Less thinking, more doing

November 10, 2015 by
Share

If you’re like me, and you are, you think too much. Not about everything, but about many things, especially things you’re not sure you want to do. For most lawyers, anything associated with marketing seems to fall into that category.

You know you need to update your website, for example, but the idea sounds daunting and unpleasant, so you don’t do it. You’d like to get more referrals from other lawyers but you think this will require doing things you won’t want to do (it doesn’t) so you procrastinate.

Thinking is an occupational hazard for smart people.

Lately, I’ve been noodling about starting a podcast. I’m watching videos, learning about equipment and process, reading blog posts, and imagining what it might be like.

Will I be any good at it? Will I get business from it? Is it too complicated, too expensive, or too time consuming?

And. . . most importantly. . . will I like it? Because if I don’t, I know I won’t stick with it.

Sound familiar?

Anyway, the only way to find out any of these things is to actually do it.

Less thinking, more doing.

But here’s the thing. Going from not doing a podcast to doing a podcast is a big leap. Maybe too big. Instead of making that leap, I might do a short audio message for you, or a YouTube video, and see how that goes.

No commitment to a weekly podcast, just a “one-off”. If I like it, I might do another. At that point, I’ll be a different person, have different knowledge, and can make better decisions about what to do next.

Whatever it is that you think you need to do, or think you want to do, try it. Do it once, or do it for a few weeks, and see what you think and how you feel.

Thinking, planning, and research are good things. But you won’t know for sure until you do it.

Get more referrals from lawyers

Share
Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Personal development Tagged With: ,

Why I stopped collecting coins

November 5, 2015 by
Share

I was a coin collector as a kid. My grandfather got me started. I subscribed to Coin World, and read it every week. I belonged to The Kennedy Coin Club, where I where I met with other collectors to buy, sell, and trade.

I always had my Want/Have list in my wallet–a list of coins I needed to fill in gaps in my collection and duplicates I was willing to sell or trade.

I remember how much fun it was to go through my pocket change (or my father’s pockets) and find silver coins or rare coins from the past. Sometimes, I’d go to the bank and “buy” a bag of coins so I could go through it to find the one or two coins that were worthy of saving. I’d replace them in the bag and exchange it for a new one.

Collecting coins was a fun hobby. But eventually, there came a time when you could no longer find rare coins or silver coins in your change, and I stopped doing it. It wasn’t fun anymore.

You know what? That’s a good metric for everything in life. If it’s not fun, don’t do it.

If you don’t enjoy practicing law, do something about it. Change your practice area or your clients, get good at marketing, or go do something else.

I said as much in an interview I did yesterday for a podcast. “What’s one piece of advice you could share that we haven’t talked about,” I was asked at the end of the interview. “If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right,” I said.

Of course it’s not all black or white. There’s lots of gray. You may not like networking, for example, but you love the results so you keep doing it. That’s actually a good way to look at it. Focus on what you like, not what you don’t like.

Don’t forget, everything is relative. Maybe you don’t like marketing, but you don’t like getting calls from bill collectors even less.

Find some aspect of what you’re doing that’s fun. Because otherwise, why do it?

Share
Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Marketing legal services, Personal development, success

The best career advice I ever heard

November 3, 2015 by
Share

I was at a real estate investment seminar in the 1970’s with hundreds of others. The speaker knew that most of us would never do the one thing they needed to do become a real estate investor: take action.

Most people procrastinate. Hell, most people don’t even read the materials that come with the course. They let fear and inertia stop them from doing the activities that will take them from where they are to where (they say they) want to be.

To make his point, the trainer stood at the front of the room and took a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket. He held it up in the air and said, “Who wants it?”

Many hands went up. There were murmurs throughout the crowd. The trainer stood there for what seemed like an eternity, but nothing happened. Then, a brave young man got out of his seat, ran to the front of the room, and plucked the twenty dollar bill from the trainer’s hand.

The trainer pointed out that to get what you want in life, you have to take action. Immediately. Like the young man who walked away with the prize.

Good point. Well played.

Don’t think about it. Get your ass out of the chair and go get it. That’s the ticket to success.

I imagine that if the same demonstration had been done in a room filled with attorneys, nobody would come up and take the money. They would be trying to figure out the catch. Or the tax consequences. Or how to get a third of someone else’s money.

So, if the key to success is taking action, what is the key to taking action? Later, the trainer told us the answer.

He said that it was a belief in the I.G.D.S. philosophy. That stands for “I’m Going to Die Someday”. Life is not a dress rehearsal. There’s no “later,” this is it. You’ve got one shot and the clock is ticking.

Cue Bon Jovi.

I don’t remember much else from that seminar all these years later, but I remember these lessons. I can’t say I’ve always been faithful to them, however. It’s the dying thing. I’m still searching through the fine print.

Share
Filed Under: Inspiration, Personal development, success

Working part time on your fortune

November 2, 2015 by
Share

Personal development legend Jim Rohn advised us to, “Work full time at your job and part time on your fortune.”

Your job pays the bills. It keeps the machine running. And most people need to spend most of their time doing that. But not all of their time. Some of their time should be invested in their future.

Your future might be where you want your practice to be in five years. It might be a side business or project you’re working on that will allow you to slow down, retire, or enter another phase of your life. It might be your investments, a cause that excites you, or something else you dream about.

How much time should you invest in your future? That’s for you to decide, but 20% seems like a good place to start. If you work an eight hour day, spend 90 minutes working on your fortune, and the rest earning a living.

If that’s too much, if you need a full eight hours to do the work that pays your bills, then for the next few years, you might have to work a 9 1/2 hour day. Or, work on your fortune after your work day ends, in the morning, and on your lunch break. That’s what I did when I started my publishing and consulting business.

And hey, don’t go looking for the time. You won’t find it. You have to make the time. Look at your calendar and block out 90 minutes a day, or two 45 minute periods, or six 15 minute periods every day.

Don’t forget commute time or exercise time. You can make calls in the car or dictate letters and articles at the gym. I dictated the first draft of this post while I was on my morning walk.

If 90 minutes is too much, start with 30 minutes and work your way up. Whatever number you choose, make sure you do it every day. If you don’t, if you skip days, you are telling your subconscious mind that your dream isn’t important. Before you know it, it won’t be.

Whatever future you desire and dream of, if it’s important to you, you will make it a priority. You’ll get up early or stay up late, and you will do what needs to be done. If it’s not important, you won’t.

In a few years, you’ll either say, “I wish I had,” or “I’m sure glad I did”.

Share
Filed Under: Inspiration, Personal development, success Tagged With:

How well do you know your stuff?

October 27, 2015 by
Share

A number of years ago I was in Texas attending an event related to one of my businesses. The room was filled with several hundred attendees waiting to hear the featured speaker who was scheduled to do a training. Unfortunately, he had the flu and couldn’t speak.

One of the event organizers knew me and asked if I would be willing to fill in. I had nothing prepared but I said yes, got on stage and did a 30 minute training. I was able to do that, without notes or preparation, because I knew the subject matter. I had trained many times before, both on stage and on conference calls, and was able to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Even if you don’t regularly speak or train or address a jury, you should be able to do the same thing.

You know your area of expertise cold, don’t you? You should be able to explain what you do in a cogent manner. The challenge is to make it interesting enough to engage your audience, so they will remember what you said, and remember you.

So here’s my charge to you. Flesh out a five minute talk about some aspect of what you do. Start with a few bullet points, then add an opening and a closing.

Open with a story, a startling statistic, or a provocative question. Share stories about cases or clients you’ve had, to illustrate your material and to bring it to life. Close with a summary and tell them what you want them to do.

Practice your talk. Record yourself delivering it. Get good at it, because even if you’re never called upon to deliver it to a live audience, it will help you become better at communicating what you do.

Wait. You’re not done. You should also prepare a 20-minute talk, and be prepared to deliver it if called upon. A standard talk you could do at a luncheon or on a webinar. Who knows, you might find you like speaking and have a new way to bring in business.

Finally, prepare a one-minute talk. This will probably be the most difficult, but also the one that you are most likely to deliver.

Share
Filed Under: Communication, Personal development, Presentations, Public Speaking, Seminars and webinars

Are you getting stale?

October 23, 2015 by
Share

You’ve been a lawyer for more than a few years and you’re good at what you do. So good, you could do most of your job in your sleep.

You know the forms to use and the words to say. You know the best places to park at the courthouse. You know the judges and other lawyers, and they know you.

Your job has become routine. Easy. Life is good.

Don’t get too comfortable. Before you know it, some rookie lawyer will come along and eat your lunch.

They may not know what you know or be able to do what you can do, but they’re fresh and hungry. Everything is new and exciting. They’ve got energy and drive and something to prove.

And let’s not forget that they have been using computers since pre-school.

If you’re not careful, as their practice grows, you may see yours diminish.

But you can stay ahead of them by re-inventing yourself and your practice. Become a new lawyer again. Look at everything with fresh eyes.

Imagine that you have just opened your doors and you don’t have any clients. Get hustling and bring some in before the end of the month.

Take classes in your practice area and also in practice areas you know nothing about. Take classes in business, marketing, sales, writing, and speaking.

Take some cases you’ve never handled before. Find another lawyer to associate with you or mentor you.

Start over, from scratch, and build your practice again.

In the military, for a day or for a week, a unit will periodically stand down and review all of their operations. You should do the same thing. Examine all of your office management procedures and forms, look for holes that need to be patched, find expenses that can be reduced or eliminated, and processes that can be improved.

Do the same thing with your marketing. Find ways to make it better. Eliminate things that aren’t working, do more of  the things that are, and find new ways to bring in business you’ve never tried before.

Examine every piece of paper in your office and every electron in your computer. Resolve to get organized, eliminate clutter, and streamline your workflow.

And from this day forward, do something new every week. New ideas, new projects, new people, will keep you fresh and alert and sharp and open new doors for you.

Get excited about the future you are about to create and then go eat someone else’s lunch.

Get your marketing plan here

Share
Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Goal Setting, Increase your income, Inspiration, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development, Productivity, success

Don’t be an Askhole

October 20, 2015 by
Share

I learned a new word today: Askhole. It means, “A person who continually asks for your advice and then always does the opposite of what you told them.”

You’ve got clients like that, right? So you know how frustrating it is to give them your expert (and expensive) advice only to see them ignore it.

Even lawyers do it. In fact, lawyers probably do it more than regular folks. I’ve done hundreds of consultations with lawyers who seek out my advice, pay for it, and then, I’m pretty sure, do nothing.

Oh well. As long as their check cleared.

Here’s what’s interesting. I can almost always tell that they’re not going to follow my advice at the very moment I’m giving it to them.

They’re only half listening. They’re not asking questions or writing anything down. They’re going through the motions of getting advice but their voice tells me they aren’t going to follow it.

Why? Because they don’t want to.

They don’t want to change what they’re doing. They don’t want to hear that they’ve been doing something wrong. In fact, I suspect that many lawyers hire me not because they want to learn something but because they want me to validate what they’re currently doing.

When I don’t, they stick their fingers in their ears and say, “la la la, I can’t hear you.”

Does it bother me? Hey, I’m not their mother. I can’t make them follow my advice.

Okay, it is frustrating. But when I talk to a lawyer who “gets it,” it makes it all worthwhile.

Last week, I did a consultation with a personal injury attorney who wanted my help with his advertising and his website. The ads he’s been running for a long time aren’t doing as well as before. Within 30 seconds, I knew what the problem was and told him what to do.

Problem diagnosed. Problem solved.

I don’t know if he’ll follow all of my advice, but I’m pretty sure he’ll do what I suggested about his ad and website. I could hear it in his voice. He got it. It made sense to him. I could almost hear his palm slapping his forehead.

While there’s no guarantee that it will work, at least he’s got something to try. Which is better than being an Askhole and doing nothing.

Fix your website and make the phone ring

Share
Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Mentors & Coaches, Personal development

Goals are a bitch

October 13, 2015 by
Share

Goals can be a demanding and unforgiving bitch. You do what you’re told, or rather what you said you would do, or there’s hell to pay.

Who needs that?

Yes, you want what you want, and yes, you’re willing to do the work to get it, but who needs an overseer? Who needs the pressure of “do or not do” when you might only want to try?

I write down my goals, but more and more I focus on something else. Something that helps me reach my goals without making my life miserable along the way.

Instead of focusing on the goal, I focus on the process. Instead of focusing on the results, I focus on the activity.

After all, it’s the activities that bring the results.

But to do the activities long enough (and get good at them) you have to find peace with the process. Or else you won’t stick with it. Or if you do, you might get the results but come to hate what you’re doing and burn out or get ulcers or ruin your marriage.

You can’t say, “Once I get what I want, I’ll be happy”. It doesn’t work that way. You have to be happy, first.

Author James Clear said,

“. . .if you look at the people who are consistently achieving their goals, you start to realize that it’s not the events or the results that make them different. It’s their commitment to the process. They fall in love with the daily practice, not the individual event. . . If you want to become significantly better at anything, you have to fall in love with the process of doing it. . . Fall in love with boredom. Fall in love with repetition and practice. Fall in love with the process of what you do and let the results take care of themselves.”

And they will take care of themselves. Or they won’t, but you’ll be happy nevertheless because you’re doing something you love.

Use this to create a simple plan (i.e., one that you will do)

Share
Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Goal Setting, Personal development, success

How do you know you’re making the right decision?

October 12, 2015 by
Share

Sometimes I get ideas and they work right from jump street. Everything falls into place and the finished project looks very much like what I envisioned when I first got the idea.

But that’s the exception, not the rule.

Usually, my first idea turns out very differently than I imagined. Once I start working on it, I realize that I’ve missed things or that the entire idea is defective.

I’m working on a new book and I’ve been struggling with how to slant it. There are two completely different markets I could write for and I didn’t know which to choose. (For the record, attorneys are one of them).

I thought about it and decided to write the book so that both markets could benefit from it. Problem solved. But it wasn’t. As I thought about it some more, I realized that one market was a much better choice than the other.

Then I thought, why not write two books? The two markets are different but I could easily take the material and adapt it for both.

I noodled about the problem for a few days but couldn’t decide. Back and forth I went, but nothing felt like the right choice.

Finally, I made (another) decision. I would write the book for the non-attorney market since that was the more logical choice.

Well, you can probably guess what happened. After a good night’s sleep, out of nowhere, another idea came to me. Strangely, this idea focuses on a completely different angle and market than what I had been considering. Even stranger, and better, is that the book can appeal to both of the two original markets and another completely different market that might be even better.

Weird, huh? But cool.

How do I know it’s the right decision? I just do. It feels right. When I think about it, I feel lighter, like a burden has been lifted. I can’t wait to work on it. Also, it feels like this book will be easier to write, that it will flow quickly and naturally because I’m not trying to make it do something, I’m letting it do what it wants to do.

Like I said, weird.

If you’ve ever struggled with making the right decision, the answer isn’t to try to think your way through it. The answer is to relax and let it go. Get away from the subject for a while and let your subconscious mind work on it.

In your heart and your gut, the right answer exists. Give it time and allow it to bubble to the surface. When it does, it will let you know that it has arrived.

Share
Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, success Tagged With:

What, are you chicken?

October 1, 2015 by
Share

What are you afraid of? Public speaking? Writing and putting yourself out into the world for all to see? Are you afraid to network and meet strangers? How about asking for referrals?

I’m calling you out. Issuing a dare for you to do the thing that scares you. Because the thing that scares you might just be the best thing you could do.

Yes, there are risks. You might fail. You might be embarrassed. You might do something stupid and lose a client or a friend. But you might also find that the thing you dare to do opens up vast new opportunities for you and catapults you to an amazing level of success.

Back to the Future is about to celebrate its 30th anniversary. If you recall, Marty McFly didn’t like anyone calling him chicken. He did things, on a dare, and it got him into trouble, but it also took him on a grand adventure. He was the hero of that adventure because he dared.

Yesterday, I had an email conversation with an attorney who has started a network marketing business. He told me that he was hesitant to show his professional contacts what he was doing. He’s read my network marketing books so he knows that I understand. When I started my business, I felt the same resistance he is feeling.

Whether it’s practicing law or building a business or doing anything that takes us out of our comfort zone, there are many things we can do to help lessen our fears, or bypass them. One of the best is to get a workout partner to hold us accountable to doing the activities we need to do to reach our stated goals.

I told the lawyer that eventually, he would experience a breakthrough, and that right now, he should focus on doing whatever he can do to get started. I know that once I did that in my business, my fears quickly proved to be unfounded and I was on my way to success.

Whatever it is you fear, just do it. Get started. Trick yourself if you have to, get drunk if you have to, take someone to hold your hand if you have to, but do it. Take the leap and build your wings on the way down.

He might not find a breakthrough, of course. He might let his fears get the better of him. Like so many, he might find himself in the “I wish I had” club, instead of the “I’m glad I did” club. But if he never starts, he’ll never know.

I broke through my resistance because I was at a point in my life where I was tired of working all the time and realized I had to do something about it. I wanted the benefits of time freedom and retirement income and the associated lifestyle that goes with it and my desire was stronger than my fears.

In other words, I felt the fear and did it anyway. And I’m glad I did.

Share
Filed Under: Inspiration, Personal development, success Tagged With:
« Previous Page
Next Page »