6 Under-The-Radar Software Tools Lawyers Need Right Now; Succession Planning for Law Firms; & “The Shitty Olympics”

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

The Legal Toolkit with Jared Correia with guests Ivy Slater. We play a round of the shitty Olympics. And then did you know that genius can be found even in the most unlikely of places, perhaps even in the people you least suspect? But instead of any of that, here’s your host, Jared Correia.

Jared Correia:

It’s time for the Legal Toolkit podcast where we learned all our break dancing moves from Ray Gunn. And yes, it’s still called the Legal Toolkit podcast, despite the fact that I don’t even know what a tape measure is. Yes, I’m that terrible at being handy unless it involved stuck tape. I’m hiring someone. I’m your host, Jared Correia. You’re stuck with me because Jack Par was unavailable. He was canceled from mentioning a water closet on live tv, how times have changed. I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business management consulting service for attorneys and bar associations. Find us [email protected]. Now, before we get to our interview today about succession planning for law firms, thinking of that in an entirely different way, maybe selling your firm for money. Let’s talk about six under the radar software tools that lawyers aren’t implementing aggressively or maybe aren’t even aware of.

Nothing like a listicle, right? So lawyers not super great at being productive. There’s a whole host of reasons for that. One of which is that in many cases, they’re probably not using the right software. A lot of law firms try to use major baseline tools like productivity software, which by that I mean email calendar, document management, case management, software, CRMs, accounting softwares, I’ve talked about those before. I kind of view those as sort of the big four of legal tech tools that you want to have in your practice. But there are other really useful productivity tools that you should consider, some of which are free, some of which are built into software that you’re already using and some of which are standalone tools. And I’m not super worried about adding to the budget if you can get some productivity out of it. And in terms of financial management for law firms, look, let’s be rely only care about productivity.

You can spend a million bucks a year to run your law firm. If you’re making four, that’s cool. And we’re not even touching that here. I’ll let you know when the tools are free. If they cost money, I’ll give you a sense of what they cost. But let’s jump in. Number one, task management or project management software. Not to denigrate any other tools too much, but the case management software programs that law firms use, the productivity softwares that they use, and that’s a smaller list. That’s like Google and Microsoft. They don’t really do a great job with workflow or project management. So what I often tell law firm owners is if you want to utilize task management in a highly effective way, maybe offer a software that does only that. And there are some great ones out there. I’ve used task management, project management software forever.

I love it. Generally speaking, a lot of law firms don’t rely on it. So several tools in this space, pretty much all of which I’ll mention have free versions for you to test out if this is something you want to get into. Notion and task aid are probably two of my favorites right now. Notion has an AI option, which is a paid version. Task aid actually has a lot of options for AI built in, which I really like. That may be my favorite task management software right now. And then you got traditional holdovers like Trello and Asana and Basecamp, and that’s not even close to being an exhaustive list. So these tools are built for task management, your general legal software, largely not honestly, and people have been trying to make inroads on this for a while. Case management software is built out workflows to an extent, but I don’t love them.

You’ve got a product called Legal Boards, which is sort of like a Trello knockoff for law firms, but I’d probably go to the real thing if it’s me. Honestly, the advantage there, you got to direct integration, whereas these other tools, it’s going to be probably third party integrations like through Zapier or Make or something like that. But if you’re not using task management software, I get into the game and consider some of those tools. As you probably know by now, I’m a big workflow process management guy. So the quicker you can move through your cases, the more money you make. This is one way to do that. Alright, number two, productivity tool that you should be looking at as a law firm owner is an AI note taker. So these are great for a whole host of reasons, but particularly for initial consultations for law firms.

So the way it works is if you are on a video conference and you record it, the system can then produce a transcript, whatever system you’re using, and they can create a meeting summary. They can potentially generate follow-up emails, task lists. If you’ve never tried this, it’s a real time saver, especially if you’re somebody who likes to take handwritten notes or something for this kind of deal. A lot of these available as well. If you’re using Zoom, zoom has something called AI Companion, which is built into their system. You can use that with their lowest paid service level, I believe. And then there are some standalone products as well. Ones I’ve tried and like are Firefly, fathom Otter. So basically farm out the note taking process to ai. Now Google Meet, which is Google’s video conferencing software and Microsoft Teams, which is Microsoft’s fucking terrible video conferencing software.

They also have AI note takers available. But let’s segue a bit because the third productivity tool I want to talk to you about is a broader application in the Microsoft and Google Suites. So Google Workspace, which is Google’s productivity software, they are now selling an AI overlay called Duet and Microsoft is selling an AI overlay called Copilot. So what does that mean? That means that you can access AI features in their traditional productivity software. The price is the same for both. It’s going to be 30 bucks a month for the AI features, but it’s going to do things like help you to draft emails, help you to draft documents, help you to build PowerPoints, help you to design spreadsheets using ai, and it would include some of those notetaking features as well. And I didn’t give you a price for the note taking features. I know because it’s kind of all over the board and sometimes you’re buying a specific software and adding an additional feature, sometimes standalone software.

So you’ll be able to find pricing on that online pretty easily. So if you’re somebody who’s kind of into AI in your law practice and you haven’t really utilized it yet, this is an easy way to do so. 30 bucks a month, not necessarily going to be breaking the bank, but you can test AI in products that you’re already familiar with. Something to check out. Number four on my list, passive timekeeping apps. I’ve loved passive timekeeping apps forever. One of the reasons I left law practice wasn’t only because it sucked, but one of the things that sucked about law practice was tracking time. I hated tracking time was so fucking annoying and it would disrupt any kind of workflow I had. I couldn’t figure out a way to do it that was viable for me. That’s why I do subscriptions and flat fees now. So if you have a passive timekeeper, what it’ll do is it will track your device time effectively.

And because it’s device agnostic, it can track your device time across various different devices. So you can track your time on your tablet, on your smartphone, on your laptop, on your desktop. Now there are some good tools out there for this including clock I toggle CTA wise, time, time, bro. They probably started that one in the fraternity house. Relatively low cost here, different costs for each of these, but the starting cost for some of these are I think around 30 bucks a month in terms of your payments. So again, not a huge deal breaker. And if you’re in a position where you’re having a really hard time managing your time tracking, this is an easy way to get there. You can potentially integrate these with your case management software or your accounting software, or you could use it as a standalone tool as well. So if you hate tracking time, if you want something a little bit more automated, you can use these tools and if you get up and go to the bathroom, perhaps head to the water closet for a period of your workday, the system will remind you, Hey, what were you doing?

Let’s track your time. And you can say, not this time. Alright, two more. I got two more for you. Number five is expense tracking. There is a great little software called Expensify, which is a free app that has paid versions as well. And effectively what these tools are going to do is they’re going to allow you to track your expenses across different platforms. Link make accounts. You can take pictures of physical receipts, you can add information to the system, you can integrate it with other products like QuickBooks. If you’re looking for a catchall app for Expensify, that’s easy to whip out when you have a paper receipt that you don’t want to record. This is a great tool for that. And as I mentioned, it can be integrated with lots of other products. Accounting software is case management software is, for example, this is probably one of my favorite apps ever.

And one of the things that I notice about business owners including lawyers, is that there’s a lot of time that goes uncaptured and there’s a lot of money you spend that goes uncaptured. So if you’ve got your automated timekeeping app, if you’ve got your expense tracking app, you’re going to be able to collect a whole lot more of that. It’s really easy to not track the marketing spend that you make when you’re going to events and that kind of thing. Expensify is a great tool for that. The last thing I want to talk about, which is something I would really love to see built out in case management tools, but we’ve got a little bit of a way there, and maybe this is the way we get there and maybe some of the companies I’ll mention here will be acquired, but there are tools out there that will offer automated client notifications based on workflows.

I mean, there’s two products I’m aware of that are doing this in legal space. One is called Hona. They used to be called Milestones, and another is called case status. Now, one of the biggest issues for lawyers is that they don’t keep in touch with their clients in large part because they don’t want to expend the effort to do it. Okay, I have to figure out what’s going on. In this case, I have to construct an email and send it, multiply that by the 150 cases I have. That’s a lot of time spent. So these softwares will align your notifications with your workflow. So if you do something, the client will be notified automatically. Great tool. I love this kind of product and these softwares are more expensive than probably any I’ve mentioned. Otherwise, you’ve got to set up fee that you’re going to need to do and they got monthly prices, they check out their websites for that.

But really valuable tool. And like I said, I’d like to see that built out to case management software more at some point. And maybe that gets done by some of these bigger companies acquiring products. This, if the SEC is listening, I don’t know anything about whether or not that’s happening. So I bet you’re feeling more productive than ever before and just wait until you try some of this shit out in your actual law practice. Before we get to our interview about success planning though with Ivy Slater of Slater Success Coaching, we’ll hear from her in a little bit. Let’s hear a little something, something from our sponsors. Then we’ll get into a rump roast that’s got more Olympics action than you can handle and more than Jason Tatum saw. Alright, enough of these shenanigans. Let’s get to it. Today on the Legal Toolkit podcast, we got a first time guest who promises to be amazing. That is Ivy Slater, who’s the CEO at Slater Success. Ivy, welcome to the show. How are you doing today,

Ivy Slater:

Jared? Thank you for having me. I’m doing great.

Jared Correia:

You do consulting work. So can you tell me how, first of all, what you do and then how you got into the consulting game?

Ivy Slater:

Absolutely. We work with companies, a lot of law firms, a lot in finance and a lot in technology. Our sweet spot in consulting and some coaching is helping organizations scale as well as succession planning. How I got into this, oh goodness, it was a long time ago. So this was in oh seven. I got completely burnt out. I owned and operated a printing company in New York City, had my, that

Jared Correia:

Sounds like a hard life. I want to talk to you about that later, but go ahead, keep going.

Ivy Slater:

It was an interesting life, let’s put it that way. It had some tips and turns in the journey of 20 some odd years, and I learned an enormous amount about running a business, having partners, not having partners, being out on my own, et cetera, playing in a boys club for a very long time, sales, finance and running a company. So that was my bread and butter, and I had spearheaded a merger of that company solely to have a second child years ago. That child is now married. As that merger fell apart, about five years into it, I went out on my own and then in oh seven I just said, what in the world am I doing? My kids were kind of in their teens at that point. I said, complete disclosure, that’s how I roll. I make a really good living. I have no passion for what I do.

I like a lot of my clients, but I really have a JOB, and when these kids leave the house, I’m going to be stuck with the JOB. And that just never did it for me. I grew up as a dancer. I wanted to be a producer. I had all these passions, a little bit of the yellow brick road as that yellow brick road twists and turns. I ended up with a great career and a great job, but I wanted more. And hence that was the birth of Slater’s success in oh eight. And then I spent, it probably was the mid oh seven to 2010 with a succession plan out of slate of graphics, my company.

Jared Correia:

That is a wild turn to go from the print business to consulting. I think that’s really impressive. That’s not easy to do. So you said you spearheaded the merger of your print company with another company? Yes. Was that the first time you’d done something like that?

Ivy Slater:

Oh, a hundred percent.

Jared Correia:

And then you’re, oh, I could do this for other people potentially. Maybe spin this off. I do want to get to succession planning

Ivy Slater:

As well. Sure, sure, sure. So this is a bit of a crazy story. I was a junior partner, the other junior partner left. The senior partner. We knew it was going to eventually exit and they’re like, well, you can’t run this as again, let me just point and reference around the timeframe of this. Okay, this was around 93. Okay, now I’m really dating myself. Now we’re really going to have to show a video so I don’t look so bad.

Jared Correia:

93, what a year. I’m right there with you. I love 93. All right, go on, go on, I’m going to stop.

Ivy Slater:

So I said, well, the only way to actually be a working mom and I wanted a second child was for this company to go bigger, smaller was not going to serve me. It was just logical to me. Where did I gain the logic? I can’t tell you. It just was logical to me. It is the way I think. I was raised by savvy business leaders. Both my parents owned a business and I was like, the way to have more kids is to have the company bigger so it can all be on my back. So let’s merge. And so the senior partner was like, I need this a hole in the head. And the senior partner at that time was my father. He’s like, I don’t need this God like a hole in the head. I don’t need this. I don’t need this. We do do some work in family business. I wonder why. And I said, well, you want another grandchild? This is the way to do it.

Jared Correia:

I like that. This is

Ivy Slater:

The way, way to make that happen. And he goes, you’re crazy. And I was like, watch me. I said, you raised a crazy girl’s Phenomen. So spearheaded the merger. The merger lasted, it was a good merger for a period of time. It got me the second kid. The company dissolved when that little one was two years old. And it dissolved for all the right reasons. It didn’t dissolve in the right way, but it dissolved in the right reasons. So meaning I opened the door one Monday morning and half the office was cleaned out.

Jared Correia:

I like how as the podcast goes on this story, continue to get crazier. This is

Ivy Slater:

Good. This is good.

Jared Correia:

Tremendous content here.

Ivy Slater:

Bottom line is I said, okay, I’m going out on my own. I’m going to open my own company. And that was my printing company. It was called Slater Graphics at the time. I got three new jobs in that day and I called my husband, it was probably about 10 30 in the morning. He had no idea what was going on. And I called him and he goes, Hey, because he used to leave at six in the morning and goes, Hey, how’d the kids get off to school today? I would take the kids to school, go to the office. I was like, everything’s fine, but I have a quick question for you. And he goes, what? I said, well, this is what happened. He goes, do you need me? What the hell? And I said, no, no, no. Out of these three attorneys we’ve both worked with between our two businesses, who do you think will incorporate me the fastest that when the first job bills that came in today, which will be within seven days, that will bill under my new company. You’re

Jared Correia:

Not messing around.

Ivy Slater:

No, exactly. But it was a good, great job. It was a good career, but it was a JOB and Slater’s success birthed out of truly having something that I am passionate about, working with people, doing what I love. Again, it brings me back to my early days when I danced in my early days of something I truly love.

Jared Correia:

So let’s talk about succession planning because I dunno what your experience has been on this, but ain’t that many businesses that have a succession plan is that the starting point Have one.

Ivy Slater:

The problem with most businesses, and I say this with a lot of love, is people start thinking about succession when they’re ready for succession. And by the way, I did the same thing. So I’m trying to educate from like, Hey, I got to get out of this printing company. How quickly can I do this to start Slater’s success? And so I went in full blazers and that’s where I try to help other companies and saying, okay, guys, think ahead.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, yeah. Future to plan

Ivy Slater:

Together. At future look at three to five years, what is it looking like for the leadership team, for the key stakeholders, for your key team members and people? You have to realize, most people think succession planning is about retirement. I succession plan out of a printing companies in my mid forties, that was not about retirement. It was like I’m this

Jared Correia:

With this done a whole other company.

Ivy Slater:

I’m ready to start a whole another company. So I am a firm, firm believer that succession planning is part of strategic planning and always looking and touching base on your key leaders, your key owners, your key stakeholders, and sometimes it’s key employees that just have long-term knowledge of the company and they’re a huge asset. We have to look at all those factors and that should be part of a strategic plan before you worry about anybody exiting.

Jared Correia:

That’s great. I love that approach. So there’s a million different ways the succession planning could go. People can take different routes, obviously you did.

Ivy Slater:

Absolutely.

Jared Correia:

When do business owners need to get a sense or do they at any particular point about what their business is worth come into play if you’re acquiring company, if you’re being acquired by a company, if you’re merging, how does that fit into this? Like the valuation piece?

Ivy Slater:

Here’s what I say. When you wonder if something happened to you, if your business is the main income of your family, when you are the main stakeholder financially for that family member, if something happened to you, what happens to the family at that point? And age doesn’t always come into play. It’s not about being 60, 70 or 80 or more

Jared Correia:

These days, which I think most people think it is. Yeah, yeah.

Ivy Slater:

Right. It’s providing, it’s being conscious of your role in the family and the responsibility that comes from. And if your name’s on the door and that income is coming to you and something’s to happens to you, what happens to the company, the law firm, et cetera, the business, that’s when you should always have your handle on a pulse. I actually just was talking to a colleague of mine who were working with a company guys in his fifties. He’s thinking 10 years out, but he said, what happens if something in the next 10? Well, the first thing you do get evaluation, it doesn’t hurt. It’s not that big of a deal, right? So So you are always thinking, to me, it’s about thinking you have a responsibility, your family, you have a responsibility, your employees and your team members, and I take both of them at the utmost level of importance.

Jared Correia:

Yeah. It’s funny. I think a lot of people don’t want to know sometimes because they think the numbers may be not as good as they expect. But let’s turn the page a little bit. You talked about this before, so you were in a business with your dad. Yes. How do family businesses differ from other businesses? There are a lot of closely held family businesses, like big ones, small ones.

Ivy Slater:

It’s huge. Yeah.

Jared Correia:

How do you approach that differently or you

Ivy Slater:

Have the emotional entanglement is just bigger. The emotional and the interpersonal entanglement is bigger. Sometimes, and I’m not going to say all the time, sometimes family members who are in business together don’t shut it off. And if they’re involved with other people in their leadership team who are not family members, that can be a problem for the leadership team because then it’s almost gossiping or talking behind people’s back, right? On the other hand, the advantage is sometimes if it’s really just family, you have an opportunity to take it, have some conversations away from the pressure of the business, and that is an advantage.

Jared Correia:

That’s interesting. All right. I got a couple more questions for you. I’ve read an interview that you gave on Medium, which I thought was pretty good. People should check that out, can find it by Googling Ivy’s name. Part of this is about legacy too, right? Yeah. And I think that is, at least in my experience, that’s particularly important for lawyers because they like to help people. They want the name to go on, even if it’s a brand name. Could you speak a little to that and how that comes into play when you’re talking about succession planning?

Ivy Slater:

I think legacy is really important, and I don’t think people think about legacy until they’re getting older. And that’s where I’d love to see the shift. Every client we touch, every client and attorney touches that they help with any situation. They’re leaving a mark on that business, that person, and they’ve become part of that mark, part of that legacy. And it’s in all the transactions and all these situations that you bring your attorney into, and that attorney becomes part of your legacy, and you in turn become part of the attorney’s legacy of all the people they have touched. And that’s where I think communication is incredibly important. And I put a high level around communication, but when we think about succession of our company, it’s all the clients we have touched that we are leaving a legacy with, right? It’s not the name on the door that leaves the legacy, it’s the clients in all the communications. This is

Jared Correia:

Hitting a lot of high notes here. Client communications, talking to your family members and business partners, thinking about succession planning early. I like it. You’re playing the hits.

Ivy Slater:

Well, I will say, and I a hundred percent believe in practicing what I preach. I was emailing back and forth the other day with an old connection of mine, one of my old clients from Slater Graphics. I mean, I know this person for years and years and years.

Jared Correia:

Yeah, that’s

Ivy Slater:

Cool. Eventually we had a print job go bad. They took me off their vendor list. So eventually I got fired as the printer stayed in contact with this person, continued to stay in contact as they moved roles. Eventually when I started this company, they started connecting me to my first clients here. They became a client. The companies they worked for became clients, and we tried to see each other twice a year for coffee or cocktails.

Jared Correia:

I should probably end on that. That was a beautiful story. But I’m greedy, so I want to ask you one more thing. Go

Ivy Slater:

For it.

Jared Correia:

So let’s say you successfully plan out of one business, whether you’re older, younger, you want to try something new. How do you find the next thing? Because a lot of people who are entrepreneurial, they want to do the next thing and they don’t want to be bored.

Ivy Slater:

That’s a tough question. For me, how I found the next thing is in April of oh seven, I truly, I will say I had a midlife crisis. I hit the brick wall, nowhere are came out. I cried for 30 days anywhere. I dropped my kids off at school. I went to the Starbucks to pick up my coffee, and I would go to put my order in and tears would start rolling down. I was exercising after work. I was in a park with a friend doing walking lenses. I started crying. I just crashed. And I said, there’s got to be something else. And on the lark, she said, you ought to check out this whole coaching thing that’s going on. I was like, I don’t really see myself as a consultant and I don’t see myself as a shrink,

Jared Correia:

Which is a lot of it.

Ivy Slater:

And again, realize this was in oh seven, so the industries were very different. So it’s like I don’t see myself going to PWC to work. I was like, my vision wasn’t there, and that was the key for me. My vision wasn’t there,

And here’s what I’ll say about new opportunities and stepping into new opportunities. I went home, I hit Google and I said, what is coaching? And I got tennis and soccer. I got fencing before I got, got to page three in oh seven, and then I was a printer. I worked with marketing and advertising departments on a daily basis. You do market research, that’s what you do. So I just started talking to everybody, and I think that’s the key is I spoke to everyone and their brother. I was like, do you know about this? Do you know about this? My daughter’s girlfriend’s mom, it was in blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, can we have coffee? What do you know about this industry? My son’s friend’s mother went back to school for something. I said, how did you go back to school and run a business and tell me about that. I spoke to my accountant. I spoke to my attorney. My accountant yelled at me. He said, I could never make a living. I could never send my kids to college. My God, I had no idea what I was doing. I fired him before the end of the year.

Jared Correia:

That’s crazy. What an asshole.

Ivy Slater:

Exactly. My attorney then looked at me, he goes, I think I have a client in New Jersey who’s doing something like that. You want to talk to him? I spoke to anyone and everyone, and I think the key is when you don’t know what’s next, it’s not necessarily in a book. It’s in the conversations with people that sparks ideas and thoughts and that creativity that I mentioned before. And then you can go back to the books and the Google searches or anything else and think about it and look at it as different ideas of what you’re going to do next. But I think people are the key. Have conversations with people, let people know I’m thinking about something new. What have you heard out there that’s interesting.

Jared Correia:

Ivy, that was a really great thing. I’m taking notes. So like Google fencing, talk to people, have a midlife crisis. Find a vision. All right, there’s your roadmap everybody. Thank you for taking the time to cover what is really, I think, an undercover topic in this area, so I appreciate you coming on to address it. Will you hang out for one final segment with us?

Ivy Slater:

Absolutely. I’d love to hang out and thank you for bringing the topic of succession and looking at it from a point of strategic planning and not exit planning.

Jared Correia:

Big thing for me as well. People always talk about it in those terms, and I don’t think that’s the correct way to look at it either. Alright, for everybody listening, we’ll take one final sponsor break so you can hear more about those companies, this sponsor, this podcast, and their latest service offerings. Then stay tuned. As always, for the Rump Roast, it’s even more supple than the Roast Beast. Welcome back, everybody. We’re here again at the rear end of the Legal Toolkit podcast. That’s right. It’s the long awaited rump roast. It’s a grab bag of short form topics. All of my choosing. You may be wondering, why do I get to pick? Well, it’s because I’m the host Ivy. You just talked about fencing, which is actually going to be a perfect segue. Bringing back one of my favorite segments ever, which we do every four years.

It’s called the shitty Olympics. So let me explain. The last time we did this was three years ago, 2020 Olympics actually occurred in Tokyo in 2021 due to the pandemic. This year, we’re right back on schedule as we speak. 2024 Paris Olympics is ongoing. There might be an equestrian or a fencing event happening right now, so this is a pretty simple game. Ivy, I’m going to describe a shitty, terrible Olympic event that is no longer part of the Olympics. You just have to tell me what it’s called, and I’m going to give you multiple choice to help you along. Oh,

Ivy Slater:

Thank goodness for multiple choice.

Jared Correia:

Are you ready?

Ivy Slater:

As ready as I’m going to get

Jared Correia:

Right. Don’t worry, we haven’t had a lot of successful endeavors here. It’s fun. We learned something

Ivy Slater:

No matter what. We get to laugh.

Jared Correia:

That is the plan. All right. I’ve got five questions for you and a bonus question. Okay? Okay. Number one, during the 1924 Paris Olympics, I learned the other day that this is the first Olympics in Paris. In a hundred years, athletes competed in a martial arts demonstration event in which they beat each other with canes. What was this event called? 1924 Paris Olympics. Was it called Whacking Day Le Con or slapstick? The name of the 1924 Paris Olympics event where they beat each other with canes. Whacking day, LA Con or slapstick. What do you think?

Ivy Slater:

I’m going to go with Lahan.

Jared Correia:

Perfect. You’re one for one.

Ivy Slater:

Wow.

Jared Correia:

Apparently some French guy invented the sport, and literally all they did was just beat each other up with canes. It did not stick. That was the only Olympics it was ever a part of.

Ivy Slater:

We’re very grateful for small things.

Jared Correia:

Right, right. Well, there’s more sports that will probably never reenter the Olympic lexicon. All right, you’re one for one. Question two. Okay. At the 1948 London Olympics, 400 athletes competed in a demonstration event in which they all moved in formation together, 400 people, which must’ve been a sight to see on dry land. So this was sort of like synchronized swimming, but not in the water. Here are some options. It was called Swedish gymnastics. Austrian gymnastics or ping gymnastics? Swedish gymnastics. Austrian gymnastics or ping gymnastics. What do you think?

Ivy Slater:

Paying gymnastics?

Jared Correia:

Oh, good guess. Good guess, but it was called Swedish gymnastics. Now, you may be asking yourself why was called Swedish gymnastics.

Ivy Slater:

Exactly. Why?

Jared Correia:

Because it was invented by a guy who lived in

Ivy Slater:

Sweden. Sweden,

Jared Correia:

And it was also, it had another name. It was called Swedish Ling Gymnastics. This was an actual thing that happened, and it was just multiple people just moving together on a mat. All right. Number three, we’re back to the 1908 Olympics in London. This sport was part of the games, and it involved bicycle riders who used a stick to strike a ball with the ultimate goal of scoring it into a net. Was it called Horseless Polo? Polo by Ralph Flore or cycle polo?

Ivy Slater:

I’m going to say I’m probably wrong, but I’m going to go with horseless polo.

Jared Correia:

Oh, that was close. That was close. It was actually called cycle polo, and believe it or not, it is making a huge comeback right now.

Ivy Slater:

Really?

Jared Correia:

Non Olympic sport right now have a lot, so basically it’s people just playing like polo, like on horses, but

Ivy Slater:

On bicycles.

Jared Correia:

They’re on bicycles, yeah. It’s kind of weird. Doing well. You’re quitting yourself. Well, being very thoughtful about your responses.

Ivy Slater:

I got one right,

Jared Correia:

Which is pretty darn good. All right. I got two more on the regular series of questions for you. At the 1900 Paris Olympics, this sport featured both professional and volunteer divisions with Kansas City, Missouri winning gold in the professional division, and Porto Portugal winning gold in the volunteer division. Professional volunteer divisions was the sport policing, firefighting or animal control? Believe it or not, one of these was actually an Olympic sport.

Ivy Slater:

Ah, okay.

Jared Correia:

It’s a tough one.

Ivy Slater:

I know. This is probably the toughest one. No. Yeah, because there’s no deductive reasoning.

Jared Correia:

I know. I know. This is a hard one. Don’t worry.

Ivy Slater:

Okay. I I’m going to say animal.

Jared Correia:

Oh, good guess it’s actually firefighting. Firefighting. They actually had an Olympic,

Ivy Slater:

So they set fires to see who can put the fire out.

Jared Correia:

Right, which seems dangerous.

Ivy Slater:

It seems absurd.

Jared Correia:

Yes. Yes. That was a good guess, but I don’t know who was behind the firefighting Olympic sport, but not a very smart decision. All right. We got one more of the regular set of questions, and then I have a bonus question for you. Here we go. Okay. Great. Britain has won the most total gold medals and the most total medals period in this sport, which was played at every Olympics from 1900 to 1920, so I think that’s like five Olympic games, but this sport may leave you at the end of your rope. Is it not tying rock climbing or tug of war? Whichever sport this is, Britain has dominated it or did dominate it.

Ivy Slater:

Tug of war.

Jared Correia:

Yes.

Ivy Slater:

Really?

Jared Correia:

Yes. Yes. There was actually team tug of war at the Olympics. Team tug of war. Not bad. Batten 400 on the first five questions. That’s pretty good. All right. Got a bonus question for you Olympic related, but you’re probably sick of Olympic events, so we’re not doing that anymore. I remember this. I remember this. I dunno if you do. This animated television show launched in 1977, featured Hannah Barbera cartoon characters organized into competitive teams to win gold, silver, and bronze medals. This TV series spoofed both the Olympics and the Battle of the Network stars, which started in 1976, was this show called The Cartoon Olympics, the Laugh Olympics or the Yogi Yahoo East, the Cartoon Olympics, the Laugh Olympics or the Yogi, Yahoo. East Hannah Barbera Olympic spoof. I remember this very well.

Ivy Slater:

Oh my goodness. I’m just going to say the Laugh Olympics.

Jared Correia:

Correct? Correct. Ivy, not bad. Not bad at all. 503 of six. I’m impressed.

Ivy Slater:

I am also, actually,

Jared Correia:

You crushed it. The Life Olympics were a really cool show. They had Yogi Bear and Jabber Jaws and all these Scooby-Doo, all these Santa Barbara people, and they were in three different teams, so check that out on YouTube, everybody.

Ivy Slater:

Absolutely.

Jared Correia:

Ivy, thank you. You are amazing. You’re a great sport. Talked a lot about succession planning. Come back anytime.

Ivy Slater:

I appreciate it. I’d love to come back and thank you, most of all, having me here today, and thank you listeners for listening.

Jared Correia:

If you want to find out more about Ivy Slater and her work at Slater Success Coaching, visit slater success.com. That’s slater success.com. Now, for those of you listening from Sheep’s Head Bay in Brooklyn, New York, which is actually named after a fish, I’ve got a Spotify playlist for you, and it’s all about productivity. These are songs about speed. Now, sadly, I’ve run out of time today to talk about this crazy math equation I once solved while I was working as a janitor at MIT. Wait, that’s the plot of Goodwill Hunting. My bad. This is Jared Correia, reminding you that even pre-calculus is actually crazy. Fucking hard.

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