Building the law firm you see in your mind has awkward moments. You might feel like a toddler whose head is too big for his body.

When people see things out of whack, with the wrong proportions, happening out of what they think is the right order, well, some folks will think you’re crazy. Some of them will self-confidently assert that you’re on the wrong path. Every visionary attracts resistance, obstructionists, and doubters. The critics never build a damn thing but they have endless energy for attacking ideas. Be ready.

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I am a walking social interaction experiment. I’m out here learning on your behalf. The dumb things I say to people? Research. I only say awkward, insulting, dumb things in the name of science. I’m here in the field doing the dirty work — for you.

Mostly, I learn the wrong things to say by saying them. I've learned that “I know” are the two words you don't want to use because I've watched the reaction I get over and over.

When I use “I know” as my response my relationship with the other person takes a nosedive. We interact less frequently, I get less feedback, I get very few comments from that person going forward (except behind my back).

“I know” is the wrong thing to say.

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Executing on vision often hangs us up, because that's when we pay the price. It’s in executing on the plan where we find out if we’re dreamers or doers. It’s in execution that we find out if we’re all talk or if we’ve got it in us to organize, motivate, and lead.

When it comes to paying the price, many of us turn our focus to distractions. We let ourselves get carried away from the execution by the client busyness, the family requirements, the distraction of the shiny object, or the overwhelm leading us to watching shows online, reading a book, going out to eat, or something else which gives us comfort while filling our time.

Lots of us know what we want. Few of us are willing to pay the price to get it.

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Your client came through the door wanting his problem solved. You’ve now offered a solution. He's in your office and ready for action. You look at him with a long pause, stare at him with concern, glance quizzically, and ask him what he wants to do. Isn't it obvious?

He didn’t go to the pool for a swim, to the spa for a massage, to the car repair place for a tune up. He came to a lawyer to get a legal problem solved. You've shifted gears from a confident leader who just defined the path to victory into a person who needs permission to go forth and fix the problem that’s making them unhappy.

You’re acting like taking action is optional. He didn’t come to you for optional, he came to you for a solution. If the problem is real and painful, if you have the solution, then it’s time for you to lead the way.

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I'm working in Namibia at the moment. I meet other lawyers who tell me they’re jealous of my lifestyle. Some would like to do what I’m doing. Some want to travel while they work, some just like the idea of not being tethered to an office and working from home, and one lawyer who talked to me about my remote work doesn’t want to travel at all. She just wants to deal with clients via text based conversation only - no calls, no meetings, no contact except email or messaging.

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Then the first guest arrived. A few more showed up at the door, a few more came within minutes.

Suddenly, I was distracted by talking to people as the violinist was played in the background. I looked around after an hour and the room was full. It wasn’t a huge crowd, but it was respectable. The chatter was loud enough, the music drifted through the office space, people were laughing, talking, and engaged with one another. "A marketing success", I thought to myself.

But the next day, I realized that I hadn’t had any real conversations. I was busy flitting around being the host. I was greeting guests, pointing them toward the drinks, making the same shallow remarks over and over again. The guests were happy so I was happy. But, I hadn’t spent any time going deep in conversation. It was all surface level chit chat. It was good enough for a Valentine’s Day party, but not for building a referral network.

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“He talked about himself for a solid hour,” she said.

“It was annoying,” she complained.

She’d invited him to lunch in an effort to build a relationship, so that he might refer cases to her.

Later that day I happened to visit her website, looking for her email address. I scanned from page to page reading the text.

Incredibly, the pages on her site amounted to little other than talking about herself. It didn’t take me an hour to read it all, but it took long enough.

It was annoying.

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