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Join the Guild and secure your ticket to Scottsdale at the best possible price by visiting max slot events.com. Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the Maximum Liar Podcast. Maximum Liar Podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking, and Tyson Matrix, let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show. Welcome back to the Maximum Liar Podcast. I'm Jim Hacking. Well, damn, Jim. That's pretty damn flat. I'm Tyson Matrix. What's up, brother? Oh, geez. You're the one who's sick. Not me. I should bring the energy. Bring the funk. Bring it. I was expecting you normally will bring this like, "Ah, let's go." Well, that's because usually we recorded it 8 in the morning. Now it's 2.30 in the afternoon. Yeah. You know, and we do every once in a while do some of these in the afternoon, but the morning ones, that's what I like to do like my best work in the morning because I've got the energy because afternoon, right around this time is usually whenever I start to kind of hit that wall and it's not even a wall, I start to decline in quality, but for sure. Yeah. Today, I'm still fighting off COVID. I've been in bed, so I actually have a blanket over top me now, I'm in my basement and I've got the bar behind me. There's Daigo and Allie. I hope you see that. I see it. I see that big little Lego set behind me, but no, I don't know if I've ever been sick where I've been in bed for as many days in a row. Like from Monday night until today, I've been like sick. So in yesterday, I went and got, I think it was yesterday was today, say Thursday. Yeah, it was yesterday. Yeah. Yesterday, I got tested and I got COVID first time. First time since this is all started, I've got COVID that I know of. Who gave it to you? I don't know. Amy and I were talking about this. I think there's others as guy. I went to Jiu-Jitsu. So I'm still going to do Jiu-Jitsu, even though my shoulder, I've got a torn labrum, but I've been going and just essentially watching and I'll do some of the things that I can do. But there was this guy the other day, it was on Saturday, and I was looking at him. And I said to him, I was like, man, you look tired today. And he was like, yeah, just like, you know, having young kids and everything. And he just was not, didn't have the same energy. And I would bet money that he has COVID that he gave me COVID because it's like, you know, when you look at somebody, there's not the same when they're sick. He had the sick face. And so this is me in hindsight looking at the time I didn't realize that. But so I think it's that guy, I'm not going to say who his name is, not the name I would know. I was just like airplanes myself. Well, I haven't been on a plane lately. So you're the one. I think that every time you've gotten it, you probably got it on an airplane. Well, one time his smell gave it to me, and that was after flying to San Diego. So yeah, probably all three. Are you at four times? I think I told somebody at three times. Okay. Three times. I was like, yeah, buddy, my head at four times. Okay. Three time. Three time. So it's just a matter of time to get your fourth one. Oh, God. I hope not. That was the, this last one was the sickest I've ever been in my whole life. Well, I've kept like in my head, I keep saying like, okay, it's not going to be that bad. It's not going to be that bad. It's because like, because of what you said, and then everyone else I hear that's gotten this strain. It's really bad. I mean, what's weird is is that it's not, it's not like the flu, right? Like the flu, I feel like is like this consistent thing where you hit this peak and then it kind of goes away. I feel like COVID's more like this thing like you hit you in waves, like wave after wave and it get late. Like the waves keep getting stronger. And I think I've, I've finally gotten past the strong waves where it's starting to kind of I'll hit the, I'll sell these waves or I'll have these boost of energy and then it'll go away. And like the heart, I don't know about you. Like the hardest part for me has been the energy just sucked the energy out of me. And like that's the part that sucks. For me was the coughing. My chest heard, my throat heard, I never cough that much. So I've had very little coughing. When I do it's, it's this, I feel like it's almost random. I don't see it coming. It's very dry cough, but it's only happened a few times. It's mostly mucus build up in my nose. That's the main, that's what's driving me crazy other than the energy. It's, yeah, it's fantastic. But now with that nice, nice introduction, you want to introduce our topic? So you came up with it. So we were kicking your topic for today and you did come up with one that we both sort of liked, which was, how did we know when we had sort of arrived or that we were going to be okay? And I think that's a good, that's a good topic for discussion. I think, I mean, I think there's an ebb and a flow to all of it, but I do think there's sort of flat toes that you should get to in your career. And for me, the first one was when I sort of literally had to stop like looking around for money to make payroll. Like that was the first time where I really felt like, oh, this is nice. I have enough money every two weeks to pay a dollar and that was just a real turning point for me, I thought. Yeah. I think that kind of comes and goes though in a way, like especially as you scale a little bit, like you have to, like you kind of go to achieve that next level. I do think that that kind of, it gives you more of that cash crunch a little bit than anything. To me, it's a, it's very similar though, it is, it's like whenever you have that amount of money where you're like, like you're making enough money where things are consistently coming in, where you're like, okay, I don't want the worry about paying for dinner. Like I don't have to worry about, you know, get it paying for groceries. I'm okay with like, we're going to be fine with our mortgage and all that. There is a certain point where all that kind of just, it disappears and you don't think about it anymore. Kind of the reason why I wanted to talk about this too is because a lot of people, right when they're about to make it, they give up, you know, like they'd say, okay, I'm, I can't do this anymore. But if you stick it out, a lot of this is just, it's just a matter of sticking it out. And as long as you can stick it out for long enough, you can take the heat, take the pressure. It'll turn into something good that you're going to, you're going to make a really good living off of, or at least a decent living. You're going to have, you know, freedom, it's going to be a different type of freedom than working for someone. But it's, a lot of it has to do with, I think it has to do with making money. What's really funny is, I'm always talking about processes and systems and you're always talking about getting cases in. But from the beginning, the thing that I cared about the most was getting clients. And whenever I would go speak to classes, I would say, I would ask them, what's the most important thing about practicing law? And I would get all these answers and none of them was getting clients, not one of it. But one of them would say, and I don't think ever in the history of me asking that question has a student said, getting clients. It's always about, oh, you have to be ethical and you have to make sure you're doing a good job, yada yada yada. And I would say, like, those are all really, really important things, but you can't do any of that unless you get cases. And that's what you've got to focus on is getting cases. Even if you're working for a firm, and I tell the story about Debbie Champion, the one that she told in your class, about like the ones without cases are the ones that are expendable. And so you have to, at the beginning, focus on getting cases because otherwise it's going to be a really tough road to hoe. You and I had the opportunity to talk to a lawyer this week, a law firm owner who hadn't signed up any cases for two months. And I think it gave both of us a big kick in the butt and we're like, oh, what's going on here? Like, we had to do sort of a little bit of a different analysis. Yeah, that was a, what was the feeling you had when you heard that? Well, the person didn't seem too overly worried about it. I had the sense that they had some kind of other cushion that maybe it's cash in the bank from being out in private practice, you know, for a big firm for a long time. Maybe they had a partner that sort of helps them through month to month. But you know, for you and I, when we were the primary breadwinners, that would not have flown, right? They just wouldn't do it. I think that it would have scared the crap out of me. I mean, I had a feeling of almost despair when I heard it. That would worried me if that happened to me or you right now, especially when we have so many employees, that'd be really bad. But if you, I mean, back then, I mean, even back then, I don't know if I ever went two months without having a client, I mean, that would have been, that would have terrified me. I remember going in a few weeks without getting a client and thinking, oh man, like, what am I going to do? What's going to happen if this stays the way it is? And the thing that you said, maybe you're right. I mean, maybe, maybe they do have a partner and we didn't, we didn't dig into that. Maybe we should have. The hair wasn't on fire. Yeah. I feel like, I feel like maybe it should have been, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I was talking to my son this amount today and he said he sort of had a plateau and he sort of feels like things are cooking and he sort of wanted to do next. What to do next? And I said, go get more clients. Go get more clients. That's what I said. That solves a lot of problems. It can bring its own problems. You know, I wanted to say something too that you often come back to and Gary Vee often comes back to when it comes to those plateaus or those times where you feel like you've sort of arrived. And that is a lot of it can depend on how much cash you're pulling out of the business. So I think we become so intertwined with our firms and they become so much of our personality and obviously they take up a big, all of our working day and a lot of our energy and time that we think that we can just pull out cash like an ATM and we don't really, I think sometimes lawyers don't even have an accurate evaluation of whether their firm is working or not profitable or not because they're taking so much money out of it. And if they left it invested in there like Jeff Bezos did with Amazon for decades or years and years where if you have to evaluate the firm on its own two feet or if somebody else were evaluating it and just treated you as a salaried employee with X amount of expense, I think that that's one thing that really sort of gets in the way of people feeling like they are safe or arrived because they haven't been very disciplined in how they keep boundaries between themselves and that money's sitting in the operating account. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but if you look at some of our peers, if you and I wanted to, we could really go bare bones with our operations. You're always proposing this. No, I'm not proposing it. I'm saying we could. If we wanted to, we'd go really bare bones with our operations and we could make, from a personal standpoint, we could make a lot of money and we could look like ballers and have these, we could probably pay for Ferraris and all that, like that cool stuff, right? But we've instead chosen to take a different route and make some sacrifices and not take the money out and keep it in and continue to build this thing because we have this bigger vision for it and so there is a point where you have to make that decision. Are you going to, is that what you want? Do you want to build something bigger with a bigger vision or are you comfortable with just kind of staying the way you are and just sucking that money out of the business? There's neither way is the right way, but just know that if you're going to do it the way where you're going to suck the money out of it and just take that money for you personally, you're not going to be able to grow it. I mean, you're not going to grow it the way you want to. You're going to have a really cool, awesome personal life, but I also think you can have an amazing life outside of the firm by paying yourself a good salary, taking good draws from the firm that are based on schedules and percentages and all that. But you get, you get at both and that you don't have to just take all that money out and use it on yourself personally because you're not, I don't think you're going to be at the end. You'll be as fulfilled. Right? And that's just my personal opinion, but I mean, I guess maybe some people are happier with the other way, but you and I, I think just chosen a different route. Well, if you are, I mean, it's sort of simple math. If you're pulling too much money out too often, that's going to hinder your ability to hire people to help you do the work. So therefore you're going to be doing all the work and you're really just a hamster on a wheel. You have a job, but you're, you're your own boss, right? So, but you still have a job. If you delay that gratification and keep that money around and don't take it out and use it to pay salaries of other people in whatever areas of the firm that you want or need them to be, you can really get to a point where you have lots of people doing lots of the work so that you can do what you want to do and you can take long vacations and you can be away from the office. And, but as long as you're not progressing in hiring and growing, then you're just going to be stuck in that same wheel that you've been in for ever, ever since you opened the firm. Yeah. I read this, I think it's a post from Hermosi this week, and it was the difference between getting from a million to 10 million. Okay. So it was getting from zero to a million was essentially having something that's like a fourth of the way built, right? So you're like you, you kind of have it working, right? And then getting from a million to 10 million is having this thing that's half built and then getting from 10 million to 100 million is having this things like that's like three quarters of the way built. And I thought that was an interesting way of looking at it because it is kind of true. Like whenever you do get to that million point, it's like, okay, I kind of have this thing that works. I'm making this money. But you have all these other areas that need work. And then when you grow from there, like you're constantly, it's like whack-a-mole sometimes, but then sometimes you get these areas that are, okay, they're running very, very, very well. And then you move on to this next thing. But like, I think it's a really interesting concept, like where like, and I, I think it's also a concept that if you, with like, with the topic that we're talking about, like, you know, when do we know we were going to be okay? Like if you're, if you've got things like a fourth of the way figured out and you're to seven figures, okay, you're, you're, you're okay. And I actually, okay is not even saying seven figures, but like, okay is like, you're, you're making enough money to, to pay all your bills and you're, you can make payroll and all that kind of stuff. But like, what do you think about that idea though of, of, you know, something quarter build, half build, you know, three quarters build? I think anytime you can get it to objective standards versus your gut, it's better. Like right now I have a great aunt who's sick and she's going to get sicker. And so to try to take the emotion out of it, I said, you know, we don't know what's going to happen over the next two, three years. Let's try to put in benchmark so that when something happens, we know what to do. So sort of like that, in case of fire break glass, like if you, if you know that, or if you, if you give yourself these benchmarks to hit, that's when you maybe get through work. I mean, that's going to make you work harder too. Yeah. You know, it's, people are so avoidant to that of that though. Like in case of fire break glass, like I had, I've assigned this task to three people and none of them have completed the task where I wanted them to create a list of things that they're unlikely to happen, but they could happen and what to do in an emergency and like they've all like gotten like some of them done, but not many of them done. I think people are so averse to actually thinking about that, that one I think is because they don't think it's going to happen, but I think part of it is that they don't want to think about it. Yeah. I'm not worried about that so much. Like Dean Jackson has a list of signs that he's living the life the way he wants to live. So I know I'm doing well when, right? Something like that. It doesn't have to be break glass. It can be anything, but you know, sort of, and I think that's where a lot of the value of maximum lawyer comes is that people have seen us sort of hit those benchmarks and know, you know, the scary thing I think is when you're in that first phase, when you don't know if you're going to get somewhere, where you're going to get and what it's going to look like and how you'll know when you get there. Yeah. There are there are certain things like that you need to make sure that you're hitting. Like if, if I'm just kind of spitballing here with you as like the things that you need to make sure that you're hitting, you got to make sure that you're generating clients, right? So you have to have like the, at least like one, like referral source where you're regularly generating clients, not something where you're just randomly generating, but something where you're regularly generating clients, you got to make sure you got someone that's going to answer your phones, make sure you're managing the cash flow. I mean, I, you have to make sure that you, but your cases are being handled properly and in a timely manner that you're closing out cases properly. You know, I took a long time before I was like actually closing out cases, I like to just keep them open in case there was more to do or someone wanted to hire us again just having good structures and systems and, and I think the best benchmark of all is if you're not doing everything when, when someone tells me they're doing everything, that's just to tell that they're stuck in their control freaks. Yeah. The number of cases, I remember, so I was in that suite with a lot of other attorneys for a while. I remember. And the thing used to be like, how many cases do you, do you have? How many cases do you have? And it's such a misleading and bad metric because what you just said, you might have a bunch of cases because you're not closing anything out. So you, you sign up a bunch of cases and then all your, you've got this massive case load that's swollen and you can't do anything with it because you've got so many of them and you've already been paid on some of them. So especially like people that do take money up front, you know, like they, they've been paid on the case. So they, they, they're incentive to close it out. It's not great. Right? Like we're like, the way you do it, I think you get paid a little bit up for a little bit of front. You have paid some upfront and then some at the end whenever you're closing it out. So you have an incentive to close that case out. Like I have a massive incentive to close the case out because I don't get paid anything. I'm, I'm going, I'm actually negative money until, until we get the case settled. So, but other people, like that you may, yeah, you may have a great massive case load, but that doesn't mean shit. Like that doesn't mean anything. That just means that you're not closing cases out fast enough. I think another benchmark in the scheme of things is when can I take a day off from the office and things keep moving? Ooh, I like that. And then when can I take a week off without contacting the office? Like that's, those are some pretty big personal headspace kind of benchmarks, I think. How long into starting your firm do you think that you were able to do that? Whether it's a day off or a week off or whatever, how long do you think it took? When I showed up at Strategic Coach, I knew that I hadn't had a free day in like three years. So that would have been probably six or seven years ago. So that would have been 10 years in. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I took vacation and stuff, but I was always checking an email and talking to Adele and all that stuff. Yeah. I'm trying to think like whenever I, like for the first time, like it, I could probably take a day off and not call it, but like if I'm, that's easy, like a day off is easy. But you have to say, and things have to keep moving. Yeah, that's part two. That's the other part. Day off a week off, now a week off, it took, geez, it, cause I'm what, 14 years in technically now. Let's say, let's see, I can go back to it was before, it was before COVID, probably like 19 or so, 2019, 2018, like so it was like right before COVID. And that was, that was tough for me at the time. So would that have been like, that would have been nine years. So like nine years in eight years, nine years. So that's, yeah, I mean, yeah. And that's one of the things where you, I don't know, like why, why do you think that took so long? Why do you think we knew, we knew what we should, should do and shouldn't do. So why do you think it took us, took us along? Well, for me, I'm compulsive about signing up cases. So I always wanted to be bringing in more business, because even though you hit those flat toes, you're still worried that like you said, you said to me just right now, man, if we didn't sign up a case for a month or two around here with the size that we're at, we didn't mean big trouble. So that's something that I don't think ever goes away. Yeah. I think that's part of it too. I, to me, like I've always had this, a lot of it came from my dad, but a lot of it came from like just going to business school where they, they talked about like the customers everything, which is interesting is like, that is not what lawyers are taught. Like lawyers are, like lawyers are taught, or at least they have the, I get the impression that lawyers think that they are everything and that customer is everything. So I always, I've always had this thought like, okay, if a client's calling in or has an email, they need to be responded to right away. And so I think that's where a lot of my compulsion comes from. It's not necessarily getting the clients in. It's, it's taking care of the clients you have. So that part of I had to let go of quite a bit. Or like there was a, an email I did respond to earlier today where the client had emailed me three days ago whenever I was like near my sickest. And I was, I just emailed as like, Hey, I just want to let them know like I had not, it wasn't ignoring his email. I just said, Hey, it might be a few days before I get back to him at home sick with, with COVID, but I'll get back to him as soon as I can. It's like one of those things that kind of gnaw at me were like, I want to make sure that a client doesn't think that they're being ignored because that could, that could easily happen sometimes. It's all good man. I wouldn't feel bad about that. So good man. Yeah. I, you know what? It's funny about this topic. I feel like we talked very little about the topic, but I do think we, there's a lot of other things that are relevant to whatever you're, you're trying to figure out if you made it or not. And I think that there's, I think there's a lot in here that I think it'll benefit people if you're, if you work. A lot of it seems to depend on what you paint your goals to be. Like what you, what you dream of and what you want to have. And I think early on when we started Maximum Lawyer, you and I were often saying things like, you've got to do it like this. You've got to be like us. But to me, where I really ended up after a couple of years, maybe two or three was, where do you say you want to be? Where are you? And how can we help you build that bridge, that gap? Or why aren't you where you want to be? Yeah. But with that, where do you say you want to be? We got to, we got to ask that question, but then we also have to dig really deep in figure, is that really what you want? Are you just saying that for, because you think that that's the right thing you're supposed to be saying there, because there's a lot of that to where people say that they want something, they don't know why they want it, they just think that they want it. And that's something where I think that that's something we deal with quite a bit in the guild where people say that they want something. Sometimes they don't really want that. Sometimes they come to the conclusion that, oh, maybe I'm okay with where I am right now. And I just, I want something different. So that's, that's something we've got to get to figure out sometimes too. I'm also looking forward to listening to this whenever I have a clear head because I am, I am interested. You'll be like, could I say that? I was on medicine. I don't remember any of this business. No, I'll, I'll remember it. I just, I am interested to hear because I am not thinking the clearest with my, what's going on with me. But yeah. All right. We had to wrap things up, brother. I am. All right. I want to remind everybody to join us in the big Facebook group. We'd love to have you just search maximum lawyer on Facebook and you'll find us. And then if you want to join us in the guild where our next quarterly mastermind will be in Vegas. So it'd be great to have you join us there and go to maxlawgild.com. And we would really, really appreciate if you'd give us a five star review on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. It helps us spread the love to other listeners and other law firm owners across the country, actually across the world. We have people all over the world that listen to this, which is pretty cool. Jimmy, what's your hack of the week, reread books. You probably don't need more books. You probably just need to reread the good ones that you have. So somebody asked on Twitter, like the other day, what are the, I was really excited about this. What are the books that you read more than once or that you read regularly? So I try to read atomic habits and limit lists and maybe traction, but definitely limitless by Jim quick and atomic habits by James Clear. And so I tweeted those out and Jim quick had a real nice reply. So that made my day that he took the time to reply. I think both of them are really good about just getting your mind right. And like, if I'm in a slump or feeling down, those are both really good ways to get really small, incremental, practical ways to sort of turn things around. I had put down Gary Vaynerchuk's book Day Trading Attention, but I just got to the last section, section four, where he goes over all the platforms again, like he did in jab, jab, jab, right hook. So I feel like I'm sort of reading a book again, but it's all updated. So any time you can check in with the things that have helped you be successful, I think you'll get to a deeper understanding of concepts than you do just by bouncing to the next book. Yeah, there's a few that I've read and like I would, I will, I'm going to reread 33 strategies of work. So I think it's a really good book. Thinking Grow Rich, I've read probably six or seven times. Yeah. Thinking Grow Rich is another one that I've read a couple times. I think it's some other ones that I've read, I don't know. That's one of the things my brain does not work in the clearance right now, but there's yeah, it's all good. The 12-week year I read a couple times, which I thought was a really good one. Yeah. We were on a big kick for that for a while. Yeah. And it's funny because like what's really interesting about 12-a-year, if you look at a lot of these other other professional programs, for lack of a better word, a lot of their principles are based, I don't know if they're based on the 12-a-year, but the 12-a-year is a big component of all of them, the way they break down the goals and everything. So I think I think it's really interesting how that applies to so many different books. Ultimate sales machines, another one you and I have read a couple times because we love it so much. Oh, yes. Yeah. How about I love ultimate sales machine? I can't believe he's dead, shed homes, that's just, that's a sad, that's a loss to the business world. He's just like, just simple things like there's a chapter in there where he's got the concept of touch at once. Like, if you could take that, that principle alone, touch at once and apply it to everything that you do, you could shrink the amount of time that it takes you to do things. It's exponentially because thinking how many times you touch that piece of paper, that one piece of paper that's been on your desk for, I don't know how many months and that you keep coming back to it, if you would just do something with that damn thing or that email or that case, whatever, it would solve a lot of problems. So I think there's just a lot of great wisdom in that book. So I got to explain mine a little bit my tip of the week. If you find yourself saying, oh, I'm just kidding to something, you might want to rethink the things that you're saying. So sometimes you'll see people say something, right, they'll make a comment about something and they'll meet, they'll say it in a serious manner and then someone will kind of call them on it, they'll challenge them on it a little bit, I won't say call them, but challenge them a little bit. And then the person said, oh, I'm just kidding. So either you don't really believe in the thing that you're saying or you're not wanting to stick up for the things that you're saying, or that you're talking about. So try not to say, oh, I'm sorry, or I'm just joking, if you really mean the things that you're saying. If you find yourself kind of backing off those things you're saying, maybe you shouldn't, maybe you should rethink some of the things you're saying. So I've been noticing that a lot lately on lots of interview shows where someone will say something and then they'll back off of it, even though they initially meant it and then they back off of it. So like if you mean something, say it and stick to it, like don't apologize for it. There's no need for that. Don't say you're joking, just stick with it. So that's my tip of the week and I, it's one of the things like Jimbo, I couldn't imagine you doing that. I just don't, if you mean something, you usually stick to it. It's like you're going to say, oh, I'm just joking. So but I haven't the, I haven't been thinking about just saying less. I'm in a spot right now where I just feel like saying less. So that's interesting. I think that that's, I think that that's important too, or just not having an opinion on something like that's, or share it. That is one of those things. We're like, you don't have to have an opinion on something. Yeah. That's the other thing. Yeah. Oh, Kirk Curf Street was talking with us today. It was, he said, you know, I feel like that, you know, I was growing up. You weren't supposed to talk about religion, sex, politics. But now I feel like that's what everyone, that's all they're talking about. And I think that's true. Like, yeah. Yeah. You don't have to share your opinion on everything. You don't, and you don't have to have an opinion on everything either. So both valuable lessons. So say less. I like that. That's good. All right, Jimbo. This helped cheer me up a little bit. So I appreciate it. Good. I'm glad buddy. I hope you're feeling better. Thanks, man. Thanks for listening to the Maximum Liar Badgaff. Staying contact with your host and to access more content, go to maximumliar.com. Have a great week and catch you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
