by Gary Mitchell | Jan 24, 2018 | Coaching, Motivation, Re-building your practice, Your career
98.7% of my clients are perfectionists at heart. I am a perfectionist at heart. What’s the problem with being a perfectionist? It holds you back from actually getting things done. Nothing will ever be perfect, including perfectionism.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Striving for, and achieving excellence should be our number one goal as professional service providers. And for that matter, as humans. But if you wait until something is perfect to get it out there, you will never get it out there. It’s an impossible dream.
How many times has procrastination come into play because of your perfectionist tendencies? You fear getting started because you don’t know if it will be perfect. So you hold off. Time passes. More time passes and still nothing is done. If some of the top companies of all time waited until they perfected their product or service, they wouldn’t be in business. They wouldn’t have pushed the innovation envelope.
So the next time you are confronted with your perfectionist tendencies, ask yourself, “Is it excellent?” “Is it good enough for now?” And then remember, it can always be improved upon later. Get it out there. One of my favorite things to suggest to my clients is ‘NIKE’. Just do it!
#businesscoach #lawyercoach
by Gary Mitchell | Jan 9, 2018 | Becoming more strategic, Growing your firm, Growing your practice, Motivation, Thinking Positive, Your career
The beginning of a New Year always offers us so much hope. Hope for a new start. Hope for another chance. Hope to improve, learn and grow. Hope for whatever it is that we want more of.
That brings me to my all-time favorite quote. It comes from one of Goethe’s couplets:
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can-begin it-boldness has genius, power and magic in it”
#businesscoach @ontraccoach
by Gary Mitchell | Jan 3, 2018 | Motivation, Thinking Positive, Time management
Happy New Year! With so many people around the world saying goodbye to a very tough year, and beginning a new one with renewed hope for a better future, the concept of time comes to mind. On the treadmill the other day and watching the clock count down, I couldn’t help but remember a conversation I had with my Grandmother when I was younger. By the age of 25, I had already noticed how fast time was going by. She laughed and said, “Gary, wait till you get to my age”. She was 82 at the time. She said, “the more of life you have behind you, and the less you have in front of you, the faster it goes.”
Back to the treadmill. As the time was getting closer to my goal, it hit me. She was right. The more time I had already completed, the faster it went by.
So with this Year New Year, what are you going to do with your time today? What are you going to do with your time this year?
#businesscoach @ontraccoach
by Gary Mitchell | Mar 3, 2014 | Adding more value, Client management, Practice management
Change or die is an expression that’s been around a long time in the business world. Well legal industry, get used to the expression and live by it. Moving forward things will not look like it did pre-recession. Your clients will not continue to pay over-exorbitant fees. They will look for better value and be open to using non-traditional sources for their legal work. They will demand more. The insulation so to speak, is over.
If you are one of those lawyers that continues to think nothing will change, I ask you, what was your second career choice? You may need to revert to it and sooner than later. In Canada if we want to see the future of legal services, all we have to do is look south of the border and even overseas.
But this also presents abundant opportunities for those lawyers and law firms who are open to doing things differently. Go and speak with your clients before they come to you. Find out exactly what they need from you. How you can better accommodate them? What different models do you or your firm need to create?
Change or die. It’s only doom and gloom if you don’t take hede.
by Gary Mitchell | Feb 18, 2014 | Changing direction, Re-booting your practice, Re-building your practice
Good morning Lawyer X, this is your wake-up call. It’s time to re-think your career. This is not a call you were hoping to get. But let’s face the facts. Your practice is nearly dried up. Your market is flat. You are not bringing in any new clients, and you haven’t for some time. And the bottom line is there are no new clients to get. To make matters even worse the clients you do have are going away or have nothing for you to do. Yes, it’s pretty bleak. But it’s not your fault. Don’t beat yourself up, do something about it.
At the time of writing this, we are in the compensation season. And as a result, I expect we are going to see a lot of layoffs and more de-capitalization in Calgary and Vancouver in the coming months. There are a few practice areas that are feeling this pain, and basically on their last legs at many firms. This has been a long, deep and painful cycle. Your firm is unlikely to hold your life-line for much longer. And don’t think it’s any better across the street. No matter what firm you’re at, the work has dried up. The way I see it, you are left with the following three choices.
- Leave the profession and find something else
- Find an opportunity in-house
- Leverage your knowledge and experience and relationships and look for another practice area that you can apply them to
Look for my full article this month in The Lawyers Weekly where I discuss what your next steps should be if you chose #3.
