The Culture Formula Nobody Teaches with Travis Howard

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you looking for some insights on how to create a healthy firm culture? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson interviews law firm co-founder, Travis Howard about his journey from corporate life to building a firm with a strong, authentic culture rooted in shared values, transparency, and conscious leadership. They discuss practical strategies for defining and sustaining company culture, managing ego, and fostering emotional intelligence. 

As a law firm owner who can control the culture of that firm, it is important for the culture to mimic that of the owners. It is important to take shared experiences of the owners and use those to design the foundations of the culture from that. You don’t want to create a culture that simply mimics that of another because you feel that is what your workers want. Using it as inspiration, you understand your own values and that of your staff and create something dynamic.

Travis shares some practices that enable growth for a firm. One practice is to be honest with each other about what the core principles are for the firm and follow them. For Travis, his firm still does formal reviews, which began at the start of the firm, to talk about things staff are displeased with and things they can do better. This really builds trust for staff and allows for open dialogue.

Listen in to learn more!

• 4:19 Building Law Firm Culture
• 8:08 Avoiding Toxic Culture
• 17:30 Unique Cultural Practices
• 31:27 Culture’s Role in Reputation and Trust 

• 35:21 Practices That Enable Growth
• 44:51 Introspective and Conscious Leadership

Connect with Travis:

• Website 
• LinkedIn 

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 00:00:00 So I find this really interesting. You've not taken a paycheck from anywhere that except for companies that you've helped start since 2009. So take us back to the moment when you first realized that I'm supposed to build something.

Travis Howard 00:00:17 Oh man. I think I actually knew that in late middle school and high school, but I didn't trust myself. but definitely coming out of college and going into Sun Microsystems, you know, 40,000 person in workforce across the world. And within 3 or 4 months, I realized that it was politics, politics, politics. And, you know, there's a place for it, and so be it. but I immediately knew that what filled me up with energy, having an idea, challenging somebody else's idea, being challenged back in a healthy environment was career suicide. I mean, I literally got walked out of a all hands meeting for our team by the the new manager and he's like, look, I love your spunk. He's like, but you're going nowhere. And he just looked me dead in the eye.

Travis Howard 00:01:15 And I was like, okay, so called. My mom bitched about it a little bit and she's like, well, great, now you're done with that. What are you going to do? And that was the day I actually decided to go to law school. which was interesting because I knew I wanted to be an attorney for entrepreneurs. And it was during law school when one of my good friends from high school called and said, listen, I started writing code for this auto software company. I don't know if it's going to be good. I want to take it to some dealers at a dealer convention, but I'm afraid they're going to buy it and I don't have it. Can you write me a contract that nobody will sign in their right mind that they're going to have to deliver to their attorneys. And I was like, I am totally. And I was like, I was too well. And I was like, yes, I can do that for you. I was like, but I have to do it for myself.

Travis Howard 00:02:06 And he's like, well, you're a part of the company. You're helping me found it. And I'm like, oh, well, then we're golden. So that was the day.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:13 So I need to hear the end of that story. What happened with that contract? Please tell me they didn't accept it.

Travis Howard 00:02:18 Yeah, nobody signed it. But 4 or 5 different dealership groups, took it home. That company ended up launching. It's known as Dealer's Link. Now, my partner Mike bought me out several years later when I was going into the cannabis industry, and. But we not before we had served Porsche, Hertz, some of the largest car dealership chains. And it's still he's got a closely held, privately held company that competes with fortune 500 in the auto software space. And it's a hell of a company, I can tell you that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:54 When you look at the culture from when you were at Sun Microsystems to to now, like, do you do you ever look at it and say, you know, there's certain things I like, certain things I didn't like? Or do you ever look at me like, okay, I want to completely avoid that type of a culture because because you all really pride yourself on culture.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:11 So how do you look at your time there when it comes to culture?

Travis Howard 00:03:16 I think it's interesting. I haven't thought about this in a long time. Tyson and I just I literally just had a visceral reaction when you said that. I remember raising my hand in a different meeting after one of the VP's came in from Silicon Valley and was preaching. I was in the Broomfield, Colorado campus, which was a gorgeous build. They had all their new people. It was in, you know, Boulder County, all the tech money rolling in. And this was 2001, 2002. the VP was talking and he said something about culture, And I raised my hand and I was like, but it can't just be your words. It has to be here in our office, too. And everyone was like, got quiet. Like, dude, you don't challenge the VP's. They're coming in. This is we're supposed to clap them. Job well done. And I think sun was an amazing company. I mean, they built Java, they were on Unix, they were open source in its early days.

Travis Howard 00:04:19 It was an amazing culture. And the people that I met when I came in in 2000 that had been there for 5 to 10 years, they reported things that I just never experienced. And, you know, I'm sad I didn't get to because Scott McNealy was an all rights, a tremendous CEO in the in the early days. But that company doesn't exist anymore, right? It was purchased by Oracle and it's gone because there was no actual Backbone of culture. There was no self. And I don't care if the company's 40,000 people or four people. The reason I'm proud of the culture at CCH is because it is literally an embodiment of Kevin and Tim. You know, I wasn't active in the firm when we founded it. I invested because I had the law license and I could and I supported them and their, you know, their first business. And guys were going to do board meetings. This is going to be what our iOS plan is going to look like, like come and report to me 90 days.

Travis Howard 00:05:22 Let's set goals. Let's make rocks. Basic business management stuff. But it was theirs and they were never afraid to say who they were and then build in that replica. And I think for me, culture, it's truly shared experiences. And then you design your business machine to manufacture those sorts of experiences when you're not being truthful from who you are, but you're attempting to build a culture of what you think your workers want or what the market wants to see. And you know, the famous one is ping pong tables and pizza breaks, right? Like that's all the memes are made about, because that's what people did after Google did it. Well, someone at Google, it was probably real for them. But you know, if you don't play ping pong and you don't eat pizza, but that's what you're shoving down everyone's throat every day as fun culture, it's just an integrity breach, right? And so that to me that's the culture. And that son I saw it. I like what you said wasn't what I experienced.

Travis Howard 00:06:28 This was a a joke, a running joke. I had the 6 a.m. shift because I did systems administrative support, and it had to be 24 over seven. So there were three shifts that ran around the world, and we transferred. We ran a shift, and then we transferred to Amsterdam, and then Amsterdam transferred to Tokyo. And it went like Around. And so I was there at 6 a.m. and I'd be walking in, you know, 545. 550 and there were, you know, bigwigs in the company that worked in the night shift, you know, probably how they got to be big wigs. I'll do the night shift. Well, their Ferraris and their Porsches and their everything were parked up in the front and the labeled for reserved for parking. But one of their cultures, you know, they preached we were all equals. We're like, we're it's all one team. And like we would joke, you literally remind me every day I'm about to get to work that I that that's not true.

Travis Howard 00:07:26 And it was that was the shared experience of the 6 or 7 of the RC, as we called it, the Resolution Center staff walking in every morning. And and that is what I took away from son. It doesn't matter what it is, it can be Gordon Gekko, you know, or it can be that, you know, coffee's for, you know, closers. Like, if that's who you are, then it's okay to have that be your culture. You just got to be upfront about it and, you know, stick to it and then build a machine that gives those if it's cutthroat. Dollar dollar bill, y'all. Hey, fine by me. But you gotta you gotta start from self.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:08 How do you prevent from becoming like son. And I know and I know that I mean you've got nice things to say. But you don't really want that culture. Right. So how do you prevent from, from having that that that culture creep in. Because there is it does seem like you all do a really good job of sharing the money.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:25 Right. And there's got to be some sort of temptation to, to say, hey, maybe we need to cash out a little bit more of this, and the owners should take a little bit more money in the piece of the pie. So how do you prevent that from happening? Because that's got to be a little that's gonna be tough sometimes.

Travis Howard 00:08:39 Yeah it is. And I think ultimately The way business building works in my mind, and what I shared with Kevin and Tim years ago, and what I'm codifying today inside the firm and in other places. It goes self, customer, machine and team. And you build in that order and it goes over and over and over again, and you go revisit the self to make sure that you've checked in. Who am I? How do I feel? What do I care about? What's important to me? And then what gift am I here to give? And then you realign and make sure that you're targeting and serving that actual guest that respects and has honor for the gift you're giving.

Travis Howard 00:09:19 Most of us will do that intrinsically, unless we go to chase a big shiny dollar bill or diamond or something out there that we're like, this could change my life. But those people traditionally either burn out, get divorced, addictions, or they write a book later in life about how they were short sighted and now they've figured it out again. So, you know, spoiler alert that doesn't usually pay off. I think for us in the culture, it's then the third component is the machine, and it comes before team. And there's a reason for that. Right. Like in my theory, your team comes last. And it's not because I'm a jerk, it's because it's the only proper way to serve them and take care of them. Because if you don't know who you are and you don't know what you have to give, and you don't know exactly who you're giving it to, then you can't build a machine that the people who want to work for you can fit inside and actually meet everything that's important to them and fulfill themselves.

Travis Howard 00:10:20 And I give this analogy you're a carpenter, Tyson, and you want to build me a house and I'm a GC and I say, I've pulled my own permits, I'm going to build this thing. I love this design. You're the best carpenter in the world. I want you to build this thing for me. And you are so excited to come to work on day one. And I gave you a screwdriver and, you know, a thumbtack, you would feel so unseen and alienated and disappointed. We have the same vision. You love the house. You love the build. I want the house when you build it. I'm gonna thank you and give you a hug and a bonus. And, like, it's all matched up, right? You want to do the job, the machine is wrong. And it shows that I don't have any respect for the thing. I actually want this house that you care about. And I don't have any respect for you as the worker who needs to use my machine to produce the gift that I want.

Travis Howard 00:11:12 The house in our business, our core values say we communicate well, like that's literally one of our four core values. So we give the PNL on the coffee room table every quarter, print it out in full. You want it? There it is. That's how we don't get tempted to be greedy, because our machine puts the profit every single month and it goes up and down and people know like, hey, that's a great month in March is going to be a great I've got a lot of years, you know, months left. It's a pie business. It's it's going to go. But as we start coming in towards the end of the year when it's real money and you're going to pay taxes, you're going to spend it, you're going to invest it. Whatever you're going to do, there's no room for us to change or to get greedy or wake up one morning, you know, with a with a tickle bug, because we've already built the machine to honor what we said was true.

Travis Howard 00:12:10 So there's nowhere for us to hide. And I think it's really important because even the people with the best intentions will, from time to time, have an off day or an off moment, or become selfish, or have a need, or have a big emotion and and do something snap. So build a machine that doesn't allow you to violate your values. That's actually see, when you talk, you ask me, how do you build the. You don't, you don't build. The culture is simply shared experiences. So what you build is intentional experiences that you desire over and over again. And it's amplitude and it's frequency, right? You can throw a ginormous party at Christmas time and give everyone a bonus check. That's giant amplitude. Feels really good, but people don't remember it for very long. Even though it went deep in because it was big. It can be something as posting silly photos of ourselves as owners on a Gchat that happens every day. Very, very small amplitude, very large frequency.

Travis Howard 00:13:20 Both are universally shared amongst our staff. Those shared experiences are the culture.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:29 It seems to me from talking to Kevin and talking to you, that you all have a very unique culture. It's, a lot of people talk about culture, and I've heard a lot of people talk about culture, and their culture is not what they say it is. I have zero doubt that your culture culture is what you say it is. I because I you all just kind of live it. And can you give us some advice to people that are wanting to kind of design their own culture? And because it does, it definitely comes from the owners, right? Yet the has to come from you all. The leadership has to, you know, come up with what the what means the most to you all and then convey that to your team. And you really got to live those values. So what advice do you all have to figure out what those values are for other people's firms so they can help? It helps them come up with their own culture that may work for them.

Travis Howard 00:14:20 Right? So when I and actually I do coaching with with people and I have a tool, it's on notion but it's just a, it's a simple workbook. And I at some point I probably just need to give it out for free to people so they can use because it's beneficial and it serves the purpose I want in the world. Happy workers go home and have happy families which build happy communities, right? And so it's really important when you're building the law firm and you're in any business, but certainly in the law firm where it's high stress and, and has in some instances a very good reputation, in some instances a very poor reputation. Right. We we have to own that. So you you start with your manifesto and you write it out what it is. And this is a simple this is like a rallying cry. I mean, I use the word manifesto because that is significant. And luckily with Kevin and Tim, they had become best friends and spent three years together in law school where there was a lot of seriousness and also a whole lot of fun.

Travis Howard 00:15:23 Right? And so their relationship was already built on that. And I saw the trust between the two of them. And I had Tim work at my dispensary that I owned in Boulder at the time. He worked the front desk on the weekends, so I saw the professional nature of him, and I knew my brother my whole life, his whole life anyway. And so I allowed them to move forward. And for them, what they were given out is Kevin was always the first one to step in front of anybody, picking on anyone or saying something negative about anyone, even if he had just been dog cussing that person. If some other person, hey, you don't have the experience, you don't know that about him. You're just saying that you need to go and ask him questions before you can say the things I said about him, like defending, like that was Kevin's personality. So you knew that Tim had humor and a really, really sharp wit. And Kevin was standing up for anyone under any circumstances and then dancing about it.

Travis Howard 00:16:27 It was like this. It was a duality of seriousness and pure fun. And if only one existed, it was going to be fun and humor. Both of those two guys agreed on it, like the the professionalism might fail, but we will never get to a place where we aren't going to have fun now. Losing for clients, money, your house, employees, your reputation is not traditionally fun. So luckily those two things go together. They have the the negative side and then the positive side. So for anybody else that's out there, like I don't know that they would we don't have a dress code. I mean, there are all the attorneys have dress clothes that are stored and that they can throw on if they need to. But, it just snowed in Denver and I saw some pictures of people in the office, and I'm talking about it looks like Christmas morning, like what people are wearing. And I mean it does. Slippers and the rest of it. It's. We don't care.

Travis Howard 00:17:30 That's part of the culture. do you answer the phone professionally? Do you speak to people honestly and with integrity and authentically? And all those things are. Yes. So even if a client pops by the office and walks in and sees their paralegal in a hooded sweatshirt and pajama bottoms, they're like, oh my God, you really are like, just as down to earth as what you what? I always thought you were right because it matches. Of course, it's very different in certain circumstances or, you know, a call to meeting. We're going to show up, you know, with a collar on. but ultimately, Tyson, it's it's people want to emulate something else, and you're just you're wrong. Right. From the the jump street. You need to lean into who you are. And if you're going to partner, make sure that you complement or that you respect each other for who you really are. We for those of us that have been married, this is a very similar circumstance. you might agree to avoid certain things.

Travis Howard 00:18:35 You might agree to push some certain things, you know, forward. We do that with our spouses and with our kids. Hey, you know, I know you feel that way, but let's make an agreement on this. you know, I was baptized Lutheran. My wife is Jewish. We had a conversation about religion before we decided to have kids. Seems practical. Same thing with your business partners. Now, how do I push that into a a culture? What is the most important thing? Take your manifesto that it should give you goosebumps when you're done reading it. This is why I'm put on this earth. This is why I'm assembling this tribe. This is what we're going to accomplish come hell or high water. And then these days, honestly put it into Claude, put it into GPT and say, based on this manifesto, can you extract five core values? And it will. And then you'll read them and you'll be like, yes. And you're like, no, that's not. And great starting point.

Travis Howard 00:19:30 Obviously don't have the AI right. Your core values for you, but pull out of what was naturally in you that you thought was just self-evident. All of a sudden it's going to show it to you in core value form. Now, if you've already if if you're just starting your firm, great. But if you've already got a firm and you want to check this, go to the oldest employees that you've been very happy that they've been with you. Put that in front of them and say agree or disagree. Right? Why? You can iterate on that. And when you have your manifesto and your core values, now sit down and build. I don't know how many, you know, coming out of business school, I knew my flowcharts and my my Venn diagrams and all of my, you know, pert charts, Gantt charts, the rest of it. All you really need is a process flow map and you say, this is what my business does from intake to trial or settlement, right? And put the boxes on it.

Travis Howard 00:20:30 Put your core values in your manifesto up there and say, what am I in charge of through this process that reinforces these core values? And just start like, if you don't have any ideas, put them both back into GPT or cloud again, or go grab that old employee and ask them, hey, if you're the person doing this box and this process map and these are our core values, how do I make sure what what can I do in your machine and part of your job that every single day will let you feel like these values are real and they'll tell you, you know, for us, it's a hybrid work schedule. people can work from home. People can work in in the office. Kevin and Tim said, you know, they're ten years younger than me. And they said, this is going to be a youthful place. We're going to be the old guys. And so far that's what they've built. So they've built something that makes sense to, you know, the younger millennials and Gen Z.

Travis Howard 00:21:31 so that work schedule, the music policy. So every interview, every every application that we request in our job description says in your resume or in your cover letter, you have to write your favorite music genre. And if you forget to do it, you're just ineligible from working for us. Because this is a really important part, because we have a Red rocks, full time, full team party bus that goes up and does a Red rocks concert. That's a part of it, because for Kevin, music is losing yourself in somebody else's passion, somebody else's cause that's what we're doing as our attorneys. Yes, we have to stay grounded, but we have to get in, feel and be a part of. Right. You have to be vulnerable for a minute. You have to be open. And he wants to see that. So if you're afraid to go to a concert, if you're afraid to talk about music for him, that's so we have the remember the high amplitude, low frequency. That's our concert.

Travis Howard 00:22:38 But what happens when you walk into every office? There's a whiteboard they have the listening to today, like it's just a thing that happened. Someone did it once. Kevin started following through. Every time I fly to Denver, I'm listening to something on the airplane and I get on my rental car. I drive to the office and I first thing I do is I walk in to the office and I write what I was just listening to, and they're usually like, oh, come on, Boomer, what? You know, like making fun of me. I'm not actually a boomer, by the way. I think we're clear on that. But, my kids and my staff call me that. I know it's a long answer, but I.

Travis Howard 00:23:15 Know, I know what to do.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:17 So there are some really big personalities in your firm, and one of the big obstacles to partnerships is the ego. So not personality, but ego. And I've seen so many partnerships break up because of ego. So with all of the big personalities in the firm, how do you all make it so that ego doesn't get in the way of a good thing?

Travis Howard 00:23:41 Yeah, that's that's a tough one.

Travis Howard 00:23:43 And the way the way that we're doing it. And I won't say that, egos don't rise from time to time. I mean, in all of us, all the time. Thank God we have egos. We wouldn't have been able to have this conversation without one. Right? Like. But we once again, I go back to we designed the machine to alleviate the pressure of the ego. So our L10 meetings, we have the man down rule. So if somebody. So I'm sitting here and I'm doing this, and all of a sudden I.

Travis Howard 00:24:23 I.

Travis Howard 00:24:24 Saw somebody do that in the meeting. I'm obligated. It's a rule to man down. Now everyone stops and looks at me, and I'm like, Jerry, I saw it, man. I don't know what happened in the head or the heart, but I saw it. So share. And now all of a sudden. And so what happens is at first it's we're all equals and we're all willing to be called out. And when the boss.

Travis Howard 00:24:52 Like, if someone's bringing up a thing, but Kevin really has something he wants to say because he was on a roll and he knows in trial mode. And he's like, you're interrupting my direct and like, no, we stop right? The managing partner stops and has to answer the question of the, you know, if this is a leadership team, it might be. The intake director is asking the manager managing partner to express his feelings. Hey, it's the way that it goes, so it applies to everybody. So there's a safety net there. But really the ego is designed right to make you feel good about yourself and safe and protected. So most of the time that's just being right. So what we do to avoid the ego coming up is we work from positions to needs. The ego has positions. The ego the position is I'm right, you're wrong. The position is this is going to be our trial strategy, not that right. The issue is this is the number that my client wants, you know, not that number.

Travis Howard 00:25:57 Those are all positions. The need is the underlying component, and it's driven by emotions And safety that aren't egoic. So the example I give everyone, because everyone can understand my position, is I want my neighbor's dog ticketed and gone. Period. Point blank. I call the cops. I want my neighbor's dog gone. That's my position. He barks all night. It's a nuisance. It's my third complaint. It's against the HOA. Get rid of your dog. That's a tough conversation to have with the dog owner or anyone else in the neighborhood. My need is I'm a single father raising three kids, and I work a night shift. And I have got to be able to sleep between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., or I can't take care of my kids. What, like.

Travis Howard 00:26:57 Totally.

Travis Howard 00:26:58 Different conversations? One's my position, one's my need. Needs help us separate the ego. So whenever something starts getting big and I'm in the room, or I get an email from somebody, I start with, tell me how it is knowing.

Travis Howard 00:27:16 Nine times out of ten I'm going to get a position. Then a follow up question and what do you need? Usually that great. I want you to go share that with Jerry. I want you to go share that with Jackie or in the meeting Jackie. Does that make you feel any differently about what's going on? Yeah. It does. Right. And we've we've had this as an example. And I know because Kevin and Tim are so open and transparent, they won't care. we were going back and forth. We had a meeting on a I was here in a video and I can't remember the topic. but Kevin made a decision. I had said something in the meeting. I want to do something. And, Kevin kind of steamrolled me. And not intentionally, but he he had an agenda and he's the managing partner. And he was right. You know, natural reaction. And after that meeting, I sent an email to to he and Tim. And there was one other person in the in the meeting and I was just like, I'm feeling sad, like, this is this, this is mine.

Travis Howard 00:28:26 I wrote out my, you know, my need. And I expressed a core value as it went through it. And I was like, I just, this is me. This is where I am. And Kevin wrote back, like, immediately. He's like, you beat me to it. I didn't feel good after the meeting. I rethought about this blah blah blah. And it was like because we'd been practicing and I literally got this email with one of our employees, you know, with the three partners on it, where I am doing the thing that we're encouraging people to do. I express my feeling I gave my my actual need. And then I asked Kevin to reconsider his position. And then he came back and said, not only do I like your need and what your position ultimately was, I think that's good. But I love the fact that you sent the email and followed up instead of just, you know, letting me steamroll you. Talk about another shared experience for that staff, right.

Travis Howard 00:29:22 So that's all I can say is positions to needs and get really adept at communicating with the underlying feelings, the core feelings. We know what happy you know joy is. We know what sexual is. Although traditionally that's also creative. So you could say, you know, not a place for work, but that's traditionally creative. So there's really three core left. You're either mad or you're sad or you're afraid. That's it. And if you're afraid, tell me what the threat is. If you're sad, what's the potential loss or what was the loss. And you know, if you're mad. Two options. You're getting something you don't want. What is it? Or you're not getting something you do want. What is it? And when you can ask those questions because people were able to get to the core, you know, people, they'll be like, I'm not mad, I'm just frustrated. Just you just put a little white in your black and called it a different color. Like weird. Come on.

Travis Howard 00:30:28 Right. That's mad. That's what that is. You can mix them and overlap, and you have guilt and shame. Okay, well, you're sad that you did this thing and you're afraid that it might lead to something else, I feel guilty. Well, that's just two things put together. These are our primary colors, and the feelings work the same way. If you can speak in them, you can start to separate or at least acknowledge when the ego is involved because it just wants to be right.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:56 It's good stuff. This is brilliant, I really like it. I love all the stuff. I'm making mental notes of all of these things. And I was like, I really want to. I want to take some of this back and and use it. It's really, really good stuff. So I hope people are taking detailed notes because this is a this is a really good one. You're you're giving very detailed explanations, which I love. I want to ask you about reputation because you attribute, one of the biggest parts of the success to, to CG is, is the reputation part of that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:31:27 And you all really work on fostering a good reputation. And you, you directly trace that back to your culture. So I wonder, help, help me understand how you use culture in building the reputation part of the firm.

Travis Howard 00:31:43 Well, we know that reputation and ultimately conversion decisions to refer somebody to us or to to choose our services. it always comes down to trust and likability. So somebody can't decide if they like you, if you don't show them who you are. And we talked about that with Kevin and Tim from day one when they met each other. that's how they interacted with each other. That's how they interacted with their girlfriends that became their wives. It's how they interacted with their brothers and their professors. everybody. You've known Kevin for a while. You've met him several times. Has. Has a different Kevin ever shown up in front of you?

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:30 Never. He's the same Kevin. Every single time it's. I can close my eyes. Picture Kevin. And that same Kevin is always the same Kevin.

Travis Howard 00:32:39 You're right. And. And if you asked if you gave me one word to describe Kevin, I would give you jolly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:47 Yes. Perfect. That's a great word for it.

Travis Howard 00:32:50 The man is jolly, and I love him for that. And so do the people in his lives. And so did his staff, and so did his clients, and so did his peers. And so when when he gives that openly people some people don't want that. They don't want a smiling attorney. They are, you know, like, great. But you give people a chance to determine if they like you, if they do like. And in the same way, if you meet Kevin and Tim in a room, you will get Kevin's jolly, which will ultimately lead up to a little of patting himself on the back, because that's Kev. And Tim will make a joke about Kevin patting himself on the back, and then they'll both laugh and hug, and then it carries on and it goes on over and over and over again.

Travis Howard 00:33:38 And so, you know, if you're okay with the humor, because Tim's going to have it all the time and the jolly with Kevin and the kind of larger than life they decide they like that. Now I need trust, right? writes likability and trust will. Why first. Why do they trust? Because that's the only version you trust that that's Kevin when I asked you because you've seen that version several times over. Well, when the person that referred you to them told you you're going to love this guy, he's a riot. You know, really smart, but, like, don't don't worry about it. You can show up coming from the gym. He's not going to judge you, like, just go and have your conversation with him. When when what they like is repeatable, they trust. Then obviously the results of the actual business continue to build on that trust. But the reputation for us starts with likability and trust. And so we broadcast what we like about ourselves, right? This is the reality because we actually did the work on what we don't like about ourselves.

Travis Howard 00:34:46 And we all have those things. And if you don't know what your list is, you're either ignoring it or you're lying.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:56 You know, it's funny. I have a specific question about Kevin, and this is a great opportunity to ask. So when you look back, look back to like the early days with Kevin. And can you identify like one thing or maybe a couple things that you guys did then that that you started back then, that you did back then that you believe is something that sets you up for the growth you're having now.

Travis Howard 00:35:21 Like so in the firm years, like since the firm started or even like back.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:26 Well, either. I mean, really either I wonder if there's anything that you can point to that either you did before the firm or that you did at the early days of the firm that have set you up for success. And maybe you're not even doing that thing anymore.

Travis Howard 00:35:39 Yeah, the thing that's coming to mind, and there might be more because I, my trade is, I think, while I talk and obviously, it works sometimes, but,

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:51 Well, let me give you a second to think about it, because.

Travis Howard 00:35:53 Well, there's there's the reality.

Travis Howard 00:35:55 Here is that the one piece that I know is real, that it works for Kevin and Tim. and frankly, even with me at this point is I told them at the very beginning when they, you know, they started the firm and then I was going to put the capital in. I was like, guys, you have to be very honest with each other and you have to follow, you know, the core principles. And to this day, we still do each other's formal reviews, like we we sit down and have the formal review, and we are required to talk about the things that we we have to have at least one thing in the bucket of, I'm displeased with. Right. And we and we have to share it. And then something that you can can do better for yourself. You know, and again, that that goes all the way back to when, you know, they were sitting at an apartment, kitchen table, you know, with their laptops out.

Travis Howard 00:37:00 And that photo has been all over the internet because it was the genesis of of everything to come. and it was, you know, clean up your side of the kitchen table better, you know, and like these basic stuffs like this. We're in an apartment, but it's our office. So I need, you know, the the socks and the, the sweatsuit gone or whatever, you know, basic honesty that that was real for the other person and all the way into when Tim and I just did Kevin's review, when it got to me, I said, listen, you know, I love you. You're my brother. That's never going to change. You're doing an amazing job as a managing partner. You're wicked smart. but you are a leader of more and more people. We're up into the mid 30s and we plan to beat a 50 soon and at some point. Who knows how big it gets. And you are the boss's boss, and you are asking people to live a life like you live in our culture, and you could be physically a little healthier.

Travis Howard 00:38:09 And, and, and and I was like, you know, like that's what I have for you, man. Like. It's not even to my brother. It's not easy. I got another partner sitting there and whatever. And, you know, for anyone that doesn't know, I'm listening to this, like, you know, I'm 6 to 190, and Kevin's my little brother at six for 250, right?

Travis Howard 00:38:32 Like, he's a big.

Travis Howard 00:38:33 Dude and he drinks a lot of soda, you know? And I'm like, maybe you can. Well, he was here for Thanksgiving, and his wife, my sister in law was like, you know, Kevin's got a personal trainer and he's going through like, that's the stuff that I'm talking about. Like we practiced a decade ago of being honest even when it wasn't easy. And today we're all the way to the point where that honesty could go to something as simple as physical health for being a better role model for the people that you care about in your firm.

Travis Howard 00:39:09 And he starts doing it like that's because it's core. Those are the core values. Those are the shared experiences. You can't do that stuff if it's made up.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:21 Let me challenge you a little bit.

Travis Howard 00:39:23 Okay.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:24 You mentioned not about anything you just said when it comes to that, you mentioned something that always, it's like nails on a chalkboard to me because you mentioned the number of people that you're growing to. And to me, that doesn't mean jack shit. it's because there's two things, and I'm part of part of this. Me giving you a little bit of shit. But part of this is like giving you a little bit of pushback and challenging you not to worry so much about the numbers, the number of people that you're adding to the firm, because one, I think it can destroy the culture. I also think that focusing on that is, is something done too much in when it comes to law firms, and it leads to the destruction of a lot of law firms because they have too much bloat and because they want to have.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:07 It's an ego number to me, where two things are bigger ego numbers, revenue, because revenue could mean nothing because you could be losing a ton of money. Another one is your number of employees, your number of team members. They may not. That could be a terrible thing for you. So, How? Two part question why is the number of employees important, and how do you prevent it from being a detriment to the firm?

Travis Howard 00:40:33 Okay, so excellent point. Great question. Growth for growth sake is, It can be diabolical. I have never grown any of my businesses specifically to reach, a number of people. the reason I said the way that I did, and the reason I do think it is important for us is because we're building a company for impact and we can impact more clients. And if we were able to use AI and efficiency and not hire any people to impact more clients, that's great. But that's not all of our intended impact. I set out in entrepreneurial law, in my first law firm to help more people start businesses, because the more businesses you're starting, the more employees you're bringing in.

Travis Howard 00:41:39 The more you're considering those employees in the community. And it's the ripple effect that I that I said earlier that goes all the way home and back into communities. I feel like for a long time we got to decentralized. We went through the 60s and 70s and 80s ginormous mega companies, and the decisions stopped impacting or they impacted. They stopped considering the impact on local communities, even in local states. I mean, when the companies got so big, like, who cares about this state will just move to that state? Right? For us, if I go from 35 people to 50 people and my culture stays strong, I'm having a bigger impact on my community of Denver. Right. And eventually when we go to New Mexico and it's Albuquerque, whatever it may be. So I do want to responsibly employ more people. which will be a challenge. I like those challenges. That's actually, you know, one of my favorite parts of of being in the business. but I think you're correct. If it's a number to report, and I'm.

Travis Howard 00:42:47 I'm the CEO of a 50 person firm. That's ego. Right? So that's your position. That feels good. Like, what's the need? Well, if you're being honest in that circumstance, the need is I need to feel important. I need to feel seen. you know, and I could dig deeper into that. I'm sad, you know, my dad never told me a good job, blah, blah, blah. Like, on and on and on. It can. You can go back and you can find the goodness, like all the ego badness. If you actually go further all the way down, you can find the goodness and build it back up in a positive light. but we're going to get more efficient with with AI. We're trying to build AI tools inside instead of just buying them. bloat is bad. I agree with you. I built a company that way. Accidentally. Not intentionally for ego purposes, but thought that I needed and started bringing executives in because I knew that that would help me raise capital and yada yada, yada.

Travis Howard 00:43:44 And then it was like, this is a mess. This this was done for the wrong reasons. And I wasn't listening to my my actual true needs. So, I think for anyone listening, like, great point Tyson. The number of people you have is irrelevant unless you know directly how it's tied to impact. And that impact is usually rewarded with the fiscal number. If you're making a great impact and you are working in a for profit business model, those things, those are those are lagging indicators, right? The money is the most lagging of all indicators in your business.

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:24 One of the best answers I've gotten to that question, by the way. You're building a team of evangelists. It seems like what you're doing, which is. Which is great. I think it's your answer was great. I think it's, it's a the, the perfect response because and it sounds like, you know, exactly why you're building the team that you're building. And I think that that's awesome. It also, it seems very clear that you've done a lot of introspective thinking and you've done a lot of work on yourself and I, and I wonder if that's true or not, but it seems like it's true.

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:51 So can you tell me about that? Is that is that something that you work on? Is that introspective thinking? and and if so, can you give some advice to people to help them do the same?

Travis Howard 00:45:04 Yeah. The first and foremost. yeah. You're you're picking up what I'm laying down. So we're I am a huge proponent of conscious leadership. My wife worked at the Conscious Leadership Group for a while. Jim Dettmer is is awesome. Jerry Colonna is one of the the best business coaches out there. he's like Business Buddhist whisper almost you know and he to the biggest CEOs, he's a huge hedge fund guy in the in the back. There's a million of them. You can go down. But, the work of mindfulness. Right. Like my coaching practice is the mindful business paradigm or as it's applied in law, the mindful business practice and the the concept of self. The self is where all your leverages in your business, every single business problem is a self problem. Wearing a different costume.

Travis Howard 00:46:02 Period. To end it might be your problem. It might be the self problem of the vendor. It might be the self problem of an employee. But at the end of the day, every business problem is a self problem. You've either chosen not to check another perspective, whatever it is. Freedom thriving. And I'm not talking about fiscal success Like, I know plenty of plenty is a strong word. I know at least two billionaires that are miserable. Absolutely miserable. Like, literally. Juan just lost his family. Kids won't talk to him anymore. Finally, getting divorced has everything that there is multiple billions of dollars because dollar's success is not the same as thriving. You cannot thrive in business until you know yourself. And so go start doing the work. meditation. Basic mindfulness practice. Yoga. All of those things are a part of my life because there's there's, you know, there's some universal tenets that that translate across the board. And business is just an outcropping of our humanity and the way that we interact inside of our, our society, something happens.

Travis Howard 00:47:28 Whatever it is, it's raining. The car hit me. My boss yelled. The client said no. Something happens. That energy comes in your body. Your body has a physical emergent reaction to the energy. You might get sad. Your eyes might well up. Your heart might get tight. You might get red in the face, you know. Not heat. Something physical happens in your body. And then those feelings generate thoughts. Now, if you meditate a lot, you are separate from your thoughts. And you see them and witness them. If you do not practice that, you identify as your thoughts. You say things like I am mad. Self practitioners say things like I feel mad because I am separate from the feeling. It's just something happening and I get to choose what I do with it, how I react to it, how I respond to it, whether I let it motivate me, whatever you know, and you can choose. I'm going to go into bed and close the door and cry for an hour.

Travis Howard 00:48:34 That's okay. Like, you go in there and yell like it doesn't mean you have to be stoic. It just means you have to be separate from what is happening outside of you and inside of you, because you are the witness. So Kevin is is he's getting very good at this as well. He has done less of the physical practices. Me but he went through some tough times as a kid. And right when all of this was getting going and he moved to Colorado and he moved in to me right when he came out of Hawaii and he was getting into law school, his very best friend died in a drunk driving car accident. And it was horrendous. And I got the notice from him and I drove from Denver to. To Broomfield. And I walked into his apartment and he hugged me and he just sobbed. That was tough. But sadness is our greatest teacher. I feel for him right now. And he came out of that with an understanding of. He always wanted to be happy.

Travis Howard 00:49:48 But boy, the joy when we talked the jolly like that was the day. He was never not jolly after that. Same time when I was at his 30th birthday party in August 2018, in his front yard, and he. He was hanging out, went inside or whatever. My cell phone rang and it was the sheriff's office telling me that my dad had just died in a motorcycle accident. Now Kevin and I share the same mom. Different dads. But he knew my dad. Very close. We'd been all been business partners, actually, before, when Kevin was just out of school. and he witnessed that, you know, tragedy happened to me. And then what I did over the next time period, that was my growth and introspection. I was CEO of a company, I stepped down, I went to work on the brain and the strategy put somebody else in the thing. I took 90 days off. I just sat in my dad's house and cleaned it out, went through focused, you know, all the pieces.

Travis Howard 00:50:59 And it was like I'd been training and learning. I lived in Boulder at the time. I've been going, you know, my wife went to women's temples and, you know, it was the traditional boulder experience. But those two things, both of those sadness and lost components for for he and I, we both use them as catalysts. through the through the introspection. But, you know, anybody out there that isn't. Sure. go start with, Michael Singer and, his, his books. there's the surrender experiment, is a great one. and then I can't remember the name of the other one that goes with the surrender experiment right now. but, it is the starting point of a beautiful journey that is really, really empowering. This is not about giving up. That's not what the surrender experiment is it? It is much different and much more powerful than that. And, it's game changing. And the best business leaders, the very best business leaders that are building thriving companies, thriving tribes and workforces.

Travis Howard 00:52:21 they're all leading from self.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:25 It's beautiful advice. I want to I want to end it with if you can, because I want to learn to get better at meditating. So can you give me your three best pointers for, for meditation. And, we'll wrap on that. So yeah. Give me your three biggest pointers for meditation.

Travis Howard 00:52:42 Okay.

Travis Howard 00:52:42 So number one frequency. Okay. Duration is not the component you need to focus on. You need to focus on frequency. Make the schedule and do it. Number two I'm going to challenge you. There's no such thing as getting better at meditation. It is not a winning game. Okay. and then number three, focus on what matters. And here's what matters when you meditate. The only thing that you're trying to see, realize, understand is awareness. You will sit and meditate and you will want to be blank. Think about your breathing, whatever thing that if you're saying a mantra. If you're doing loving kindness, whatever it is, and you will have the thoughts that start happening, and at some point you'll realize that you're thinking about some argument about some football game that you had at lunch three weeks ago, and you're like, going down that trail.

Travis Howard 00:53:46 But in that moment, you become aware that you were just like thinking, that's it. That's winning, that that's the thing. That is the thing. You just practiced meditation. You became aware of your thoughts, your thoughts and your awareness. Your consciousness were separate for that moment in time and that is what the goal is. You do it more and more and more. The duration of being lost right goes away and Eric comes down, and you become aware and separate from your thoughts more frequently and for longer periods of time. That's great. Those are the masters. But I've been doing this for 15 years or more and I'm lost all the time. I just find myself more often than I used to.

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:44 Travis, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. I think it was, this is a it was a great reminder that if we want truly great firms, we have to be better versions of ourselves, and we have to improve ourselves and and focus on ourselves and getting ourselves right before we can kind of, move on to all the other stuff.

Tyson Mutrux 00:55:01 But thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. I really love this episode. Really.

Travis Howard 00:55:04 Do I appreciate you having me on here, man. I love what Max law does.