Get the Mindset of the Leaderpreneur

Welcome to LegalBiz Cafe! Digitally remastered with AI, in this podcast series, Attorney Shaune B. Arnold gives to frustrated professionals like YOU the tools and resources you need to make the LEAP to entrepreneurship so you can start, build or fix a business you will absolutely LOVE. 

In this inspiring episode of LegalBiz Café, Shaune unpacks the mindset of a true leader-preneur. Learn how intentional planning, SMART goals, and bold vision can transform your year—and your business. Stop spinning your wheels. Start mapping your future. Leadership isn’t luck—it’s a strategy. 

Transcript

Welcome everyone! …Welcome …once again …to legal biz cafe. I am your host Attorney Shaune B. Arnold. Let me tell you a little bit about legal biz cafe. I am here as a resource to you, the frustrated business owner. I'm here to clue you in to tips, triggers and red flags that you need to understand to build an iconic business.

Today, we’re going to discuss leadership and the mindset of a leader. We’ll look at the internal pressures that forge a leaderpreneur and the external pressures that bring a leaderpreneur to life. We’ll look at those things that forge a leader in battle and really help him to become more than he ever thought he could be.

I want to start with a concept that is really important to leadership, and that is planning. Have you noticed that every year goes by faster than the year before? They say that life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes. It’s really starting to accelerate for me.

I'm not sure what that means for me, but every year seems to go faster than the year before. That makes it all that much more important every year that we engage in planning activities. I typically hold a calendaring mastermind with some folks over lunch. It works sort of like a vision board, but without the cutting and glue.

This calendar planning is something that I've been doing with some of my favorite friends and clients for years. And you know what's funny, I've noticed that there are some people who wholeheartedly embrace the idea of, let's get together and plan our year and actually put items in our calendar for the next quarter and the balance of the year, where possible.

The people that wholeheartedly embrace this process every year are the people who typically find success. They automatically get up in the morning and start doing the things they're supposed to be doing in order to bring their dreams to fruition.

Occasionally, I have encountered another set of folks, who would say, “Oh, I've got my schedule, so just jam packed for the holidays. I can't do it this weekend. …or …”Oh, you know, I'm really on vacation this week, and all I want to do is rest, and let's do it after the first of the year.”

But here's what's real. How many of those people do you think are really going to contact me after the planning session and ask me to come to their home or office and spend two hours giving them the resources that I generally provide to paid clients? The planning session was a holiday gift to them. Those that joined in, loved it, and they're ready to go for the new year or season. Those who put the planning process off, typically put themselves behind the eight ball by not engaging in the process. They may have a harder time reaching their goals.

What are you planning for your next quarter, season or year? Are you engaging in mastermind sessions with your advisory group?

Consider putting a large wall calendar up that goes out, say, three months or four months into the future, and that shows the major things that you have to do in order to run your business. I did mine for four months and included all of the things that I have to do in order to build up my client base, build out my social media base, and follow up, etc.

This helps keep me from working my fingers to the bone by working three times harder than I have to. Without planning, I have to work to figure out which way I'm supposed to be going and what I’m supposed to be doing daily, weekly and monthly. Without planning, I have to constantly work to get myself back on track. I have to work to stop procrastinating because I’m not clear on my tasks. Without planning, I have to work to just move forward. Most of those issues can be at least alleviated, if not resolved with planning.

So, how do you then go about planning for a quarter or an entire year? I think this goes well beyond just making up resolutions and saying, “I'm going to lose 20 pounds.”

If the goal is to lose 20 pounds, then there are going to be certain things that we have to do and certain things that we have to refrain from doing in order to make those 20 pounds come off. Scheduling workouts, planning meals and purchasing only good healthy food will help make the goal happen. If you don't buy junk, you won't eat junk.

These are the things that you need to know and do if you are planning on weight loss this year. You want to get extremely specific. In fact, you want to employ SMART goals. What are SMART goals, you might be asking? SMART Goals are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound

The point is, your specific goal is not a vague goal that says, for example, “I want to make more money this year.” If you want to make more money this year, and you make just one dollar more, you achieved your goal. If you want to increase your revenues by $100,000 this year, make that the goal. It’s specific, measurable, (perhaps) achievable and time-bound. I encourage you to be definitive about exactly what you want this quarter, season or year.

Are you thinking $100,000 is doable, but it scares you? Think of it this way, you only have to sell 1000 people a $1,000 product to generate $1 million. We’re going to touch on those subjects going forward. But I want you to get the idea that you need to be extremely specific in doing your planning. If you create a specific goal, then your unconscious mind is going to automatically start to try to attain it. So, with that specific goal of how much weight you want to lose, or how much more money you want to make this quarter, season or year, make sure it’s a SMART Goal.

When Bill Gates got started, he dreamed of putting 7 billion personal computers on the planet. There are currently over 2 billion personal computers in the world. My question is, was he a failure, or was he successful?

I guess that's a question that we all have to answer for ourselves. For me, I say he's successful. He created a goal that was so aggressive that it might not have been achievable, but isn't that really the point? The point is to make our overall “why” a goal that may not be achievable in our lifetime, and then break that down into aggressive but achievable parts.

I think that's a great idea. Just make sure that those goals are relevant. And what does relevance mean? It means, if you own an art studio, then you don't necessarily want to make goals related to car repair or golf lessons.

You want to make sure that your goals are really going to feed into your big picture. And make sure that you are being a leaderpreneur, that you stay at the 50,000 foot level of your business as you're guiding the people on your team to be accountable, to make sure that the goals they make are specific, , measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-oriented. There has to be a deadline.

You know, sometimes, as an attorney, I kind of fret over false deadlines, but on the other hand, they make me function better. So, if you put a deadline on whatever it is that you're doing, it's going to light a fire underneath you and you can get the mindset of the leaderpreneur.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for joining me on this week’s episode of LegalBiz Café. I invite you to follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter X. I am Shaune dot Arnold in all of those places.

I look forward to seeing you next week right here on legal biz café. Bye-bye, friends.