In this transformative episode, Gary Mitchell, Founder of OnTrac Coach, shares how to transition from star lawyer to effective firm leader. If you struggle with control and team management, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- How to build teams around your strengths for efficiency

- Why mindset shifts enable entrepreneurial risk-taking

- What delegating perfection frees for firm growth

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 3 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Gary Mitchell has spent over two decades helping lawyers reshape their practices into businesses that work for their lives, not against them. Drawing on three decades of experience in business strategy, communications, and leadership, he supports lawyers in building efficient teams, modernizing operations, and mastering skills law school never taught. As founder of OnTrac® Coach and creator of the Law Firm Xelerator™ Program, Gary helps managing partners and law firm owners accelerate their firms’ profitability.

Want to learn more about Gary Mitchell's work at OnTrac Coach? Check out his website at https://ontraccoach.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Take the Founder's Evolution Quiz Today

If you’re a Founder, business owner, or CEO who feels overworked by the business you lead and underwhelmed by the results, you’re doing it wrong. Succeeding as a founder all comes down to doing the right one or two things right now. Take the quiz today at foundersquiz.com, and in just ten questions, you can figure out what stage you are in, so you can focus on what is going to work and say goodbye to everything else.

Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again

to the Start scale and succeed podcast. It's the only podcast

that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as

a founder, and I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and I want to

talk about what I call the star player paradox, which is that

the better you are as a player, the harder it can become to be

an effective captain. And nowhere is this more painfully

obvious than with than founders in the professional services

world, and in particular, as you'll hear us discuss today,

attorneys and so what happens at this stage? You've you've had

success, you've built your practice, you're exceptional at

what you do, your talent, your intelligence, your ability to

solve problems better than at least the rest of who you're

competing against. That's how you got to this point. That's

why clients hire you, not some generic firm or other business.

They hired you, but now you've got a team, and you're still

operating like you did as a solopreneur, and that's not

going to work any more. So today's guest is here to help us

out, here to help us figure out how to move from just being that

star to really building a thriving enterprise. And he's

got some experience doing it. He's got over two decades of

experience helping service providers break through this

exact trap. Gary Mitchell has spent over two decades with

lawyers in particular, helping them reshape their practice into

businesses that work for their lives, not against them. Drawing

on three decades of experience in business strategy,

communications and leadership, he supports lawyers building

efficient teams, modernizing operations, excuse me, and

mastering skills. Law school never taught them. As founder of

the on track coach and creator of the law firm accelerator

program, Gary helps managing partners and law firm owners to

accelerate their firm's profitability. Oh, Gary, welcome

to the show. Glad to have you here.

Nice to be here, Scott. I'm excited to speak on

this subject for sure.

Fantastic, fantastic. Well, Gary, you kind

of opened with this at the start of the show, but it's safe to

say the attorneys, attorneys, especially the successful ones,

are pretty sharp. These are highly intelligent, highly

skilled individuals, highly successful in building their

practices, many of them from the ground up, but for some reason,

they hit a wall and they hit it hard. What happens, maybe even

psychologically, when these star players, if you will, find

themselves having to step into this Captain role and lead a

team? Why do so many smart founders often become poor

managers?

Well, you know, I'll put it in the words of one

of my more senior clients along the way, like I now only work

with, I've niched and niched further to work with law firm

owners. But a couple years back, I was working with a senior

partner with an international firm, and he says to me on a

call coaching call, one day, he goes, Why is it that the best

lawyers usually make the worst business people. We both had to

chuckle with that, and I said it really comes down to this, that

the skills that make for a great lawyer, the analytical,

skeptical, all those you know, fine fine tuned skills that

that's the reason why we hire lawyers go against everything

that's entrepreneurial, right? Being entrepreneurial is about

taking risk. It's about trying things right? It's more of an

art than a science, where you know perfection is the name of

the game with with the law, right? The letter of the law,

that's that expression, the letter of the law. Although

there is no such thing as perfection, they're constantly

lawyers are constantly striving for it, whereas entrepreneurs,

we know right innately, that the biggest successes come from our

mistakes and learning and trying things and it's really hard. I

often say to them, you know, you've got two hats to wear.

You've got the lawyer hat. And you know, I'm not here to change

that or assist with that, maybe client service, but not being a

lawyer, the actual art of practicing law and being a

lawyer, I'm I'd have nothing to do with that. I'm here to help

you with your owner, your entrepreneurial hand, and

helping you create that mindset, one of the largest challenges

for for lawyers. And I said, as we were like warming up to the

call, to the recording, I said, there's no difference between

lawyers and and your your average entrepreneur, but it's

like 10 to 100 times magnified. All the fears, the

apprehensions, letting go of control is the biggest challenge

they have when they know they can do something ace, right? And

have it. And that's what you alluded at with your

instruction, right? That's why their clients keep coming back

to them. They're amazing at what they do. They build this

reputation. So for them to grow, they have to leave the silo of

perfection and enter enter a growth category, and that means

letting go of control, and it's. Really, really hard for them. I

mean that that as a coach, that's probably one of my, my

biggest challenges is helping them over time, let go, but I've

got, I've got solutions and strategies for that, right?

Yeah, you know, it starts with leadership. And the biggest

thing I've learned over the years, and it kind of goes back

to, like Steve Jobs, his whole philosophy about leadership, I

do a 360 or a SWOT analysis at the beginning, right? Strengths,

Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. I'm old enough to know

the old school of thought on this, and it was, pick up your

socks with your weaknesses, you got to fix them, right? And then

Steve Jobs came around. I mean, he's my number one guru when it

comes to business leadership, and he said, No, you master your

strengths, whatever they are, and then you build your team

around those strengths, filling in the gaps left by the

weaknesses. And it's brilliant. I'm going to give you two very

specific examples, because not every client is the same. So one

client loves being a lawyer. He loves fighting for his clients

in the courtroom. He's a litigator. Loves it. I mean,

he's his passion, as much as this is my passion for coaching,

his passion is advocating for his clients. I'm basically

running the firm for him right now. He doesn't want to do it,

but that's fine. He knows his strength, right? So we're

building the team around that. So he's got a different model.

Now, the flip side of that, the opposite, the complete opposite,

is the lawyer preneur, who really could leave the law

altogether, the lost side of it, Delegate all the work, and he's,

he's, he's got that entrepreneur bent. It's dying to get

everybody right, and he wants to play more owner and entrepreneur

role. So again, we're going to build around his strength and

his passion, and his team is going to look different. Yeah,

the ideal that I follow Scott is that starting at the top and

however, whichever model they're going to use, if they're going

to be running the firm, or they're going to be having

having a management team running or partners, right? There's no

one size fits all ever. I've never expressed that. Solution

is you get everyone starting at the top, functioning at their

highest level, right? And you you bring that down throughout

the entire organization, and we'll get more into the scaling

part, I guess, with some of your other questions. But like, to

me, this stuff is simple. It's, I mean, simple works as human

beings, we complicate things for ourselves. And yeah, it's like,

there's no because it's always been done this way, right? The

old, old school model of building a law firm doesn't mean

you have to continue building it that way. This is yours, and

that's the biggest thing that the mindset of an entrepreneur,

like as an entrepreneur, you know, it's yours, but as a

lawyer, you've been conditioned your entire life to do it the

same way that it's always been done, like, I mean, it is drill

into you from from law school. This is precedent, right? This

is the way it's done, and it really conditions the mind. So I

a lot of the work I'm doing is on the mindset, shifting the

mindset, looking at it from a different angle. And you're

right, they are very intelligent. I That's why I love

working with them, because if you give them the right

direction and the right guidance, and they are open, and

they're taking that guidance. They learn very, very quickly,

right? Yeah. Love seeing, yeah. Love seeing that light come on,

right? Yeah. It's a sense of relief, like, oh, I can get, I

can do this. Yeah? I mean, it's just, it's, it's an incredible

I'm a serial entrepreneur. I love building things, so I get a

chance to help build things for other people as well. So it's

not just what I'm building for myself, it's building for

everyone, everyone else. It's, yeah, it's a way. It's a it's a

great way to make a living. It's awesome.

Gary, so the there's really only one reason

to build a team around you, and that's to do more than you can

do on your own, right? And, and, and so there's lots of or have

them do more, and you be able to do less, but with whatever time

you want to allocate to it, you're being able to leverage

other people's time and expertise. So one of the things,

though, that that generally has to come with that, is you have

to grow it beyond what you can do on your own, and that takes a

different kind of intentionality. So you talked

about an owner's mindset. How does this kind of entrepreneurs

mindset of not just having the people, but growing the firm?

How does that come into play?

Okay, so the formula I use, and again, I

keep, I try to keep it simple. You get the right people in the

right roles, and you build systems. That's how you scale.

Okay, simply put, I call it the plug and play. You plug the

right people into the right systems and press play. So as

one, as one of my clients, you know, on an early call, I

brought up McDonald's, and he. Laughed, and he said he worked

in at McDonald's in high school, and then as he became an owner,

he's been an owner for over 20 years now. He goes, I want to

build the McDonald's of law firms. I said, we're going to

get along great. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I said,

I'm sorry. I'm comparing a hamburger to to law he goes, No,

no, I get it. I get it. It's like they perfected how to

build, how to replicate the speed and quality of this, of

this product, again and again and again, no matter who was

making it, no matter who it was, where it was in the world,

right? That's the secret. We get, the systems, we get the

right people. That's critical, right? And then we we plug them

in. Now another ingredient when, let's break that right people

down, to be more specific, because I have always believed

attitude equals or is responsible for 99% of it when

you have the right attitude, when you're nimble, when you

thrive in a changing environment and are not afraid of it.

Because the thing is, Scott, as you grow, as you know, right?

This is what you specialize in, your podcast. The life cycle of

a business. Any business goes through many different changes.

You need people that can move with you, ideally, right?

Otherwise, you're, you're, you've got the employee

roundtable or the revolving door, right? If you've got

people that have to have things the same, can't change, don't

want to be a part of change. That's going to be that's going

to put up several barriers along the way. So getting the right

people, people who thrive on creating innovation, thrive and

change. They're nimble, and they strive for excellence at every

team.

That right people thing is so important,

because I've found that really the defining question of this

stage for most folks is actually what's wrong with these people?

Because you start hiring folks, and it's usually mostly our

fault, like we hire by pulse and proximity, you know, if there's

someone who meets the minimum criteria and is willing to work

for us, it's a yes. But there's how do we kind of distinguish

between what's wrong with these people and what's wrong with how

we're managing these people?

Okay, well, first of all, that's actually, that's

two, I hear two questions, because that's, that's another

magic pill. If you get the right people, you don't necessarily

have to manage them. They have they have the self, self

discipline. They have the work ethic they're going to manage

themselves. I mean, sure you have, like, actually, when you

get the right people, there's more leadership than management

involved management, management is required when you need to

pull people or push people right. If you get the right

people and the right systems, there's a lot less of that, and

sometimes not even any required. They're going to do the best job

they can, because that's their nature. That's the way that they

approach everything. So when you get the right people, it also

makes leading or managing much easier, right? You're not

babysitting, you're not trying to convince or persuade people

to do things right? And the bare minimum, you just, you just

described my latest client, my biggest client I've ever had in

20 years, to a T like he, it's almost like he's, he's a Make

Work Project, and he's taking on these it's been, it's been a

year, let me just say, and he's finally come to on Tuesday

morning, our call. He's finally come to the conclusion I made. I

just said to his, I won't mention the names, but I just

said, Okay, this is the core of who you have now. This is the

minimum bar moving forward, right? Like, I'm not overseeing

H HR, but I am influencing it to a great degree, because you, you

nailed it. It's like, Do you have a pulse? Are you close? Can

you make it into the office, you know? And it's like, that's not

the standard you set for yourself. No, like it. Ha, where

it starts at this at the top, we have to replicate that

throughout. That's, that's how you create culture, right?

That's how you create a winning culture. I know these people are

out there. Because, you know, the other thing I know is that

there's a lot of terrible cultures. There's a lot of

unhappy lawyers and paralegals out there with with it, with the

environment they're in, and by creating a more magnetic

culture, a culture that is about innovation, that is about

excellence, that is about teamwork. It's no accident. I'm

wearing my Toronto Blue Jays Jersey today, because it's, it's

I'm just the last two weeks, professional and personal has

crossed. I'm watching one of the best sports teams I've ever seen

in my life, not not by the way, they're, I mean, yes, they're

playing work very well, but I mean, as a team like they're

standalone leaders, and yet they're coming together as a

team like I've never seen, and I'm seeing that now with some of

my new clients, like, yeah, the team, their management team, is

really coming together. It's like ego at the door. What's the

goal? What's our focus? The clients, right? That's the end

game. We I don't have to be right. You don't have to be

right, but let's get it right together. It right? Yeah, and

yeah, it really is just so much. It really is about mindset. It

really, I keep coming back to that. And, you know, I read

something, some self professed business guru said, he says it's

not about mindset, it's about tools and systems. I'm like,

You're wrong. You're wrong because you don't get the right

tools or systems unless you have the right mindset, yeah, you

don't understand people unless you get the right mindset,

yeah, and you don't use either of them the

right way, unless you have the right mindset. Yeah, 100%

You're not open to changing as the circumstances

change. And what's one thing that we know is a constant in

this world today change absolutely by the second now

with AI, yeah, right, yeah. Literally, for sure that we're

talking AI has already improved tenfold, right?

Yeah. So Gary, there's, yeah, go ahead. Sorry,

yeah. So there's this question. I want to make sure we have time

for it, because I'm very interested to see what you have

to say here. And the question is this, what is the biggest secret

that you wish? Wasn't a secret at all. What's that one thing

you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?

Okay, that's really, actually, that's very

easy. Scott, anything's possible. Anything's possible.

The greatest achievements of mankind, people kind, have been

achieved by thinking big, thinking out of the box,

thinking differently, thinking thinking, thinking anything is

possible. Like you come to us, you come to a problem. If you're

focused on the problem, you're going to stay in the problem,

right? If you come to the problem that with the mindset,

there is a solution here. I don't know what it is right now,

but there is a solution here. And then you build a team, and

you focus on the solution, you will come to it. You will find

it. I can't I'm no I'm no mind reader or a future provider,

like I can't see the future, but I've seen this in action every

single time in my own life and career, and those are my

clients. So that's the one thing. Believe in yourself. You

know what you need to do? Like, you know if there's things to

improve or delegate, right? Some things we do need to improve we

can't delegate, okay? But knowing the difference, because

you start out, if you start out with anything is possible. What

do I want to create? What is the life? What does it look like?

What's my why? What gets me out of bed in the morning and don't

let go just because it's always been done this way? Right? I

mean, think nothing would have ever changed or been been

created. No inventions would have been made if people always

just kept doing the way things the way they were done, right?

Yeah, you know, it goes back to ice from from harvesting ice in

the north to refrigerators, right? And all the steps in

between, and none of the people involved in each iteration went

on to the next. It was somebody new, trying something a

different way.

Yeah, fantastic, fantastic. I love

that don't focus on the problem, focus on the solution with the

belief that anything is possible is so good. Gary, there are some

very successful attorneys and law firm owners that are

listening to this, and they've been looking for someone who

really understands their industry and how to move

forward, where can they find more out about you and the work

that you do?

Ontracoach no K, double C, ontraccoach.com and

there's no there's no pressure, like I love to talk to lawyers

and attorneys about their challenges. They're very similar

at this stage, not much surprises me, because there's a

pattern, right? And I mean, how many times am I saying to my

clients, you're not alone. This is there. This is a very common

challenge, and I've seen this before. So don't feel bad about

yourself. Don't get down on yourself. You're not alone. It's

low pressure. I do a 30 minute consultation to dive in, find

out where they're stuck. If there's a fit, do they like my

style, and are they open and willing to take the advice? So

that's, you know, it's a very soft, down to earth approach.

Excellent, excellent. Well, thank you,

Gary, just a privilege and honor. Having you here today.

Really appreciate your time, and for those of you watching and

listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to

us as well, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as

I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.