Set Up Your Sanctuary for Lasting Success

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. 

Where do you go to refill your soul and refocus your mind? In this deeply reflective episode, Attorney Shaune B. Arnold explores the power of sanctuary—physical, emotional, and spiritual. Discover how creating your own sacred space can sharpen your clarity, calm the chaos, and reignite the fire in your business journey. 

Transcript

Hello, everyone! And welcome to legal biz cafe. I am your host, attorney Sean B. Arnold, and I am really excited to be here with you today. We are going to talk about your sanctuary, but before we go cloistering ourselves, I want to talk very briefly about some housekeeping matters, just to make sure that we're all on the same page. I am a California business attorney, and so to the extent that we talk about any legal issue here on legal biz cafe, I want you to be aware that I am a California business attorney, and if you live in another jurisdiction, another state, another country, …or just another state of mind, …then I encourage you to take whatever I tell you to an attorney in your jurisdiction and just make sure that there's no difference between the law where you live and the law where I live. Now here on legal biz cafe, we don't really run into those legal issues so very often, and that is because we tend to deal with hardcore legal and business operations issues on my other show, which is called Your Business, Accelerated! When you listen to both shows, you have everything you need to be a powerhouse entrepreneur. 

So, what are we doing today on LegalBiz Café?? Today, we are going to talk about your sanctuary.

Where is YOUR place of peace? Where is that place that you go to regenerate, to build your strength up again?? Because, you know, life can be really tough, especially when, like happens to so many of us, finances get strained and job security is basically nonexistent. Even if you have a job, chances are you’re working two or three jobs for just one paycheck, and you don't dare complain, because you might lose what you have. 

And so all of us are stressed and worried, and the pressures of ensuring that steady stream of income and holding onto our homes and fulfilling our family commitments and taking care of our children and our loved ones, and dealing with the pressures of daily living. 

All of these things can be overwhelming. Sometimes we can feel alone. Sometimes we can feel really harried and sort of frazzled. We can feel resentful and downright angry. We can get bitter and tired and moody.

…I’m not calling you out. …You know who you are and what’s going on with you.

Sometimes, folks, we can feel downright lost in our journey. And in these times, our spirit cries out! It cries out for relief. It cries out for sanctuary.

So, …where is your sanctuary?

Most of us think we can’t take the time, and we don't even have the resources, to fly off to India and take refuge in an ashram and meditate for several months. We can't do that and run our business. 

So, what do I do to find sanctuary? You know, when I was in law school, I had a friend come over, and they wanted to use the telephone. They started looking around for a pen and a piece of paper to write some information down, and they had the strangest look on their face. When they got off the phone, they asked me, are you sure you're in law school? And I said, Yeah. That's not the kind of thing that you're ever unclear about. Why do you ask? They said, well, because you don't have any books, I don't see any papers. It doesn't appear as though a student lives here.

I fell out laughing!! It was the first time that I realized they were absolutely correct. I had set my apartment up while in law school as my sanctuary. That meant whenever I opened that front door, peace permeated the air. I knew, whenever I was in my apartment, I had nothing to do but relax and enjoy being alive. If I needed to work, I had to get up and leave my apartment. If I needed to study, I had to get up and leave my apartment. No books were allowed in my apartment. They were not allowed past the trunk of my car. 

I invited my friend to go to the garage and look in the trunk of my car so that they could prove to themselves that, yes, I did indeed have books there. Yes, I did indeed have paper and pens and all those things that students have littering their homes. But my home was my sanctuary. I held that space absolutely inviolate for four years. Three years of law school, and the following year of studying for the bar exam and I kept all of that at bay inside my home. My apartment was a place of sanctuary. 

So where is your sanctuary? Where do you go when you need peace? A friend of mine rents a small space near his busy office. He has minimal furniture and no electronic devices in that space. He says it allows him to be creative. 

I would like to share a couple of ideas with you, where you might be able to set up a place for yourself, where there is just peace permeating the air whenever you arrive. For example, you could have, even if you don't, designate your entire home as your sanctuary, as I did when I was in law school, you could designate a room as your sanctuary, or you could designate everything except a particular room as your sanctuary. Meaning, whenever you are in the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, the bathroom or the bedroom, you are in relaxation mode. But when you walk into the office, your at home office, you're at work. That means that you don't go in there to play. You don't go in there to do any pleasure reading or to talk on the phone with a girlfriend or to do anything that is unrelated to work. That way your psyche will organize itself, so that whenever you are in the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the bathroom, or the bedroom, you really are relaxing, and when you walk into that office, it’s game on! 

So where is your quiet place? Is it in your car? For some people, their car is inviolate. You can't comb your hair in their car. You can't listen to your music in their car. Is your car, your place of sanctuary, where you listen to your motivation podcasts and get yourself organized and ready to face the day? Is this where you rehearse your pitch to your client?  

Could your sanctuary be tied to your exercise? I like to walk along the beach, or elsewhere in nature and listen to meditation music. Believe it or not, I just love the sound of gongs in my head. I don't know why. It just seems to just reroute my brain. Entraining absolutely resets the wiring in my head. I just love it. 

If you have a sanctuary, but you still find it hard to relax, try a guided meditation. That really helped me when I first started meditating. All I had to do was follow directions. You can find lots of guided meditations on YouTube. You can learn Qigong and tai chi, or yoga or something like that. These practices can bring you peace of mind. 

Find someplace that you love and that is beautiful. Go there, not to work, but, rather, to find peace.

It could be a house of worship or some other spiritual center. These things are wonderful places to find that bit of sanctuary when the world feels like it's pressing in on you and making itself unwelcome. 

The ocean is one of my favorite places. You know, I believe that people are called to a place. I'm called to the ocean. When I get to the ocean, I hear the voice of God. I can see the handprint of God in the depression of the bay. Some people, I believe, are called to the mountain, some people to the desert. Others are called to some other place where they hear that still, small voice. They can pray and meditate. They can go inward and make their plans. They can resolve internal and external issues. 

I had an issue recently with someone who I would call a friend, who did something that I would call not friendly, and I have meditated on it, and I am really trying to find a place where I can, even though I feel that that person owes me, I am looking to find a place where I can release that.

That is not to say that when people do you wrong, that you should just find a way to release it and not hold them accountable. It's to say you have to pick your battles. Even in business, you have to find a place of sanctuary when a certain battle isn't worth a fight, or maybe that person is worth the fight, so the battle then becomes less important.

Maybe try taking a spiritual retreat. Go on a group retreat, or be a single person at a group retreat so no one knows who you are and you can fold yourself into the process as much as you like. I love Optimum Health Institute, near San Diego. It is just an amazing, amazing sanctuary space. 

Outside of formal spa settings, my favorite place in the universe is the steam room. I love it. I can let go of all of my challenges when I'm in there. Folks, I want you to really consider where your place of sanctuary is on the planet, and then I want you to come back next week and join me on legal biz Cafe as we delve into some more of the issues that concern you as an entrepreneur.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for joining me on this week’s episode of LegalBiz Café. Feel free to follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter X. My moniker in each of those places is Sean dot Arnold. As always, folks, I’m reminding you, to MAXIMIZE your COMPETENCE to get the CONFIDENCE YOU NEED to succeed. 

I’ll see you right back here next week, on LegalBiz Café. Bye-bye, friends!