This Habit Unlocks Hockey Stick Growth

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Are you a busy law firm owner who doesn't have much time to think about the success of your business? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson explores the transformative power of setting aside dedicated time for deep thinking and proactive problem-solving within law firms. Drawing inspiration from organizations like NASA and SpaceX, he encourages law firm leaders to regularly schedule uninterrupted time to strategize, test, and implement solutions.  

Prioritizing time to think as a law firm owner is very important to ensure you run your business successfully. Tyson shares some insights on why setting time aside to think is challenging but important. Most times, a lot of people are multitasking and trying to get multiple things done in a short amount of time. Though this might be your reality, it is important as a law firm owner to put time aside to think about how things are going for your firm. Especially if you are wanting to make your firm better. You need to think about how that will happen. If you take dedicated time to think about it, you can bring it to your team to get ideas flowing and start working towards that idea or goal.

Thinking time needs to be scheduled and communicated to your team in order for it to work. Figure out the time of day where you are the sharpest. Maybe it's a 1 hour block in the morning, a quick 20 minute block in the early afternoon or right before bed. Decide what time works best for thinking and put it in your calendar. It is crucial to communicate this thinking time to your team so they don’t disrupt it to ensure you can focus. Also, any ideas that come from this dedicated thinking time should be provided to your team so they know what you are expecting of them.

Listen in to learn more!

2:26 The Challenge of Prioritizing Thinking Time
5:45 Proactive Problem-Solving vs. Reactive Management
13:42 Scheduling and Communicating Thinking Time
16:43 Common Traits of Successful Law Firms
18:51 The Power of Focused, Uninterrupted Problem Solving

 Tune in to today’s episode and checkout the full show notes here. 

Creators and Guests

Host

Tyson Mutrux

Tyson is the founder of Mutrux Firm Injury Lawyers and the co-founder of Maximum Lawyer.

What is Maximum Lawyer?

Maximum Lawyer is the podcast for law firm owners who want to scale with intention and build a business that works for their life.

Hosted by Tyson Mutrux, each weekly episode features candid conversations with law firm owners, business experts, and industry leaders sharing real strategies and lessons learned in the trenches.

If you're ready to grow your firm with less stress and more support, this is your next must listen. Subscribe today.

Tyson Mutrux 00:00:01 Good morning and welcome back to Maxwell Lawyer. I am really, really excited about this episode. I apologize for the voice. My, I don't know what's going on with me. Yesterday, I started having a little bit of a headache. And then, this morning, I've got this voice issue, so I'm hoping it's not something serious, but, I do want to talk about today. Today is an interesting one. It's more of a thought experiment than I think. Anything else? Well, part of it is, I guess part of it's a thought experiment. part of it is, talking from experience a little bit, but I, I really want to, like, start by asking the question, like, what if you gave yourself time to think? And what I mean by that is because I've talked about this in the past, and I've talked about it whenever with regards to the 12 year I used to do this thing where every Monday I set aside three hours. It was in the afternoon and it was just thinking time.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:06 Everything was shut off. No cell phone, no computer. It was me and a whiteboard. And there was a lot of power in that. There was there were many ideas that came out of that. And over time, I. I gave less. I've given less and less. time to thinking. Not that I don't, not that I don't strategize, but not like that. And it really got me. What really triggered this thought for me yesterday was I was thinking about there was some there was a video with that came on for NASA. And then it got me thinking about space, and I bet NASA and SpaceX, and then whatever, whatever the Amazon version is, I can't remember the name of that one, but I'd imagine they probably have dedicated teams just to thinking and testing and thinking and testing and thinking and testing. And what if we did the same thing with our firms? Right. Like, I mean, and it was interesting whenever I thought about that, it was very it kind of unlocked me a little bit.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:26 It was like, wow, think about how much faster we can go. Not that the not that speed is always the thing, but speed is a big component when it comes to growth and dealing with competition and all that. And so what would happen if your firm is with with your firm if you at the helm said, you know what I am, I'm going to set up actually, let's just start really basic. Let's just let's just say you set aside the time three hours a week just to think. Just to think. I mean, that's that's a big ask. These days, I think that's a really big ask. I was talking to Tyson Mutrux yesterday, and he was he was talking about how, like back in the day, he and I had this really great phone call. He said he was somehow back in the day, you know, you'd be able to just you could I mean, you could multitask. Everything's like multitasking these days and like, but back then it's like, you know, you could do one thing and didn't feel like you're giving up, you know, 20 other things, but you have so many options for your time these days.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:36 And by the way, Gary put so much better than I'm putting it right now. But you have so much, so many different things you can do these days that, you know, taking, taking time to really do anything is a really a massive commitment because you're giving up so many other things. And so taking aside three hours of your week, That's a pretty big ask of a lot of people. And I and I completely understand that. What I'm asking is, is a big ask. But let's say you started with that. But then let's say you had a team that all they did was they come up with ideas, they test the ideas, they implement the ideas. It's all they did. Like, think, like and think about how much growth and improvement you would get in your firm. And when I was starting to think about that, I mean, like, okay, you because we've been doing something when it comes to our, our leads like really dialing dialing in our leads. And so every week we meet about and this has to do with SEO and has to do with ads.

Tyson Mutrux 00:04:45 And so we each meet, each week we meet, we dial in the ads a little bit more, dialing in a little bit more. And we're starting to see that hockey stick growth is what we're looking for. it's what we're getting, which is which is great, but that's because we were taking time to focus on it. And but if you take each component so like that's that's near the beginning. Right. Of the whole process for a case. Now think about what if you what if you did that with your sales team, whatever you call your sales team, your intake team. And then all right let's let's okay. What let's do this with HR. All right. how are we dealing with our people? Like, how can we do better? How can we get more performance out of them? Like, you're you're thinking about all of these different things, like, how can we make sure that turnover stays low? How can. Or maybe you've got a turnover issue. How can we solve for turnover.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:45 and you get into cash flow okay. We have cash flow issues. How do we solve this cash flow problem. So you're you're just thinking, right? You're just thinking. Or let's say you go, you are like with personal injury firms. I at least with my firm, I look at average fee quite a bit. It's a pretty good indicator. So maybe your average fee is dipping. Or maybe your average fee is not growing as much as you would like for it to. Okay. How do we solve for that problem? average fee I think can apply to any firm though, so. Or maybe you're an estate planning firm. You think things are taking too long, right? You're what you're doing is you're solving for all of these issues. And as opposed to what usually happens. We typically deal with the issue as best we can, right? We try to address it the best we can. A lot of times they kind of sit there for a little bit. Right. They'll they'll just kind of sit over in the corner broken.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:45 Maybe. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe it's just kind of limping along. And then one day it completely breaks and then you're in freaking chaos mode where you're trying to triage the situation. And so instead of that which is just a nightmare scenario, what if you actually were solving you, you just had a team just solving for these issues? I think it's a really interesting I and I'm not by the way, I'm not saying it's reasonable for you to go out and hire a team of people to go out and do this. This is where the thought experiment comes in. I think part of this is I want you to to actually set aside time to think. I think that's part of it. I need to do a better job of it. And I'm going to I'm going to do a better job of it and set aside more time for this like I used to. But the part of the other part of it is, is the thought experiment. Okay. because to try to unlock some of those ideas and if you, if you are in a situation, let's say you are in a financial situation to hire more people to test and to implement, because I'm lucky enough to have a team of tech people that can actually do this stuff.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:54 So that's that's where I'm, I'm actually when it comes to the tech part of things, I am. We are in that position, which is really, really I'm very, very lucky to be in where we've got these team of people that can take these wild ideas that I have sometimes and go and build them and implement them. I think that's pretty amazing. But that's that doesn't solve all of our issues. Tech doesn't solve everything. We've got many other things that are that we're dealing with when it comes to law firms. We were talking about, you know, ethics issues. You're talking about human issues. You're talking about tech, legal, marketing, everything that you can think of when it comes to running a law firm. So you can't just have a tech team solve all those. Right. You're you. Maybe what you do is each one of your business units. Okay. So think about each team, right. Think of them as like business units. Maybe they set aside time to think, and maybe they set aside time to test and then implement.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:58 Like think about how much improvement you might have on your on your in your entire firm. If each of your business units was actively thinking, testing, implementing. Thinking, testing, implementing. Think about how much progress you might have when it comes to that. But this is something that it takes patience. This is something that it takes understanding. As law firm owners, we have to be willing to allow our people to do it. That's one of those things where we have to get over that because we have deadlines, we have emails, we have client calls, we've got trials coming up. We get things out the door. Maybe you have a statute of limitations. So doing these things, it's hard. But maybe all of those things, those deadlines, those emails, those clients, those trials, those sets of limitations coming up, maybe those don't become as big as issues going forward, because you're solving for those issues in advance. Another way of putting it is they don't ever become an issue, because you're already solving the issue well in advance.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:15 It's a different way of looking at it. It's very proactive thinking as opposed to reactive thinking. And when you think about it that way, that is that is a game changer. Okay, I hate using that term unless it applies. And in that situation, if you are going on offense by proactively setting aside the time to solve for these issues well in advance, that's a game changer. Like think about how much energy and resources go into all of this whenever you're being reactive as opposed to proactive. That is a massive, massive change in the mindset. Massive change in mindset. I'll give you like, reframing. I'll give you a great example. Another reference for my colleague Gary Falco was yesterday. So, Gary was talking about how he was, he was at this, I think it was a conference. It was what it was. And he was watching this person speak, and they were asked about sales. and it was this real estate, this realtor out in New York City. He's got a show, and it's Ryan, something I can't.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:29 And Gary told me the name. I can't think of their last name. It's a really famous person. Those of you that are, watching or listening, you probably know what I'm talking about. They said it's not sales. it's it's solving problems. It's problem solving. And I've heard it said a different way before, but it is so true. So if you were like, let's say you were to set aside. Set aside some time with your intake sales team, and you were to work on that. Okay. Leslie, just set aside time to work on that one thing. Okay. How do we reframe this? This is not sales. We're problem solving for people. So what does that look like? And when he said that to me, it really that that unlocks some things for me. I'm thinking like so true. So right. Okay. So maybe what we need to do with our, our team is like, talk about what that looks like. I'm kind of envisioning. So we get so many calls.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:30 We probably turned down 80 to 90% of the people that call just that's just the nature of the business. And but what do we do with those 89, 90, 80 to 90%? Like how do we help them solve their problems? And how does that lead to maybe more referrals to the firm? Or maybe how does that lead to, I mean, employee satisfaction, right? Them, them knowing that they're helping somebody. So I don't feel like I'm trying to convince somebody to sign a piece of paper. I'm instead, I'm I'm trying to find the best solution for this person, no matter who they are. That's that. That's going to bring a pretty high level of job satisfaction, as opposed to what you might get whenever the person is just trying to sell somebody completely different. But you don't solve for those issues unless you set a time. Set aside the time to think about it. Right. I think that this is, it's a really, really big deal. Okay. So I wonder, like, when was the last time you scheduled time to think about anything for your firm? So you're you.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:42 I mean, I'm talking about you actually setting aside the time you say, hey, I want to set aside the time to think about intake, And I'm going to do it next Tuesday at 3 p.m. for two hours. Okay. To me, that'd be the worst time of day to do it. Probably because I by then I've already kind of worn myself out, so I'd probably wouldn't like a morning a morning session, but either way, whatever works best for you. Maybe it's a nighttime thing where you you go into your basement, you pull out the whiteboard or, just a notepad and you start writing, right? You just start start trying to think through the issues, but don't skip a step. I want to say, if you do something like that, and I'm not saying you should do this in a team or not doing a team, but if you do it individually, a big, big issue I see with people is it's all in their head or on their notepad and they never communicated to the team.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:41 So if you do do some of that, make sure you condense it down and then pass it on to your team, okay. I think that that is a failure in leadership if you do it, that if you don't do that okay. So make sure you do that. But okay so I and I want to I want to get back to the SpaceX thing and the NASA thing. and like how they, how they treat problems. And, so you pretty much everything that you deal with when it comes to NASA and, space and and space is it's an engineering puzzle. Okay. it's not philosophical. It's it's very much, by the numbers. they're looking at everything from an engineering component. so it does make me wonder, like. All right, so if we have the data, many, many, many of us have the data in our systems. We just have not found a way to unlock it or we don't know what to do with it. But if you. What if you were to in this.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:49 I'm just giving you this as an alternative way of thinking about it. For those of you that think in this manner, okay, maybe. Maybe you're not like the touchy feely type where you're, you know, it's all frou frou and, you know, maybe you're not the, you know, these, you know, you're you're the type that says, oh, therapies for. Yeah, I'm, I'm too tough for therapy or counseling, that kind of stuff. Right. Let's say you're, you're just that type and you want more of like the crunching, the numbers and all that. View this as an engineering problem. Okay? Whatever the issue is, it view it as an engineering problem. Okay. Look at the numbers. Look at the data. Whatever the data shows, you analyze it and try to solve it that way. I think I think having different ways of viewing it is helpful for different for different people because we're not all the same, you know, we're all different. We approach things differently.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:43 there's no one way to run a successful law firm. There are many ways of running a successful law firm, and there are many ways of running an unsuccessful law firm. There are certainly some trends and some some things that are consistent. Common trends themes. When it comes to firms that run successful law firms. There's also very common themes and trends for firms that run on successful law firms. I'd be willing to bet that the a common theme or. I would be willing to bet that firms that set aside time to think and problem solve in advance are probably among the lead firms, as my guess. and that's that's something that, I'd love to figure out. I'd love to hear from you. If anybody does set aside this time and you've had success in your firm, I'd love to hear from you because I'd shoot me a shoot me a text because I would love the cell phone numbers in the in the show notes. Shoot me a text. I'd love to hear from me because I want to know what you do.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:49 I think it's very interesting because I think that'd be very helpful. And and maybe if you've got something really interesting talking about, we can have you on the show and talk about it, because setting aside that time to think, I can only imagine it the it would lead to some of the, the most elite firms there are. And what happens is, as many of us probably do things like this early on, like I've done in the past, and we just get so busy and we've got so much going on that we just stopped doing it. We we don't prioritize it. But I think the reality is, is that if you have these companies like SpaceX, like they don't rely on accidental insights, they don't. This is all the the engineering is engineered like the thinking is engineered. And they they see these massive gains in growth and they see these they solve these almost impossible problems. That's not by accident. This is not by accident. It's something that they have done because they've set aside the time to do it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:51 There's intentionality in it. And if we can do the same thing with our firms, or if they can do that with space, we can do the same thing with our firms. We're not trying to get to Mars, okay? We're not, but we does. It doesn't mean we don't. We don't face big issues that we have to solve. we all have the intake bottlenecks and case delays and we have we there's some volatility sometimes with our employees, whether it doesn't matter if you're a small team or a giant team, it really doesn't matter. We all have these issues that we have to solve. And sometimes if we just get a notebook, you will sit in a quiet room for a few hours. We can solve some of those issues, especially if we're doing it on a consistent basis. Like just imagine if you had just two uninterrupted hours to solve just one problem. Let's say you just walked in there, said, have I gotta solve for this one problem? And me having two hours of complete, uninterrupted time? No phone, no computer, just a notepad.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:50 You and a notepad or you and a whiteboard. Just think of how many problems you could solve. Just what if you just solved one problem a week? Pretty good, pretty good. 52 problems a year. Pretty good. It's not too bad. It's a pretty good result. especially you as the leader. I think that's pretty good. So, something to think about. Just remember to test. Okay, so a big part of the this is that the thinking is one part of it that's theoretical. There's the testing part of this okay. so you're not thinking forever about one issue. You're thinking, testing, thinking, testing, thinking, testing. Because you have to at some point implement you have to launch. So that's the part that I want to make sure I emphasize to you is make sure you go and you launch it. Okay. Or I mean, if maybe you you test, you realize this is a bad idea and you abandon it. So you really got to get to that point where you're testing, you're thinking, you're testing, and then either you're going to go back to thinking about it a little bit, testing again, and then you're either at the launch.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:59 Either ship it or abandon it at some point. That's what you got to do. So ship or abandon. Put put some sort of a time limit on yourself. Okay. that part I think is really, really important, so. All right. thanks for listening to me. Sort of, think out loud. This is one of these episodes I didn't script. This is one where I wanted to just kind of think about it. I had my thoughts out as to how I, how I wanted to approach some of these things. But, it's one of the things that I. I didn't fully script this one out. I didn't fully outline this one out. I just wanted to kind of get some thoughts out. I thought this was an interesting, mental exercise to go through, but I think I'm on the right track when it comes to this. I think I'm on the right track. When it comes to set aside, setting aside the time, it's gotten me thinking a lot about, you know, what I've done in the past when it comes to setting aside the time to think.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:01 and so test it out, let me know. Let me know what you think. think, test and implement, and let me know how it goes. But just want to remind everyone, so we do have the Phoenix Mastermind and Wellness workshop and a couple weeks pretty. I mean, it's this is what I'm most excited about up to this point, I think really, really excited. I just love the Phoenix area. We usually go to Scottsdale, but we're actually having it in Phoenix this year. we found a different venue that we're going to have it out. So we're going to test. We're going to test that out. That's all the things we're going to do. And this one's going to be really cool. I mean, we got we got a hike in, included. We literally like, we're going to be doing yoga. There's all this stuff. because running a law firm, as you know, it's not just it is not just, you know, number crunching and handling cases. It is all aspects of your life, right? All facets of your life.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:56 They're all tied together, especially when you're running a law firm. You're the head of a law firm. It's all tied together. Parenting is is is wrapped into this. You, you you have maybe you have a fight with your spouse and you go to work. And that affects everything else that day. Like there is so much into it when it comes to running a firm. And so, so I'm really excited about this one. This is one where we're testing that. We've never done one like this. We're going to see how it goes. I'm very excited about though. This is we're we're designing things that we want to do. And I'm hoping that if it's something that if we want to do it, you're going to probably want to do it. So that's why we're doing it that way. So and then so if you're interested in that, go to Maxwell Events comm, a couple there's, there's, I mean, you don't have much time left, but, Max law events comm. Check it out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:44 I'm super excited. I can't wait to go. I'm. I just it's it's going to feel like a vacation, I think to me, so super excited. Even though even though those weeks are really busy for me. It's going to feel like a vacation because it's just beautiful out there. But. And then check out Becky's list. Becky's Co that we've we've put a lot of time and effort into that. And that's something that is it's just it's free for attorneys. It's designed to, you know, help us share love when it comes to, which vendors are good, which vendors are bad, who here's who to look out for, who's here's who you should really hire for. You know, you name it. So that's what it's for. But Becky's list I co, have a wonderful week everybody. That's all I have. And we will be seeing you see everybody.