Law Firm Success Starts in Your Mind: Dina Cataldo on Shifting Your Perspective (Ep. 101) |

In the constantly evolving legal industry, success isn’t just about working harder; it’s about working smarter. On this episode of the Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, we explore the transformative power of mindset shifts with our guest, Dina Cataldo, a seasoned lawyer and mindset coach. Dina shares her proven strategies to help law firm owners enhance productivity, reduce stress, and reclaim control of their lives and businesses.

Recognizing the Status Quo Isn’t Permanent

Lawyers often feel trapped in a cycle of overwork and burnout. Darren Wurz and Dina Cataldo discuss how many fall into the trap of thinking that long hours are the only route to success. Dina emphasizes the critical first step: recognizing that current conditions are not permanent. It’s vital for law firm owners to accept that there’s a different path available—one that doesn’t solely rely on grinding harder.

Mastering Time for Optimal Productivity

Dina introduces time management as the pivotal change that can transform a law firm’s operations. By focusing on what truly matters and structuring time around those priorities, law firm owners can unlock unprecedented growth and freedom. The secret lies in leveraging your calendar—not just for meetings and deadlines, but as a strategic tool to design your week intentionally.

Structuring Your Day: The Power of Mornings

How you begin your day can set the tone for everything that follows. Dina sheds light on why a structured morning is essential. She shares personal experiences of how morning calmness replaces the chaos of rushing and positively affects the entire day. By crafting a morning routine that prioritizes calm and organization, lawyers can anchor themselves for success and productivity.

Utilizing Time Blocking to Boost Efficiency

A key takeaway from this episode is the power of time blocking. Darren and Dina discuss how allocating specific times for different tasks can drastically improve focus and productivity. Whether it’s dedicating morning hours to deep work or setting aside afternoons for meetings. Understanding personal productivity peaks can reshape how law firm owners manage their days.

Setting Boundaries: A Necessity, Not a Luxury

Lawyers often feel compelled to be available 24/7 for their clients, but Dina argues that setting boundaries is critical. By training clients to respect professional limits, law firm owners can prioritize their own objectives without compromising client satisfaction. Communicating transparently about availability not only sets expectations but also enhances respect and efficiency in professional relationships.

Email Management: Prevent Inbox Overwhelm

Navigating an overflowing inbox is a universal challenge. Dina stresses the importance of managing email time intentionally, advising law firm owners to triage emails instead of feeling pressured to respond immediately. Setting specific times to check and respond to emails can prevent getting lost in the daily information deluge and ensure more focus on priority tasks.

Cultivating a Mindset for Sustainable Growth

Ultimately, the episode encapsulates the essence of mindset transformation. By believing that personal priorities matter and setting actionable plans to achieve them, law firm owners can turn their practices into thriving, balanced, and wealth-building enterprises. As Dina Cataldo highlights, what you want for your law firm is not only achievable but essential for long-term success.

Conclusion: Crafting a Future of Wealth and Freedom

The path to turning your law firm into a wealth-building asset starts with you. By applying the insights from this episode—mindset shifts, time management, and intention—you can create a successful practice and enjoy the financial freedom you deserve. For more expert insights, explore Darren Wurz’s financial strategies or connect with Dina Cataldo to dive deeper into transforming your practice with the right mindset.

Resources:

Connect with Dina Cataldo:

Linkedin: Dina Cataldo
Instagram: Dina Cataldo
Website: Dina Cataldo
Podcast: Be a Better Lawyer

About our guest:

Dina Cataldo is a leading legal industry expert, master certified coach, speaker, and host of the popular podcast “Be a Better Lawyer.”

She helps lawyers take control of their lives and law practices by helping them remove obstacles to growth and create time freedom and peace. These skills allow lawyers to build their practices with more ease than they ever imagined possible.

Dina’s insights and advice have been featured on various prominent platforms. Through her coaching and speaking, Dina has positively impacted the lives of thousands of lawyers, helping them manage their time, overcome overwhelm, boost self-confidence, and find fulfillment in their legal careers.

Her empathetic and strategic approach has made her a sought-after coach among partners, solo practitioners, and boutique firm owners.

Dina Cataldo is a trailblazer in the legal industry, and she continues to inspire and empower big hearted female lawyers, to achieve professional success and personal fulfillment.

Transcript:

Darren Wurz [00:00:00]:
You don’t have to work harder to grow your law firm.

Darren Wurz [00:00:02]:
You just have to think differently. Welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire. Helping law firm owners scale profitably escape the daily grind and turn their firm into a wealth building asset. You’ve built your firm for freedom, but somehow you’ve ended up working longer hours than ever. If you’ve ever felt trapped in a cycle of overwork, burnout and reactive decision making, you’re not alone. Today we’re talking with mindset coach and lawyer Dina Cataldo about the shifts that can help you reclaim your time, reduce stress, and create a firm that serves you, not the other way around.

Intro [00:00:44]:
We are on a mission to help lawyers and law firm owners maximize wealth and achieve financial independence. Welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire with Darren Wirtz from Wirtz Financial Services.

Darren Wurz [00:00:58]:
All right, Dina, you know, you and I have worked with so many law firm owners and so many who are struggling to get their financial and personal lives and work lives all in alignment and balanced. One of the things that you love to talk about are these mindset shifts that need to happen. What is maybe the first mindset shift that law firm owners need to make to reach a place of alignment and balance?

Dina Cataldo [00:01:28]:
I think the first thing that every law firm owner needs to know is that the way things are right now doesn’t have to be that way forever. I get a lot of lawyers who think, well, this is the way it’s always been done. I don’t really see a way out of this. I feel overwhelmed. I don’t know any other way except to work hard, harder and longer hours to try to get things done in my business. And that’s it. That’s my only option. And I understand it because I have experienced that too as a criminal prosecutor, thinking that was the only way I could get more work done.

Dina Cataldo [00:02:07]:
And then when I was a really early on in my business, I thought the same thing. Well, I need to work harder. But what really need to happen is that I recognize that those are old patterns that may have gotten where I am. But if I’m going to take myself to a new level, if I’m going to change things in my life, I have to allow that there is a different way available to me and then it’s up to me to just find it.

Darren Wurz [00:02:33]:
I love that. Yes. It’s more than just working harder. I’ve been there. Dina. Right. I’m going to get up at 4am on Saturday and get the work done that I didn’t get done on Friday.

Darren Wurz [00:02:44]:
Right.

Darren Wurz [00:02:46]:
We’ve got to get out of that. What’s the secret? How do we think differently beyond just working harder?

Dina Cataldo [00:02:54]:
Yeah, you know, it really starts a little shift at a time. I think a lot of times we believe that we’ve got to change everything in our life. We just got to turn everything upside down, and that’s what’s going to make a big change. And that can be really intimidating. It can feel really hard doing something like that because we’re so entrenched in the way things have been for years. For me and for my clients, I like to find an easier way because I’m all about finding the ease in change. And when you choose one area of your life to start changing, other areas will change. I happen to focus on time management because I think when you can manage and constrain your time to the most important tasks in your business, you will be able to do anything.

Dina Cataldo [00:03:44]:
It really is the domino that makes everything else possible, whether it’s financial growth, whether it is being able to take on more clients or help them in a different way. If you want to expand your practice in a different direction, if you want to write a blog, if you want to do anything additional to the work you’re already doing in your practice, being able to constrain your time using a calendar is. It’s like magic to me. And when I see my clients use transforms their practices.

Darren Wurz [00:04:19]:
Okay, using a calendar to get organized. Organize. When we’re talking, are we talking time blocking? What does this look like?

Dina Cataldo [00:04:28]:
Yeah, so this is what’s so fun, because I remember when I first. When I first heard about this, like, using a calendar, I was like, yeah, I use a calendar. I use it for my hearings, I use it for my trials, I use it for my deadlines, I use a calendar. I never occurred to me to think through my week ahead of time, to think, okay, what needs to get done? How much time needs to be allocated to get it done? What do I need to be saying yes to this week and no to this week in order to create the week that I wanted? And I saw this. You know, it wasn’t even something that was on my radar, my early years as a prosecutor, because I was just like, yeah, I’m just working. Like, if I jump into my work, I get it done. Like, if I just work harder, I’m going to get it done. But what I didn’t see is I was really killing myself.

Dina Cataldo [00:05:18]:
In fact, When I was 29, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And that was right in the middle of my early trial years where that’s All I knew was how to work harder and try to prove that I belonged as a trial attorney and that I knew what I was doing. And when I did that and when I had that diagnosis, it was really a wake up call that I needed to do something differently. And one of the things that I came across over the years was how to manage my time. And I didn’t start with a calendar. I started with how I managed my mornings. So if somebody’s listening to this and they’re kind of intimidated by this idea of how do I manage my time in the week, I want to offer that they can start with something as simple as how they’re managing their time just in the morning period from when they wake up to when they go to their office. Like, just start small to do this.

Darren Wurz [00:06:15]:
So organizing. I’ve heard this having a better start to the day can be really set you up for success. How do you like to start your days, Dina?

Dina Cataldo [00:06:27]:
So it has been. This has been like. It was kind of my gateway drug, so to speak, into this whole time management space, because I recognized that I hated my mornings. I was rushing around. I was hitting my snooze button like a dozen times. I’d be scrolling my phone in the morning, and I hated the way that I felt. I felt really tense. I felt rushed.

Dina Cataldo [00:06:53]:
I would jump into the shower. I’d run around. Sometimes I’d forget something at home, you know, and I would go to the office in my car, and I would already be revved up. I’d be annoyed at other drivers. And by the time I got to the office and I was about to do a hearing, I was just spaced, right? My brain was in 20 different places. And what I needed to do was. And what I wanted to do was change my morning and feel calm in the morning, because I didn’t see any reason for me to feel stressed first thing in the morning. It was ridiculous to me.

Dina Cataldo [00:07:30]:
So I said, all right, well, what do I want my mornings to look like? And I just started getting really intentional. I said, well, you know, I would like to have 30 minutes of quiet time to myself. I’d like to have, you know, 30 minutes to have my coffee and maybe, you know, journal. And then I’d like to have 30 minutes to get prepped for the office and then 15 minutes to drive to the office. You know, something like that. And I said, okay, well, what would I need to do differently to make that happen? Well, I need to make sure I get up when my alarm goes off. That would be Step one for me. And so then I had to be like, well, how do I do that? Because I’m scrolling.

Dina Cataldo [00:08:10]:
And I said, well, let’s put the phone in the kitchen. And when I put the phone in the kitchen, I had to get up. And then I was just like, all right, I’m up. Let’s start my day. So we have to play these kinds of tricks with ourselves sometimes in order to get the ball rolling. But that was really transformed, transformational for me because I saw I had more control over my time than I thought. I had more control over my. The way I led my day than I thought.

Dina Cataldo [00:08:37]:
And when I was calm in the morning, I was calm in my morning throughout the day. I wasn’t, you know, upset with other drivers. I was able to manage my mind and get to the office and recognize like, oh, yeah, I’ve got everything planned. Because I had thought about it the day before, and those are things that you can have access to. They’re small things that if you’re not ready to jump into doing a calendar for your week, to just take these as small wins and show yourself what’s possible so that you can see you do have more control over feeling stressed out, feeling overwhelmed and rushed and panicked even before your real day starts.

Darren Wurz [00:09:16]:
Yeah, yeah. What I’m hearing here is that structure is so important and really, really setting a foundation for yourself to be successful throughout the rest of your day. You know, before I had any kind of CRM or anything like that to help me manage things, I was just kind of, you know, dive into the checklist, get as many things done as possible. I am definitely one of those people who likes to take my time in the morning. So I’ve become a morning person. Actually, I think it’s because I was a teacher. I taught eighth and ninth grade science for five years. So I was used to getting up at like 4:30 in the morning, going to the gym and getting my day started.

Darren Wurz [00:10:03]:
So I kind of got used to that morning routine. But, yeah, I’m with you. I love to just have some time to myself when no one else is awake yet, just alone with my thoughts, just drink my coffee, read something, kind of reflect. I do find that that helps my day become a lot better. And Dina, as a follow up, I want to ask you this. Are there, you know, I think maybe we hear the word time blocking or calendar and some of us are maybe thinking there’s more work. Oh, no, I have to do more. But maybe are there like certain times of the day when it’s Better to, to do different things.

Darren Wurz [00:10:50]:
Like maybe we could think about when we’re tackling certain tasks.

Dina Cataldo [00:10:55]:
Oh, for sure. So everybody’s a little bit different. I like to do my, my work in the morning. I feel like I have more focus. Right. I can really think through different, you know, if I’m, if I’m writing a podcast, I can really think about, okay, what are the issues? I want to make sure that I’m, I’m hitting, you know, what topics do I want to talk about? You know, that kind of work that requires focused work from my brain, it works best in the morning. And so if I have days during my week where I have mornings blocked off and say, that’s my content creation day or time, then it’s easier for me to maintain my focus versus, you know, having a schedule where I’m being pulled back and forth in meetings and so on. Whereas you, you might be different.

Dina Cataldo [00:11:46]:
Like, maybe you’re a night owl. Night owl, right. Or maybe you do, you know, your best focused work in the afternoon. Then that would be a time for you to say, all right, I’m going to block my, my real critical thinking work, the stuff that takes energy in your afternoons. So if you’re listening to this, you’re working on a file and your best times are the morning. You want to block off that time and keep it sacrosanct. So you’re not having meetings with your assistant, you’re not having meetings with clients, you’re blocking that time off, and that is your time to work on the Jackson file, for instance. And if you aren’t blocking that time off and you’re moving back and forth between answering questions and answering emails and doing all those things, you’re not going to have the same focus time you could have.

Dina Cataldo [00:12:36]:
So part of the benefit of time blocking, it doesn’t even have to be, you know, that detailed. It could be, okay, Monday mornings, I want to check my email for an hour, and then the next two hours, I want that to just be focus time on a file. And then in the afternoon, I’m going to take some client meetings. So that kind of understanding of how you want to run your day, how you work best, is some of the work that I do with lawyers because we don’t always stop to think about this. We don’t always pause and say, well, what do I want my week to look like? We often act as if we’re at the effect of circumstances. And, yeah, stuff happens, right? Maybe you have a child who has a tantrum in the morning and so you’re going to be late to the office. Okay. Yes.

Dina Cataldo [00:13:22]:
So what can you do? What is within your control so that you could be the best throughout your day? And that might mean, okay, I know my child sometimes has transforms in the morning, so I’m going to give myself a little bit of extra space in the morning to take care of that. And then I’m going to check and then I’m going to do my other work.

Darren Wurz [00:13:41]:
Yeah, I love that. Thinking about how you want your week to look like and exercising some control over that. I mean, I think those of us who are in the professional services business, we sometimes feel like we need to be available to our clients 24 7. And that goes back to those mindset shifts. Right. Like maybe we need to set some boundaries.

Dina Cataldo [00:14:11]:
Yeah. I mean, when you think about it, it’s always going to be a trade off.

Darren Wurz [00:14:15]:
Yeah.

Dina Cataldo [00:14:15]:
So if you are saying yes to other people’s priorities, you’re saying no to your priorities. And because we don’t take the time, a lot of the times to set our own priorities and tell us what is important to us. Okay. What’s important to me is that I have focus time, that I have time with my family, that I get three workouts in a week, that I am serving my clients to the best of my ability within the timeframe that I am allotting for that work. Right. That’s what I want. Well, other people want other things. They want you 24/7.

Dina Cataldo [00:14:51]:
They want you when you’re in the middle of a meal with your family. They want you to be checking your email constantly. And if you are saying yes to their desires, you’re saying no to yours. And we’re in the position of. And it’s a beautiful position to be in, which is knowing ourselves and then training other people to understand this is how we operate.

Darren Wurz [00:15:17]:
Yeah. Yep. Training, setting those expectations, it’s so much like teaching. This amazes me. When you’re a teacher, you need to set expectations for your students. Here are the things that are acceptable that aren’t acceptable. And even if you have, you have Fortune 500 clients, you have billionaire clients. I was talking with a law firm owner and he was describing how he creates those boundaries for himself and his family.

Darren Wurz [00:15:51]:
He has billionaire clients. You can’t just say to a billionaire, expect a response from me within 48 hours. But what he has done is he said, okay, this, this week, this particular week, I’m going to be in the Hamptons. Right. And, and so you know that I’m telling you three Months in advance don’t bother me. You know, I there. So you, it is possible, even if you have very high end clientele who expect you to be available, actually they will respect you for having boundaries.

Dina Cataldo [00:16:27]:
Yeah. And I think that that’s something that lawyers often forget is that people don’t drop you, like they don’t leave you because you’re, you’re not, you know, answering their email in like a snap. It’s about communication. It’s about them understanding, oh, this is what’s going on. You’re on a trip this week. You know, you’ve given me time in advance. It comes back to that old saying, it’s your emergency. Doesn’t make it my emergency.

Dina Cataldo [00:17:02]:
Right. I love that. I know I’m butchering that saying. And, but you want to serve them. So if there is an emergency, maybe you will make yourself available. It doesn’t mean you don’t do that. But if you’re not giving yourself permission to ask for what you want and give everybody else around you the expectation that this is how I operate, then you’re never going to have a life that you want. And I was, I was talking to somebody today, he’s right now thinking about hiring another assistant in his firm.

Dina Cataldo [00:17:34]:
And he said, you know, but it’s just so hard to find somebody who knows computers. And I said, okay, tell me more because this is not, this is not the problem. But I knew that. So he said, well, I end up doing all of this work. Like I just need somebody who can figure out how to do this, that and the other with their computer. And I said, okay, so you know how to do these things? Well, yes, I do. And then I end up explaining it to them. And I said, okay, do you have an SOP for that? He said, well, yes, I do.

Dina Cataldo [00:18:02]:
And he said, okay, well then this is a simple solution. This is not a problem. He said, but I still end up explaining it to them. And I said, well, why do you do that? It’s like, well, because I feel bad and you know, it probably is going to take it, take it much less time for me to just explain it to them.

Darren Wurz [00:18:18]:
So you’re micromanaging.

Dina Cataldo [00:18:20]:
You’re micromanaging and you’re training your people to be helpless. Right. And when you’re training people to be helpless in your firm, they’re not going to be able to help you with the responsibility that you hired them to help you with in the first place. So if you’re doing the SOPs and you’re not directing them to the SOPs, then you are not doing your job as a law firm owner to say, hey, this is my time. My time is valuable. This is my business building time. This is time that I could be doing client work at my hourly rate versus helping you fix a printer. Right? So these are the kinds of things that we really have to look out for, because it can feel good to be needed, but it’s really important if you’re focused on your growth, if you’re focused on your financial health of your business to come back to.

Dina Cataldo [00:19:12]:
Wait a minute. I have a system for this. I need to train them to use it.

Darren Wurz [00:19:17]:
Yes. I love that. Yeah. It’s so easy to want to jump in, fix things right away. My brother would kill me if he hears this, but my brother is always asking me questions. And sometimes what I learned is that if I ignore his call and then call him back, like, 15 minutes later, he usually figures it out.

Dina Cataldo [00:19:42]:
Right? I mean, that’s usually what happens. Have you ever had this happen with clients? You know, like, I’ll. I’ll talk to my clients and they’ll say, oh, yeah, my. My client wanted an immediate answer. And. And I didn’t answer their email right away. And I was really, you know, I was trying to do the time blocking and answer emails only certain times during the day. And then by the time I got back to them, the problem was solved.

Darren Wurz [00:20:08]:
There you go. Look at that. Answering emails only during a certain time of the day, that is hard, Dina, because I find that even, like, my work is still somewhat involved in my inbox. So I’ll, like, I’ll pull up my inbox because I need to send an email or something, and then before I know it, I’m getting distracted by the things that are at the top of the inbox. How do we manage that?

Dina Cataldo [00:20:34]:
Oh, my gosh. This was something that, you know, we’ve all dealt with it as lawyers, right? We’ve all had inboxes that keep filling up. And one of the things our brain likes to tell us is that if we answer this right away, it’ll make life easier. It’ll be faster if I just answer this email right away. I won’t have to answer it later. And this also applies to voicemails a lot of times. And this used to be me. I stopped doing this after a while.

Dina Cataldo [00:21:01]:
I would think to myself, I hate answering voice messages, so I’m just going to pick up the phone every time it rings because I don’t want to deal with voice messages. Big mistake, Big mistake. If you’re Doing that, we got. We got to do some work here. But if you’re in the inbox, you just have to be aware of the time you’re spending in there and do it really intentionally. So let me give you an example of that. So today as we’re recording this, it’s a Monday morning, so a lot of people, first thing Monday morning, we want to go into our inbox, and it’s important that we do things happen over the weekend. You know, maybe we miss something that, you know, we want to look in there, make sure that everything is going according to plan, want to catch anything that’s coming up this week.

Dina Cataldo [00:21:45]:
So it’s very Natural to designate 30 minutes an hour to your inbox, cleaning it out, prioritizing. But here’s where we get caught, caught up. We think we have to respond to everything immediately. Our brain is like, let’s jump in. Let’s do this all. Let’s get it done. Versus let’s triage. Let’s prioritize.

Dina Cataldo [00:22:08]:
Because I guarantee you there were emails in that inbox that could get a response that said, hey, this is on my radar. I’ll get back to you by Thursday. Yeah, right. Guarantee you there were emails like that in people’s inboxes this morning. Or there were things that, oh, yes, that’s actually due at the end of the day. Let’s prioritize that. So if we’re not using a calendar, and this is where calendar is really helpful, is we’re not prioritizing properly, and instead we waste a lot of time. So instead of an hour in the inbox, we’re in the inbox for three hours, and then we wonder where our day’s gone, and then we don’t get the case files done that we wanted to get done, and our whole day is blown.

Dina Cataldo [00:22:52]:
So being mindful of the time that you spend in your inbox and how you are thinking about cases. So this is where the mindset shift comes in versus it’s got to be done immediately, and I got to do it all right now to let me prioritize what needs to get prioritized. If this needs an immediate response, I will do that. If not, it’s going to get pushed to the side. But doing it intentionally.

Darren Wurz [00:23:20]:
Yeah. You know, I have a theory that maybe it’s kind of related to almost like a dopamine addiction. Like. Like, we see the new email come in, and we’re like, ooh, another email. It’s like. It’s like this constant, like, feedback mechanism. We’re like, Addicted to our inboxes, almost.

Dina Cataldo [00:23:42]:
Oh, we definitely are. And I mean, this is the same phenomenon we see in social media. You figure all of these companies, including, you know, Outlook, Google, all of these people who have the same type of resources, they are investing in resources to get our eyeballs on email. If you’ve noticed, if you look at emails, there are a lot more ads inside your emails now, right? Like, you’ll actually see promoted ads within emails. Same thing with social media. The longer that you’re on there, the more you’re getting dopamine hits, you’ll stay on longer and maybe you’ll buy more. And that’s how they get those paid promotions within Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Right? So there’s been billions of dollars spent to gain our attention.

Dina Cataldo [00:24:26]:
So if you’re listening to this, don’t feel bad. If you’re addicted to email, you’re addicted to social media. There have been people who have spent a lot of money to get your eyeballs on your computer, on your phone. So this does take discipline, even for me. Like, I’ve been doing this for a very long time, and I watch myself and, and here’s one of the gauges I use when I see that I’ve been on social media too long or checking my email too long, is I notice my anxiety level kind of goes up. I’ll just feel that in my body. The more that we get in tune with what it feels like to be calm, like I was talking about with the mornings, right? The more we know what it feels like to be calm, the easier it will be to recognize those signals when we’re feeling a little more anxious. I think most of us, I don’t know about most of us.

Dina Cataldo [00:25:16]:
I’ll speak for myself. When I was practicing law, early on in my career, before I had these skills, I had this. I won’t even call it a low level of anxiety. It was probably a high level of anxiety all the time. And I thought that that was just the way things were supposed to be. I thought that’s just. That was baseline. Oh, that’s, that’s how everybody feels.

Dina Cataldo [00:25:40]:
But then I realized, no, I just don’t know how to manage my. My, my nervous system because my nervous system was out of whack. It had a nervous system dysregulation, which a lot of us go through when we’re in a high stress environment and we don’t know how to manage ourselves within it.

Darren Wurz [00:26:01]:
Yeah, yeah. That anxiety is real. Dina, one last question I want to go to. Here is how do we turn it off? Right? You know, you’re laying in bed at 10:00 at night, you’re thinking about that one client or what you need to do tomorrow. You know, it’s that anxiety. It’s like always with you. You’re at dinner, you’re trying to enjoy time with your family, but in the back of your brain you’re thinking all the things I need to do. How do we turn it off?

Dina Cataldo [00:26:31]:
I know a calendar and I keep coming back to the calendar because it is like the magic tool. So what happens when you are using a calendar is you can self soothe, right? You’re, you know, you’re sleeping it and you’re trying to go to sleep at night. It’s like 10 at night and you’re tossing and turning and you’re thinking about the Thompson file and oh my gosh, I have so much to do tomorrow and I’ve got this email and that email I need to respond to and oh my gosh, I forgot got this other thing that I need to do. And so you can’t even stay up because you’re, you can’t even go to sleep because you’re so worried you dropped the ball on something. And when you have a calendar, you could say, oh wait, I made time for that. Don’t have to worry about it, I’ve got time blocked for the Thompson file tomorrow. We’re good. Oh, that deadline, I knew about that two weeks ago and I put it on my calendar and I made time for it so that I could work on that project.

Dina Cataldo [00:27:26]:
So even if the brain goes to oh my gosh, I have so much to do, you can say, well, hold on, like you have it all managed, it’s all down on paper, I’m going to. Or on your computer, whatever you want to do. And you just go back to that and you remind yourself it’s taken care of. I got this. The problem that so many of us have is that we don’t use a calendar. And so then if a lawyer’s not using a calendar, it’s so easy for us to worry that we’re going to miss something because chances are you will miss something. If you don’t have a calendar, chances are you will have to stay up later than you thought you would because you didn’t estimate how long it was going to take you to get that project done. And that leads into so many problems that we can avoid missing things, missing deadlines, being late, you know, turning in late deadline items like it, if we don’t have Our mind managed.

Dina Cataldo [00:28:20]:
If we don’t have a calendar to help us manage our mind, it makes it a lot more difficult, and it can be so much easier.

Darren Wurz [00:28:27]:
Yeah, it’s kind of like, you know, I don’t have to think about this right now because I’ve scheduled time to think about this tomorrow.

Dina Cataldo [00:28:35]:
Exactly. Exactly.

Darren Wurz [00:28:38]:
Yeah.

Dina Cataldo [00:28:39]:
And I do it all the time. Yeah.

Darren Wurz [00:28:41]:
Right. You know, these things, a lot of us, these are the basics, but they’re challenging for us as human beings to actually set up. These are the foundations. The same thing happens in the world of personal finance. The idea of tracking how much I’m making and how much I’m spending, to some people, that just sounds, like, dreadful. I do not want to do this. But these are the foundations that enable you to be successful. And that’s why people need help.

Darren Wurz [00:29:20]:
People. Law firm owners need people like us and people like you, Dina, to help them do these things. Dina, in closing, what is one magical piece of advice you would like to impart on our audience coming into 2025? I know you’ve made the calendar a big, paramount priority for all of us. Is there anything else that we need to really think about?

Dina Cataldo [00:29:47]:
Well, I think the most important thing that I get from my clients, they tell me this over and over again, that logically, they knew it, but they didn’t really put it into practice, is that what they want matters. If you really think about it so often, what we look at in reality, in our actions, because it’s going to tell us what we believe, our actions are going to show us what we believe. We put everybody else ahead of us, and that’s telling them and ourselves that what everybody else wants matters more than what I want. So what I want to offer to lawyers listening is to say, well, what I want matters, and I am going to make that a priority. And that’s what’s going to make not just 2025, but every single year, so much better for you.

Darren Wurz [00:30:47]:
Absolutely. Great wisdom. Thank you so much, Tina. And please, would you share with our audience where they can go if they would like to learn more about you?

Dina Cataldo [00:30:58]:
Yeah, sure. Well, I have a podcast called Be a Better Lawyer, and I share a lot of different tips, whether you own a law practice or you’re working for somebody else, like, how to really make those mindset shifts for yourself, really start to manage your time, how to really think the way that you need to grow. And you can find me on Instagram, LinkedIn. And if you want to learn more about working with me, you can go to dinacataldo.com.

Darren Wurz [00:31:26]:
Thanks so much Dina.

Dina Cataldo [00:31:28]:
Thank you.

Darren Wurz [00:31:30]:
Dina, thank you so much for sharing your insights on mindset shifts and time mastery for law firm owners. If you want to learn more about Dena and her coaching for lawyers, check out her podcast Be a Better Lawyer or visit her website dinacataldo.com you can also connect with her on LinkedIn and Instagram. The links are in the show notes. One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that success isn’t just about working harder, it’s about working smarter. By making small shifts in how you manage your time and set boundaries, you can transform your law firm and your life. If your firm is consuming all of your time, it’s not the wealth building asset it should be. The real goal is to create a firm that gives you financial freedom and and the time to enjoy it. And that starts with taking control of your time and priorities. If you need help structuring your law firm for financial success, jump on a call with me and I’ll share with you my one page strategic business plan for law firm owners.

Darren Wurz [00:32:37]:
It’s the first step in turning your practice into a profitable, scalable asset. Well, that’s a wrap for this episode of the Lawyer Millionaire. Remember, your law firm should be an asset, not just a job. Take control, build wealth and create the future you deserve. See you next time.

Outro [00:33:02]:
Thank you for listening to the Lawyer Millionaire. Click the Follow button below to be notified when new episodes become available. This content has been made available for information and educational purposes only. This content is not intended to represent investing or tax advice. Always seek the advice of a qualified investment or tax advisor with any questions you may have regarding your own financial circumstances.

Law Firm Success Starts in Your Mind: Dina Cataldo on Shifting Your Perspective (Ep. 101)