#3: Champagne Clients, Beer Budgets, and the Cost of Staying Stuck with Vanessa Shaw

Feeling stuck at the edge of burnout while building a business that’s supposed to set you free? This episode is your wake-up call—and your roadmap.

Today, I’m joined by international business strategist Vanessa Shaw, founder of The Business Growth Academy and champion of women-owned law firms. With experience across the U.S., Europe, and the U.K., Vanessa brings real talk and proven strategies that help female attorneys scale with purpose, profit, and personal freedom.

Together, we dive into:

• The essential mindset shift from lawyer to CEO—and why avoiding it is costing you more than just time
• The hidden cost of tolerating too much in your firm (wait ‘til you hear the $500K wake-up call)
• Why time and overwhelm aren’t the real problem—and how to reclaim both without burning it all down
• How to identify your “champagne clients” and stop settling for beer-and-wine work
• What a “business reset” looks like—and how to renovate your firm without starting from scratch

If you’re in the messy middle of growth—hitting a revenue ceiling, maxed out on hours, and unsure how to scale without losing yourself—this conversation is for you.

Vanessa doesn’t just talk business; she redefines what success can look like for women in law.

This episode is your permission to pause, rethink, and rebuild. You don’t need to do it alone—and you certainly don’t need to keep grinding just to get by.

Vanessa Shaw is an international business strategist with experience across the USA, UK, and Europe. She’s held leadership roles at top organizations including the UN, World Economic Forum, KPMG, Oracle, and CMS, where she pioneered a cross-border virtual coaching program for attorneys in 2006.
Today, as founder of The Business Growth Academy, Vanessa helps women-owned law firms scale with purpose, profit, and personal freedom. Her proven Business Acceleration Model combines strategic growth with authentic leadership, empowering female attorneys to build sustainable practices that reflect their values and deliver exceptional client value.

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Transcript

First of all I just want to thank you for taking the time to be on this podcast i know what you do is going to
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be so valuable to our listeners thank you yes all right guns today we have
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Vanessa Thaw with us i am genuinely excited to have this conversation with
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her vinesse is an international business strategist with experience across not
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only the USA but the of and Europe so an incredibly well-rounded perspective and
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a lot of experience she's held leadership roles at top organizations including the of
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World Economic Forum KPMG Oracle and CMS where she pioneers a crossborder
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virtual reaching program for attorneys in 2006 and today as the founder of the
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Business Growth Academy Vanessa helps womenowned law firms scale with and I
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love this part purpose profit and personal freedom her prove business
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acceleration model combined strategic growth with authentic leadership empowering female attorneys to build
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sustainable practices that reflect their values and deliver exceptional client
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value like I have goosebumps just reading that oh thank you
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because it is it's just so amazing to be able to help law firm owners and especially women step into this place to
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where they can really embody all of these things and so my first question for you Vanessa is you know you've
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worked with everyone from billiondoll corporations to solo law firm owners
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what is the biggest midst shift that you believe women attorneys in particular need to make if they want to
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build a firm that's both profitable and freeing yeah I love that and listen I
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just want to just go back and actually correct because there's a little distinction here in my big i am all about integrity and really getting like
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the the true words there there was a little word in there that may be misleading i did I worked at the of that
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is my background many years ago in Switzerland the roles that I played in those bigger organizations were as an
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executive coach coming in from the outside and again I think that's a really important distinction I was not a
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corporate gal I never was so the was my big thing and then I actually retained
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as a actually was a life coach back in the day up and I rapidly became an
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executive coach business coach kind of I think I was a life coach for about 12 months and that got me into this world
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of business you know very organically and so we kind of fast forward today as
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you say that biggest midst shift what we're seeing with with womenowned law firms is they've got to make the midst
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shift away from being the practicing attorney you know the managing partner
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attorney that is doing all of the lowering plus a lot of other things to being the CEO of their law firm without
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that shift Chelsea is like they just get stuck in the weeds the whole time
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everything is dependent on them they're not coming up as the visionary right to really take a a view of their whole firm
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where they want to go with vision setting those goals setting the milestones really thinking intentionally
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about who they want to serve because a lot of the women when they come to us
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you know they're they're already successful but they've built their firms by default rather than by design right
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so they're not even they haven't even come up to think about who's an ideal client what do they want the future of
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that firm to look like what would they like their tears to look like and again there's many many different structures
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and of course you know the piece that's probably music to your ears is the financial up up as you probably know as
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well there's still a lot of you know in the financial space with womenowned law firms it's kind of they pay themselves
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what's left over and as they're growing and sealing it's like no we are
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reverting all of that this is about you've got to pay yourself first like your firm has got to work for you you've
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put in the blood sweat and tears up until this point it's got to pay you and it's got to pay your future because
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nobody else is going to fund your future so that and that for me is that fundamental shift thinking about all of
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those things and then systems and efficiency that's a CEO conversation
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that's not an attorney conversation up and I know that the the say the women that we do our best work with they
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haven't made that s they haven't made that shift practically but they know that that's what they have to do and
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they're like I want to be the CEO but now like give me a road map what
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what where do I start what do I focus on next but that's an internal decision and I always say it's okay to not want to do
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that it's okay to want to be a solo get the work do the work be paid to do get the work that's a great model it can
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work for many many women up but I would just encourage those women that really want to grow don't get stuck in that
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model if you really want something bigger and a lot more impact and freedom because of course there's limitations of
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being solo h I agree with everything that you said
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and I see that too the midst shift of and you know it's difficult because when
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you start a business and it's just you you are in the work you are doing the things like you said you don't even have
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the time or mental capacity to kind of lift your head up and say okay this is
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my business these are the pieces this is the vision these are the milestones in your experience what is the biggest
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thing that is kind of holding women back from being able to lift their head up oh
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my gash how long's the list right
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up one of the top thing I mean there's two and there's two and they're
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intimately linked right in time is probably the number one ex
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excuse reason we hear right and when I say excuse reason it's it's plausible
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because law firms unfortunately have grown and evolved in this what I believe
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is now an outdated very masculine-driven model up because let's face it the industry was created you know for men by
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men and everything is about the syllable hours you know putting in the time
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getting the clients you as many syllable hours as you can do you kind of you know you work all the hours around the clock
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up and you wear that like a badge of honor so a lot of the women that we're
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working with of course they've still inherited that midst right even though they may have left big law or law firms
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to go into smaller firms you know running them running their own firms that mentality still prevails it runs
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incredibly deep and so it's not that it's an excuse i mean I'll have women say "Vanessa you got to look at my
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calendar." And I'm like "I believe you i know full well you're doing 60 plus hour
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work weeks." And some of them will even say "Of only I was doing 60 plus hour 60
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hour weeks." Like that would be a goal right now because they're closer to 80 so time is a massive massive
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issue and I would say with that of course overwhelm so that's why I say
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they're so linked they're probably the two biggest things that we hear up kind of in in an initial conversation i'm
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just so overwhelmed i don't have the mental capacity i don't have the time i
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can't you know I can't breathe i can barely I mean they'll say things you know Vanessa I barely have time to see
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you know I've been backtoback with clients or team meetings like I actually need a big break right now let alone you
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know time to think about vision now one of the things that will often say that and I get it that that is when the
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reality presents as we're so time poor and stretched through it thin and very
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overwhelmed and I'm on that cusp it's frankly the cusp of burnt and again
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that's another term that these women will use a lot i'm burning out and it's not necessarily like the real
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psychological burnt from extreme stress although many of them I mean we
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have clients or you know prospects that we're speaking to that have just got out of the hospital and they've had a wake
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call i mean it really is at that point but I'm talking about even the the burnt of the grind of heap grinding
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the same things like day in day out right there's just no pause there's no there's no vacation there's no you know
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if I have time on the weekend free I feel guilty because I know that there's just this pile of stuff back in the firm
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to deal with up and or otherwise I'm sacrificing you know family time friend
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time girlfriend time whatever it might be because I'm back in the office doing that thing right so it it's a really
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challenging place and for anybody listening that's really at that space first and foremost I want you to know
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that there is so much hope right it it really doesn't have to be that way and
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please be mindful of engaging in those sorts of conversations with other women
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in similar situations that reinforced that this is the norm
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and that this is the way it has to be because if you come into a world like ours in like the business growth academy
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we're we're in a very different conversation and we can quickly show
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these women that they are spending time in the wrong places frankly up and
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that's not to make anybody feel bad right it's just that we're so busy as you said you don't have that time to think strategically and intentionally up
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but we know full well that we can easily and I say this easily because we've done
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it so many times we can find four to eight hours a week immediately that's a lot of time for
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somebody that feels like they have no time right because there's things being spent in the you know low what we call
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low value activities things that frankly probably don't need to be done things that could be you know outsourced things
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that could be delayed and dumped i mean sometimes we see that like why are you working on that right now this is this
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is not what you need to be doing at this stage of growth so I think that those are really the two the two bigger I say
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it's that time the time poor and overwhelmed and those are typically like
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the the very first you know problems that we're at least going to get some relief around up so that then it's with
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that space like we can breathe again typically that's one of the first things
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and I'll see that in our clients it's just like this you know this just visual relief you know like the shoulders go
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down they're not you know the energy kind of isn't all up here in their like head and chest and all of a sudden
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they're a bit more grounded and they'll say things like "Now it's the first time I've actually been able to like step
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back and start to think about what I actually want you know what I want to
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create and what I want the firm to do." And of course once we start to get to there and we're now tapping into vision
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and desires there's energy right that comes from that that's that's the piece that I say starts to give hope now they
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typically don't know how to get there at that point and that's okay up you know we have the road matas we kind of know
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what we what needs to happen but it's like that's that's that space that we have to tap into is right the desires
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and that vision because that's the piece that starts to give a lot of hope and optimism
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two things that I really appreciate you acknowledging in what you just said is
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number one it's lack of time and overwhelm but a lot of times that stems
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from our belief belief of how we're supposed to get there and the fact that
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in the legal space particularly which is still male-dominated one of the industries that actually is behind the
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average curve of valet-women counterpart this is what we were
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conditioned to believe that we work hard and we grind and that belief is what
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allows us and law firm owners and women to stay there and continue the grind and
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talk ourselves out of changing it and the second thing that you acknowledged
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is that we absorb the energy of the people around us and I love that you are telling these women do not surround
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yourself with other people who are going to perpetuate the belief that is going to keep you stuck there are in fact
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different conversations happening there are other ways to do it and the more we
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remove course from the belief and from the energy that it's not something that
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we can do because what we're doing is not working in these situations
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right and so I I like your word excuse we are giving ourselves excuses and yes
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it can come off as harsh but sometimes we need that jolt we need the reality of
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that is an excuse and yes these reasons may be valid but not being able to
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change them is in fact an excuse and so I really appreciate those those two
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pieces of what you said well it's the ultimate in disempowerment as well right it's like you know we're all about
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empowering women i mean that's really the you know at our core that's our mission right is really empowering women
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okay ours is through business and it's empowering them financially right
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because we believe that you know the next level of freedom for women is financial freedom right because you know
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finances give more choice choice give freedom right so the ultimate in
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disempowerment and lack of agency is when we just say this is the way it has to be and as you say and and what we
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don't realize is that we often unconsciously seek out other people to
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reinforce the status que which is why I always say like be careful like the conversations i always say that with my
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clients like the conversations we're having in here are very different to the conversations out there and they'll say
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that of course once they become aware of it they're like "Oh my gash now you've started to shine the light on this we
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can see how the majority are in a conversation that is basically keeping them stuck and status que and it is I
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say it's the ultimate in disempowerment so that's where we you know we have to shift that midst and then we've got to
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shift the language and the conversation that we're actually having yes yes and before I ask you your next
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question the next question I have for you I want to if you're listening to this right now I want to offer you a
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question who and what are you giving your energy
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to right now that is keeping you in a place of sickness i think that question can be
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so powerful for you right now listener and you know if you're listening in your car obviously don't write anything down
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but when you get home next time you stop start a list and keep it with you and keep that list running of who are the
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people that are helping me stay stuck and where are the environment and what
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are the things that I'm holding on to that are doing exactly what Vanessa is is telling us right now are keeping us
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stuck are unconsciously giving us permission to not shift our perspective around this
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and so you have a framework and I can completely relate with you when you say
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you know a lot of people they know what they need to do they just have no idea what to do it they need that like that
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step-by-step guidance because I see the same thing in finance we have a CFO framework and it's the same exact thing
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people know that their money story needs to change but they have no idea how to start taking the steps to do it and so
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for your framework you mentioned and this may or may not be step one you know the first thing we need to do is look at
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where is our time going and where does it not need to go is that the first step really is i mean we call it a time and
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energy audit excuse me time and energy it's like we're really looking at up Yes
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where what how are you really advocating time and this is a great exercise for attorneys who are so used to filling you
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know even you know six minutes up so they're used to cracking time and often
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what we find from that is
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dog often what we find from that is again they'll see like all the hours
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that they're working but all of the things that they're doing way beyond the
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syllable hours and we actually do a calculation up again you'll probably
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like this it's you know great little spreadsheet calculation you'll appreciate it it's very eye opening for
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our women because it's basically what is the real value of your time you know we
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talk about the syllable hour and it's it's great to brag right you know the syllable hour is you know $400 an hour
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or whatever but when we start to look at the amount of hours that they are spending working taking that over a year
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you know including obvious obviously a little bit of vacation time although many of them are barely having that and
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then we look at their revenues like imagining that they're they are well they are the chief revenue officer
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because they're responsible typically for everything and then we calculate that into this is what your hour is
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actually worth now this is where it gets really interesting because sometimes I
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just it's like oh my gash like that that is so low right that is scarify low
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given my experience everything I'm doing the impact I'm making where I want to go
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so that that can be a real wake call there the second wake call is then
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often in but okay let's imagine that we do a calculation and your hour turns out
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to be worth $200 an hour right depending on again the size of revenues but now
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all of a sudden we'll find out that you're wasting your time doing $20 or $25 an hour tasks that you could easily
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get a of a legal assistant right some sort of outsourced help to do up and
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then those typically those tasks are also draining energy so it's you know it's a double loss it's like you know so
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we'll start to say you know do you realize you're actually losing $175 every time you know per hour every
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time you engage in that and that's then there's the opportunity cost that's lost because it's draining and you don't have
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any energy left over for the things that could actually be generation more so
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looking at it through that time and energy audit and the other way that we approach that so we'll look at you know
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what are the things that really make money that only you can be doing that are revenue generation what are the things that are energizing because that
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often speaks to their zone of genius right and the things that they should be
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doing and only they can be doing the draining ones again it's you know there's a conflict there with their
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creativity because if we're draining energy you know it's very difficult to
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go from draining to now let me be creative and inspired up and we have an
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exercise that kind of goes with this which is what we call the million-dollar question and the million-dollar question
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is what are you operating so you you were you were sort of touching on it with the question that
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you offered the listeners earlier around like who or what is keeping you stuck and so it's similar right it's like what
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are you operating and we say you don't get what you want you get what you tolerate and current
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toleration reflect your standards your current standards and so we've got to
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raise the bar you know we've got to raise those standards as well and a big
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part of that growth and this is the piece that links back to kind of like the overwhelm and the time and frankly
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more joy and fun in the firm because I don't think I've ever heard
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actually I mean this is something that we created years ago i don't think I've ever heard anybody talking about
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business growth but talking about it through the lens of let's remove toleration most business growth build
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on top of what's already there right and certainly that's what I saw when I was
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working inside of the big law firms and other big firms the you know that race to the top
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and the raise to the top is just taking on more stuff
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hence the hours hence the overwhelm but you're kind of like the big fat paycheck is the you know well that's the per
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right you have to take take on all of this stuff and that's the the payoff what we are saying is no this is
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completely outdated let's really look at you know those things that you're operating
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you've been trained to think that it was okay let's release those toleration so that you are only you
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know not only initially but I mean it's a process of getting to zone of excellence and zone of
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genius and then there are other people that you can pay that frankly their zone of excellence or their zone of
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genius are your toleration or or or they simply no
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longer need to be there right we can dump them so we're really kind of changing that model and that's the piece
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that comes back to no when we help you grow we're not helping you kind of suck
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it up and just take on more and more and more and push through and do it the
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tough way we're having a conversation around let's get a list of toleration like what are you operating right now
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and let's look at some quick wins let's look at some of the really big ones and
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we sometimes put dollar amounts to it we were working with a client this week up
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and there's a team member that's a massive toleration you know people often
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end up in that bucket and when we you know when we really mapped out the
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dollars in terms of the lost the stress the lost hours the opportunity cost and
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everything and kind of the knock-on effect we came up with a calculation of half a million a year for
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that one toleration oh my gash and that's not a pie in the sky
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Chelsea because I know some people listening in go "Yeah yeah you know it's easy." His was spreadsheets this was
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data driven this was you know we've got the owner in front of us like they're
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giving us the data we're working through this i mean and they are seeing it for themselves for the first time
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saying whoa I've been operating this for a long time and it's having the much
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much bigger impact than just financial by the way but we started by saying let's put some dollars to this and
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that's what it ended up being i think numbers and data and finance is
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a great place to start because up numbers don't lie if there's no
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garage in garage out numbers can be misleading and manipulated but if your numbers and your data is solid they are
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going to be the mirror that is facing you that you have to look at that you
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have to consider and so I really love and appreciate the power of numbers up
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and because I see it as the same thing it's it's incredibly reopening and one of the things that I see the most is
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around team members and operating team members accommodation team members and
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specifically for women not only because of our historical conditioning and you
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know who we are innate I I think that women tend to
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tolerate people a little bit more because we have those big hearts we want
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to take care of people we want people to you know that's just who we are do you see kind of the same thing and how do
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you help people do that in a way that doesn't make them feel ethical conflict exactly right
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that's the point because up my own podcast and I I'll share the
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reason for it because it's the title right it's basically this piece here my own podcast is Met Rich Without Being a
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and the reason for sharing that title
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is my deepest fear was that in order to be successful I needed to become a
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cold-hearted and a version of myself that I would absolutely loathe
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right so this was a big story hence I kind of built the podcast and that brand around it and so that's where I you know
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if we really dive in it's often the fear of I will be perceived a certain way now
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a lot of women do relate to the piece because again society that's been used to
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control us right and God forbid that you would be perceived like that and you'll be the outer and nobody will want to
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be around you right so but other some other women have another version of it this is that the version of themselves
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that they don't want to be and so oftentimes what we see is then there's this
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overmpensation right i used to do exactly the same myself up because we
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don't want to be this over here we compensate over here and so it looks
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like you know people pleasing toxic sickness you know we're never saying the
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things that we really want to say up people pleasing comes up a lot in my world up
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and that people pleasing as you've touched on leads straight into lack of
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boundaries we're always available we're not saying no we're not having the hard conversations the all of a sudden the
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team members it's not the leadership that's saying this is how we do things around here we've got the team members
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saying this is how I'm doing this around here my up so yes and it is interesting
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i mean I don't have the data at my fingertips but I know that statistical
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women hire considerably less than our male counterpart up we're kind of loathed to
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hire so you know again I think that's a lot of conditioning we've been taught that you know we're supposed to do it
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all we're kind of like that that superb women syndrome up a lot of women will
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readily admit that they're kind of control freaks sometimes slight control freak in recovery right want to let go
27:48
and again it's all of these things that that can that can keep us stuck and so
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that's what we find as well is that then when they go into hiring if they're not aware of those patterns those former
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patterns are the very thing that kind of leads to the team dysfunction for want of a better word and almost enforcing
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a pattern back to women that like you see this is why I don't want to hire and this is why I don't want to have team and that's that other place that we're
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like no we're doing this very differently we we are really going to do this differently and again one of the
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the midst shifts that we have there is your team is there to support you and your
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vision not the other way around you know you've got an amazing mission that you're on you've got a big vision you
28:33
know and they are here to support that not you as the leader are here to kind
28:39
of just keep pouring into your team now of course do we have to develop people and pour into them of course we do but
28:45
it's still that shift of no you are the leader your vision your mission your
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culture your values and let's attract people into that
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space as opposed to possibly trying to attract them through people pleasing and over nice over sickness and before you
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know it you've agreed to virtual working for your parallel and it absolutely was never going to work for you in the
29:12
vision that you had yeah and that kind of goes back to your comments about you know your
29:19
foundation is if your foundation is built in such a way that's not in ligament with everything we're talking
29:25
about here if you're listening to this and you have a team already and you're hearing "Oh my gash I have built a
29:32
foundation with a team with an unclear vision you know core values and mission
29:39
we're not on the same place." All of these things are hitting home it's kind of it sounds like one of those
29:44
situations where like your foundation is built not only in systems and processes
29:49
but in core values and vision and mission and you know maybe you've been
29:55
on the grind for so long and your focus has been building but you're realizing I have built a foundation that's actually
30:04
shake and prone to rumble based on where I realize now that I want to go so
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for the listeners that are thinking that in their minds right now what would you say to them in terms of you have this
30:17
thing you're realizing that your foundation is not where you need it to be what is the hope for them oh it's
30:25
such a great question because it actually came up in my world this week that we were having this conversation i I had a group of attorneys with me and
30:33
one of them said "Oh my gash I've been practicing." I think she was at least 20 25 years in so seasoned she was not a
30:41
newby and she's like "Vanessa like I everything that you're saying has made
30:46
me re realize that my foundation like I've just built this you know ad how
30:51
foundation is very shake." And her the fear that came up was I need to
30:58
completely tear everything down and start from zero at this point in my career which is a really scar thought
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right but it's it's not the first time I've heard that i hear that a lot so I would say honestly no it is incredibly
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rare up that you have to tear everything down in fact we're we're not about like taking like unnecessary risks we're
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about taking some very educated calculated risks and transition plans
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and and really thinking through these things so in fact what I shared with her is I said "An I just give you a little
31:34
bit of a frame?" Like instead of the tearing down I I'm sharing a lot from a lot of experience here and by the way
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you couldn't possibly implement this all like in a short time frame this is you
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know what we're doing is a is several years process right to really get to
31:52
that CEO level and freedom and and all the rest of it so I said let's ground it
31:58
in some good time good timelines and expectations first and foremost so you
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can breathe again so there was a first little bit of relief and then I said the other invitation I want to you know
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invite you to like frame this is we call it a rest instead of the tearing
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down would you be open to considering a shorter rest where you actually kind
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of just take a little step back up you know typically of course it's with the help of a coach and somebody that you
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know knows what they're doing because on your own it's really difficult to think through these things and I said and the
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rest is to kind of rest the foundation some of these things that we've been talking around like who are your ideal
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clients we call them champagne clients in our world we do an analysis of that many of the firms will discover that
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they've got 10 to 20% champagne clients right and they they've got 90 to you
32:56
know 90 to 80 beer clients what we call beer or wine clients and they're like "Oh no wonder." Like that's a rest
33:04
because then we can analyze you know who are your ideal clients for you and your firm and start to think about a strategy
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to get in front of them a rest Chelsea as we were saying is around team right
33:16
is one of the firms that we're working with right now the one we said we uncovered you know a lot a lot of money
33:22
and lost revenue up and profit because of this sometimes we have to rest the
33:28
team and that doesn't always mean firing the team and starting over but it can be
33:33
resecting expectations you know we're going to be doing things differently
33:38
moving forwards and I often say to my attorneys there's good news and bad news
33:43
is this the good news is you'll see the team that is really committed to you and
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your vision and they'll love the fact that you're raising standards and raising the bar because high performer
33:55
always love that the bad news is or I think it's good news is you will have
34:02
team members that self- select out and I think it's good because they get to get they get to be happier and rewarded
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elsewhere and you get to rest the team i love for me I love the the like we're just taking a little bit of a pause and
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I don't that doesn't mean a pause from business like we're just stepping back and we're going to think about growth
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very intentionally like let's do a rest right let's look at some of these things
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and then typically from there women are then like oh okay now I get it I see
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what needs to happen I can see the path I can actually see not always not all of
34:38
the road map they don't you don't have to but I can see the way forwards and again that's the piece that starts to
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bring up that energy and the excitement right and again that hope and optimism for a much better future with the firm
34:53
yeah and and it really is about just knowing the next couple of steps right because trying to look at the engage
35:00
can be overwhelming as well and we're trying to help people get out of overwhelm not give them a new overwhelm
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and so I think that's important to realize too you know we don't have to see the whole path in fact the path is
35:12
going to change by the time we get there and then we're going to have a new destination so just knowing those next
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couple of steps up is is really all we need and I I appreciate how you frame it to like
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we're not tearing down the the foundation we're doing a rest and it starts with you defining what it is you
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want what you're no longer willing to tolerate and naturally when you do a
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rest like this like you said the A players are going to reveal themselves and the people that aren't in ligament
35:43
are also going to reveal themselves and yes it's a hard decision but in the end
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it's probably going to work out better for them and it's going to work out
35:54
better for you and and the business that you're building you know I was thinking as you were just
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saying this Chelsea you know the metaphor that was coming up which I think I think we can all relate to is
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our house right up we might want to do some renovation
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let's face it I've been you know I've been married 30 years we moved I mean we moved was about 18 months ago to this
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new house when we moved house we had a whole new clean right but even 18
36:23
months in there's clatter things are getting a little disorganized right now we're in that place of going we want to
36:30
removed we want to do some things but rarely in our home are we completely
36:37
tearing it down and rebuilding from the ground up in it's very rare that we do that up and so I'd love I would
36:44
encourage listeners to really think through that lens this is like a refresh right that we want to removed and yes
36:50
perhaps we are going to be adding on an extra bedroom or the home office or the cassita right that might be that new arm
36:57
of the business up perhaps you we're cleaning things up we're making it less fluttered we're making it more efficient
37:04
and frankly a much more enjoyable environment and I think that's great so and and the
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the truth is what you listener if you know that this is all applying to you what you have to lose if you don't make
37:20
these hard decisions and do yes some of these are hard things but if you choose to stay where you're at consider what
37:27
you have to lose and that is a lot and I'm so glad that they have people like
37:32
you and me that they can go to because it's not easy up but it is so much more
37:38
simple when you have someone that offers you a framework that gives you those
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exact steps but also allows you to curate your own vision your own firm up
37:51
according to what it is that you really love doing in that firm so for the people listening that that know this is
37:58
all applying to them Vanessa give them an idea of how your framework works what
38:04
it looks like and how they can find you yeah so I'll start with the how they can find me up as I say I did mention my own
38:11
podcast Met Rich Without Being a and there's a whole series on there it's actually happening right now
38:17
specifically for womenowned law firms but pretty much everything that's on there is relevant across the board
38:22
anyway so that's a good free resource up businessgrowthacademy.com up
38:28
businessgrowthacademy not the business growth academy otherwise you'll end up with a CPA firm in the
38:34
of up so that's a great place again to find us and there's some free things
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there there's actually a free community that I've just launched called the legal collective so again trying to like
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really give a lot of free resources to support womenowned law firms up so that
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they can have a taste and really see if our methodology and midst up align if
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at that point we're looking for help up typically the first place we start is the rest right is that program where
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said like let's let's start let's do we typically do about four to six weeks together up with my team we do a
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financial analysis as well to really kind of see what are the key things that are happening look at those champagne
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clients look at team look at the toleration up and really start to get some quick
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wins so that is just an excellent place to get started up and again it's back to
39:29
you know third frankly four to six weeks from now or that four to six weeks from that decision you can truly be in a very
39:37
different place which is not a lot of time to invest for I think you know
39:43
really building a firm that as the firm gets bigger life is going to get a lot better
39:50
yeah absolutely what is you talk about champagne clients which I love by the
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way up it's such a fun way to do it who is your champagne client yeah so the
40:02
women that we get to do our best work with are typically already over that 250
40:08
300,000 in annual revenue obviously they're womenowned law firms and they're really hit what is you know that mess
40:16
middle of growth up so again you know they've typically plateau in what
40:21
they're doing they're mixed out on time they don't have that roadway they want to grow they want to build that seven
40:28
figureure firm but they certainly want to build it on their terms up and not be burning out in the process so that's who
40:35
we love to have conversations with that's perfect and a perfect way to describe it the mess middle because it
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really really is and so I love that those are your champagne clients because they absolutely need the most support
40:47
and guidance well I appreciate everything
40:53
that you've said today this conversation was everything I knew it would be i know our listeners are going to appreciate it
41:00
and there are going to be some people that are empowered as you should be up and so I want to leave our listeners
41:07
knowing and understanding that it's okay to feel like you're you're lost it's okay to feel like things are broken and
41:12
not to know what to do that is why we are here that is why Vanessa is available to you we have all of her
41:19
links and and her podcast in the show notes so if this is hitting home for you
41:24
I really encourage you to reach out and talk to Vanessa and her team and Vanessa
41:30
I've loved having you and I want to give you the opportunity to leave our
41:35
listeners with a parting message too oh gash there's always so many
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up I know it sounds trot but I really do believe this i just think life is just way too short right to be
41:49
operating you know operating less than your dreams and we know that we're in the business of helping women really
41:55
achieve their dreams so we know what's possible we see it every single day and
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that's what I would say is like come back connect back in with those dreams take you know just 15 minutes you know
42:07
start to recollect with that get those desires burning and then get support to make it happen
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and and today on this page in history is the perfect day to start especially for
42:20
women so always thank you so much thank you really been a pleasure