In Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” Lord Darlington defined a cynic as “a man who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing”.
Not all lawyers are cynics, of course, but many lawyers focus too much on the cost of building their practice and too little on the potential return.
They pinch pennies that might earn a nice profit. They avoid “spending” billable hours executing strategies that might earn them a fortune.
They don’t want to lose money or waste time and their aversion to these risks clouds their vision and stifles their growth.
I know. When I finally started making money in my practice, I lost thousands of dollars to some people I thought I could trust. Having been broke for so long, the loss rattled me and I was afraid to take a chance on losing more.
I shared what happened with a doctor I knew who pointed out that the losses were simply a cost of doing business, that I should accept them and move on. “At the end of the year, if you made more money than you spent or lost, that’s what counts,” he said.
And he was right. Most of what I was doing was working. My practice was profitable and growing, despite the losses and expenses.
It was an important lesson for me, and maybe for you, too. In building a practice, our task isn’t to avoid all risk but to intelligently manage those risks and maximize our return.
If you are too focused on the costs of building your practice, if the idea of losing money or wasting time is an anathema to you, I encourage you to find a way let go of your fear and get comfortable taking more risk.
Because without risk there is no reward. And because it’s not how much you spend, it’s how much you earn.
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