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What is the greatest success you’ve had since joining LWP?

Increased confidence. Basic estate planning has long been a part of my practice and I have wanted to make it my primary practice for several years. I took simple wills, powers of attorney, health care directives and trusts, but often turned away more sophisticated work because I felt I did not have the time to learn how to handle those cases with competence. Now, I know there is nothing that I can’t handle, especially with the LWP listserve at my back. Additionally, LWP has given me the confidence and tools to direct my marketing toward the kind of practice I wanted, but did not know how to execute.

What is your favorite LWP tool?

The Estate Plan Audit combined with the Vision Clarifier, because it focuses the client’s attention on their needs and wants–and then presents options. Typical estate planning results in the attorney collecting some information and then presenting the plan to the clients. In contrast, the vision meeting really does enroll the client rather than sell to the client.

How has being part of LWP impacted your team and your practice?

LWP has given us a way to quantify what we do and has improved our communication with one another. We are now conscious of, and intentional about, the way we spend our time and how that impacts our practice’s efficiency. We now work together to stay on task.

Have you ever been to a coaching program that got you motivated, inspired, and excited? I've been in coaching for 14 years, and I always look forward to my quarterly days out of the office to reset my mind and declare a new path or continue to work on the path I've created. Last week I had the privilege of running my quarterly nation-wide program. How exciting! Over 75 people were in the room, but what made it compelling was not just the lawyer members, but their entire law firms came with them, and this was the third meeting.

Those who have not had the benefit of good coaching might wonder, what is the purpose of such a program? To make you think about things you would not ordinarily consider, that is, those things right in front of you that might be sabotaging or supporting your success. It’s meant to make you ask a powerful question: Why? Why am I not getting where I want to be?

This quarter's theme was perspective. Whose perspective are you in, and where does your perspective come from? Interestingly, it was a hardy conversation, but what many discovered that ultimately led to many great tears was how much we allow our past to impact our present and future. A simple bad or unpleasant experience paints us in so many ways that it prevents us from seeing some of the beauty that might be right in front of us. Being free of these past experiences allows a whole new possibility and a whole new vision of what can be. And it all came out from asking "Why?"

So, as you pause and reflect on your past and think of the things that draw energy from you rather than give you energy, take time to let go and understand that it was just a moment in time. It was just a series of circumstances that brought this issue about, and it was by no means a definition of who you are or what you are meant to be. So why do we have these conversations? Because asking why works. In fact, for a great read, I highly recommend the book First Ask Why. It is one of the most powerful books, leading you to find your purpose and value in life.

David J. Zumpano, Esq, CPA, Co-founder Lawyers With Purpose, Founder and Senior Partner of Estate Planning Law Center (aka – estate planning attorney – just like you).

“A thank you would be nice.”

“If he is going to show up 15 minutes late and then check his email during our meetings, why even bother?”

“I’ve worked here 7 years and he doesn’t even know my daughter’s name.”

64% of Americans who leave their job say they do so because they don’t feel appreciated. Something deep within the human psyche cries out for appreciation. The number one factor in job satisfaction is not the amount of pay but whether or not the employees feel appreciated and valued for the work they do.

Everyone always talks about communication — The best way to communicate, how to effectively communicate, yadda, yadda, yadda. Communication doesn’t mean a hill of beans if you aren’t communicating in the right language of appreciation.

We’re not talking about a touchy-feely concept here.

A book titled “The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace” does a great job of explaining how feeling appreciated provides employees with confidence and security. And employees desperately need that confidence and security. Working in a small business is an ever-changing world of constant uncertainty. Most team members are responsible for making sure things are followed up on and completed. They run around behind their business owners trying to catch things before they hit the ground and are often frustrated by the reliably inconsistent flow of information. To have confidence and security to brave the whirlwind that is working for an entrepreneur, team members must be communicated with in their language of appreciation.

This book identifies five languages of appreciation: words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, receiving gifts and physical touch. Everyone leads in a different language; the key is to know your team members’ language so you can tap into it. If you are giving a gift card to a team member to acknowledge their hard work on a project, but that person’s language is quality time, they may be appreciative, but it won’t resonate and improve their confidence and security. Instead taking 30 minutes to sit down with a cup of coffee at Starbucks and just talk to them, without checking your email on your phone, would mean so much more.

The concept of languages of appreciation is simple to implement and essentially takes no time. All of us already try to show our employees, bosses and co-workers appreciation. Understanding this concept simply means that you will use the time you already devote to showing appreciation in a more effective way.

If you want to increase your team’s confidence and security, knowing that 64% of Americans leave their jobs because they feel unappreciated, read “The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace” by Gary Chapman and Paul White. It’s a quick, easy-to-read book. You can also take a quick quiz to see what your language is.

Laney L. Richardson, Implementation Coach at Lawyers With Purpose and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.

We’ve all had the uncomfortable experience of adding team to the bus. Those first few weeks and months of fumbling around, learning the dynamics of your new workplace, navigating coworkers’ (often competing) expectations of the team leader as well as the new hire – the uncertainty is uncomfortable, at best. At worst, if you don’t provide the guidance to progress, then the whole experience can be damaging if not destructive

It’s a difficult problem for an employer to navigate, and it’s arguably more difficult in the legal world. You are probably looking at an office full of Type A personalities, and simply tossing a new one in the mix is begging for conflict, and ultimately heartache.

The best firms, of course, have a plan to prevent this. They will thoroughly orchestrate a newly hired attorney’s first several months of training, often in well-thought-out phases that monitor progress toward the goals that have been established. The plan will cement the firm’s tools, processes, priorities and rules firmly in place within the first 90 days. If this sounds like your firm, then read no further; but if you could use such a plan, or if you need improvement on the training plan you have, email mhall@lawyerswithpurpose.com for a Complimentary Associate Attorney Training: 90 Days At-A-Glance™. Here are a few areas covered in our four-phase approach:

* Company culture: How to rapidly sync your new attorney into the workings of the company.
* “Going live”: How to involve your new Associate in daily meetings and other interactions.
* Marketing and relationship-building:

Getting your new hire on the track to producing revenue. Getting your new hires off to a good start is key to a well-run, productive practice and could be very costly if you’re not taking the right steps to incorporate your new associate into your team.

Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.

We received the following email this week:

“I have a question.  Is it wrong of me to want to scale down instead of up in my employment?  I don't think I want to work full-time right now.  I'd like to start out part-time and then perhaps go full-time.  I want some time to work on myself and my family but not working is not an option. I'd probably go stir crazy after a while of not working. I need to work. But I need to balance family time as well.

It's confession time:

1.  I want time for myself.  (Selfish, I know.)  But even when I'm not at work I'm worried about work.  Can't seem to separate the two.  Mostly because I feel like I owe it to my job to worry about it like it’s part of my family.

2.  I need to come up with and implement ways to cook healthy, exercise and get the kids doing the same thing.  How do I do that when I don't have the time?  I think I need time management courses. 

3.  Sarah isn't doing very well in school.  I want to help her but from 6 – 10 I'm catching up on laundry, doing dishes, putting away everyone’s mess that they leave lying around. 

4.  I want to save money. Can't save money we are not making and if we are making the money we aren't saving it.  urrrrgghhh!!!

I tried to talk with my boss about going part-time; he has given me only two options:  Quit or stay.  I quit because he advised that he would not be giving me a raise; as well he told me that if I had to look for other work he would understand.”

How many of us can relate to some variation on this theme? We hear countless versions of the above situation from the employee and employer alike.  The clash between the “either / or” mentality versus those trying to think in terms of “and” is unfortunately commonplace. The boss won’t clarify: Is the issue that he can’t afford to go without the man(woman)power? Or is he struggling to decide whether she is valuable enough for him to reconfigure her job so it provides the work/life balance a mother needs? The crime is, she quit. And he let her. And the irony is, he still hasn’t replaced her because naturally he doesn’t have the time to slog through the hiring process. And the heartbreaking piece is, it didn’t need to end that way.

Without the Honest While Respectful Conversations™, unnecessary suffering is inevitable.

When people work together as a performance-driven team that considers unconventional passages of action while making decisions together — they learn to operate from a place of value when struggles rise.  The process of working together as a team helps create leaders who foster a safe, approachable environment, an atmosphere of possibility and growth. And that place, in turn, produces the defining moments that uplevel the whole game.

So I would argue that the question that sparked the demise of a team, a great team, wasn’t “Is it wrong of me to want to scale down instead of up in my employment?” If a safe place of possibility was present, the question really could have been turned into a win/win along the lines of “How can we create a role where I support the firm in reaching its goals, while allowing me to create a work/life balance?”

Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.

It is amazing to me how fast time goes by. I just returned from a business coaching program I have attended for the past 12 years that requires me to get out of my office one day per quarter. During my coaching day I meet with like-minded entrepreneurs who focus on their future success with one of the world's most noted coaches, Dan Sullivan. It does not take long before we are quickly invigorated and our minds are being reshaped and refocused.

What amazes me each time I attend is how quickly the prior three months had gone by. What also amazes me is how much I accomplished in the previous quarter. (In preparation for each program you analyze the last quarter and identify the progress you've made.) Interestingly, most of the entrepreneurs I attend with agree that we really don't look much at our notes during the quarter but, nonetheless, the goals that we set three months ago have all been achieved. And we figured out why: The key to working on your business is that it must be integrated into your work life.

I go to these quarterly one-day events to refocus myself and my business. The events are refined in a monthly planning meeting that I do each week.

Each Friday morning I begin the first hour and a half of my day planning (proactively) all of the projects, past, and to-do's in my world. The to-do's are simple things that are 30 minutes or less that require me to involve other people to move forward. The past are things that require me for more than 30 minutes, but are a single-focused event, such as building a presentation or preparing information for tax returns. Finally, my planning focuses on my "projects." Projects are the bigger things, like building a website or creating a marketing plan to show value to industry X. Projects take a series of tasks and to-do's to accomplish. Each Friday as I utilize these tools (essential to any successful entrepreneur) I outline my project to-do's from a future perspective, which is what I need to be doing to progress toward my goal. The heart of this weekly planning in my quarterly one-day retreat where I set my goals and objectives at a very high level and a path moving forward. My weekly meeting on the first Friday of each month I focus on the monthly goals (just one extra tool I utilize in that individual planning session) and then also use the weekly planning focuser and the daily planning focuser.

I've always said running a marathon is about 46,000 strides and you can't get there unless you take every stride and you can't take shortcuts. It's simply doing one thing consistently over and over that wins the race. The same is true with your future; it's all based on taking the time to plot your course, and then planning it on a regular basis. Hey, time's going by anyway during the last three months (and the next three). The only difference is whether you're doing it by default (reactive) or by design (proactive). So when are you working on your business?

David J. Zumpano, Esq, CPA, Co-founder Lawyers With Purpose, Founder and Senior Partner of Estate Planning Law Center.

There’s a saying in the entrepreneurial world, “Business would be great but for the employees.” And there’s a saying in the employee world, “Business would be great but for the clients.” No fewer than five times a week, I receive some version of an SOS email or phone message that contains some version of: “I really need your help with ___ please call me back ASAP.” Upon receiving, I typically reply with a message offering available times to talk. Then nada, no response. I used to begin to worry that there was some mysterious van circling the U.S., capturing our members and holding them hostage somewhere in the depths of an attorney prison camp.

When we finally “found the time” to connect, I would get a wonderful response along the lines of, “Oh, it really wasn’t what I thought.” It is fascinating how quickly a crisis handsprings to a non-crisis in a matter of hours. Did the caller summon magic powers to make the crisis disappear, like Houdini? Or was a quick meeting called with all involved parties, all issues identified, proposed solutions discussed and agreed upon? Or was this no longer a big deal due to lack of time to address or solve it? Or was it the act of giving up caring, out of sheer exhaustion? “It wasn’t that big of an issue” is the customary response when we finally have the opportunity to connect.

In my experience, the issue that finally prompts the SOS message typically has been occurring for some time, but the crisis deflates over the period of even one hour because the solution begins to look like “too much work.” And the emotional energy level invested in solving the crisis tends to dissipates.

Crisis, hiccups, conflict and misunderstandings are inevitable. That goes for clients, employees, bosses — any person, place or thing that requires your emotional involvement. The best approach is to eliminate crisis in the first place. Non-Crisis Planning = Time and Attention.

Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.

Clayton James Sechler was born on Friday morning. He weighed in at 7 lbs 2 oz. Baby and Mom are doing great. Congratulations Tim Sechler!