Pick Up Your Face and Find Your Strength in Tough Times

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. 

Feeling knocked flat by life or the economy? This week, Shaune helps you face your fears, reclaim your confidence, and stop running from toothless problems. It’s time to pick up your face—and your purpose—with grace, grit, and practical tools to rise stronger than ever before. 

Transcript

Hello, everyone! And welcome to this week’s episode of legal biz cafe. I am your host, attorney Shaune B Arnold. Tonight, if you feel this economy has got you down, and you feel unworthy of building a fantastic business, we’re gonna help you pick up your face. That’s what we do here on LegalBiz Café.

I am a California business attorney, and this is legal biz Café. On this show, we talk about your mindset as an entrepreneur. We don't really deal with hard core legal and business issues. We deal with those on our other show, Your Business, Accelerated!

If you don't know about Your Business, Accelerated, I invite you to axe somebody!! On that show, we talk about business operations issues. I give you my perspective as a business consultant with 40 years of experience, as a business attorney with 30 years of experience and as an entrepreneur.

We separated the two shows because as a business attorney and coach I find people have issues that are far removed from their business. The emotional issues actually keep them from really getting the most out of their business. For example, procrastination, money spending issues, and problems inside the organization all grow like cancer. They can knock the entrepreneur and the business flat. They can leave your jaw slack.

So, let’s pick up your face tonight. When I was a kid, the phrase “pick up your face” had a different meaning. It meant that somebody really embarrassed you. They embarrassed you so badly that your face fell on the ground, and you have to now pick up your face.

That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about right now. When I say pick up your face, I'm talking to those of you who are so down in the dumps that you are literally stretched out on the floor, on the couch, on the bed, wherever you are just stretched out. You're flat on your face. You're flat on your face, and you feel like you can't get up.

How do you make it through?? How do you make it through tough, economic times where you are flat on your face and you feel like you just can't get up??

I have some tips for you tonight. I have some things to say to you that I really hope will resonate in your spirit and will help you move out of that headspace that you find yourself in. So, the first thing that I want you to do to pick up your face, and the rest of you, is to face whatever the situation is.

You know, this reminds me of a story you may have heard me tell at some point about a man who found himself chased home from work daily by a dog. He ran from this dog every single day, and it snapped and it snarled as it chased him. He was scared so he ran day after day!

One day, he decided he was no longer going to run from this animal, that he was going to face it head on, and whatever it was going to be is what it was going to be. That afternoon, he was going home from work, and all of a sudden this dog came out from around a car and started snapping and snarling at him and chasing him down. The man turned around and took off running. After a few yards, he sort of remembered himself, and remembered the promise that he made to himself; that he was going to stop running from this dog. 

He skidded to a stop. He turned and picked up a brick as he faced the dog ready to bust that dog right in the head. Then he got a really good look at the dog. ...He realized the dog had no teeth! The man threw the brick down and chased the dog off. He walked home feeling kind of embarrassed.

Here's the question, folks. How many of us spend our life running away from situations that have absolutely no teeth to do us any harm??

The first thing I want you to do is face the situation, whatever it is. Do you have a tax problem, for example? Are you a couple of years out? Whatever it is, write them a letter. Tell them what happened. Tell them you're catching up.

See are only looking to go after and jail people that commit fraud, if you lost a job and can’t pay your taxes and you have been absolutely overwhelmed with your stuff in storage and your papers lost, okay. I call that a legitimate reason for a breakdown. However, make sure it’s just a temporary breakdown.

When this happens, give yourself some grace. Take a moment, but don’t ignore your responsibilities. Face whatever it is, write the letters that you need to write to the people that you need to write them to. Let them know that you are aware that you've breached your responsibilities and that to that they need to give you a moment.

Nothing is worse in reality than the fear is in your mind. When you're afraid, you imagine all kinds of things that will probably never come to pass. I believe it was Mark Twain who said some of the worst things that ever happened in my life never really occurred.

I invite you to really question what is happening to you. In those times when you feel like you're flat on your face, I invite you to believe in yourself, to believe in who you are and whose you are.

If you feel as though the world is just on your neck, then I encourage you to look for ways to become part of a community that can support you. Look into resources that are available to you. We live in a remarkably wealthy society. Look around you. Resources are all around you. They’re looking for you. They will help you pick up your face, and the rest of you, and get yourself back on track.

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 Shaune 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.