategic Coach, I knew that I hadn't had a free day in like three years, so that would have been probably 6 or 7 years ago.

Jim Hacking 00:18:54 So that would have been that would have been ten years in. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I took vacation and stuff, but I was always checking email and talking to Adela and all that stuff.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:02 Yeah, I'm trying to think of like whenever I for the first time, like, I could probably take a day off and not call it, but like, if I'm. That's easy. Like a day off is easy, but.

Jim Hacking 00:19:12 You have to say. And things have to keep moving.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:14 Yeah, that's part two. That's the other part. They have a week off now, a week off it took jeez it because I'm not 14 years in technically now I'd say let's see I can go back to it was before it was before Covid probably like 19 or so 2019, 2018 like so it was like right before Covid and that was that was tough for me at the time. So would that have been like that would been nine years. So like nine years in eight years, nine years. So that's yeah I mean yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:43 And that's one of those things where you I don't know, like why do you think that took so long. Why do you think we knew? We knew what we should, should do and shouldn't do? So why do you think it took us? Took us so long? Well, for.

Jim Hacking 00:19:53 Me, I'm compulsive about signing up cases. So I always wanted to be bringing in more business. Because even though you hit those plateaus, you're still worried that, like you said, you said to me just right now, man, if we didn't sign up a case for a month or two around here with the size that we're at, we'd be in big trouble. So that's something that I don't think ever goes away.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:10 Yeah, I think that's part of it, too, to me. Like, I've always had this. A lot of it came from my dad, but a lot of it came from like just going to business school where they, they talked about the, the customers, everything. Which is interesting is like, that is not what lawyers are taught, like lawyers are like lawyers are taught, or at least they have the.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:29 I get the impression that lawyers think that they are everything and not customers or everything. So I always I've always had this thought like, okay, if a client's calling in or has an email, they need to be responded to right away. And so I think that's where a lot of my compulsion comes from. It's not necessarily getting the clients in. It's it's taking care of the clients. You have. So that part I've had to let go of quite a bit where like there was a, an email I did respond to earlier today where the client had emailed me three days ago whenever I was like near my sickest and I was, I just emailed, I was like, hey, I just want to let them know. Like I had not wasn't ignoring his email, just said, hey, it might be a few days before I get back to you. I'm at home sick with Covid, but I'll get back to you as soon as I can. It's like one of those things that kind of gnaw at me where like, I want to make sure that a client doesn't think that they're being ignored because that could that could easily happen sometimes.

Jim Hacking 00:21:17 It's all good, man. I wouldn't feel bad about that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:20 It's all good, man. I you know, it's funny about this topic. I feel like we talked very little about the topic, but I do think we there's a lot of other things that are relevant to whatever you're, you're trying to figure out if you've made it or not. And I think that there's I think I think there's a lot in here that I think will benefit people. If you're if you're worried a.

Jim Hacking 00:21:39 Lot of it's going to depend on what you paint your goals to be like, what you what you dream of and what you want to have. And I think early on when we started Maximum Lawyer, you and I were often saying things like, you've got to do it like this, you've got to be like us. But to me, where I really ended up after a couple of years, maybe 2 or 3 was where do you say you want to be? Where are you and how can we help you build that bridge, that gap? Or why aren't you where you want to be?

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:06 Yeah, but with that, where do you say you want to be? Right.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:10 We gotta we gotta ask that question. But then we also have to dig really deep and figure out, is that really what you want? Are you just saying that for because you think that that's the right thing you're supposed to be saying? Because there's a lot of that to where people say that they want something, they don't know why they want it, they just think that they want it. And that's something where I think that's something we deal with quite a bit in the guild, where people say that they want something sometimes they don't really want that. Sometimes they come to the conclusion that, oh, maybe I'm okay with where I am right now, and I just, I want something different. So that's that's something we've got to get to figure out sometimes too. I'm also looking forward to listening to this whenever I have a clear head, because I am, I am interested.

Jim Hacking 00:22:47 You'll be like, did I say that I was on medicine? I don't remember any of this business.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:51 No, I'll remember it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:53 I just I am interested to hear because I'm not thinking the clearest with with my, what's going on with me, but. Yeah. All right. Ready to wrap things up, brother? I am all right. I want to remind everybody to join us in the big Facebook group. We'd love to have you just search Maximum Lawyer on Facebook and you'll find us. And then if you want to join us in the guild, where our next quarterly mastermind will be in Vegas. So it would be great to have you join us there. Go to Max Law guild.com, and we would really, really appreciate it if you'd give us a five star review on Apple or wherever you get your podcast. It helps us spread the love to other listeners and other law firm owners across the country. Actually, across the world, we have people all over the world that listen to this, which is pretty cool. Jimmy, what's your hack of the week?

Jim Hacking 00:23:40 Reread books. You probably don't need more books. You probably just need to reread the good ones that you have.

Jim Hacking 00:23:46 So somebody asked on Twitter like the other day, what are the I was really excited about this. What are the books that you read more than once or that you read regularly? So I try to read Atomic Habits and Limitless and maybe traction, but definitely Limitless by Jim Kwik and Atomic Habits by James Clear. And so I tweeted those out and Jim Kwik had a real nice reply. So that made my day that he took the time to reply. I think both of them are really good about just getting your mind right and like if I'm in a slump or feeling down, those are both really good ways to get really small, incremental, practical ways to sort of turn things around. I had put down Gary Vaynerchuk Book Day trading attention, but I just got to the last section, section four, where he goes over all the platforms again like he did in jab, jab, jab, right hook. So I feel like I'm sort of reading a book again, but it's all updated, so anytime you can check in with the things that have helped you be successful, I think you'll get to a deeper understanding of concepts than you do just by bouncing to the next book.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:42 Yeah, there's a there's a few that I've already reread and like I would, I will. I'm going to I'm going to reread 33 Strategies of War because I think it's a it's a really good book.

Jim Hacking 00:24:50 Thinking Grow Rich. I've read probably 6 or 7 times.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:53 Yeah, thinking thinking grow Rich is another one that I've read a couple times, trying to think of some other ones that I've read. I don't know, it's one of the things my brain is not working the clearest right now, but there's yeah.

Jim Hacking 00:25:04 It's all good.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:05 The 12 week year, I read a couple times, which I thought was a it's a really good one.

Jim Hacking 00:25:08 Yeah, we were on a big kick for that for a while.

Speaker 4 00:25:10 Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:11 And it's funny because like what's really interesting about 12 a year, if you look at a lot of these other other programs, for lack of a better word, a lot of their principles are based. I don't know if they're based on the 12 week year, but the 12 week year is a big component of all of them.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:25 The way they break down the goals and everything. So I think, I think it's really interesting how that applies to so many different books.

Jim Hacking 00:25:31 Ultimate sales machines. Another one you and I have read a couple of times because we love it so much.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:35 Oh yes. That's yeah, I love Ultimate Sales Machine. I cannot believe he's dead. Chet Holmes that's just it's a sad. That's a that's a loss lost to the business world. He's just like, just simple things. Like there's a chapter in there where he's got the concept of touch at once, like, if you could take that, that principle alone, touch it once and and apply it to everything that you do, you could shrink the amount of time that it takes you to do things just exponentially. Because think of how many times you touched that piece of paper, that one piece of paper that's been on your desk for, I don't know how many months, and that you keep coming back to it. If you just do something with that damn thing or that email or that that case, whatever, it would solve your solve a lot of problems.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:15 So I think there's just a lot of great wisdom in that book. So my I gotta explain mine a little bit. My tip of the week, if you find yourself saying, oh, I'm just kidding to something, you might want to rethink the things that you're saying. So sometimes you'll see people say something, right. They'll make a comment about something and they'll, they'll, they'll say it in a serious manner, and then someone will kind of call them on it. They'll challenge them on it a little bit. I won't say call them, but challenge them a little bit. And then the person said, oh I'm just kidding. So either you don't really believe in the things that you're saying, or you're not wanting to stick up for the things that you're saying or that you're talking about. So try not to say, oh, I'm sorry, or I'm just joking. If you really mean the things that you're saying, and if you find yourself kind of backing off those things you're saying, maybe you shouldn't, maybe should rethink some of the things you're saying.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:03 So I, I've been noticing that a lot lately on lots of interview shows where someone will say something and then they'll back off of it, even though they, they initially meant it and then they back off of it. So like if you if you mean something, say it and stick to it. Right? Don't apologize for it. There's no need for that. Don't say you're joking. Just stick with it. So that's my tip of the week. And it's one of the things like Jimbo I couldn't imagine you doing that. I just don't I if you mean something, you usually stick to it. Just like you're going to say, oh, I'm just joking. So, but.

Jim Hacking 00:27:34 I have been thinking. I have been thinking about just saying less. I'm in a spot right now where I just feel like saying less. So that's.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:39 Interesting. I think that that's I think that that's important too. Or just not having an opinion on something like that or share it. That is one of those things where like, you don't have to have an opinion on something.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:48 Yeah, that's the other thing. Yeah. Oh Kirk Herbstreit was talking with us today. He goes he said, you know I feel like that, you know has grown up. You weren't supposed to talk about religion, sex, politics. But now I feel like that's what everyone that's all they're talking about. And I think that's true. Like yeah, yeah, you don't have to share your opinion on everything, you know, and you don't have to have an opinion on everything either. So both valuable lessons. So say les I like that. That's good. All right Jimbo, this helped cheer me up a little bit. So I appreciate.

Speaker 4 00:28:17 It. Good I'm glad.

Jim Hacking 00:28:18 Buddy I hope you're feeling.

Speaker 4 00:28:19 Better. Thanks, man.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:20 I'll see everybody later.

Speaker 1 00:28:23 Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. To stay in contact with your host and to access more content, go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.