Can you build a thriving business and still have the freedom to enjoy your life? Gary Mitchell believes you can have both.
For more than two decades, Gary has helped law firm owners strengthen their businesses, develop effective teams, and create greater freedom outside of work. In this episode, he joins Jet Bunditwong to discuss the principles behind his book, The AND Approach: How to Grow Your Law Firm and Gain More Freedom.
Gary explains how business owners can identify their greatest strengths, hire the right people, delegate without micromanaging, and create systems that allow the business to operate without depending on them for every decision. He also discusses the mindset shift required to move from being a skilled professional to becoming an effective business owner and leader.
In this episode:
- Why your business should support your life
- How to identify and focus on your strongest abilities
- Building a team with complementary skills
- Delegating without losing quality or control
- Creating systems that increase the value of your business
- Why consistency and daily habits matter
- Preventing the owner from becoming the company’s bottleneck
- Building a workplace culture where people can thrive
Learn more about Gary Mitchell and his coaching at The AND Approach: How to Grow Your Law Firm AND Gain More Freedom, is available on Amazon in print and Kindle editions.
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00:58 --> 01:02 Insurance. Hi, and welcome to The Personal Side of Business, where every business has
01:02 --> 01:05 a story. I'm your host, Jeff Bundewald. Today, my guest is Gary Mitchell.
01:06 --> 01:09 For more than 2 decades, he's been helping law firm owners build their businesses
01:09 --> 01:13 to create both success and freedom. His new book, The And Approach,
01:13 --> 01:16 argues that you don't have to choose between a thriving business and a fulfilling
01:16 --> 01:19 life. You can have both. Welcome to the podcast, Gary. My pleasure, Jeff.
01:20 --> 01:23 Happy to be here with you. Yeah. So let's start with your story. How did
01:23 --> 01:26 we get here? Okay. I'll give you the Coles Notes cuz I don't wanna take
01:26 --> 01:29 up the whole podcast time. Basically, I've always been a serial
01:29 --> 01:33 entrepreneur. I really have. Usually that's what happens with entrepreneurs. You have
01:33 --> 01:36 a certain bent, a certain, you want to create things, you want to build something.
01:37 --> 01:41 So I started my first business at 25 in Toronto. I built a
01:41 --> 01:44 national event, very successful national marketing partners with big
01:44 --> 01:48 companies, national media exposure. Had no previous experience,
01:49 --> 01:53 just got in there, got my hands dirty, tried things. Some things failed, learned like
01:53 --> 01:57 most entrepreneurs, right? Then I moved out. By way of that business,
01:57 --> 02:01 I came out to Vancouver to promote the local, the regional event and fell in
02:01 --> 02:04 love with the place. I was like, what am I doing living in Toronto?
02:04 --> 02:08 I soon thereafter got back into politics, ran for Parliament
02:09 --> 02:13 2004. That's the equivalent of the House of Representatives in the U.S.
02:13 --> 02:16 And thankfully I lost. And I mean that most sincerely.
02:16 --> 02:20 So as fortune would have it, I got approached by a lawyer to
02:20 --> 02:23 run his nomination campaign. That's like your primaries. So he would
02:24 --> 02:27 earn the right to become the candidate. I jumped at the opportunity with the
02:27 --> 02:31 political background that I had. This guy was a good candidate. Uh, well,
02:31 --> 02:34 good person. He knew nothing. He was a blank slate. So imagine an
02:34 --> 02:38 artist with a blank canvas, right? And all my experience,
02:38 --> 02:42 both in front, in front and in behind the scenes as volunteer and,
02:42 --> 02:46 uh, campaigner. So then he won the nomination and was adamant about me becoming
02:46 --> 02:49 his campaign manager. I reluctantly took on that role,
02:49 --> 02:52 but I did. And I was coaching him as a candidate. And it was,
02:52 --> 02:55 it was one of those life aha moments, Jeff. I had always been the
02:55 --> 02:59 guy and now I'm the guy behind the guy. And I really liked it.
02:59 --> 03:03 I really, really liked it. I don't mean from a power point of view or
03:03 --> 03:07 pulling the strings. I mean, from witnessing another human being go through
03:08 --> 03:11 transformation due in part to what I gave him. Right. I mean,
03:11 --> 03:15 he was a, in fairness, he was a complete sponge. He took it. Lawyers are
03:15 --> 03:19 smart when they're given the right direction. I mean, they learn quickly.
03:19 --> 03:22 He became an amazing candidate. And was up against 2 veteran
03:23 --> 03:26 politicians. And in the last debate before the election, it was televised.
03:26 --> 03:29 He actually beat them. And I was sitting there in the studio, right in
03:29 --> 03:33 the back, back end, watching him on TV going, wow. So during this
03:33 --> 03:37 whole experience, his best friend, also a lawyer, took me aside one
03:37 --> 03:40 day and said, Gary, you really need to look at the legal industry. They really
03:41 --> 03:45 need help with these similar types of soft skills, people skills,
03:45 --> 03:48 which are transferable to business. Right. Building relationships,
03:49 --> 03:52 networking, speaking, you know, the stuff that lawyers and most
03:53 --> 03:56 professionals are never trained in, right? It's not just lawyers, but my
03:56 --> 04:00 connections were to law. I knew a lot of lawyers
04:00 --> 04:04 from my political background. I then spent 9 months researching online
04:04 --> 04:08 what was going on in the US, UK, and Australia, more locally what was
04:08 --> 04:12 going on in Canada. As serendipity would have it, the first chapter of the Legal
04:12 --> 04:15 Marketing Association, which had been around for I think 20 years at that
04:16 --> 04:19 point, the first chapter outside of the United States was being formed in Vancouver.
04:19 --> 04:23 I went to the forming meeting and networked. I met numerous veteran legal
04:24 --> 04:27 marketers from the firms in the US, some of whom I'm still in touch with
04:27 --> 04:31 today, they're friends and colleagues, and just, you know, soaked in, just got as much
04:31 --> 04:34 information and understanding of the industry, lawyers, their needs,
04:35 --> 04:38 the challenges. And not soon after that, I landed my first client.
04:38 --> 04:42 20 years in, I have niched over the last few years to drill
04:42 --> 04:46 down and work specifically with small law firm owners. And I'm
04:46 --> 04:49 loving it, Jet, because it's entrepreneur to entrepreneur.
04:49 --> 04:53 It reminds me back of the day when I was working directly with a candidate.
04:53 --> 04:56 It was just me and him, and we got so much done in such a
04:56 --> 05:00 short period of time. I mean, I do have this drive and now with the
05:00 --> 05:04 latest book, The AND Approach, this has become my mission. It's become my
05:04 --> 05:08 mission to show law firm owners and soon branching out to all other
05:08 --> 05:11 business owners that you can build a thriving business and
05:12 --> 05:15 have an amazing life. With time to enjoy the fruits of
05:15 --> 05:19 all your labor. You put so much time and effort into growing your baby,
05:19 --> 05:22 your business. It's a shame when you see people just chained to the desk,
05:23 --> 05:26 right? Nothing, nothing moves unless they're involved. So this
05:26 --> 05:30 is now my mission and I'm very driven in spreading the word and
05:30 --> 05:34 showing as many business owners because I, you know, small business is at
05:34 --> 05:37 the heart of both economies in the United States and Canada. It accounts for,
05:38 --> 05:41 I can't remember the exact percentage, but it's up there around 80% of
05:41 --> 05:46 GDP. I think it's like 80-something. Yeah. Small business owners.
05:46 --> 05:49 I mean, we drive the economies of our countries and we're
05:49 --> 05:53 innovating. We're creating new things. I would like to see more people enjoy their
05:53 --> 05:56 lives around all the work they've put into that. You know?
05:56 --> 05:59 Yeah. I think, you know, from, from your book, there's a lot of things that,
06:00 --> 06:04 that I felt are really important to be able to spread out, not just
06:04 --> 06:08 in law firms and lawyers, but to be able to do a
06:08 --> 06:12 lot of different businesses. And one of them is building systems. Right? That,
06:12 --> 06:15 that you talk about. And I think that's one of the hardest things for small
06:15 --> 06:19 business owners to do in any industry. It's because you're starting
06:19 --> 06:23 this business, you're getting going, and you're just seeing, you're just seeing this tunnel
06:23 --> 06:26 that you have to try to get to the other side. And for a lot
06:27 --> 06:29 of times that tunnel goes on forever and you're just trying to do it.
06:29 --> 06:31 So for someone to come in there and go, hey, you need to step back
06:31 --> 06:35 for a second and start to build a system so you're not working until you're
06:35 --> 06:39 85 years old. Maybe you can sell the business. Maybe hire people, start to
06:39 --> 06:42 have a vacation, start to have a life out of it. What are some of
06:42 --> 06:45 the things that you feel are important in a
06:45 --> 06:49 small business owner creating so they can build that life? Okay. This is such
06:49 --> 06:52 a good question and there's so much to unpack in it. First of all,
06:53 --> 06:56 you mentioned selling the business. So one of the first things I do when
06:56 --> 06:59 I work with a firm owner, and typically my clients are at a stage where
06:59 --> 07:03 they have already achieved success, they're usually doing over $2 million a year
07:03 --> 07:07 in revenue already. So they have, they have people working for them. They've hit
07:08 --> 07:11 some bumps. They've got some scars and bruises along
07:11 --> 07:15 the way, right? They've made some mistakes. They've had some success.
07:15 --> 07:18 They've reached a plateau. So the first thing I ask them is, what's your endgame?
07:18 --> 07:22 Where do you see this going? Because here's another example of the and approach.
07:23 --> 07:26 I want to start there and then back it, you know, reverse engineer it,
07:27 --> 07:30 back it to today. And what will happen is over
07:30 --> 07:33 the course of my working with them, we are not only going to have them
07:33 --> 07:36 gain more freedom and I will go into my formula. In just a minute,
07:36 --> 07:39 but I want to give the visual or the, you know, the vision
07:39 --> 07:43 of this. Not only will they begin to gain more freedom, but they're going to
07:43 --> 07:46 increase the value of their firm or their company. So when it does
07:47 --> 07:50 come time for semi-retirement, full retirement,
07:51 --> 07:54 whatever their next stage of their career is, they have built something that
07:54 --> 07:58 is actually worth something, right? And that's because of the systems,
07:59 --> 08:03 the proven methodology, the team, the talent, You know,
08:03 --> 08:06 someone's coming in, they're buying a turnkey operation. They're not having to
08:06 --> 08:10 reinvent the wheel, including the branding. You know, I'll get them off their
08:10 --> 08:13 lawyer name and get a real, like more corporate kind of, I mean, I love
08:14 --> 08:17 branding. It's creative. I love everything creative. So where do we begin?
08:17 --> 08:20 We begin with a SWOT analysis of the owner, strengths,
08:20 --> 08:24 weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Now the old school, Jet,
08:24 --> 08:28 I'm a little bit older than you. So in the early days of my entrepreneurial
08:28 --> 08:32 journey, all the books were talking about, you know, you look at your weaknesses.
08:32 --> 08:35 Fill up your socks, you know, fix this, fix that, get better
08:36 --> 08:39 at this, all that. You know, for most of us, it seemed logical.
08:39 --> 08:43 Yeah, we should probably improve our weaknesses. Well, then my number
08:43 --> 08:47 one guru for business leadership, organizational structure,
08:47 --> 08:51 Steve Jobs comes around and he turns that theory upside down
08:51 --> 08:55 in a big way. He said, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't, don't even
08:55 --> 08:58 worry about your weaknesses. Forget them. Turn all of your attention,
08:59 --> 09:02 focus, and energy to mastering your strengths. So I
09:02 --> 09:06 say to my clients, let's get you to become a Jedi, right? At what
09:06 --> 09:09 your strengths are. And that's not the same for every owner. We could talk about
09:09 --> 09:13 that in a— but that's the first step. From there, then we systematically build
09:13 --> 09:17 the A-team around them. So systematically building
09:17 --> 09:21 complementary skill sets and experiences around their strengths. In the
09:21 --> 09:25 meantime, we're filling the holes left by their weaknesses. And at the end
09:25 --> 09:29 of the day, this allows the owner to start delegating some
09:29 --> 09:33 of the responsibilities off his or her plate, off their desk, slowly but
09:33 --> 09:36 surely. Trust is a big issue with lawyers. Okay. I'm sure it
09:37 --> 09:40 is with other business owners. This is your baby, right? It's your thought.
09:40 --> 09:44 You've put your heart and soul into it, blood, sweat, and tears. It's hard
09:44 --> 09:47 to let go of control. For lawyers, letting go of control is a
09:47 --> 09:51 number one challenge to overcome for growth.
09:51 --> 09:54 And I will tell them very frankly, unless you learn to give
09:55 --> 09:58 give up some control, you will never grow to where you
09:59 --> 10:01 want to grow to. I'm going to help you. I'm going to show you how,
10:01 --> 10:05 right? You don't just do it overnight. You don't just, you know, and part of
10:05 --> 10:09 the problem here is that the hiring process as well
10:09 --> 10:13 is not— it's damaged. Most of the
10:13 --> 10:16 clients I've worked with will wait till the building's on fire before they
10:17 --> 10:19 make a hire. At that point, they don't have any time to properly instruct and
10:20 --> 10:23 do the proper delegation. So the junior tries to do the work,
10:24 --> 10:27 inevitably fails, comes back to the owner, the owner throws His or
10:27 --> 10:29 her hands up in the air and says, I knew it. I should have just
10:30 --> 10:33 done it myself. And this cycle perpetuates itself. So when
10:33 --> 10:37 I say hire the, the, the A-team, I mean, we need to get the right
10:37 --> 10:41 people. So step 1, SWOT analysis. Step 2,
10:41 --> 10:45 get the right people. Step 3, get them in the right roles.
10:45 --> 10:48 Just having the right people is not enough. We've got to make sure everybody
10:48 --> 10:52 is in the right roles functioning at their highest level, just like I've
10:52 --> 10:56 done with the law firm owner, whatever their highest function is. What happens is
10:56 --> 11:00 you've got people doing things faster, better, in less, in less time,
11:00 --> 11:04 less stress, less cost involved. And that's freeing
11:04 --> 11:07 up the owner. Then you give them the right direction. Critical.
11:07 --> 11:11 Okay. Another fault of lawyers, they're rushing the instruction.
11:11 --> 11:14 They've done the task a thousand times. It's in their head. It's like, you know,
11:15 --> 11:18 breathing, right? So they rush the delegation instruction.
11:18 --> 11:21 Then you plug them into the right systems. And here's another thing. The owner often
11:22 --> 11:25 feels they have to They have to like write everything down. They have to create
11:25 --> 11:29 all the systems and templates. And say, no, when you get the right people
11:29 --> 11:33 on the team, they're going to help you build those systems. They're going to help
11:33 --> 11:37 document everything. I mean, basically what we're talking about, Jeff, is creating the McDonald's
11:37 --> 11:41 of law firms or the McDonald's of any business. I mean, I don't
11:42 --> 11:46 eat that. I don't eat their food, but it is the most brilliant franchise
11:46 --> 11:50 ever created on the planet and every other food franchise and probably other
11:50 --> 11:54 franchises for that matter. Have been modeled after it because whether
11:54 --> 11:57 you're in San Diego, where you are, or Vancouver, where I am,
11:57 --> 12:00 or on the other side of the world, when you go into a McDonald's and
12:01 --> 12:04 order a burger, it's going to be the same, right? So we aim for the
12:04 --> 12:08 same thing in the law firm, whether it's Joe or it's Anna doing
12:08 --> 12:12 the legal work, it's going to be the same quality. And that is done by
12:12 --> 12:15 following systems and templates. So these are the patterns,
12:15 --> 12:19 the strategies that I help. It takes time. It sounds simple
12:19 --> 12:23 because it— I'm a fan of keeping things simple. But it's the
12:23 --> 12:26 only time I'm going to use, but simple does not mean easy. We are talking
12:26 --> 12:30 about human beings. All of this also takes great
12:31 --> 12:34 leadership. Okay. And great leadership takes putting the
12:34 --> 12:38 ego aside. Many law firm owners, many founders,
12:38 --> 12:41 business owners, entrepreneurs. This is a tough, it's a tough
12:41 --> 12:45 bit. I know I have a healthy ego. Creators, innovators,
12:45 --> 12:48 right? We have to have a certain level of ego to go and take the
12:49 --> 12:52 risks that we do. I mean, we're bordering on the insanity here. The risk we
12:52 --> 12:55 take in business. I was saying, had this conversation to one of
12:56 --> 13:00 my best friends who is like the chair of the education
13:01 --> 13:04 department for university. So they're teaching future teachers,
13:04 --> 13:08 also academic. He goes, I don't, I could never do what you're doing. And I
13:08 --> 13:11 laughed and I said, well, if everyone could do it, everyone would be doing
13:11 --> 13:15 it because the freedom that we get from it is amazing, right? I can work
13:15 --> 13:19 from anywhere in the world, my end. Is traveling, bucket list travel,
13:19 --> 13:22 right? So we look at the end game. What's the plan?
13:22 --> 13:26 We reverse engineer and we put into practice these proven
13:27 --> 13:31 strategies. It's always a little different. Getting back to going on the law firm owner's
13:31 --> 13:34 strength and translating that to the business owner's strength, especially practitioners,
13:34 --> 13:38 right? Technical practitioners who have— it's a profession. On one hand,
13:38 --> 13:41 I had a law firm owner who wanted to grow the firm and is growing
13:41 --> 13:45 the firm, but wants nothing to do with leading it. He completely runs
13:45 --> 13:49 away from HR and marketing. It's like he wants to be in the courtroom
13:49 --> 13:53 advocating for his clients. That's his juice. He thrives on it.
13:53 --> 13:57 Right. So I'm never going to try and change that. Right. That makes him happy.
13:57 --> 14:00 We all deserve to be happy in our work, in our careers.
14:00 --> 14:03 We're spending so many times, so much time at it. So we need to build
14:03 --> 14:07 his team around his strength. His strength is advocating. His strength
14:07 --> 14:10 is litigating in the courtroom. Okay. Great. Then we're
14:11 --> 14:14 going to find an amazing HR person. We're going to find an amazing marketing person.
14:14 --> 14:17 I bridge the gap for those until we find those professionals.
14:18 --> 14:21 And that allows, it frees him up to be doing the work he loves.
14:21 --> 14:25 Right. So he's growing the firm and he has the freedom to
14:25 --> 14:28 do the work he loves. More fulfilling. He's making tons of money,
14:28 --> 14:32 but he's not burning out trying to be all things to all people. So there's
14:32 --> 14:35 a quick overview of the process I work with my clients on. Yeah. Thank you
14:36 --> 14:40 for explaining that. I appreciate that because that That does seem like you can apply
14:40 --> 14:44 that to almost every business. And I think for you finding
14:44 --> 14:47 the strengths of it and then, and then filling those gaps in the,
14:47 --> 14:51 what, quote unquote weaknesses that the business owner needs to
14:52 --> 14:55 fulfill, I think it helps them to thrive,
14:55 --> 14:59 be happy, like you're saying, and then not have to worry about those parts that
14:59 --> 15:02 they're just like, I'm not good at this and I don't want to do this
15:02 --> 15:05 because I hear that a lot. I think there's a lot of business owners are
15:05 --> 15:09 like, especially with the marketing, especially with the areas of financial
15:10 --> 15:13 things like that, where they're just like, that's not my forte, but I love
15:13 --> 15:17 to be an electrician to build this out. But I think, you know,
15:17 --> 15:20 I wanted to ask you, you were explaining all of that is there's a little
15:21 --> 15:24 bit of a mindset shift that the business owner needs to go through as
15:24 --> 15:28 well, right? Because even though they love, even though that person
15:28 --> 15:31 loves to be in the trenches and do all those things,
15:31 --> 15:34 they still need to look at the goal that you were talking about and go,
15:34 --> 15:38 hey, you want to sell this, you want to do this, you can't do this
15:38 --> 15:42 forever. You're going to have to eventually start to move yourself into
15:42 --> 15:46 the right positioning and be able to set yourself up so that you're
15:46 --> 15:49 going to win in all these other aspects of the business, hiring the people,
15:49 --> 15:53 getting yourself to so you can live a healthier life,
15:53 --> 15:57 which I think that's part of this whole underlying thing. It's not
15:58 --> 16:00 just the freedom, but also to be able to be healthy going into your 60s,
16:00 --> 16:04 70s, and 80s. And be able to enjoy it and not just be like,
16:04 --> 16:07 I'm miserable. Like I've just been working 80 hours a week.
16:07 --> 16:10 Exactly. What, what are some of the tools that you use
16:11 --> 16:14 to help someone shift their mindset from,
16:15 --> 16:18 I need to do this this way. And then, you know what, I,
16:18 --> 16:22 you're, I'm seeing the light. I'm, I'm able to, to, to, to catch what
16:22 --> 16:25 you're throwing at me to be able to get to my goal. Uh, well,
16:25 --> 16:29 with lawyers, I mean, let's face it. You know, as serendipity
16:29 --> 16:34 would have it, I started with the toughest crowd on the planet, the most skeptical,
16:34 --> 16:37 critical, analytical, risk-averse perfectionists on
16:37 --> 16:41 the planet. I mean, these are all human traits. We all have them, but I
16:42 --> 16:46 always think lawyers have them 100 times over, right? Than most, most average
16:46 --> 16:50 business owners. So we all have these traits. So I start by building the
16:50 --> 16:53 trust with them and letting them know I get them. I get how their brain
16:53 --> 16:57 works, the lawyer mind. And I go, there's a whole chapter in the book about
16:57 --> 17:01 this. The lawyer mind basically relies on left-brain functions, the analytical
17:01 --> 17:05 thinking, the critical thinking, which is exactly why we hire them, by the
17:05 --> 17:10 way. Right. That's exactly what we want from a lawyer. The entrepreneurial
17:10 --> 17:14 mind takes into account more right-brain functions of communication,
17:15 --> 17:18 collaboration, empathy, innovation, risk-taking,
17:18 --> 17:22 less risk aversity. Complete opposite.
17:23 --> 17:27 So the irony is the skills that make for a great lawyer impede these
17:27 --> 17:31 law firm owners from becoming great as a business owner.
17:31 --> 17:35 So I have to show them to wear 2 hats. Okay. And the
17:35 --> 17:38 percentage of what they decide, how much time they spend with those hats on,
17:39 --> 17:42 is it 80% lawyer hat, 20% entrepreneur hat,
17:42 --> 17:46 or 50/50? That's ultimately up to them. I'm not going to tell
17:46 --> 17:49 them. Right? Because again, it's their choice. It's their
17:49 --> 17:53 business, their life. And it's different with everyone. I've had clients that run
17:53 --> 17:57 the gamut, clients that could totally leave the— and have leave the law
17:58 --> 18:01 altogether and they're full-time CEOs. I'm like, great. And then
18:01 --> 18:05 this particular client I mentioned that wants nothing to
18:05 --> 18:09 do with it, obviously signs off on it, right? Will be a part of mentoring
18:09 --> 18:13 lawyers because somebody has to do the legal work. Right? And that the
18:13 --> 18:17 law firm owner will not be doing full-time legal work forever, as you
18:17 --> 18:20 mentioned. So a lot of it is helping them understand the way they think now
18:20 --> 18:24 and the way they need to be thinking in order to grow.
18:24 --> 18:28 Now, from the beginning, I said lawyers are very smart. So they, they can stumble
18:28 --> 18:32 along for many years and on the outside look successful. The revenue's
18:32 --> 18:36 coming in, they're, they're growing, uh, you know, they have the
18:36 --> 18:39 car, they have the home. They have the vacation. So it looks
18:40 --> 18:44 like they're, they're successful on the outside, but they're missing their daughter's soccer
18:44 --> 18:47 practice. They're missing their son's concert. They're missing their
18:48 --> 18:51 wedding anniversary dinner, right? When they're on vacation, it's like
18:51 --> 18:55 this for 2 weeks. You know, that's not success in
18:55 --> 18:58 my opinion. And the generational shift that's going
18:58 --> 19:01 on too with, uh, from Gen X, which I'm
19:02 --> 19:06 a part of, to millennial is more each generation seems to be grasping
19:06 --> 19:09 for more of the life part. Right? So we create a business
19:10 --> 19:13 to serve our life, not a life to serve our business.
19:13 --> 19:17 And that I see changing with each generation, that the percentage
19:17 --> 19:20 of people who want to have a quality of life, whatever that means
19:21 --> 19:24 for them, right? Again, your end, your why, it's different than mine,
19:24 --> 19:28 different than the guy across the street, the woman down, down the
19:28 --> 19:32 hall. The important thing is that you never lose sight of what your why is.
19:32 --> 19:36 What is the end? Right. I mentioned my end is bucket list travel.
19:36 --> 19:39 I'm fascinated with different cultures and history. And I'd like,
19:39 --> 19:43 that's my juice. And I get to work from wherever I am exploring in
19:44 --> 19:47 the world. I've, I have risked a lot. I have sacrificed a lot, but that's
19:48 --> 19:51 where I am. And I, I'm living my life right the way I want
19:51 --> 19:55 to on my terms. And so that's the mission. The mission is to help other
19:55 --> 19:59 people do that. And, and most people we've been conditioned to
19:59 --> 20:02 believe it has to be either or, but this one or that one. And I'm
20:03 --> 20:06 like, get rid of those words from your vocabulary. No more but,
20:06 --> 20:10 no more or, no more either. Replace all those words with
20:10 --> 20:14 and, because this is the irony of all this, Jeff, is in
20:14 --> 20:18 especially growing a business, right? I'm not an expert on everything on the planet.
20:18 --> 20:20 No, just growing a business, growing a law firm.
20:21 --> 20:25 The different combinations of ands are limitless.
20:25 --> 20:29 And when you get into it, you start to see this makes sense that we're
20:29 --> 20:33 doing this and this and this and this all at the same time, because they're
20:33 --> 20:37 not separate. They're all intertwined. They're all related. And the impact of
20:37 --> 20:40 making small shifts in this area and this area
20:41 --> 20:45 and this area and this area, and I mean small shifts, not monumental,
20:45 --> 20:49 the impact is huge. Right. So, and something that
20:49 --> 20:53 you do, I guess, promote is consistency in those.
20:53 --> 20:56 Right. So I think like someone comes in and they're like, we'll just do this
20:56 --> 20:59 this first year. And maybe you, they're like, I'll check in every 6
21:00 --> 21:02 months. And all of a sudden you go back and you're like, you did not
21:02 --> 21:06 do any of those things, but consistency, I think. You have to be
21:06 --> 21:10 consistent in what you're doing for the longevity to reach those goals,
21:10 --> 21:14 especially for a lawyer, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's the success of
21:14 --> 21:18 life. I mean, one of the greatest books I've read in the last 5 years
21:18 --> 21:21 is Atomic Habits, um, Thomas Clear.
21:22 --> 21:25 And I'm listening to this almost 3 years ago. It was near
21:25 --> 21:28 the end of '23. Oh, cause I was back in Toronto, it was winter.
21:28 --> 21:31 And I'm listening to it and going, I'm going, oh my God, this is what
21:31 --> 21:34 I've been teaching my clients for almost 20 years. You hit upon it, consistency.
21:35 --> 21:38 It's the habit. So lawyers always Well, how much time
21:39 --> 21:41 should I spend on this every day? It's a classic.
21:41 --> 21:45 It's a classic question because lawyers always want a black or white answer.
21:45 --> 21:49 Okay. They want a definitive number. They're that, it's their mind. It's the
21:49 --> 21:52 way they think. So at first I laugh, I go, okay, what's more important than
21:52 --> 21:56 how much time you spend on this every day is that you get into the
21:56 --> 22:00 habit of doing it every day. Fitness trainers will tell you the same thing.
22:00 --> 22:03 It's not as important how long you are at the gym. It's that you
22:03 --> 22:07 get to the gym every day, that you build the habit of getting, putting the
22:07 --> 22:10 Putting your shorts on, putting your shirt on, putting those running shoes on,
22:11 --> 22:14 getting you out the door and to the gym. And I know this,
22:14 --> 22:18 I'm a big fitness buff. I've had many personal fitness trainers. It's the same thing.
22:18 --> 22:22 So the consistency, making it a habit. Habits generally form in,
22:22 --> 22:26 they say, 6 weeks to 3 months, and then it becomes second nature.
22:26 --> 22:29 Like, and I have so many of these systems that I've passed on to
22:30 --> 22:33 my clients. Some of them have been self-taught, frankly, because I've been, I've worked
22:33 --> 22:37 from home for 20 years, which takes discipline. So I've had to build systems.
22:38 --> 22:41 So I share those. Some of them are taught to me by my
22:41 --> 22:44 clients. Like we're co-creating them in the coaching work,
22:44 --> 22:47 right? They have a challenge. We need to overcome it. We look at it,
22:47 --> 22:51 we find a solution, it works. And so that's another tool in
22:51 --> 22:54 the toolbox I can take to the next client engagement. Yeah,
22:54 --> 22:58 it is all about habits, consistency, and systems. And yeah,
22:58 --> 23:02 and it's fascinating. I mean, this is what, this is what makes for successful
23:02 --> 23:05 people. Is they find out what works and they keep doing the same
23:05 --> 23:09 thing over and over and over again. Yeah. And you know, there,
23:09 --> 23:12 there's another, I felt, theme that you have is
23:13 --> 23:16 kind of delegating, backing off, and being able, not being,
23:16 --> 23:19 not micromanaging. Oh yeah. Because that's, I would
23:19 --> 23:22 think for a lawyer, that's especially, I would think maybe for
23:22 --> 23:26 someone who's the first handful of years, right? They're like you're saying, they're doing
23:27 --> 23:30 things that they feel like are working and everything, they're successful at. And then
23:31 --> 23:33 you're asking them to go there and go, I need you to back off a
23:33 --> 23:36 little bit and then trust the process. Is that one of the harder things that
23:37 --> 23:39 you need to convince? Massively challenging,
23:40 --> 23:43 massively challenging because you're dealing with their perfectionists,
23:44 --> 23:48 right? The control issues. They, they like to control things. It's massively.
23:48 --> 23:51 And so I tell them, well, first of all, I walk the walk.
23:51 --> 23:55 Okay. About 3 months ago, my EA, executive assistant, gave me a
23:55 --> 23:59 compliment. I've given her many and I'm just so glad I hired her.
23:59 --> 24:01 I used to work with her a few years ago as a VA through a
24:01 --> 24:04 service and stopped that. And then I reached out to her last
24:05 --> 24:08 year because I'd already, um, I'd already had the opportunity
24:08 --> 24:11 to work with her. So she says to me one day on our weekly call,
24:11 --> 24:14 we do a weekly meeting call. She goes, Gary, I just want to thank you
24:14 --> 24:18 for working, the opportunity to work with you. You, you give me free rein
24:18 --> 24:21 and you don't keep me on a leash. You don't micromanage me. My other
24:21 --> 24:25 client, it's also another professional service firm. They do
24:25 --> 24:28 micromanage. So I do walk the walk. I'm going to give you another quote from
24:28 --> 24:32 Steve Jobs. We don't hire smart people so we can tell them what
24:32 --> 24:35 to do. We hire smart people so they tell us what to do.
24:35 --> 24:39 Again, when you're building your A-team, ego aside, you hire the
24:39 --> 24:43 smartest people that you can possibly find. The most experienced,
24:43 --> 24:46 smartest people with the best attitude. But I must use the caveat.
24:47 --> 24:50 I say it in the book. I've said it for 20 years. The longer I'm
24:50 --> 24:53 on this planet, I'm proven this is over and over right.
24:53 --> 24:57 99% of everything is attitude. So experience,
24:57 --> 25:00 attitude, and the skill sets, and this will help them
25:01 --> 25:04 relinquish some of the control when they can trust in the people around
25:04 --> 25:08 them. Right. It doesn't happen overnight, but they're not, they're not foolish.
25:08 --> 25:12 Just because it takes time for them to trust doesn't mean they're not capable of
25:13 --> 25:16 it. And the beauty thing of it with lawyers, and again, it's a human trait.
25:17 --> 25:20 Once you gain the trust, they're very, very loyal. Like it's tough
25:20 --> 25:24 to get it. But once you've got it, maintaining it, you just have to
25:24 --> 25:27 keep doing the same excellence, right? But the delegating part,
25:27 --> 25:31 yeah, that's a massive thing we, I work with them on. And again,
25:31 --> 25:34 they're never trained in this. They, they've likely had poor
25:35 --> 25:38 examples of it from their generation when they were coming up, right? In some
25:38 --> 25:42 cases I'm wrong. In some cases they've had excellent mentors who did put
25:42 --> 25:46 in the time, did show them the ropes, did, you know, but it's
25:47 --> 25:50 a, it's a cutthroat profession. In the bigger firms, the partners are, they're looking
25:50 --> 25:53 at their billable hour targets. They're looking at their profit partner,
25:54 --> 25:57 that's their measuring stick. So not a lot of them make
25:57 --> 26:00 time for bringing the juniors up. It's kind of selfish, actually. That's why I
26:01 --> 26:04 don't like working with the bigger firms. I'm not aligned with those values,
26:05 --> 26:09 right? Yeah. And I was going to say,
26:09 --> 26:12 sorry to cut you off, but when is there a threshold where you
26:13 --> 26:15 feel like, let's say for the amount of partners,
26:16 --> 26:19 employees, whatever it is that's inside that law firm, that you
26:19 --> 26:23 feel like it's That's where it becomes uncomfortable to really work
26:23 --> 26:27 with in general? I don't know. I don't, I can't say like there's
26:27 --> 26:31 a definitive number because every circumstance is different. You're working with different personalities,
26:31 --> 26:35 right? I've heard many times that 3 equity, so 3 owners
26:35 --> 26:38 is a good number because we are talking smaller firms, right? So you could have
26:38 --> 26:42 3 owners and they could have 25 associates or
26:42 --> 26:46 contract lawyers, right? That's still fairly a fairly good size small firm.
26:46 --> 26:49 I like 3 because it's not an even number. It's, if you
26:50 --> 26:53 divide it evenly 3 ways, then someone has
26:53 --> 26:57 to be the sign-off, right? It can never be,
26:57 --> 27:00 you can't just sit there. They have to make decisions. They have to move forward.
27:01 --> 27:04 Again, you know, some of these clients, they will remain the only owner
27:04 --> 27:08 until they're getting closer to retirement and succession. Others will
27:08 --> 27:11 want to bring in partners at an early stage, right? Because they need the
27:12 --> 27:15 lead, they need the management team. So When we're building out the management,
27:15 --> 27:20 it can happen either 2 ways or 3, actually 3 ways. All partners.
27:20 --> 27:24 So you've got lawyers, you've got partners with you, and each one is taking
27:24 --> 27:27 a different management role. Some people are prone to the marketing
27:28 --> 27:31 side. Some people are prone to the operations side, like the financial
27:32 --> 27:36 side of things, the bookkeeping, the accounting, the systems, the operations
27:36 --> 27:40 workflow, different skill sets, different personality traits. The second
27:40 --> 27:43 way route is professional management. So hiring a
27:43 --> 27:47 CEO or equivalent, COO, CMO,
27:48 --> 27:52 marketing director, marketing manager, whatever you want to call it, office manager. And the third
27:52 --> 27:56 option is a combination of both, which I tend to gravitate
27:56 --> 28:00 to. I do believe that lawyers should rely on professional management.
28:00 --> 28:03 They should not try to do things all on their own. Keep in mind,
28:03 --> 28:07 they're all working with a practice with their own clients at the same time,
28:07 --> 28:11 right? So it's like having, when you do, when you're in management as a
28:11 --> 28:15 lawyer, it's like having 2 full-time jobs, one, your own practice and 2, the managerial
28:15 --> 28:18 role that you have. So I think it puts too much pressure on them.
28:18 --> 28:22 And why wouldn't you? I do. Why wouldn't you reach out to experts?
28:23 --> 28:26 If you're the expert lawyer, why wouldn't you reach out to a marketing expert and
28:26 --> 28:30 get them on your team? Why wouldn't you reach out to a leadership organizational
28:30 --> 28:33 expert and get them on your team all the way through? I mean, to me
28:33 --> 28:37 it makes sense. That's building your A-team, right? Like a sports team,
28:37 --> 28:40 right? Yeah. Baseball is my favorite. Baseball is my favorite sport.
28:41 --> 28:44 The role of the pitcher is very different from the role of the first baseman
28:44 --> 28:48 or the catcher or the outfielder. You need all of them to be
28:48 --> 28:51 a good game, a good team, right? It's the same thing as a business.
28:51 --> 28:55 It's not all the roles are not the same. And we have to get people
28:55 --> 28:59 in the highest functioning position, what they're best at.
28:59 --> 29:02 So when I start out with that model with a SWOT analysis,
29:02 --> 29:05 we're starting at the top. We're starting with the owner, but you must carry that
29:05 --> 29:10 formula through the entire organization. As you build down and wide,
29:10 --> 29:14 as you build down and wide across, because it's a winning formula.
29:14 --> 29:17 You don't give it up. You continue to use that winning formula as you build
29:18 --> 29:22 the firm. The good news is that there's a lot of talent out there that's
29:22 --> 29:25 unhappy with where they currently are. The opportunities, if you do
29:26 --> 29:28 this right, creating a culture of innovation,
29:29 --> 29:32 collaboration, and partnership, I've seen it, what you can attract in the way
29:32 --> 29:36 of talent. It's amazing. And then The other thing that lawyers
29:36 --> 29:39 will appreciate, they haven't experienced it as much perhaps
29:39 --> 29:43 as other business owners because their hiring policies. But when you
29:43 --> 29:46 get the right people, you don't have to micromanage because
29:46 --> 29:49 they have the right attitude. They show up to work, want to be there,
29:50 --> 29:54 want to contribute, will do whatever it takes, will contribute to the
29:54 --> 29:57 growth, will be a team player. And you're not going to have to look over
29:57 --> 30:00 your shoulder, right? You're going to have, you're going to build trust pretty quickly.
30:00 --> 30:04 So that's a relief, quite honestly, that's a relief. And I think that has to
30:04 --> 30:07 do with a lot of what you talk about with leadership. Leadership. And I feel
30:07 --> 30:11 like in that leadership, you build a culture inside of a workplace.
30:11 --> 30:14 Absolutely. Yeah. It starts to, you know, like you have to, you have to build,
30:14 --> 30:18 you have to build a culture that allows your people permission to
30:18 --> 30:22 make mistakes, to learn from those mistakes as you did, as I've done.
30:22 --> 30:26 Anybody who's honest, right? I was like, look at all the bruises on my forehead,
30:26 --> 30:29 all the mistakes I've made over the, over the years, right? You have to create
30:29 --> 30:33 a culture that allows people to thrive, to come to the table with
30:33 --> 30:37 ideas, to not be pushed away. I recently was in text
30:37 --> 30:41 or email conversation with a former client. And it became very clear to
30:41 --> 30:45 me, he has not done that. And we'll get into the details, but we were,
30:45 --> 30:48 I brought up something and it was a trivial pursuit and
30:49 --> 30:52 he was being copied on all the emails. That was red flag number one.
30:52 --> 30:55 That's, that means he's the bottleneck for everything in the firm. Um,
30:55 --> 30:59 I wanted to also say he's been, he's very successful, 20 lawyers now.
30:59 --> 31:03 Okay. I'm not sure if he's 40 yet, maybe, maybe 40.
31:03 --> 31:07 I mean, that's, that's really outstanding, right? Um, but he's
31:08 --> 31:11 the bottleneck and I haven't had the opportunity and I may never get the opportunity
31:11 --> 31:14 to explain to him he's created that for himself because his people are
31:15 --> 31:18 afraid of making decisions. They're afraid of being proactive or
31:19 --> 31:22 taking the reins because he's created the culture where
31:22 --> 31:25 everything has to pass by him. So I assume
31:26 --> 31:30 unintentionally he's created a culture of reliance. Everything and
31:30 --> 31:34 everyone relies on him. And he will, if he hasn't already,
31:35 --> 31:38 he's going to hit that ceiling very quickly. He's going to hit the plateau,
31:38 --> 31:41 which is fine if he wants to continue working 60 to 80 hours a week
31:42 --> 31:45 and, and not grow from there. That's his decision. It's his business. It wouldn't
31:46 --> 31:50 be my decision, but you know, again, I'm not here to dictate what people should
31:50 --> 31:53 do. I'm here to help them get to a better way of doing business.
31:54 --> 31:57 That's to enjoy more of their life. If that's what they want. Yeah.
31:57 --> 32:01 Great. Thank you, Gary, for— we're going to wrap up. I have one last question
32:01 --> 32:05 for you. If you could give advice to a
32:05 --> 32:09 young lawyer just coming out of law school and try to catch them early on,
32:09 --> 32:13 what would that advice be? You know what I would say? Take some risk,
32:13 --> 32:16 go with your gut, surround yourself with outstanding people,
32:16 --> 32:20 build a team of exceptional professionals around you and build your
32:20 --> 32:24 own law firm. Great. All right. Well, thank you, Gary Mitchell, for coming on
32:24 --> 32:27 The Personal Side of Business. Please check out his book. Gary,
32:27 --> 32:30 where can we find your book and get in touch with you?
32:30 --> 32:33 Because I want to bring up your OnTrack Coaching as well. Yeah.
32:34 --> 32:36 ontrackcoach.com. There's no K.
32:37 --> 32:40 ontrackcoach.com. I'm on LinkedIn. The book, The And Approach:
32:41 --> 32:45 How to Grow Your Law Firm and Gain More Freedom. It's on Amazon in hard
32:45 --> 32:49 copy and Kindle. I'm working on the audiobook now, and we'll be putting up
32:49 --> 32:52 the companion chapter workbooks on the website,
32:52 --> 32:55 ontrackcoach.com. Within the next 2 weeks. So you can go from theory
32:56 --> 33:00 right into execution. Next best thing to having your own coach will be those workbooks
33:00 --> 33:04 that will keep you accountable to the process. So lots going on.
33:04 --> 33:08 Reach out, whether you're a law firm owner or an entrepreneur, love to hear
33:08 --> 33:11 from you. I love speaking shop with other entrepreneurs and builders.
33:12 --> 33:15 All right. Well, great guys, you're a lawyer or you're just a business
33:16 --> 33:19 owner. Please reach out to Gary. Thank you, Gary, for coming on the show.
33:19 --> 33:22 My pleasure, Jeff. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Personal Side of Business.