Mike Chastaine: How to Master Your Time and Build a Thriving Firm

In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Mike Chastaine discuss:

• Managing time effectively and focusing on high-value tasks
• Law firm growth and business development
• The psychology of productivity
• Work-life balance and self-improvement

Key Takeaways:

• Prioritizing control over your daily schedule is essential because, rather than trying to manage time itself, lawyers should focus on managing their actions by scheduling focused work blocks, minimizing distractions, and ensuring that key priorities are intentionally planned.
• Using the 80/20 rule can drastically improve efficiency by identifying and focusing on the 20% of tasks that produce 80% of the results while delegating or eliminating lower-value work that consumes time without contributing significantly to success.
• Starting the day with meditation, gratitude journaling, and small victories (like making your bed) sets the tone for a more productive and controlled day.
• Applying the Profit First method to law firm finances can help ensure long-term financial stability by reversing the traditional approach to budgeting, prioritizing profit from the start, monitoring cash flow daily, and making strategic spending decisions only after ensuring profitability.

“There’s no such thing as time management, because you don’t manage time. What you manage is your conduct.” —  Mike Chastaine

Got a challenge growing your law practice? Email me at steve@fretzin.com with your toughest question, and I’ll answer it live on the show—anonymously, just using your first name!

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Episode References:

Profit First by Mike Michalowicz: https://www.amazon.com/Profit-First-Transform-Cash-Eating-Money-Making/dp/073521414X/

About Mike Chastaine: Mike Chastaine is an award-winning attorney, speaker, and author with decades of experience in and out of the courtroom. After 16 years as a public defender and six years at a large firm, he founded the Chastaine Law Office in 2007, growing it into a seven-figure practice recognized as the Best Criminal Defense Firm in Northern California. In 2021, he sold the firm and shifted his focus to coaching and consulting, helping attorneys build successful, sustainable practices.

Connect with Mike Chastaine:  

Website: https://michaelchastaine.com/

Email: mike@chastainejones.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-chastaine-4683104/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mike.chastaine

Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

Twitter: @stevefretzin

Instagram: @fretzinsteve

Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.

Website: Fretzin.com

Email: Steve@Fretzin.com

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Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Steve Fretzin: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, before we get to the show, just want to take a moment for our wonderful Q& A. This is Tom from San Diego, California, and he’s asking, uh, Steve, I have a good friend who I send business to, but he never reciprocates. How do I address this? Well, there’s a lot of different ways to do that. The main one is just to be very straightforward and say, look, I’m so happy that I’m able to send stuff your way.

I get really good feedback. However, I’m also looking to grow my book of business and I’m interested in, in seeing some business you’re coming my way as well. Is that something we can talk about and just have a really soft, nice way to get that conversation going and see what the person says. If they say I don’t have anything or I’ll never have anything, well, then, then that’s something you might want to consider finding a different friend or strategic partner that you could send stuff to that I’ll actually can reciprocate.

So hopefully that’s hopefully to Tom and to everybody else listening. That’s it for today. Enjoy the show. Everybody.

Narrator: You’re listening to be that lawyer life changing [00:01:00] strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Brinson will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice.

Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody, welcome back to Be That Lawyer with Fretzin. We are here as usual to help you be that lawyer, confident, organized, and a skilled rentmaker. If you are hearing about Fretzin for the first time, I want to welcome you to my world. Uh, my job is to help the legal industry be better, stronger, faster than it was when I got into it 16, 17 years ago.

Video, podcasts, books, articles, you name it, I’ve got it. And it’s all to help you to continue your journey to build your book of business and live your best lawyer’s life. And as you all know, I love to bring on amazing guests. Today is no different. I’ve got a two timer, Mike, you’re a two timer with me. Uh, I think we had you back in 2022.

Mike Chastain is here with me, everybody. [00:02:00] Welcome to the show, man. It’s good to see you.

Mike Chastaine: Yeah, thanks. I’m really looking forward to this. It’s nice to see you again.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. We’ve had some transitions in your world that I think are going to really be, uh, interesting and, uh, eyeopening for the folks that are listening today.

But as we do every single episode, we want to hit that quote of the show. Now I get quotes from the Dalai Lama and I get quotes from all different places. This one is from the movie, The Matrix. So it’s sort of a made up quote, but it’s, I want to hear your take on it. And it’s who has time. But then if we did not ever take time, how can we ever have time?

And that’s the, what the dinner scene and the restaurant with the, That’s from the second one.

Mike Chastaine: Yes. And that was in the second one. Yeah.

Steve Fretzin: So talk about that. Welcome to the show and tell us why that quote.

Mike Chastaine: Well, thank you. Well, you know, the reality is, is that the clock just keeps ticking, right? And so you have to make time.

You have to set your own priorities. And if you don’t take time, you will never have time. So that always stuck out at [00:03:00] me, that evil character, like the Maravigi got that.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah.

Mike Chastaine: Yeah.

Steve Fretzin: But it’s true. It’s like, you know, I’m a big time management proponent and it’s like, okay, if you’re billable, whether you flat fee or you billable hour, whatever your time is literally money, how you spend your time.

And yet you’re not trying to learn time management as a skill. You’d rather just wing it and hope that your time works out. I don’t really understand that.

Mike Chastaine: Well, you know, I look at it as from the perspective that there’s no such thing as time management because you don’t manage time. What you manage is your conduct.

Steve Fretzin: Okay? What

Mike Chastaine: are you gonna do in the next hour? That’s going to move you forward or, you know, are you just spinning your wheel?

Steve Fretzin: Yeah, but it’s, I guess it’s like, we have a process for how we make a pot of chili, right. With the recipe and the timing of it and everything, but we don’t have a system or a process for how we’re going to run our day, how we’re going to take things into our brains and decide quickly.

Is [00:04:00] this something that I should do now? Is this something I should do later? Is this something I should not do at all? Delegate. That’s where I’m saying, like, I was that person. You know, feather on the wind, stacks of crap everywhere. And I, you know, 5, 000 unanswered emails and inbox and all that. So I’m just saying, like, how do you function that way when you’re not organized?

Mike Chastaine: Yeah. And I’d been there, Steve. So I totally get it. The first step is that you’ve got to be intentional about your time. What is it that you want to do? Take control. Don’t let Facebook and, you know, and your boss or your clients dictate what you’re going to do. You’ve got to, you know, get on the horse and run it.

Once you start doing that, once you take the, uh, initiative to be in control, then it’s really just about setting priorities. You know, what are the things that you should be doing? What are the things that you shouldn’t be doing? And that’s an evolving process. Right? So, just as an example, if, you know, taking care of your health, which should be a top priority for [00:05:00] everybody, where is that in your calendar?

Steve Fretzin: Yeah.

Mike Chastaine: And if it’s not in your calendar, then you are not taking control of that part of your life.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah.

Mike Chastaine: So, you know, time blocking and using the 80 20 rule, and I mean, there’s lots of tools for that, but the first part is you got to take control. You’ve got to make that decision. And what you do, then the other pieces start to come together, I think.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And I have a feeling that this show, you and I together, are going to spend a good amount of time really giving people actionable, tactical advice on how to start getting your head in the right place and managing what you can manage and things like that. But let’s take a step back though, because being, you know, everybody, Mike Chastain is the owner of MC Consulting, but you’re a longtime lawyer and now moving into the consulting space.

And so give us a little background on how that happened and came to be.

Mike Chastaine: Sure. So 17 years as a public defender in Santa Clara County. Uh, went into private practice in 2001, worked for another firm for a [00:06:00] while, then opened my own firm. And I was dealing with all the same things. I was letting everybody else dictate my life, but I wasn’t taking control of it.

And as a result of that, you know, I was broke. I mean, I didn’t know where the next dollar was coming from because I was just doing whatever was in front of me.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah.

Mike Chastaine: Chasing the shiny objects, as they say.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah.

Mike Chastaine: I got serious about it. I took control of my life. I took control of my business. I began to learn how to prioritize things and I built it into a seven figure firm with just a couple lawyers and sold it in 2000 and, uh, 2021.

And so, uh, moved from California, live in Santa Fe now and basically do what I want. So like one of my big goals this year is to ski 40 days. You know, it’s hard to do that if you have a job, but, uh, yeah, so, I mean, that’s the very short version of how I got to be standing here right now.

Steve Fretzin: Okay. In the concept of MC consulting and what you’re doing, and I know you have a new book called Nevermind the Chaos.

These are all things that [00:07:00] you’re taking your life and what you’ve learned and your job is to now impart that wisdom on lawyers who are similar struggles to what you used to have.

Mike Chastaine: Absolutely. I, you know, I, it fundamentally is I want people to be better lawyers. I want them to represent their clients better because I think it’s so important what we do has life changing consequences, no matter what your practice area is.

And I know that we can do better simply by being better. So I’ve spent a lot of time reading and studying and, uh, carving out the time to just sit down and think, okay, how could I do this better? How can we, make the client experience better. We can’t always control results, right? I was a trial lawyer. I didn’t have control over what that jury was going to do.

I hope I influenced them, but I didn’t necessarily dictate the outcome. But could I make the client feel like they were being taken care of? And could I micromanage that experience for them? So at the end of the day, they walked away going, you [00:08:00] know what? You know, Mike and his firm did a good job for me, no matter how it turned out.

And that’s really the goal that I have for people is I want them to be as good as they could possibly be. And the only way that’s going to happen is if you carve out time to get better at what you do.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Well, let’s start off talking about the attorney brain, thinking about the brain, how the brain works and what’s the attorney brain that doesn’t allow for that organization, the proper habits and controlling one’s day.

Mike Chastaine: Yeah, I mean, you know, the brain really, when you boil it down to, is just a series of chemical reactions going on in your life. And, you do have the ability to control those chemical reactions. You do have the ability to get dopamine and serotonin and get into flow. But, if you sit around and stress and worry about stuff, then you’ve got cortisol flowing through your brain and neoprenephrine.

And these things actually block your ability to learn [00:09:00] and understand and improve. So the first thing you got to do is you got to start controlling your brain. What is it that’s going on? What are you intaking? So this is an example, you know, if you’re spending all your time scrolling, you know, doom scrolling through your feed and getting all upset and you do that first thing in the morning, How have you set up your day?

Steve Fretzin: Yeah.

Mike Chastaine: Very poorly, right? Yeah. So, you know, uh, this is one of those things where I had to change my morning routine, you know, from watching the news and all of that stuff. I had to get away from that. It’s not that I don’t want to be informed. It’s just, I can’t have those chemicals kicking around in my head and be productive.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. I’ve really limited the amount of news that I watch in the morning because It can be so disruptive and disturbing, you know, who said this and who said that and what this country thinks of us now and all this stuff going on right now. And I think it’s like, you know, we talk about like what you, there’s a Brian Tracy’s, uh, an old oldie, but goodie.

And he used to [00:10:00] say, and I don’t think he came up with this, but I heard it from him, which was, you are what you think about most of the time. And I think it’s people that worry a lot, well, then that’s what they become a worrier, people that think negatively about others, they end up kind of being a negative person around others.

So I think there is something to be said about, we need to really control our thoughts and control what we put in our heads. How, I mean, taking away the news or not doom scrolling in the morning, what are some other things that you can, that help to keep you positive that you would help a lawyer figure out?

Mike Chastaine: That’s a great question. So again, it’s about exercising control over your day. You know, when you get up in the morning, what are you going to do today? And At the end of the day, if you accomplished everything that you actually set out to do, would you feel that you were successful? So part of it is defining success, you know?

So for example, I meditate virtually every day. I think in the last three years, I’ve missed maybe two days. That 10 [00:11:00] minutes is a victory for me every day. And it’s a good way to start. Then I write my gratitude journal. And then if I have some time, I’ll do some yoga or whatever, but those. Few things which only take maybe a half hour 40 minutes set my entire day up for being productive.

Then I just start ticking off the challenges that I have to go through. So I would say starting your day with little victories, even if it’s just making your bed, you know, can have a huge impact on how the day

Steve Fretzin: Yeah, I agree with that. And I, again, I was a victim of bad organization, bad habits and bad brain work.

I think one of the things that really matters to me is committing to exercise in the morning and sticking with it. And there’s a button on my phone. I’ve been doing Pilates for over two years now, and it’s just me in a room full of women and that’s fine. Okay. And then they always start off with. Ladies, let’s do this.

Ladies, let’s do that. And then she figures out there’s a guy in the room, but there’s a button on my [00:12:00] phone that I can push that says cancel the class for tomorrow. And I look at it sometimes and I go, I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to touch it. And that to me is a victory. And then I show up and I know because I’ve committed to it, I do it.

And then every time I walk out of there, I always think I’m so happy I did that the rest of my day is going to be easy. Because I just did the hardest thing early in the day,

Mike Chastaine: right? That’s Robin Sharma’s, uh, The 5 AM Club. You know, I mean, that’s what that book’s all about. And, you know, I read that and for many years, I got up at 5 in the morning and followed his prescriptions.

I don’t get up at five in the morning anymore, but the idea is the same thing is to have victory in the morning so that, you know, you’re much more likely to have victory in the afternoon and in the evening and go to bed knowing, you know, today was a good day. Today was a productive day, even if the results weren’t.

You know what you were hoping for.

Steve Fretzin: I think that’s the other thing I want to transition to is we spend so much time thinking and talking about what sort of went wrong [00:13:00] and giving ourselves a hard time about that tough client meeting or about that, you know, I didn’t get as much done today as I wanted to get done.

And we don’t really spend enough time thinking about the winds thinking about how far we’ve come. I mean, if we go, if I, all I have to do is in my head, think back to high school where everyone, every teacher, not every teacher, but a lot of my teachers, my parents, I was basically, I was stupid and lazy.

They didn’t ever thought I’d amount to anything. Nobody had any real, uh, confidence that I was going to turn out to be anything because I was just wasn’t performing and I was bored out of my head. Actually too smart

Mike Chastaine: for your own good

Steve Fretzin: smart for my own good. But, but thinking back to how far I’ve come, who would have thought that I was an author who would have thought I’d hit 500 episodes on a podcast who’d have thought that I’d be 21 years as a coach helping attorneys around the world.

Nobody would have bet on that. Even my best friend, when I told him I was going to start my own coaching business. He told me that was a stupid idea and that I should go get a job and he, what does he feel like a dumb dumb now? Uh, but I mean, I think that my [00:14:00] point is like, go back and pull the good out of your day and pull the good of about where you’ve come.

And I think that’s a really powerful way to get into a more positive state.

Mike Chastaine: Yeah. I mean, we do something in our firm that I would encourage other firms to do. We have a thing called a happy box. And in the happy box, any employee, anyone there can write something good about somebody else. And once a month we open that box and we read them all because.

You know, I think humans are hardwired to remember the bad things and forget the good things. So this is our opportunity to remember that, you know, surely did a great job in collections and our phone person, you know, set more appointments this month than ever before. Whatever it was, you know, just dealt with a difficult client and got a successful whatever it was.

It doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that everybody gets a pat on the back and acknowledgment and we remind ourselves of why we’re actually doing what we’re doing. So I think that’s a very helpful [00:15:00] thing. And you can do that for yourself, of course, you know, journaling is really helpful. If you track what you, well, then you can go back and go, you know, this month wasn’t a complete bust.

Right?

Steve Fretzin: Right. I love that. I think I’ve yet to meet anyone who journals. And doesn’t say that it’s a game changer that it’s been super helpful in their life. I, so I think that’s something people should be thinking about with proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm.

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Lawyers have been approaching me asking, What’s the Rainmakers Roundtable? Well, I tell them this is a special place created exclusively for rainmaking lawyers to continue their journey of prosperity. Our program is unique as every member [00:16:00] has a significant book of business and is motivated to grow it year after year.

Where else does this exist? If you’re a managing partner, who’s looking to get off your lonely island and talk shop with America’s top rainmakers, please go to my website, Fretzin. com and apply for membership today. Let’s talk a little bit about not time management, time mastery. Let’s talk a little bit about how to prioritize a day.

How does a lawyer who feels like every day is a red hot mess. Mhm. Start to transition to running their own show and controlling their time better.

Mike Chastaine: That’s a good question. And everyone’s going to approach it a little bit differently, I think, but the first thing you got to do is you got to start prioritizing, you know, uh, Learn the 80 20 rule and understand that, you know, 20 percent of your efforts are going to produce 80 percent of your results.

So what falls into that 80%? And for everyone it’s going to be a little bit different, but what [00:17:00] is the one thing that you could do today that will make tomorrow easier? And then start blocking off time to do that. Now, the challenge that most lawyers have is they don’t actually block off time to think. To literally sit down or, in my case, I do most of my thinking on a bike.

I get, you know, I go out and I ride and I just let my mind wander and I come up with ideas about, Okay, let’s run this entire scenario of what would happen if I did this. And then I come back and I jot it down and the benefit of not being in the office when I do that is that nobody can bug me, right? The phone’s not ringing, no email.

But you’ve got to, no matter what your situation is, whether it’s going for a walk in the park or whatever, you’ve got to set aside time to think. That’s what we do for a living, right, is thinking. It’s not writing emails. Nobody’s paying you to do that. What they’re paying you to do is come up with a strategy to get them the results that they’re looking for.

So you’ve got to take the time to do that. And I think once you develop that discipline, [00:18:00] and it takes discipline, you’ve got to make yourself do it. Set an appointment with yourself on the calendar and then keep that appointment. And then however works for you. Like I say, for me, it’s on a bike, but you know, go walk in the woods or walk around the hallway or whatever, and spend time thinking about how you can do things better than you’re doing them now.

Steve Fretzin: Well, I think one of the biggest challenges we have today is we don’t not only schedule time to think we don’t like. You know, sit on the can or sit over a meal or take a walk without a podcast on, without doom scrolling, without something filling up that downtime. And I think what we’re suggesting to everybody is, you know, 20 minutes to walk the dog or on a bike or.

Whatever it might be, that’s important to not be distracted and to not have things kind of buzzing in your ear all the time. I’m not saying turn off my podcast, but everyone [00:19:00] else’s turn off and just listen to mine. Let’s take a quick five minute break in the podcast and let people think for five minutes and we’ll just be quiet.

Mike, you and I know we’re not doing that, but that’s the gist is that you try to, you know, think about like, what am I watching or listening to right now? That isn’t even interesting. And maybe I could just have some quiet time to think.

Mike Chastaine: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that needs to be built in that can actually include reading.

I mean, I think You know, lawyers don’t spend enough time just reading books, and I don’t mean law books, and I don’t mean police reports or whatever, but, you know, self improvement books, or Stephen King, or Tom Clancy, or whatever, and start, you know, thinking about what other people are thinking about. I mean, you know, I’m not the smartest guy in the room, but I got a bookshelf full of people that can teach me something.

But I gotta go do the work and read it. So,

Steve Fretzin: yeah,

Mike Chastaine: I mean, I think there’s a lot of ways to go after this, but the main thing is, is that you have to prioritize yourself, that you’re important enough [00:20:00] to get better. If you don’t, you won’t, you won’t get better. You’ll just keep grinding the same stuff out.

Steve Fretzin: Well, I’m going to add that.

I think one of the biggest challenges lawyers have is they don’t have. good habits. I think there’s habits about how you run your day. There’s habits about working out. There’s habits about how you’re managing, how you take things in and decide what to do with it. What would you say are a couple of the ways lawyers can develop stronger habits to get more done or to take that time that normally wouldn’t be scheduled to think or to work out or whatever.

It’s the stuff that they’re, they just can’t fill it, fit in their day because of poor habits.

Mike Chastaine: Yeah, and that’s a great question. My suggestion and what really worked for me is that I take 10 minutes to meditate every day. And the reason why that’s so powerful is one, I’m important enough to spend the time.

Okay, I can give myself 10 minutes to there is nothing else going on. There’s no distractions, there’s no nothing else going on. And I begin [00:21:00] to build the discipline to have quiet time. It’s hard to think if you got too much noise going on in your life. So I would say that’s a beginning place to just take 10 minutes, you get an app like Calm or Headspace, one of those, you listen to it for 10 minutes, you have a spot, we have, I have a spot in my house where, you know, that’s where I sit, and I gave myself that victory in the morning.

I gave myself the discipline to, uh, be quiet and listen to whatever noise is going on in my head. And there’s a lot of that, but to understand that, you know, okay, this is how you actually begin to think. This is how the brain works. And if there’s too much input, too much noise, Then parts of it just shut down.

So

Steve Fretzin: the interest, I went through transcendental meditation with my wife. You know, I want to just put a number on it, say 10 years ago. And the thing that really struck me, and again, I didn’t come up with this, but I’ll tell everybody who doesn’t know what this is, what [00:22:00] meditation does is I want you to think about yourself on a small boat on the top of the ocean during the most horrendous storm, you’re being tossed and turn and thrown every direction.

You’re wet. You’re just scared out of your mind like you’re going to die. And if you go 500 feet under the level of the surface to the bottom of the ocean, there’s a little fish swimming by and it’s calm. And there’s like, there’s nothing going on up top at all. And meditation is supposed to do that. It’s taking you from the chaos.

Maybe a twist to your book there to down to where it’s calm. And so the idea about saying a mantra and fine and getting rid of all the mess in your head and just being calm for 10 or 20 minutes and getting off that boat because you’re on that boat. It’s the equivalent of getting multiple hours of sleep each day doing that 10 or 20 minutes of meditation.

So it’s for most people that get into it, they never want to stop doing it because it’s the one time in their day or two times in their day. where they can find that true calm. [00:23:00]

Mike Chastaine: Absolutely. And, you know, understand it to just amplify that. It doesn’t mean that the thoughts aren’t still zipping through your brain, but you’re noticing them and letting them go.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah.

Mike Chastaine: You’re not getting all caught up in, Oh, the latest. Chaos that’s going on, but you’re just letting it go. And that’s why I named the book, nevermind the chaos, right? You just have to sort of ignore that control what you can control and let everything else go, because if you can’t control it, you know, why worry about it?

You got enough on your plate.

Steve Fretzin: So I’d like to talk for a moment about goals. And I obviously with business development, working with lawyers, we are all about setting goals. The thing that I think people don’t understand is you could set a goal and say you’re going to hit a million dollars. That doesn’t really mean anything.

It’s what’s beneath and behind and under the goal that really matters. How do you break that down?

Mike Chastaine: Yeah. You know, I mean, there was a period of time where, you know, I wanted to have a million dollar law firm and we didn’t achieve that, but. Yeah. The most [00:24:00] important thing for me was what was my day going to be like?

How did I want my average day to look and feel like? And so I began to build that, that was the goals. And then I go, okay, well, in order to do that, how much money do I need to make? All right. Well, how, if that’s how much money I need to make and having a lot of data on our firm, you know, I knew the cost and, uh, of everything, the ROI of everything that we did, then I could easily go, well, okay, I need this many clients.

Which means my marketing budget has to be, you know, thus and such, and all the math just kind of worked backwards. But I built it around How did I want my day to be? How many hours did I want to actually practice law? And how many hours did I want to manage the firm or build the firm so that One day I could walk away and have someone give me a bunch of money for it, which is ultimately what I was able to do.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And so again, it’s really [00:25:00] great to have an objective or a goal and say, I want to hit a million dollars, but if you’re not able to break down strategically, how you’re going to spend your time, how you’re going to spend your day, how is what you’re doing, getting you to the number? How is it driving to the number?

If all you’re doing is billing hours and that’s your day every day. You’re not going to get to a million dollars in origination or in, in growth of clients. You’re just going to bill hours and be a spoke in the wheel. Okay. So we need to figure out, all right, what do I need to let go? Whether that’s management, whether that’s client work, whether that’s administrative technology, marketing, and delegate out or get done a different way so that I can take my own effort and put it out there on the field, building business, developing new strategic partnerships, referral partnerships.

Spending more time with clients, things like that. And that’s where I feel like it’s great to have a goal, but that’s where we need to develop the habits of business development and running a proper day and having, you know, enough, uh, common [00:26:00] sense to understand if all you’re doing all day is putting out fires and dealing with clients and dealing with, you know, minutia, you’re never going to achieve that kind of goal.

Mike Chastaine: Absolutely. And I would say setting a revenue goal is nice, but the real goal you wanna set is what’s your net? What is your profit?

Steve Fretzin: Yeah.

Mike Chastaine: You know, my dad used to say, if you wanna make a million dollars, you know, spend $2 million. Yeah, well, okay, that’s good. I wanted to have a profit. So, you know, that’s, I think that’s the goal that you gotta look at.

And, and the other thing that it really. Became important to me is, you know, when I started on this journey, I think I was billing at three 50 an hour and I was doing all my own bookkeeping. So I was paying my bookkeeper 350 an hour,

Steve Fretzin: highest paid bookkeeper around.

Mike Chastaine: Yeah. That is, you know, that was just plain stupid.

Right. And when I realized that I didn’t have to do that, when I was able to let go enough, someone else do it. Oh my goodness, not ready to get done better. And I didn’t have all the stress, but I started making more money. I mean, I realized [00:27:00] that if I build 90 minutes a month, more than I was billing, I could pay for my bookkeeper and save about 10 hours a week.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah.

Mike Chastaine: Well, once you, once you understand that math,

Steve Fretzin: it opens everything up because it isn’t just the bookkeeping. It’s actually, I recommend lawyers take an audit of their day or a couple of days and say, Hey, from 6am to 7pm. What did you do all day? You might find 2, 3, 4 hours a day that are not at your billable rate or that aren’t the best use of your time.

And then the next thing you know, you add that up over a week and over a month and you’re really making some big mistakes. So that might be a good transition though to our game changing book, uh, there, Mike, which is profit first. So tell us a little bit about that book. We’ve heard that before on the show, but love to hear your spin on it.

Mike Chastaine: Got the opportunity to spend a little bit of time with Mike Michalowicz on a couple of occasions. And, uh, the day he gave us profit first, I read it on the plane. It basically is an accounting system that instead of the traditional county system, [00:28:00] revenue minus expenses equal profit. And usually at the bottom, you’ve spent all your money.

It’s revenue minus profit equals your Right. So you pay, you know, and my dad told me this years ago, and I wish I had listened to him, but pay yourself first, you know, even if it’s 1%, I started out at 1%, you know, a penny out of every dollar came in, went into a special profit account. It adds up. And that’s really McAuliffe’s idea of how to do that.

Now, the other piece of it that I, that was really important to me was I began to look at my bank account every day. You know, so I knew exactly what was going on, which meant I wasn’t caught by surprise. I didn’t have bills that came up that I didn’t know about. And if you put energy into something, it will grow.

And that’s what profit first is about.

Steve Fretzin: Awesome. Well, everybody check that out. And, uh, let’s wrap up thanking our sponsors. Of course, we’ve got PymCon coming up for the PI folks that want to go to a top notch. Uh, conference [00:29:00] this year in October, you can go, uh, to sign up. I think it’s pymcon. org. And then of course, we’ve got the law, her podcast and everybody check out Sonia and her amazing podcast.

Mike, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to hear more about, uh, MC consulting, they want to grab your new book. Nevermind the chaos. What are the best ways for them to reach you?

Mike Chastaine: So you can go to my website, michaelchastain. com, uh, it’s Chastain spelled with an E at the end, or you can just contact me directly through at Mike at, at michaelchastain.

com. You know, I’m on LinkedIn. I’m pretty active on LinkedIn at this point. Uh, so there’s a number of ways to get a hold of me and I’d be happy to, you know, what I offer basically is 45 minutes to sit down and kind of evaluate where you are. Is there something I can do to help you? If there’s not, then great.

You’re rocking it. But typically we can find something that will. Either buy you more time or put more money in your pocket or just make your life easier. And of course, you can get my book on Amazon or, uh, [00:30:00] Barnes and Noble. It’s Never Mind the Chaos. I think this is a book that every lawyer should read, at least to get an understanding of what’s really going on in your head.

Because we do go through some of the biology and the attention span issues that, uh, Uh, we all suffer from

Steve Fretzin: squirrel, right? Yeah,

Mike Chastaine: exactly. Adult ADHD.

Steve Fretzin: If you don’t, if you’re not diagnosed, you still probably have it.

Mike Chastaine: Yeah. There’s a study that suggests that our attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish.

Steve Fretzin: Oh boy. Okay.

Mike Chastaine: I don’t know if that’s true or not, but we do know that our attention spans are way too short and it’s like any other muscle you got to exercise it. And that’s where meditation helps. But other things too, how do you get it so that you can focus for an hour without looking at your email or going to Facebook?

Can you do that discipline? And if you can, then you can put out a much better product.

Steve Fretzin: It’s challenging for us. Gen Xers, let alone the folks under us and younger than us. Holy mackerel. Well, listen, Mike, thank you so much for coming on and kind of going [00:31:00] back and forth with me to give, you know, five, 10 good ideas and takeaways for folks that are trying to get their head in the right place because You know, growing your own book of business, whether you’re at a firm or you’re on your own and having your own clients and running your own show is one of the greatest and most rewarding ways to build a career, uh, where you feel like you’re in control and have that personal freedom and wealth.

And that’s what the show is all about. And I think what you’re doing and what I’m doing is instrumental to helping people get on the right track with that. So thanks so much.

Mike Chastaine: Oh, very happy to do it. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate the platform.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah, my pleasure. And thank you all for hanging out with Mike and I today on Be That Lawyer.

We’re here, uh, to really try to, you know, flip the switch on your brain and give you, you know, practical, actionable things each and every week, twice a week to help you be that lawyer, confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. Take care. Everybody. Be safe. Be well. We’ll talk again soon.

Narrator: Thanks for listening. To be that lawyer, [00:32:00] life-changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice, visit Steve’s website Fretzin for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.