Archives for January 2025

Try to be better every day

Let me tell you something straight – mediocrity is a choice, and excellence is a habit. I’ve spent my career watching companies rise and fall, and the one constant separator between success and failure is the relentless pursuit of improvement. When you wake up each morning, ask yourself: “What’s one thing I can do better today than I did yesterday?” Maybe it’s tightening up a process, streamlining your team’s communication, or finally implementing that new project management system you’ve been putting off.

I see too many business leaders getting comfortable with “good enough.” But the truth is that “good enough” is just another way of saying “not good enough.” Your competitors are looking to improve. In our tech-centric world, our clients’ expectations are evolving requiring us to improve or be left behind. Standing still is moving backward. This applies no matter your line of work because the principle remains the same.

The most successful business leaders I’ve counseled all share this common trait: they’re obsessed with incremental improvements. They understand that transformation doesn’t happen overnight – it’s the result of consistent, deliberate steps forward. They track metrics, gather feedback, and most importantly, they act on that information. They’re not afraid to admit when something isn’t working and pivot accordingly. This is where real growth happens, in those small, daily decisions to do things better.

For my fellow attorneys, this mindset is particularly crucial. The practice of law isn’t static. It’s evolving with technology, precedent, and social change. Every brief you write, every negotiation you handle, every client interaction is an opportunity to refine your craft. The best lawyers I know treat each case as a learning experience, constantly updating their playbook and sharpening their skills. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about being better than you were yesterday.

Remember, your reputation is built on the cumulative effect of thousands of small actions. Each time you choose the harder right over the easier wrong, each time you put in the extra effort to double-check those figures, each time you take a moment to mentor a junior colleague, you’re not just improving yourself, you’re building a legacy of excellence that will define your career and your organization’s success. The real secret to sustainable growth in business is making “better” your default setting.

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Success is a series of small actions taken every day

In the demanding worlds in which we all work, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by ambitious goals and high-stakes outcomes. Many professionals fixate on major victories—landing the prestigious customer, client, or sale, winning the landmark case, or securing that coveted partnership position. However, true success is not just these dramatic moments alone. Instead, it’s built through the accumulation of seemingly minor actions, decisions, and habits that compound over time to create extraordinary results.

In my professional world, think of the successful attorney who maintains an impeccable reputation in their field. Their achievement isn’t solely attributed to brilliant courtroom performances or groundbreaking legal strategies. Rather, it’s the result of countless small actions such as the extra thirty minutes spent proofreading each document, the consistent follow-up calls with clients, the early morning reviews of recent case law, and the deliberate effort to build relationships with colleagues. These daily practices seem modest taken alone, but collectively form a foundation that allows the great results.

Similarly, business leaders who create lasting impact understand that sustainable growth stems from disciplined daily routines. Your success might be measured by quarterly earnings or market expansion, but these outcomes often trace back to small, intentional choices such has taking time to mentor employees, investing in continuous learning, or implementing minor process improvements that gradually optimize operations. These incremental steps, when executed consistently, transform into a significant competitive advantage for you and your company over time.

The power of small actions lies in their ability to create sustainable change. Unlike dramatic overhauls or intensive sprints that often lead to burnout, you can integrate these types of modest daily practices into your professional life. You can dedicate fifteen minutes each day to industry research instead of sporadically cramming information before client meetings. This allows you to amass a good deal of information over time as you build you knowledge and expertise, which will be evident to existing and potential customers and your peers. Similarly, an attorney who consistently allocates time for relationship building will develop a network that generates referrals and opportunities, outperforming those who only network or undertake business development actions when immediate needs arise, i.e. they’re light on work.

The journey to professional excellence and success isn’t about revolutionary breakthroughs or heroic efforts. Instead, it’s about identifying the small, high-impact actions that align with your goals and executing them with unwavering consistency. Success becomes inevitable not through large gestures, but through the patient accumulation of small daily wins. With each small win you build upon the last as you work towards your goals and success. In the end, the most successful professionals aren’t those who occasionally perform extraordinary feats, but those who commit to doing ordinary things extraordinarily well, day after day.

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Make hard decisions to improve your business by letting go of that which is not serving you

At the start of a new calendar or fiscal year, business leaders and professionals face a critical opportunity to evaluate which practices, policies, and procedures drive value for their organizations. This is important to consider because many companies carry forward inefficient employees, inefficient processes, outdated technology, or obsolete business models simply because “that’s how it’s always been done.” The start of the year presents an ideal moment to conduct a thorough audit of what serves your business objectives and what doesn’t.

In the legal and professional services realm, this might mean reassessing your long-standing client relationships that consistently operate at a loss, assessing your employees, or finally sunsetting legacy systems or software that require disproportionate maintenance resources. This speaks to efficiency and your bottom line. This may lead to hard decisions, especially with employees. If you don’t do this because of the general aversion most people have to making these types of hard decisions, especially when it comes to employees, don’t be surprised when nothing changes. The fact is that it’s better to live through short-term disruption to be done with long-term negative impact.

It also is important to evaluate whether your current organizational structure, compensation models, and performance metrics truly incentivize the outcomes you want or not. I think it takes courage to make hard decisions such as restructuring teams, redistributing responsibilities, or terminating employees but it can lead to a stronger business and create new opportunities for growth.

In truth, any time of year can be a good time to consider making these types of changes to your business. While such decisions can be challenging, they’re often essential. The temporary discomfort of change typically pales in comparison to the long-term cost of maintaining inefficient processes or employees and instead maintaining the status quo.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of modern business and professional services firms, the ability to adapt and make difficult changes is crucial. The process of change and letting go creates space for strategic renewal and operational excellence for your business. The goal is to position you and your business for greater agility, profitability, and success moving forward. Any day is the right day to evaluate your business and plan for changes so start today.

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