Happy Sunday Reader:
This past week, I wrote daily about the importance of a Practice Blueprint when growing your legal practice. You can read each of last week's article in this consolidated post here.
This week, I'll be focused on building your Process Playbook: the systems that make your blueprint actually work.
But first, let's talk about a hard truth that bridges both: the most elegant systems fail if they're fighting against your natural energy patterns.
Your Zone of Genius
Research indicates that people who spend approximately 75% of their time on naturally energizing activities consistently outperform their peers and report significantly higher life satisfaction.
Your Zone of Genius represents the intersection of what you're naturally good at and what energizes you.
While most lawyers can generally identify tasks that feel harder than others, but few have systematically mapped which specific activities energize versus drain them.
That's why before you build your Process Playbook, you have to identify how you and your team work best.
Let me share two recent examples to help illustrate:
First, a lawyer who attended the Legal Workflow Mapping Workshop earlier this year discovered through workflow mapping how to systematize her processes using our AI Process Mapping tool. Her immediate response captured the relief of being able to work more in her Zone of Genius: "This is going to be crucial for managing the overwhelm and not feeling like I'm just floundering... I'm going to cry!"
Another lawyer wanted to focus more on growing his practice (his Zone of Genius) while delegating operations. For the past year, I've helped him bring his vision into reality, sharing the processes and workflows and later helping him integrate the tools to make his vision reality.
The result? He's not only increased staff satisfaction but when unexpected medical issues forced him to step back from his practice temporarily, his team operated smoothly in his absence. He's now returned energized rather than anxious about practice growth - because his systems are working with him, not against him.
Both cases prove that sustainable success comes from building around your strengths, not constantly fighting your natural patterns.
Revealing Your Zone of Genius with An Energy Audit
A simple way to uncover these patterns is to conduct an Energy Audit (credit to executive coach Matt Mochary who I learned this exercise from):
- Grab two highlighters (red and green work best )
- Pull up two weeks of your calendar that represent typical practice life.
- Review each day hour by hour with one simple question: Did this energize me or drain me?
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Highlight accordingly
- Green: Activities that left you feeling more alive, engaged, and capable
- Red: Activities that depleted your mental or emotional resources
The pattern that emerges isn't random. Your green zones reveal where your natural abilities create the most value with the least internal resistance.
Stop Using ChatGPT for Legal Work
If you are using ChatGPT for legal work, two pieces of news last week should convince you to stop:
- First, TechCrunch reports that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted that conversations with ChatGPT have zero legal protection. No attorney-client privilege. No confidentiality. Nothing.
- Second, FastCompany discovered that OpenAI was allowing Google to index thousands of ChatGPT conversations - including conversations an Italian-speaking lawyer for a multinational energy corporation was having regarding a strategy to displace indigenous Amazonian communities.
The solution here is to move to secure alternatives like Claude that prioritize privacy and professional confidentiality - as I've written about why here.
On that note, if you are looking for help to integrate AI into your practice, this is a great time to subscribe to the Substack.
Your Next Steps
First, complete your energy audit this week. Those patterns are revealing something important about creating a practice that fuels your life instead of depleting it.
Second, when you're ready to leverage AI to build systems that work with your Zone of Genius instead of against it, I have something that can help.
The Strategic AI Toolkit shows you exactly how to integrate AI tools safely into your practice. This toolkit includes
- Simple rules for secure AI usage in legal practice
- Ready-to-use prompts for client communications and task delegation
- Complete setup guide for your AI workspace
- Role-based prompts for different practice functions
For a limited time, it's included free with your Substack subscription (free or paid).
Questions? Reply to this email. I read every response personally.
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Have a great week,