In today’s episode we’re throwing it back to one of Jim and Tyson’s top ten episodes: Burning the Boats.
Jim and Tyson talk about the importance of being committed to your project.
Hernán Cortés was a Spanish conqueror. He was trying to conquer Mexico with only 600 men, and when he got there and saw how huge the enemy was he realized that the only way they were going to do such thing was if his army knew that there was no way back, no turning back. So he burnt the boats. He is the first person to conquer Mexico.
Commitment. Commit to your firm. Running and building your own law firm is hard, so if you’re going to be half in, in the long run you’ll do yourself and your client a disservice. If you are not committed to building a well oiled machine that functions properly and that all the things that a healthy law firm needs to do, you can’t double in this, you can’t be half in.
If you don’t have work to do, you need to be generating work. It is not OK to stay at home half of the day because you don’t have any work. Work hard, get clients. Hussle.
Hacking’s Hack: A podcast and a blog: http://www.lessdoing.com/, dedicated to outsourcing and finding people to do tasks for you and to make your life more automated. More optimized.
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Transcript: Max Law Rewind: Burning the Boats
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm 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.
Jim Hacking
Welcome to the show. So maximum lawyers, Tyson, I wanted to hop on real quick and give you an intro to this new concept we have going called
Tyson Mutrux
Maximum lawyer rewind.
Jim Hacking
There we go maximum lawyer rewind. This is a brilliant idea. From our very own Becca Eberhart and Tyson, they come up with a lot of good ideas. And one of them is that we want to bring you some of our best episodes, some of our favorite episodes. And I haven’t seen the list of what those episodes are. But I sure want to make sure that law firm Roulette is on the list, because that’s one of my all time favorite episodes.
Tyson Mutrux
Jim has not seen the list because he’s not completed his portion of it. But i i The first one I picked was the roulette. So, website roulette, it was the very first one that I picked. And I picked a few other ones. And there’s some really, really good ones in there that I had completely forgotten about. And Jim, so you need to finish the list. And so that people can can listen to the rest of our top 10 Maximum way rewind episodes. Alright, I’ll do it. Alright, enjoy everybody.
Jim Hacking
Welcome back to the maximum lawyer podcast Tyson. How have you been?
Tyson Mutrux
I have been busy, very busy, but it’s been good. How about you?
Jim Hacking
Well, I have friends in town over the weekend. So I haven’t gotten much work done. I’m feeling a little bit under the gun. But I’m glad we’re recording this week’s show. So what are we talking about today?
Tyson Mutrux
Sunday, we’re talking about taking the leap, burning the boats really just committing you kind of summed up in one word is commitment, because I wanted to talk about burning the boats. And you said, you know, so commitment. I said, yep. And so basically what I’m talking about now, probably to this guy’s name up but it’s Hernan Cortes, and he was a Spanish conquistador. So he was a conqueror. And he was trying to conquer Mexico of all places, and he had only had 600 men. And I think it was like 11 ships. And so he got them what convinced all these guys to get on the ships, said, we’re going to conquer this land, and there’s lots of riches, gold, silver. And so they get there. And he’s only got 600 men, and he’s against a huge opponent. And he’s thinking, you know, what, the only way we’re going to do this, if these guys know that, there’s no way there’s no turning back. And so what he does is he says, burn the boats. And sure enough, He’s the first person to conquer Mexico, and I think 600 years, and it’s was 600 men. And so I think that’s what we’re gonna talk about is something that made me think about it as people that they kind of do the practice part time. And there’s a variety of ways of doing it. But some people work another job part time, and they’ll start your law firm part time or another more common way is they will, our time will actually run their firm, but they’re looking for a job. And I think that’s the more common way because they’re not fully committed to the firm. So they’re not going to invest in the firm can invest time in the firm money. So that’s the more common way. And you’ll you’ll never have a successful firm either way, because you’re not committed, you’ve not completely jumped in on the idea of your firm is going to succeed.
Jim Hacking
So this is hard. Running a practice as hard. Running your own law firm is hard. Finding clients building up a practice is difficult, difficult work. In fact, other than parenting, I think it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. So I think that the idea that someone could be in this sort of half assed is really misguided, I think that you’re really going to do yourself a disservice in the long run. And you’re going to do your clients a disservice that if you’re not committed to building a well oiled machine that runs well, that functions properly. And that does all the things that a healthy law firm needs to do. You can’t dabble in this, you can’t be in it halfway. You can’t be running a little practice on the side and thinking about trying to find a job. I think if you want to find a job, that’s just fine. I think you need to be devoted completely and utterly to finding that job. I think splitting your time running a traffic court and doing a will for your cousin’s neighbor is not going to cut it.
Tyson Mutrux
No. And I think another thing and this is a quite a commitment issue. It’s more of a just I don’t know if it’s laziness or whatever it is, but if you don’t have work to do, you need to be doing other things to generate business, whether that’s networking, whether that’s writing a blog post, whether that’s shooting a video, whatever it is, it is not okay to stay at home half the day just because you don’t have any work. It’s just not okay. Your firm will not succeed. You and I work very, very, very hard. And a lot of people that run their firms were very, very, very hard. And we we get clients, because we’re always hustling, and it’s a hustle thing. And so that’s part of the commitment is, you can’t just, oh, you know, I don’t have any clients and pout around and do nothing about it. You’ve got to commit, you’ve got to burn the boats, no turning back. Otherwise you don’t go work for somebody, you’ll get a government job, maybe that’s more your thing. And that’s okay. If that’s your thing, then that’s your thing. But if you’re wanting to run a law practice, you can’t think that way. You got to go in full bore.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, and I don’t think it’s a laziness
Tyson Mutrux
thing. And I don’t know how to explain it. It’s,
Jim Hacking
it’s, I think it’s a malaise that settles over the person, I think that if I were going out on my own again, and I didn’t have a lot of clients, I think you’re absolutely right, I’d be hustling, and doing everything I could to find clients. But at the same time, I think there’s just something inherently beneficial about leaving the house, going to a dedicated place where what you do is law things, you know, and I think you have to develop a vision of something bigger than your immediate needs. And I think that, you know, it’s hard and it can be overwhelming, and intimidating to think that you’ve got to find all these clients. But really, it’s one client at a time, one word at one, you know, one good word, one referral at a time, doing a good job for somebody. And you definitely have to take the long term view, and not be overwhelmed by the enormity of not having any clients,
Tyson Mutrux
you said two things that I really want to touch on, I think they’re both very important. So one of them was being in that environment, where people are working doing legal work. And so whether that’s some sort of incubator, whether that’s some sort of Office sharing kind of thing, which which is great. It’s a great way of generating business. That’s one thing you said. And then the vision is another thing. And with that are goals, I remember when I first started my firm, I actually have one goal. And that was the amount of money I want to make per week. And that may sound really shallow. It’s all about money. That’s not what it was. I knew what my salary was before starting my firm. And I knew what I needed to make to support my family because I had a kid and a wife. And so I set a weekly goal of how much money I wanted to make, so that I could support my family. And so what I did was I just, if I had not hit that goal, and I tell the story all the time, I had not hit the goal, I was on the phone, calling clients that owed me money. And I hit that goal every single week for the first two years, every single week for the first two years. And I remember the first week I didn’t hit it, I was devastated. Because it meant that much to me. And so I in a little bit of time, I raised that goal incrementally, incrementally. I don’t do that goal anymore, get different goals, because I do my personal injury. And I’m not settling a case every single week. But there are different ways of doing it. So I think goal setting is very important. And you and I are both into goal setting at a much higher level now than we were before. I think we’re both believers in the the 12 week year system. I think it’s just you got to develop that vision. And I guess, bring it full circle, you developed that vision. And at the time, I was just supporting families what it was, and then you grow that vision over time. And then you set your goals to get to that vision.
Jim Hacking
Yeah, I think that there’s something inherent about being around other people being around success. You know, I think that you know, everything I know about marketing, I’ve learned myself and it’s been through listening to podcasts, I didn’t take a business class in college, I didn’t. I’ve never taken a marketing class. And I think that a lot of this stuff is available for free. I mean, if they’re basically if there’s anything you don’t know how to do, you can get on YouTube, or get on a podcast and teach yourself it. So you’re absolutely right, that when you don’t have a lot of time, or when you don’t have a lot of clients, you do a lot of time. So you got to use that time wisely. You know, another thing, an interesting point that you you mentioned, I heard a podcast a while back with it’s a lady, she runs a blog, and a podcast for parents who run a business. And she has this theory that great entrepreneurs are born when a child is on the way and that that is something that spurs you to action in a way that is different than anything else. And so I think that when you’re single, or when you’re married without any kids that you sort of, you know, I wouldn’t say fart around but you waste a lot of time and you’re having fun and that’s great. I’m all for that. But I think that that clear level of focus really comes into play when either child’s on the way or it’s just come and so you know it’s not lost on me that you know, I went out on My own when my wife was pregnant with our third son in five years. And so, you know, we both started our practices at a time that some would say, we’re vulnerable, you know, we have more mouths to feed and more things to worry about. But I just think that that, in and of itself, is a great boat burner.
Tyson Mutrux
It’s a huge motivator. It’s huge is something where you know that if you’re not bringing in the money, because you don’t have a client, you have got to start hustling. I mean, it is it’s a it’s a fear like no other. Because I mean, the last thing you want to do is have to call your parents, hey, by the way, you know, things aren’t going well, can we move in, I had an added burn the boats features, my family lives in Colombia. So they’re, they’re a couple hours away. So I’m not saying like, I can go to their acid stay at their house. So we’re kind of out on an island out here, no family around here. So it’s, it’s one of those things where I had, I had no other choice, I definitely had to hustle on some of you. And one
Jim Hacking
of the things that sort of started this topic for us was the you were telling me about a fellow that you know, who sort of dabbling in can you talk a little bit obviously, without, you know, breaking someone’s anonymity or something? But can you tell us a little bit about what, what’s going on?
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, cuz it really kind of bothers me, because I worry about him, because he’s a really good attorney. And I think I mentioned that too. He’s actually a really good attorney. And he’s a really good friend of mine. And he, he’s kind of gone back and forth between looking for jobs, having his own firm, and then he works for another company, that’s not a law firm job. He’s not working as an attorney in it. Any, he seems to generate really good business. But he can’t, he always has to refer out a bunch of cases and refer some to me, because he just doesn’t have time to do them. And so he’s got, luckily, he’s got very good flexibility with his job where you can always do with put in 40 hours, and so he can do it at any time, he doesn’t have to do it during work hours. But I just feel like he could be such a good attorney, I think he is a good attorney. But I think he could run such a good law firm, he would just commit if you just burn the boats, and you won’t.
Jim Hacking
So this is the eternal trap, the eternal trap of the golden handcuffs. And, you know, I think I’ve mentioned on this podcast before, you know, when you get into that situation where you’re depending on other people, for your clients, and you don’t have a real client base of your own, or if you’re, you know, if he’s dependent on a significant amount of his money coming from not practicing law, then it can make it almost impossible to move or to act or to change or to take that risk, because you feel in your mind that you’re gonna go from 70 or 80, or $90,000, a year that you’re making to zero. And of course, that’s not true, you’re not going to go to zero. But I think that it really is a trap that keeps a lot of people locked into something that’s probably not in their long term benefit. And in my mind, I didn’t want to be the guy who was 45 or 55, who had no clients, and I figured I’d rather do this sooner rather than later. And so that was really a motivator for me to start something completely new, and to cut the ties with the sort of professional life that I had before.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, and there’s always ways of generating business. I mean, I really, I always joke about this, but I think in St. Louis, at least you could fall out of bed and make $50,000 As an attorney, if you’re hustling, and I really, and there may be a lobby lots a lot of people may not be that much a lot of people stick is depends on whatever situation you’re in right now. But I really think if you wanted to start your own law firm, and you you’re networking, you’re hustling, if you’re working a full day trying to get in, bring in clients, you’ll do just fine, you’ll be just fine. It’s just a lot of it’s just about the hustle and committing to what you’re trying to do. And having a vision for your firm. I liked the you talked about the vision before because I think visions a very, very big part of it. And so as long as you you’re committing, you’re burning the boats, and you’ve got that vision, you’ll do just fine. And do
Jim Hacking
you think we’re being overly optimistic? Do you think we’re selling something that doesn’t really exist?
Tyson Mutrux
Not at all? Not at all? I think it is just a motivation thing. Why do you say that? Because I’ve talked to some of the people that you were in law school, you would have been like, there’s, there’s no way they’re going to do well, but there are people people, I guess, as a way to put it, and they hustle, everybody that that I know that hustles is doing just fine. And even the bad attorneys that I know that hustle are doing just fine. It’s all about the hustle and committing. That’s why I say that. Why would you say it?
Jim Hacking
Well, I mean, I’m just trying to play the devil’s advocate here. And I mean, let’s think about people that might be listening to this podcast and they’re saying, oh, yeah, Jim and Tyson, you might have pulled this off. But
Tyson Mutrux
well, let me let me say I’m gonna cut you off because if they’re saying that right now, I want you to look inside yourself and see if you’re doing everything. If you’re really doing everything you think you can And to make your firm’s exceed and I guarantee if you’re saying that you’re probably not sorry, go ahead.
Jim Hacking
No, no, that’s okay. I’m all for call outs. I mean, I do think that it’s, it’s tough. I think I think that it’s hard out there. I think it’s there’s a lot of competition, especially in certain practice areas. I think that it’s very competitive. And, you know, I think that a lot of people are struggling. But I think that there’s always room for improvement. I think that mindset is super important. And I think that one of the great benefits of burning the boats is that you tell yourself, there’s no going back, I’m not, I’m not going back to this life I had before. This is where I’m at, this is my future. This is for me, I’m not doing this for anybody else. I might be doing it for my family. But I’m doing it for our collective good, our family’s good, our desire to do better for an entire family. And so I think that if you go with that mindset, that it really can carry you through a whole lot of things.
Tyson Mutrux
I really think that though, where the real struggle comes in, it’s not the beginning, I think the struggle is whatever you’ve got, you’re starting to grow as a firm, you got a couple attorneys or a couple of assistants and things are starting to grow, I think that’s when it gets to the toughest. And if you have not, if you don’t, if you’re not taking the right strategy to grow, and you have a couple bad months, or a downturn in the economy, I think that’s where it gets the toughest. And I think that’s where some of the some of the firms are having problems because they need to trim the fat. But if you’re talking about a truly solo person, I think as long as your hustle, you’ll you’ll do just fine.
Jim Hacking
I mean, Tyson, I think there’s trouble and it’s hard at all levels. I think it’s hard when you leave, I think it’s hard when you’re trying to bring in business, I think it’s hard when there’s a lot of business that comes in it’s just a different set of problems. You know, my, my mother in law used to say about children, she’d say, little kids, little problems, big kids big problems. And I think that’s true for a business, you know, young, firm, young, from problems bigger, firm, bigger problems are different. It’s just different. There’s just a different flow to it. But you know, you’ve got to sort of move past this fear, this mindset that is keeping you from moving forward.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, I agree with you. I think part of it is what generates that is the fear, I think the fear is very powerful. And I think that the if you can harness that, in a way, kind of like what we were talking about, if you have kids, or whatever it is, you can harness that fear, it’s a motivator. And it’s not something that’s going to hinder you in the long run. Yeah, and I
Jim Hacking
think you have to surround yourself with people who are successful, you know, Jim Rohn, says that you are the average of the five people that you spend the most amount of time with. And if you’re hanging out with people who are griping and bitching and moaning about how hard life is and how hard it is to be a lawyer and how you know, there’s really no money in the line, and I can’t really do it, and blah, blah, blah, all these excuses, all this whining, then that’s the outcome you’re probably going to have. And at the same time, if you’re listening to podcasts that motivate you, that gets you going, that inspire you. And if you’re hanging out with people who are successful, you know, you never want to be the smartest person in the room, you want to be hanging out with people that know more than you that are smarter than you that have done it before. And so I mean, if I were a new lawyer going out on my own, I would try to interview as many successful lawyers who are doing what I want to do and model that I would, I wouldn’t be taking notes I have, I might even start a podcast about how to start your firm. Oh, wait a minute, I think somebody just did that. And I think that eventually, where you and I are gonna bring a lot of value at the next level with this podcast is interviewing other people, and getting them to explain the kinds of things they wish they knew when they started, how they burnt the boats, how they made the leap. And I think that that really brings things into focus for people. And I really think it’s a choice. I spent some time recently with a friend of mine who is a lawyer, he works at a big firm, and a lot of it, a lot of his mindset is really negative. And it’s like, I can’t wait to be done. The law sucks. You know, I’ve almost got enough money to retire. I’ll be really glad when I can. And I’m just like, life is too short. You could drop dead tomorrow, you have no idea what’s going to happen. And why would you want to walk through life like that? I just don’t see it.
Tyson Mutrux
And I think you nailed on so many good points out there. Getting your five people to surround yourself with their very successful people is a very key factor in your success. And another part of it, let me let me flip it a little bit. If you’re around those people like you’re talking about, they’re complaining all the time, run as fast as you can just just cut them out of your life. It’s, well I guess you can’t completely cut some people by your life but you want to avoid those people the best she can because they will drag you down into the trenches. ditches with them, and you need to surround yourself with positive people. And I know that sounds like a lot of Frou Frou Rostow but it’s true, it is absolutely true. Because if you surround yourself with those successful people guess what they’re going to do, they’re going to refer you cases because they’re going to have an overflow of cases. And then you are going to be tapped into that, that resource. And then you’re going to become that person, because you’re going to be with those top resources. And you’re going to refer people once you’re big enough here for them to other people. And people are going to look up to you. And so it really has this ripple effect if you can surround yourself with those people, oh, Tyson.
Jim Hacking
And there’s an energy that comes around PS. I mean, I know, I’ve mentioned this before, once every two months, I noticed this happening, a lawyer that I know, start to connecting with more people on LinkedIn. And then they send me an email and say, Hey, Jim, let’s go out to lunch. And they want to talk about going out on their own. And I just think that there’s no I’m not saying crystal fufu stuff, either. But I just think that people pick up on on the positivity and the success. And I think at the same time, I think when clients come in, and you’re, you know, maybe unshaven or, you know, just sort of meet at a coffee shop, I think that there’s just this energy that comes off, I think I think clients can smell desperation in an attorney 50 feet away.
Tyson Mutrux
It’s funny, because you can I think we’ve all had a bad client meeting or two. And it’s every time I’ve had a bad client years because I went into it unprepared. And so you think you’re right, they can sense it. They can totally sense when you’re not ready for it. And so they’ll start asking you questions, they’ll start digging a little bit deeper. And if you’re not on, you’ll lose the client. You just won’t get it. But we are getting close to time. And so I think that needs to kind of wrap it up. So do you have your hack of the week? Yes,
Jim Hacking
I do. Okay, it’s a new podcast, or it’s a new podcast. For me, I should say it’s called less doing. It’s a guy named Ari Mizel. He was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease several years ago. And he basically worked through medicine and exercise. And he’s really reduced the effects of it. And he’s developed a blog in a podcast that’s dedicated to outsourcing and finding people to do tasks for you and to make your life more automated, more optimized, and I’ve really been listening to it and gotten a lot out of it the last couple of weeks.
Tyson Mutrux
What’s the name of that company?
Jim Hacking
is less doing?
Tyson Mutrux
I wanted to start a podcast.
Jim Hacking
So yeah, he’s, he’s been on a couple times with Joe and Dean and that he was on last week with his partner. That’s right. That was a good, that was a good one. Yeah, I signed up for the service. I’m gonna I got my first consult on Wednesday, where basically what they do is they help you outsource stuff. And so they sent me this big infographic with all the different kinds of things that they can help. It’s really, to me, it’s a no brainer, it’s $129 One once a year, you pay that, and then they, they do work for you. They help you find the outsourcing or outsource for you. It’s $40 An hour and they build to the second so to me, it’s just sort of like, this makes total sense. For me. There’s a lot of things that I am doing that I don’t need to be doing that they’re going to help me outsource.
Tyson Mutrux
Alright, so the book I’m going to recommend is built to last by Jim Collins. It’s an oldie but a goodie. It’s always on I actually changed what mine was going to be based on what you said about vision. I think that if you want to build a company that’s going to last for decades, a century rebuilt last it’s really good. It’s as they talked about B hags big, hairy, audacious goals, audacious goals. It’s, it’s great. It’s a really good one. Basically, setting your your your goals extremely high. And then having having certain principles in place to make your company last. It’s really good book, but
Jim Hacking
it’s a great book. It’s a book that we should read about once a year is books that went in Good to Great are both just phenomenal, big picture books.
