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Are you a law firm owner who does not know what to do with ideas that stem from conversations from your team? In this episode of The Guild Live Show, Tyson Mutrux explores the concept of "sparks" — those small moments or ideas that ignite creativity and innovation.
Tyson shares how sparks can lead to innovation for a firm. In moments of conversation and sometimes friction, sparks can come up through realization. Maybe someone challenges a belief or some personal irritation is expressed to a group of people. They can be created in a few different ways in a team setting.
It is important to know when to execute or abandon sparks. Maybe executing a spark makes sense when you have a strong team dynamic. Maybe you need to plan in order to execute the spark, especially if you or the team don’t have the capacity. But, sometimes abandoning the spark is better when you realize it is not a possibility at all for your firm.
Listen in to learn more!
• 24:43 Knowing When to Execute or Abandon
• 25:37 Value of Pattern Interrupts
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 00:00:13 Good morning and welcome back to the Guild live show. I've got a good one. Today we're going to be talking about sparks. this this episode was inspired by a conversation during one of our huddles the other day. And what we've been doing lately is we've had, instead of having Amy run every single huddle, we've actually been having, one of our teammates run the huddle. So a lots of cool things that it's the what I'm about to talk about is one of many cool things that we did. But, Kashif had done one where he had used this really cool, you know, shocker that, you know, Kashif, our CTO, would do this, use this software to like, do this polling where we all got our phones out and we scan the QR code and we completed these, these polls, in real time. And it created all these cool graphics on the screen as we were doing. That was really cool. But, this one was it was a pretty simple one, but it was really cool.
Tyson Mutrux 00:01:17 And it sparked an idea. And we were talking about the, the whole spark and, and the idea of a spark and good sparks, bad sparks. But with this one, it was a pretty simple prompt. There were five questions. you know, you know, do you like real Christmas trees or fake Christmas trees? You know, not whether or not you use them, whether or not you like, which one you like more. favorite Christmas music movie? Do you like Christmas music? And that's the one I want to focus on. There's there's five total questions, but we're going to focus on that one. And because I don't I don't like Christmas music and I don't think most people do either. I if I'm being honest, I don't. I don't think most people like Christmas music. They tolerate it is what it is. And my proof for that is, is that unless you listen to Christmas music year round, you probably don't like it. Okay. So I know I might get some hate mail for that, but I think that that's the truth.
Tyson Mutrux 00:02:18 And because if it was really good, then you you would listen to it more. I made that comment and just as my, my my assistant, she said, well, you should create your own music then. And I did. And so I but that was the spark of an idea. Right. I think it was a good idea. Not saying it's a bad idea. It was a spark for an idea. And so I'm gonna. I created a couple songs, but this went a little bit further. Okay. So I, I'm not one to take a challenge lightly. So, the the this is the first one. Okay. So, you know, bear with me here a little bit and I'm not going to play the full, full.
Tyson Mutrux 00:03:11 Sentence.
Tyson Mutrux 00:03:12 Give it a head. Look.
Tyson Mutrux 00:03:13 Mama's got a wine and a paper plate outside untangling lights, calling it decorations.
Tyson Mutrux 00:03:22 So I thought that that was. It did a pretty good job. I used, lyrics to song. What I did is I went to ChatGPT.
Tyson Mutrux 00:03:28 This is not about an A. This is not an AI episode, by the way. But, this is more about the sparks, but. So went to ChatGPT told her what I wanted it to do and it gave me a script. I didn't do any editing, I just threw it into this. That's why I think the part is funny about the moms drinking wine in the paper plate. I thought that was hilarious. so that was that one. And then you've got this one here. A little bit of a different date.
Tyson Mutrux 00:04:00 Tonight we're in a borrowed way. Every second's a gift. We don't delay. If this is all we ever get. I'm good with that. Yeah. I'll bet. So turn it up. Turn it.
Tyson Mutrux 00:04:14 Loose. Okay, so that was the the second version. And that was the. There was only two. But there were actually pretty decent songs, to be honest with you, I think. I think that one was better. It was. It took me not no time at all like five minutes, maybe.
Tyson Mutrux 00:04:27 Maybe five minutes. And so with this, I just kind of give you some more personal stuff I had actually for, oh, for months I've been sort of developing the idea of a song for Amy. Okay. So. And I can't sing, so I was gonna. My plan was to use AI of some sort to create it, but this. So that original spark sparked That old idea that I had. So do you know what? The AI has gotten a lot better since I've started to do this. And let's just see what. Let's see what we can do with it, and I, I gotta say, pretty, pretty badass. I'll give you the beginning of it, you know? for those of you that don't know me, I went to a really small school. We met in fifth grade. Okay? We started dating in high school. Like, there's. We were high school sweethearts. Okay, so this is a this is sort of a song about us, you know, kind of growing up and then, you know, you know, growing together.
Tyson Mutrux 00:05:26 So I'll give you kind of the beginning. It's I'll let you you decide what you think.
Tyson Mutrux 00:05:41 We were barefoot kids. Summer night, front yard stars and fireflies. Lights this great promises. Porch light, good vibes. Didn't know much, but damn, we tried high school halls. Friday night lights. Reggie. Pumpin on county lines. Laughing loud with the windows down. Nowhere to be. Nowhere but now.
Tyson Mutrux 00:06:04 All right. That's just the beginning. And it gets kind of the hook. And it's. I think it's amazing. my my first thought was musicians are screwed. that was it. The sound on it is amazing. It's really, really good. It's awesome. So it was really cool. That was all from one little spark. Okay, so it went from talking about we did something different. Right. We were doing something different. We had a pattern interrupt in one of the huddles, and it sparked an idea. Just just one little bitty, tiny spark sparked a new idea.
Tyson Mutrux 00:06:49 That's what I want to talk about. Yeah. That's what that's. That's why I want to bring this up. How powerful. Changing things up. And when that spark happens, what do you do with that spark? I think that's really, really important. And I think that most people, they think of, sparks as, as lightning bolts in a way. And really what they are is they're just moments of friction. I mean, it could be someone, you know, challenges a belief of yours. You know, it could be a personal irritation. you know, some some sort of, you know, quiet recognition. Oh, that makes sense. You know, like something like that. It could be any of those things. It's not usually like a strike of lightning. We're like, oh my gosh, I've got this amazing idea. It's it's usually where you've some sort of friction has been created. And then the idea. so I would say it's, it's more like static electricity than a lightning bolt, you know.
Tyson Mutrux 00:07:48 You know what I mean? Where you've got that friction that causes that spark. so it made me kind of think about, like, companies like, I actually did a little bit of research because I was like, I wonder what companies were started, just like on a spark. And one of the big, big things that came up was, Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs was he was at Xerox Parc. So he was at Xerox Parc, and he's the one that he noticed the, the, the obvious potential of the mouse. Like, that was one of the things where, they were I think they were just going to throw it out. He just observed the just. Oh, that could be a really good thing. And he was absolutely correct. It could be a really good thing. and so you it's I think part of this is recognizing when you have a good idea, part of this is recognizing that maybe it's not such a good idea to. So if part of this is like weighing in like, okay, how much time is this going to take to accomplish? What's the end goal of all this? You do have to kind of take some of these, ideas because some of them you and I've got I actually was I have a I probably overanalyze this a little bit, overthought this a little bit when it comes to, how do I to dissect this and figure out whether this is an idea you should follow? A big part of is is time.
Tyson Mutrux 00:09:17 If this had taken me, you know, 12 hours, I wouldn't have done it. Probably. But it was something that was fun. It was part of the team. you know, the one of Bianca, one of our. She's our receptionist. She said she's like, I'm going to play this at our Christmas party. So, like, she she really it's one of those things where it was for me, it's like a morale thing. And then I kind of pivoted to the personal side of things. It's like I played it for me last night, and it was like she was bawling, crying, and because she she loved it so much. And so that was, there was a there was massive upside for the amount of time that I spent on it. So, Another part of this, too, is whenever I was thinking about, okay, how do you how do we develop sparks like, and I don't I don't think you you develop sparks, right? You don't just like, you don't find ways to create sparks.
Tyson Mutrux 00:10:08 What you do is you find can you create conditions to create sparks? Okay. So you have to create conditions. And one of the, the conditions for, for whenever the whole thing started with the song. Right, was we had changed the morning huddle where we were, it was a pattern interrupt and the conditions were different. Right? We had created different conditions. It wasn't our typical okay, what was my done well from yesterday. What's my focus for today? There was wasn't any of that right. It was okay. Well what is the you know do I like Christmas trees. Doyle. Doyle. Like real trees or like fake trees. You know. Do I like Christmas music? Like, what's my favorite Christmas music? Christmas movie. Which. Scrooged, by the way, is the best Christmas movie. in case you're wondering. Scrooged with Bill Murray. You can't beat it. Not not even close. So, sure, I'll get some hate mail on that one too, but it's okay.
Tyson Mutrux 00:11:10 I'll make it. I'm making lots of friends today, I'm sure, but Scrooged is the best by far. But you have to create these conditions for it, right? You have to create these conditions for creating sparks. so like another example is Sara Blakely for she created Spanx. and because she was, she created Spanx because she hated the how pantyhose looked under white pants, because she liked to wear in pantyhose, and she didn't like the white look. So these conditions, the conditions were there, their conditions were ripe, and she was able to recognize Another part of this is like recognition. So you've got these conditions. Some of these conditions are created for you. And then you have to recognize it. Other times you are creating these conditions. So I don't think you could just say, hey, let's let's do an idea factory. Sure. You could do that. I'm not so sure that you're going to get the sparks that you're looking for. but you have to give. You do have to give a little bit of space for things like this, where some.
Tyson Mutrux 00:12:15 I do think having some sort of thinking time really, really important. there are those. Funny, I went home the other day, and, I went and I laid on my bed because I just wanted to think, okay, I was just. I just wanted to think because I was thinking about. I actually wasn't thinking about work. I was thinking about, we're doing a bathroom renovation. I was trying to try to solve a problem as what I was trying to do. And so I just laid on my bed and Amy thought I was taking a nap. I said, she's like, oh, I'm sorry, I was. I thought, you're you're just working back here. I said, no, I'm just I'm just thinking. Oh, I was like, come on in. And it it worked. It was one of things where like, I sort of created this. I'd taken some space, I'd created some an environment for me to sort of push everything out and, and just think.
Tyson Mutrux 00:13:01 So when you're thinking about, okay, if I'm going to create these conditions or if I'm going to set aside time for, you know, idea generation, I would more think about it as taking taking time for giving you some space to to think as opposed to like trying to generate ideas, actively generating ideas. That is not the easiest thing to do. The brain doesn't necessarily work that way. You have to give it a little bit of, a little bit of room. All right. So let's go through some of these. The where I had over, I think, overanalyze this a little bit, but I do think, ways of identifying sparks for good ideas and not and versus bad ideas. One way to look at them is like, Think of it as, like a as a hypothesis and not as a commitment. So just because you have the idea doesn't mean you have to do it right? because I do think one of the biggest mistakes that we make is, is trading every idea, like, it's like some sort of, like, life altering decision.
Tyson Mutrux 00:14:03 Like, we, everything's a game changer. Like, oh, my gosh, this idea is like, game changer. And then what happens? We've all done this. We've all been there where we have this idea and then we we we think it's going to change everything in our firm. We got to do it. It doesn't make a difference at all. Right. Or we the execution we execute poorly on it or it just was a bad idea. You know that that happens too. But knowing when to pull the ripcord on that. So okay, you've got your hypothesis. Let's test the hypothesis. Didn't work. Pull the cord. Let's go. Let's move on to the next thing. So pivoting make fast decision making. I talked about this on a previous episode. One of the greatest indicators indicators for success is making quick decisions. And part of that is okay, we've made a poor decision before. Now let's make a better decision. So you're making you're making you're going through a lot of decisions.
Tyson Mutrux 00:15:04 so for example, let's say that you've got one person that has, you know, ten ideas that they may or ten decisions that they make over the course of a week. Okay. And then another person that makes a thousand, right. Well, let's say the person that makes 1000 decisions, they probably make a lot more mistakes, but they make a lot more right decisions than the person that makes ten decisions. And so that is the that's the whole idea is because they're making so many decisions. Boom boom boom boom. Next thing, next thing, next thing. Okay. And part of that is, is one of the decisions is recognizing when you've made a mistake and pivoting to the next thing. So. All right. so here's, here's some of the, the cheap tests that you can use to, to figure out if, if you've got a, a good idea or not. Michael Dell says, ideas are a commodity. Execution on them is not okay. That's that's a that's a big one.
Tyson Mutrux 00:16:03 So, I like some of these where, here's a here's how to identify a bad one. And actually, before I do that, let's let's get into, I've created a mid roll read, for Becky's list. I want to make sure I brought up Becky's list because it's something that, we're really proud of. I think, Becky's list is. It's something that is truly amazing. It's something that I wish we had when we first started our firm. Because one of the biggest things that people go to, the big Facebook group, the maximum Facebook group, is they want to figure, okay, what's the best phone system. You know who to use for SEO. All of that. And, what this does, what Becca's list does is, actually levels the playing field to tell us who's the good. Who's the bad. Okay. In reality, give us gives us an idea. Okay. Who's overcharging? You know who's who's a good value? but it is one of those. It's it's a tool.
Tyson Mutrux 00:17:08 It's a resource that's free for lawyers. Okay. It's free. It costs you nothing. It's just. It's just information for you. Okay. I would also. I mean, I guess a small favor is if you would, you know, give reviews for products and services that you've used, that that helps everyone. It's the whole Rising Tides thing. So, Becca's list, if you've not been there, Becca Lesko. you know, also, Becca's list, I. Oh, I probably shouldn't tell you that, but either one, those go to the same one. Becca's list Co, helps us all. because one of the, I think one of the biggest, most dangerous sparks that you could have is, is the wrong vendor choice. you have an idea about something, and you choose the wrong vendor. maybe you get, like, a flashy demo as some sort of trendy tool that you're seeing. or there's some sort of, like, promise that they give you. That just just sounds so great at the moment.
Tyson Mutrux 00:18:05 I had that I had that with a with a vendor, you know, paid them 20 grand up front and then they never delivered. That was one of those those one of those painful lessons where I had a spark just didn't. It just didn't work out for me. Okay. And if I, I think if I had had Becca's list, probably wouldn't have done it. Probably wouldn't have happened. So, Becky's list is there to kind of slow down those sparks that aren't the good sparks. it's it's it's one of those things that allows you to reflect, decide. Okay. Is this a good move for me? And if not, you move on to the next good spark. Okay, anyways, enough about that. Becca's Lasco. free. It's free for attorneys. Okay? It's absolutely free. 100% free will always be free. Check it out. Yeah. All right, so, how bad sparks sneak in? and you have to remember, like, not all sparks, they deserve oxygen.
Tyson Mutrux 00:19:06 Okay, not not all of them do. many of them are driven by emotion. not even by curiosity. It's just by emotion. Sometimes it's just seeing that someone else has it. And that's a good clue. A good red flag. If someone else. If you see it, someone else has it. And you say, I want it, probably a good eye. That's a good indicator that that may be something. It's it's at least gives you enough. You're gonna have some pause, okay. Before you go through it. All right. So shiny object sparks. those simply show up when things are new or trending. I always forget the name of this thing being like NFTs, but. And also, the, there was that social media app where you just people are talking in rooms. It might still be around, but, I never got it. And then next thing you know, it's like hardly anyone uses it. I bet it still is around. But, I mean, it's just one of those things where, if it seems flashy, it's.
Tyson Mutrux 00:20:12 So it's not really your spark. It's someone else's spark. Okay. so ego sparks is another one where you're wanting to prove something. the song when I did earlier the other day, maybe a little bit of an ego spark, but it turned into a more, a better spark. so if you're just starting something, just a one up, somebody's probably not a good idea. fear based ideas. So you have some sort of idea that's generated out of fear. you know, you're doing it because you think I've got to do this right now because someone else is doing it, or whatever the fear might be? might I mean, things like that could lead you to switching software every other week, you know, like that. That could be a that's a that's a really good indicator. Procrastination sparks. So things, they feel productive. But you're what you're doing is you're avoiding what you're doing is you're avoiding discomfort and the discomfort that you need to go through. Because, I mean, what is it the the, something is the way I can't remember, the full saying, but basically the more difficult path is usually the way.
Tyson Mutrux 00:21:26 And so that's the idea, over commitment, where you are, you're confusing your excitement. and you say, oh, I'm all in. Let's do this. Right. I am all in. Let's do this because you're excited. Just hold on a second. Take a little pause. You may. You may be off the right, off on the wrong track. And so just if you if you find yourself. Oh, I'm all in on this. Hey, maybe I want to pump the brakes just a little bit, to find out if you truly are on the right track, but, and then I guess the last thing I want to talk about is maybe Sonic capturing some of these, these sparks, these ideas, and, you know, without being a hostage to them. So, I, I'd say that most people probably either forget the ideas that they have or they act on them too fast, maybe where they're not. So they don't they don't document them somewhere. Like, for example, I'll give this a the, what I talked about with the song that I wanted to create for him, like I had created all these notes, okay, I had created all these notes on it.
Tyson Mutrux 00:22:41 The technology wasn't there because I can't sing. Technology wasn't there. My other option is to pay someone to sing it right. Like, I could have done that at some point, but you know, I had I had not quite forgotten about it, but it was kind of, you know, off somewhere. But I documented it. Right. Had I, you know, tried to create something right away, it wouldn't have worked, right? Because the technology wasn't there. I would have acted too fast. So be careful. Document it somewhere. Document these ideas I have. For those of you that have been, you know, listeners for years, you you know that I've got books, I've got volumes of books that I've filled out with notes. Right. and then I've got a remarkable now that's full of notes. Those are very, very powerful for me. I mean, I can I've got a stack of them here in arm's reach. We're like, I can just reach over and, grab them and just I will sometimes go through them and it'll get generate new ideas.
Tyson Mutrux 00:23:43 So for those of you that are watching, like I, there's one of my, one of my many mind maps that, I like to use. So that one was I probably did this one back in law school, law school, elements of the law firm. So I've got these all these different, you know, elements of a law firm, things like that, where I, I had those back from whenever I was in like high school. So documenting your all, all your, all your ideas somewhere super, super valuable and then, finding the right time to execute on them and then executing on them, like what Michael Dell was talking about. You had to execute on these ideas, otherwise they don't matter. I've talked about that before. at Max law. Colin, I've talked about it before on the show. good. Sparks will come back. Okay. Bad sparks will fade, so take a pause whenever you have them. Write it down. Think about it. And if it truly is a good spark, freaking go and crush it.
Tyson Mutrux 00:24:43 Go execute on it. If it's not, you gotta abandon ship and move on. Okay. Those of you that have tried to build a case management system, you understand. those of you that have. You know who I'm talking. I'm not going to call you out. But you you had at some point, you had to pull the cord, right? And you had to. You had to jump ship. So what you have to do. So, another thing is important in sort of creating an environment for this. I'll go back to that for a second and then we'll wrap up. But I just want to make sure I mention this. Great. Having those those chances for pattern interrupts really really valuable. It makes it it it's it's like a a jumpstart for your brain where you can easily go on autopilot. And by having those pattern interrupts, by changing our daily huddle, you know, you know, it's not like we did abandon our what we normally do. We'll go We'll go back to that after we've cycled through all of our all of our team members, you know, running the huddle.
Tyson Mutrux 00:25:37 But it's that pattern. Interrupt something different. You if if you're kind of in a rut, take a day off or work from home or stop by a coffee shop if you don't normally, you know, like something where you do something different. Right. Can you create different conditions and you'll see different results? That's how it works. But that's all we have have for you this week. I'd say that the the probably the, the best sparks whisper. the worst ones probably shout. So keep an eye on that. You know best. Sparks whisper. the worst one shout. So I'd say pay attention to the ones that you almost ignore. because I think one of them might quietly change everything for you. Yeah. Have a good week, everybody. We'll be senior.