“New or more information is *not* what you need—a new plan of *action* is. It’s time to create new behaviors and habits that are oriented away from sabotage and toward success. It’s that simple.”
– Darren Hardy, Author of The Compound Effect

So I’ve been reading this book lately, The Compound Effect, by Darren Hardy.

In it, he talks about how consistent, small actions are going to have a much more profound effect on your life than any large, radical change.

Let me ask you a question- would you rather have:

1. A) $3 Million right now

or

1. B) One penny that doubles every day for 31 days?

You might feel silly choosing to start with a penny instead of $3 Million, and you might not feel any better about it on the 20th day when you are looking at just under $5,300.

In fact, it’s not until the 29th day that you just about break even, but then by the 31st day you’ve better than tripled option A.

In order to maximize your gains, you must have the planning and foresight to know how things will turn out in the future, and most of all you need to be consistent with your little decisions that add up huge over time.

And it makes sense, right? If I go to the gym and pound away for 15 hours tomorrow after not going for years, I’m not going to walk out of there in any better shape. But if I instead went every day for a year, the results would be unmistakable.

Then I got to thinking about the opposite- what if I didn’t go to the gym every day for a year, but instead went to a fast food restaurant for lunch every day?

I think we all know I’d need a new wardrobe by the end of the year!

Small, smart choices + consistency + time = Radical Difference

“A daily routine built on good habits and disciplines separates the most successful among us from everyone else. A routine is exceptionally powerful.”

Look at the above formula and quote. They both have to do with the power of routines, but they only show you the good part.

What if instead of “small, smart choices”, we made “small, bad choices” consistently over time? The Compound Effect would still occur, and it would still yield a “radical difference”, except it would be negative.

Switch the word “good” for “bad” in the quote and the same point is illustrated.

And that’s the thing about the Compound Effect- it’s happening right now, today, whether you mean for it to happen or not.

You’re either getting better or getting worse, a little bit every day.

So which are you going to choose today?

It’s a no-brainer. Law firm owners fall victim to this all the time. They are so busy, so bogged down by the day to day managing of things that they don’t even realize the tiny, damaging decisions that are piling up and ready to blow.

Sometimes it takes an objective set of eyes. That’s what happened to me. I was lucky enough to meet a mentor who took one look at how I was doing things and set me straight. My only regret was not meeting him five years prior. He was able to see how I had stacked bad decision on top of bad decision. (FYI, NOT making any decisions at all and being in denial is a form of decision. And a bad one.)

Awareness is powerful tool for profit. And if you need that second set of eyes, you can schedule an appointment with my team anytime by clicking here. Prepare to be asked some tough but vital questions if you do talk to them. My guess is, like me, you’ll wish you had done it sooner.

2019 – Before the planning, it’s all about the decision

It’s here. The end of Q4. With all your systems humming along, I am hoping for those who have been hanging around HTM for more than six months, you were thinking of Q1 2019 as early as Q1 2018. I will cover more on planning later, but for now, I want to delve into the first step for a successful 2019. It’s called…

Wait for it….

The Decision

Before you begin thinking of AR and numbers and metrics to help you decide the plan for 2019, the most important thing is understanding that all that stands between you and what you want for your firm, is you.

Before you begin your calculations and planning, the fuel you need to move ahead in a big way lies in the power of the decision. It is, by far, the toughest part of all. And, it is more than one single decision.

You have heard my “No Assholes” policy.
To be clear, I never “enjoy” enforcing our No Assholes Policy. In fact, in most cases when this policy is applied, it more of a person operating from a deepened black abyss of fear rather than a person who behaves badly because that is who he is at his core.

Short List of Decisions for 2019

1. How much income do you want to earn?

2. Which projects are the ones you need and want to mark
the milestones?

3. How many days do you want to work in 2019?

4. How will you spend your resting days?

5. What “stuff” will you want to add to your law firm or your
personal life in 2019?

You will tweak these decisions throughout the year, so don’t get stuck in the weeds over this. Why tweak? Part of the process lies in adjusting and evolving your goals as they grow more visible and tangible. You will also begin to realize how much more you are capable of in your growth and you will begin to dream even bigger. Additionally, you will also decide how much you must make in 2019 to set up 2020 for success.

The Planning Begins

Next, it’s time to do a Brain Dump of where your opportunities lie, where your leaks are, and where you can tighten up your processes, projects and systems. A round number for most attorneys (if they are honest) is about 100 items with some being projects, to-dos, tasks, or more decisions. Projects require planning. Tasks simply require an appointment to knock them out. As you begin fleshing out the entire year, leave off the tasks as they are not big picture, still important, but they are not strategic.

Example of a task:

Writing the long overdue thank you note to someone you meet is a task.

Example of a project:

Setting up a dedicated station in the office to write thank you notes, training the team on when, why and how to write thank you notes, and installing a monthly thank-you-notewriting contest and a system for keeping track– that is a project.

Who Does What

If you are very small, it will be simple to decide who does what. If your team is larger, bring your leadership together and choose ownership of those top three to five projects in each category. Years ago, when Ale and I were starting out we were cash-strapped and because of this, choosing
priority projects that would yield the quickest ROI was our “M” “O”. Only those projects that would produce results the fastest were allowed on the list. When you are broke and have no line of credit, no angel investors, no saviors, you are not thinking of those “nice to have tools like blogs or newsletters. No, you are thinking which stepping stone is going to give us the biggest push forward. We had to be ruthless.

You must be ruthless.

The number of projects you choose to focus on is directly related to which stage you are in the growth continuum. If you are early along that timeline, you are doing more things yourself. Realistically, you and your team are unable to take as many projects. As you grow, the numbers of people taking on projects grows, therefore, the number of projects also grows.

Entrepreneurs and Everyone Else

by RJon Robins

Which Are You?

There are two different kinds of people in the world: entrepreneurs & everyone else. If you don’t see the world this way then you’re still in the second category.

Entrepreneurs see the world in a completely different way than everyone else. When you are an entrepreneur, this fact is very obvious. It is, however, NOT very obvious nor is this phenom understood by the rest of everyone. How Do You Know if You are an Entrepreneur?

One way to know if you’re an entrepreneur is to ask yourself what kind of time you use.

Everyone else uses what I call “Clock Time”. How many hours will this take me to do this? How many hours did I work? How many hours are left in the day?

An entrepreneur CAN use clock time but most do not. Instead, we use what I call “Calendar Time” most of the time instead. How quickly can I get this accomplished? How many weeks until I can achieve the next objective? How will I make the most of the next month? What’s it going to cost me
if I can get this done in a year instead of getting it done in a week?

Imagine your car has broken-down and you’re stranded in a town you don’t want to be in. Plus, you are alone and you have no other way to get to the place you want to be. It’s a place where an opportunity awaits that can earn you hundreds of thousands of dollars of sustainable
income for the rest of your life. But, the hitch is, you must get there in two days.

When you ask the mechanic “How quickly can you get this done?” as an entrepreneur, what you really mean is

“How-quickly-can-you-get-me-back- on-the-road-to-my-goals, to-making- a-better-life-for-me, my-children,my-great-grandchildren, so-that-I-may- leave-my-mark-on-the-world?”

When the mechanic answers that the job takes

20 hours, you ask again, “How quickly can you get me back on the road?” The mechanic answers in the only language he knows and that is “Clock Time” language repeating that the job takes 20 hours.

The mechanic doesn’t understand at all when you ask him again so you rephrase it:

“What if you brought in an assistant so that you can work extra-fast overtime and I will pay you “book rate” for the job. THEN could you get me back on the road this afternoon?”

When you say it this way, the mechanic responds: “Sure but it’ll cost you!”

Entrepreneurs know that nearly anything is possible. It is all in the way you look at problems and solutions.

Which are you?