As pointed out in previous comments, there are virtual dice available online if you don’t happen to have the right polyhedrons just lying around. This said, I have faith in the essential geekiness of my audience.
This post isn't about me. It's all about you. Every week I'm sitting here trying to guess what you'd like to hear about, when I could just very easily ask you what you'd like to know. Well, today is the day. I want to know what you are struggling with and I'll try my best to help you with it.
So, here's what I want you to do:
1. Comment to this post right now with something you are struggling with right now as it pertains to starting a law firm; and
2. Get ready to get some great information in return.
I can guarantee you that when you post your struggles they are going to resonate with someone else, as their struggles will with you.
I look forward to hearing from you!
UPDATE
Just wanted to say I love the questions so far, and here's the important part, we should all be helping with these answers! Think I've said something dumb? Did something you hear spark a thought? Share it with others. And if you've got any more struggles to share, I'd love to hear them.
And I'll share a struggle of mine.
Right now I'm struggling with really getting to that next level. Business is steady, it's good, but I feel like I'm treading water. I hate that feeling. I'm trying to build on what I already have but I feel like it's too slow.
The idea for this article actually came from an article I was reading today about leadership and figuring out how one can become the best leader they can be. The gist of the article was that what we have to offer in the way of leadership is specific to the unique talents, abilities, and perspective that we bring to our relationships, and to try to fashion our leadership style after someone else just because we've deemed them to be successful is setting our self up for failure.
For example, who does everybody want to be like today? Steve Jobs. Hell, even I've written a blog post here about what lawyers can learn from Steve Jobs.
The thing about Steve Jobs, though, was that he was an asshole. He was a genius, but his leadership style was authoritarian, leading by fear. So people are trying to be like this because they think it will make them a great leader. In the end, all it does is make them miserable.
So What Does Leadership have to do with "The Competition" and a Successful Law Firm
I'm going to tell you right now.
The correlation I made with this article about leadership, which by the way, I thought was spot on, and your competitors in the legal field is our propensity to look at who is successful out there in the market and then do what they've done. The correlation is the same too - if you simply try to copy the people you think are successful, you're likely to fail. I want to talk about why I think that is.
1. Your Competitors May Not be Doing as Well as You Thought
One of the funny things about law firms and their success is how deceiving it can be if one decides it should be that way. What I mean is, there may be people you see in court all the time, with a ton of cases, that you think are very successful. But if you pull the curtain back, you might be surprised to see that they are barely keeping their head above water because all those clients aren't adding up in the bank account like you thought they were.
And yes, I know, they may be just as successful as you think they are, too. But here's where I'm coming from with regard to this - who cares what they are doing?
Trying to be like everyone else is a great way to be miserable. It is a great way to suppress your ideas, your goals, and the path of your law firm, all because you think someone else is successful. Just like failing to follow your own leadership style, failing to follow your own ownership style will eventually doom you.
2. Okay, I Hear You, So What the Heck Does that Mean?
Let me start this part of the article off by saying I'm not saying you shouldn't steal a good idea when you see it. Coming up with everything on your own is dumb too. What I'm trying to say is incorporate what you perceive to be good ideas, whether they be marketing, leadership, management, or anything else, into your philosophy as a lawyer and as a business owner.
For example, go read my post about Steve Jobs. I thought the book was excellent. I thought there were a lot of great things to learn from the way Steve Jobs took an idea and made it into the most successful company in history. For example, the attention to detail that Jobs expected of his employees was something I try to take back to my office. But what I didn't take away from that book was that you've got to be a dictator to be successful.
When you start your law firm, take the time to dream about what it will be like. What will you like about your firm? What will you like about your employees? What kind of experience do you want to provide your clients? The answers to those questions are going to define the philosophy of your firm. They are going to lead you where you need to go to be successful. They are your compass when you are making a decision on where the firm needs to go.
3. Wrapping it Up: Dealing with the Competition
I've got to be honest with you, when it comes to my competitors, in a lot of ways I say "what competitors." One of the great things about being a lawyer and running a law firm is the competition is not very business-minded. You aren't going up against a bunch of Harvard MBAs, you're going up against a bunch of Harvard JDs. That's a big difference.
As you set out to form your law firm, don't be too concerned with the competition. I like to think of the competition as a bunch of experiments I didn't have to pay for to run. Take the successful things each incorporates (i.e. those things that you think provide the law firm experience people are looking for) and steal them. Throw away the bad things, and then finish it off with your own ideas.
One great thing I did from the start when thinking about a lot of ideas related to my firm (particularly when it came to business development) was to immediately do the opposite of what everyone else was doing. There are people out there that need your help. There are people out there that will pay for it. Taking an ad out in the yellow pages is the lazy way to try to get in front of those people. Taking an ad out in the bar journal is lazy. Coming up with something no one else is doing that differentiates you from everyone else and demonstrates a strong value proposition is what people are looking for.
How do you deal with "the competition." How happy are you with the direction of your firm. Are you trying too hard to be Steve Jobs and failing to take advantage of your own strengths?
As always, I love hearing your comments, questions, and suggestions. Let's hear them!
Gosh, time just flies between posts for me at the moment.
We have finally employed someone apart from my husband and myself in the shop. She is wonderful and with us three days a week, but it still seems like I am always catching my tail.
Yesterday I had a day off at home to bless our abode with cleanliness and order. Looking forward to a day such as this, where I go nowhere and see no one (except for Miss Jessica, who is my little shadow), makes me realise how much I love living a routine and simple life.
When life gets hectic, I realise I invariably end up going to bed too late. Often it is not from doing a job which needs to be done, but just because I am fluffing around. Perhaps if I feel rushed and busy, going to bed early makes me feel guilty because there is something else I could be doing?
I like to make a conscious effort to take these steps in order to have a good rest and wake refreshed the next day.
- Early dinner (served around 7 is early for us), 1 glass of wine maximum, or sparkling mineral water - Computer turned off before dinner/no computer after dinner or at least 1 hour before bedtime (not only does the lit screen wake up my brain, but I find myself click-click-clicking my time away) - Read after dinner instead of the computer or tv, with a cup of tea - Take plenty of time for my bathroom routine – makeup removal, cleansing and moisturising, brush and floss teeth. - Lights out well before 10pm
Any tips you could add to the blissful-night's-sleep list?
Another in the series of tools for the inspirationally challenged. This week it’s the turn of SF and there are over 55 million possible plots, none of them particularly feasible:
Storyboards, the visual map that filmmakers use, are a lifesaver for writers needing to brainstorm the structure of their books. I use them to chart the primary pathway through my piles of material. A great tool for organizing and structuring novels, nonfiction books, and memoirs, they can be approached in three ways.
Both my online classes and my Grub Street workshop on February 26 play with storyboards , so I wanted to revisit the three kinds you can use, depending on where you are in developing your story.
First, remember that storyboards benefit both writer and reader, but in different ways. For the writer, they give the first glimpse of the book's structure. I couldn't possible create publishable books without them.
For the reader, the storyboard smooths the pathway through the story. Holes in the narrative become very apparent and can be filled. Too much talking also shows up clearly--as well as digressions. Storyboards help you trim the fat and bulk it up--wherever each is needed.
But storyboards can also help you chart a character's growth, or the development of a place (setting).
Storyboard Resistance Many writers resist storyboards. They aren't always as fun as the "flow" writing that we think of when we imagine creative writing. You have to use the more linear part of your brain.
On good days storyboards yield tremendous insights into why that &*%% chapter feels so out of sync or what kind of ending might work best. On bad days, storyboards feel like bossy mother-in-laws, telling us what we're doing wrong. They point out exactly what we don't want to look at about the book-in-progress: where we have too much blah-blah-blah, where we've skipped a juicy opportunity for conflict, where we've stayed on track or gone on a tangent. Essentially, it becomes clear as day where the book isn't yet working.
This can derail some writers.
Storyboards also present, often for the first time, the glimpse of how your book will be when it's actually published. Sometimes this is so scary (the thought of actually being published!) that writers abandon the project in emotional overload.
But I believe in storyboards. I create several for each book I write and I keep the best ones on my office walls, reminders that I am grateful for their linear know-it-all attitude. Better realize the problems now, via a piece of posterboard in the privacy of your own home, than later via a rejection letter from an agent, yes?
The Golden Opportunity of Storyboards A big question as you begin your book is this: How are you going to know if your story flows when it's outside of your own inner worlds?
You can craft a draft, of course. Get it typed out and printed, read through it. But it's still hard to see if the idea you presented on page 31 will thread through to page 231 in a way your reader will track.
Some writers make long lists. I do this too. Facts to check, threads to follow. The lists on my desk are as numerous as my printed drafts, after a while, and I start to go crazy under all that paper. Here's where storyboards present a golden opportunity, like a good map out of a swamp.
A writer needs to know the structure of her story flow, the placement in time and space of each idea or plot point. It's not just enough to churn out the words. The sequence matters, a sequence that readers can follow, and you need some method to clearly see sequence. Filmmakers use storyboards to provide this.
I use a giant W to structure my storyboards or a row of empty boxes lined up on my posterboard. I place Post-it notes along the W that represents scenes or ideas or chapters, then I move them around until the sequence of ideas equals a reasonable flow for my book.
This kind of storyboard charts the events, the outer story, and you can see if you have enough happening.
Character Storyboards Another kind of storyboard charts the character's growth through the book.
Early in the revision process of my novel Qualities of Light, I did a storyboard for each of the main characters. I learned, to my dismay, that one of them, Chad, had dropped out of sight in chapter 10. Not so great because he was competing for Molly's attention as the other love interest in the story. By crafting a character storyboard for Chad, I could immediately see the problem--and it was not apparent when I read the draft.
I used a character storyboard to chart the progress of my reader through my nonfiction book, Your Book Starts Here, and realized I had planted too advanced material too early in the book. Once I saw that the reader (my character, in a sense) wouldn't have understood some of the basic principles by that point, I could rearrange the chapter order to not overwhelm or confuse. Much better sequence.
It's not uncommon to emerge from a storyboarding session with an awareness of what still needs to be written--whether it's an event or a scene to show an aspect of a character. I usually find missing sections or even chapters, places where a character or location has dropped out of sight, transitions that need to be made. Research still to do.
Setting (Container) Storyboards Sometimes a book's setting is so real and vivid, it is like a character. I love books like this. When I want to create them, I use a storyboard to track the "development" of my setting--how it grows in influence and changes in impact through the story.
So a third way to use storyboards is for your setting, or the "container" of your story--its culture, value and belief system, its history and atmosphere, the physical and psychological effect it has on the people and events. Chart the images, when you do this one. How do they change as the story proceeds? (Scroll down to review the impact of images in the post from last week.)
What If You're Just Starting ? Using a Storyboard to Brainstorm I also use storyboarding during the first weeks and months of my book journey--when I have little written. I imagine, or brainstorm, ideas for how I might create the narrative. On the Post-It notes, I jot scenes or ideas or things I want to include. Then I begin arranging them on the W storyboard, just to see what I have. Most of the time, I get more ideas from this. In fact, ideas start flooding in.
Storyboarding really lets you see possible ways to bring your book into manifestation.
So you can use storyboards to begin your journey or to organize it when you start to feel restless and overwhelmed with the amount of words you've collected. It's always a good time to storyboard when you want a clear direction and development of your original idea.
This Week's Writing Exercise This week, watch the video below.
Then get yourself to an office supply store. Buy a posterboard and some Post-It notes. Go home, take a deep breath, and try creating your W storyboard. Start with just two moments: the opening and ending of your book, by asking yourself the questions below.
1. Where might you begin? What moment do you see launching your reader into your topic or story? Write a note about this on a Post-It and place it on the storyboard.
2. What moment might end your book? Where would you like the reader to be at the last page--with what new understanding, hunger, idea or feeling? Write a note about this too.
If you get brave, if you get enthused--as I did--see how many of the other Post-its you can place on the W.
Continuing last week’s experiment in randomly generated storytelling, here is another tool for your writerly toolbox. There are fewer possible outcomes this time, but the results are more genre-specific:
