Future Vision: Align Your Decisions with Future Goals (Part 1)

Do you ever feel like you're stuck in the day-to-day of your law firm, making decisions that don't align with the future you envision? Whether you want to be a $2 million firm, a $5 million firm, or something more, you must start thinking from your future and making choices that bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.

This week, Melissa digs into the importance of having a clear vision for your law firm and making decisions that align with that future state. As a law firm owner, it is your job to have a vision you deeply believe in, and you’ll learn how to begin moving toward it in this episode.

Discover the power of thinking from your future and learn practical strategies for aligning your daily decisions with your long-term vision. Melissa emphasizes the crucial role of data in creating a realistic roadmap to your desired future state, and shows you how to overcome the default thinking patterns and behaviors that are holding you back from achieving your goals.

‍If you’re a law firm owner, Mastery Group is the way for you to work with Melissa. This program consists of quarterly strategic planning facilitated with guidance and community every step of the way. Click here learn more!

If you’re wondering if Velocity Work is the right fit for you and want to chat with Melissa, text CONSULT to 201-534-8753.

What You’ll Discover:

• Why having a vivid vision for your law firm's future is essential for success.

• What happens when you get distracted by your day-to-day decisions and lose sight of your future vision.

• The reason some people stop themselves from imagining the future reality they want.

• How to adjust your mental framework to match the future you're working to create.

• Why data is crucial for creating a realistic roadmap to your desired future state.

• How to make day-to-day decisions that align with your long-term goals.

Featured on the Show:

• Create space, mindset, and concrete plans for growth. Start here: Velocity Work Monday Map.
• Join Mastery Group.
• Schedule a consult call with us here
• Traction by Gino Wickman
• Vivid Vision by Cameron Herold
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• #142: Is Your Self-Image a Match for the Firm You’re Building

Enjoy the Show?

Leave me a review in Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you listen!

I’m Melissa Shanahan, and this is The Law Firm Owner Podcast Episode #281.

Welcome to The Law Firm Owner Podcast, powered by Velocity Work, for owners who want to grow a firm that gives them the life they want. Get crystal clear on where you're going, take planning seriously, and honor your plan like a pro. This is the work that creates Velocity.

Hey everyone, welcome to this week's episode. I'm so glad you're here.

We have a great topic we're digging into today. I'm splitting this up into two and this part, this outline, I have solidified. and there's some work I still need to do on the next one, which I think will be out next week.

I am excited to get this out of my head and into this microphone because it is something that I do run into. Recently, I ran into it with a specific client and so it helped me solidify some thinking. Because I really had to help with it, I had to work with them, and I had to articulate to them what the problems here actually were.

And so I'm taking some of that and I'm putting it here into this episode, and hopefully the next one as well.

It has been so much fun over here. We've been hosting clients in our new space. We did have staged furniture in there to get us through until our furniture came in and that has been dripping in. So now, our furniture, some of it has been delivered; the really high functional stuff that we need. The table that everyone sits at and some comfortable seating around the table.

And so a lot of that stuff is in. And gosh, it is looking better than ever. It is comfortable. There is space to spread out. All the amenities that we ever wanted for members and clients when they're in the space, they're all there. We're able to make it our own, and we are just having a blast at hosting people.

So if this is something that you think you'd like to come to our space, which is awesome, if you'd like to come to the space, if you'd like to experience it, if you'd like to work with us, if you'd like us to help you out with some things and create clarity and get organized and be your partner in that, the best way to do this is just to go to VelocityWork.com and you can schedule a consult there. You'll see a way to do that.

But, also, you can skip that step and just do VelocityWork.com/Melissa and that will take you straight to the page where you can schedule a consult with me. So yeah, I look forward to meeting more and more of you.

We've had the chance to do that lately. It has been such a pleasure to dig in and help. Really, that's our main goal, to be useful to you guys. And it's such an honor to really get in there and help make sense of things, and make some good plans.

Figure out what needs to happen, in terms of team and systems, and what it's going to take to get the right data; the data that you really need in order to plan well. Helping people figure that out, get all that in motion, and the built-in accountability that comes with all of the interactions that we have.

It has been a blast. We love it so much. So looking forward to more of that with any of you who are in the right spot, where it makes sense to chat with us.

Well, listen, today, the main message, I think if I had to sum it up is when I'm talking to owners… and so I'm talking to all of you… it is so important to think in the future. Your job as an owner is to have vision and it is to move towards the vision.

Now, some people think they need this perfect vision statement. You have heard me several times on this podcast talk about that. That is not true, you do not need a perfect vision statement. But you have to have a mental picture in your mind of what you're moving towards.

When you are first starting out on this, many times you will not have a complete mental picture and people think that there's something wrong with that, that that's bad and that they need that in order to move forward or in order to be a good leader. They think they need a 10-year vision.

There's a lot of talk out there, especially with EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) and their entire system, the main book Traction. Traction really touts this, that you need a 10-year vision, and in some cases longer out. But most people that I work with, and I would say in my experience, this shifts at about $3 million, $2.5-$3 million.

Typically the owner is able to see further out than just 3-5 years, but before then it can be tough. There are reasons for that, we don't even need to go into all of it today. We don't have to know why. Just to understand that can be true, and there isn't anything wrong with that.

The fact that you might have a shorter timeline vision when your business is younger or in the something under $2 million range, certainly under the $1 million dollar range, you can see forward. Of course there are things that you want, but you can't see forward 10 years very often until you get way further down the road as a business.

And here's what I want to say about thinking in the future. Because it really doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter if you are at $250,000/year, or if you are at $5 million/year, you do have to know exactly the vision that you are working towards creating.

I think my favorite book on vision was written by Cameron Herold, and it was called Vivid Vision. And this is something I think about a lot as I work with clients. This year, I'm digging in even more, into that book, to really create some good facilitation around what that book offers, because it's simple. If you haven't read that book, it's a very short book. It's an easy read and it keeps your attention.

It's a great book, it provides examples, and just makes it easy on you to see, no, you do have a vision. Even if you feel like you have trouble articulating it, you do have it. And it guides you through being able to articulate it well. So you have to have that vision.

And now, the second part is, you have to think from the future. From when that vision is created. From that reality. That future reality that you're creating, you have to think from that place when you make decisions day to day to day to day. Because if the decisions you're making are not a vote, so to speak, for that future vision that you articulated, then it's not worth doing.

But people forget to check against the vision when they're making decisions day to day, because they tend to have default thinking that's very stuck with what's in front of them. It's like playing the short game versus playing the long game. We talked a lot about that on the podcast before. But this is another way to think about it.

So you have a vision of being out of the legal work, except for being plugged in in the ways that you want to, but you are not relied upon as the sole generator for the firm when it comes to income. You are not the main person that is keeping this firm alive because of the legal work that you do.

Let's say you have that vision, and you also have an income or a revenue number for the business that matters to you for some reason. And it might matter to you because you just want to hit that number. Or for some reason, there is just this deep desire to prove to yourself that it's possible for you.

Or sometimes you've actually figured out, “Well, that is what the business would need to generate in order to have this amount of profit and still be really balanced, in terms of the people and what I'm paying people to do the work and overhead. And so if that's the profit that I want, and I want a reasonable amount being spent on people and overhead, then the business has to be doing X amount of dollars at top line revenue.” So that might be why you're choosing a number.

There are a bunch of reasons in between, it doesn't matter why. But having a number that you're shooting for does help you reverse engineer. And when you have a number, and you can reverse engineer, and you have conditions… meaning, “I don't want to be the main producer.” That's a condition. “And I want the profit margin to be X percent.” That could be another condition that you might say.

You have these conditions, and then you can reverse engineer so much better to figure out how to line yourself up with the goal, the number and the conditions that surround it.

And here's my experience. We help people do that. We get them clear about the future that they're creating. And what can happen when they go away from us… Until we talk again, which isn't very long after a retreat, when we would actually talk to the client again… what happens is they are excited about the vision that gets mapped.

They see, when they reverse engineer, what it means for the near term that they need to do in order to line themselves up with ultimately what they want. They have a lot of clarity around that. They know what they need to tighten up. They know the systems that are going to need to be created in order for them to even have a shot at creating this vision.

They know the people that they need to have in place. And it's not just based on hunches. It's really… we've thought through it. We've done the math. We’ve figured out what this means. And so they have this mental picture and they are totally bought in.

I mean, this is what they're wanting for themselves. It is this future that they are trying to create. It's the vision. And everyone's is different. Everyone's is unique. It may have similar flavors, but each is unique.

After the retreat, people go back into the day-to-day lives and their default thinking tends to take over. Many clients and members actually prevent this, they override this, because they do such a good job actually keeping top of mind the things that are true. They need to remember and they need to stay focused on in order to stay on track for that future vision.

But some don't do as great at that, and they get home and let their old ways of thinking take over. And when I say “old ways of thinking,” that's not crappy thinking, although it can be. What more I mean is that they allow the day-to-day to become brighter in terms of focus, instead of the vision being the brightest.

What's in front of them becomes so bright and grabs all of their attention, which really shifts their attention and their focus away from what it is they're working towards. And that causes decisions to be made from the wrong place, because it's playing the short game. It's dealing with what's in front of you rather than lining yourself up, making decisions to line yourself up, or holding off on making a decision because it doesn't line up, right?

Either way, everything is put through a filter for the vision. But when you are caught in the day-to-day, and that's where your focus is and you're stuck there, then you make decisions that don't align with where you want to go.

Because, listen, if all of us really understood what it took to create where it is that we really want to go, then we would all already have it. We would have done what it takes to have gotten that set of results. But the results that you're going for you haven't done before. So it's new. It's new territory.

And despite what the world might tell you, there isn't a blueprint for getting there. This is your journey. And as you're on your journey, you start to figure out and learn the behaviors and the way of thinking and the way of operating that produce the outcomes that you are ultimately seeking.

It is one thing to intellectually understand what it's going to take to get there. It's another thing to actually execute on it and stay with it and hold it, because you are used to operating in one way that has gotten you to this set of results that you currently have. This is where that saying comes in, “What got you here will not get you there.”

You have to think from the future. You have to make decisions from that future that you are working to create. You have to put yourself there. You have to think through what it's going to be like there.

And if the decisions that you need to make today don't line up... I guess “don't line up” is one way to say it, but I think a better way to provide a better, clearer mental picture is, are not in alignment with… even though I know that's kind of like saying the same thing… if the decisions you're making today are not in alignment with the future you are creating, you will stagnate.

You will prevent, or you will create a lot of friction, unnecessary friction, on the way to the future you're creating. It may prevent you from creating the future you want to create. So when I say you have to think from your future, yes, you have to know what your future is, but not perfectly. You just have to have a really clear mental picture of how you know you'll be successful.

What does that mean to you? What does success look like? Is it that you have an awesome team in place that really allows you to take a step back and not work 40 hours/week? Is it that, yeah, you do work 40 hours/week, but actually three days of it are on the business and there are a couple days in the business, you're giving to the cases or to the matters that you would really like to.

What does it look like? How much time do you spend mentoring? What kinds of things would you love to be doing for your team? What kinds of things would you love to be doing for your clients? What kind of margin and profit margin would feel really good, very healthy to this business?

Just getting clarity on that stuff and making sure that you feel permission to say what you want it to be like. Sometimes people stop themselves from doing this because they're unsure if it's possible. They aren't sure if the things that they are saying that they want, maybe that's just a pipe dream.

And I'm here to tell you, likely it's not. We have helped many, many, many, many, many people create future realities that have served them and they’ve have been able to do. They just had to plan it well enough.

And the only way you can plan it well enough, and of course you have to execute, is if you are clear and you have the guts to be clear about what it is that you say you want about the future state.

So this idea, I just want to start to plant the seed. I just want you to be very in tune with yourself on where maybe you could improve on this thinking from the future. It is very important. Even if you do have a clear vision, but you find that day to day you are reactive, you make decisions for the short term… and it feels responsible in the moment; you are just doing what you feel like you have to do.

It's more of a self-preservation way of operating in those moments, where you are just trying to do the best thing to get through that week in a way that will make sure that people's expectations aren't let down, and to make sure that the quality stays as high as it can in that week. And it's just all very short term, narrow term focused.

So this whole podcast is really just meant to bring an awareness for each of you. Where, maybe, do you need to do a better job day to day of thinking from your future? Because what I tend to see, and this is what I want to begin to address in a specific way on this podcast, is that people do not make decisions. And there are different reasons for this.

This is what, I think, I want to go into next time. They do not make decisions for their future. They make decisions for today. And you have to think from the future. You have to put yourself there, and allow your decisions that you're making from there. Help bridge the gap between where you are and where you say you want to be.

That's easy when we're in a retreat and you're being facilitated and we are helping define some of this future thinking stuff. And yet, even with that, sometimes you'll go back and fear will take over. Doubt will take over. A sense of lack or a sense of security will take over, and it tends to drive the bus. That's default thinking, and everybody's kind of got their own game with that, right? Everybody's got their own default thinking that doesn't serve us and where you really want to go.

And also, it's default behaviors. What happens between your ears comes first, and then behavior actually comes second. It's the behaviors. So if default thinking is a little too esoteric for you to wrap your head around, or you don't feel like you have a solid grasp on what you are thinking, you don't really know the quality of your thoughts, but you do know that the quality of your actions and the behaviors are not in alignment with the future that you are working to create, then it's worth a look.

And so either way, the way that you think, the way that you feel, and the actions that you take are the behaviors that you exhibit, those are the three things that… it's very important that those are in alignment with the future that you are creating, with the vision that you are creating.

And if they don't, there's no upside to having judgment about any of that. But there is a ton of upside into having an awareness of it and just recognizing where default is taking over. Where you're still constantly running late. Where you're still constantly procrastinating. Where you are still consistently putting other people before you. Where you are still consistently doing the urgent work, and the important gets put on the back burner.

Those are behaviors that end up happening, and it's all default stuff. And the way to get yourself out of default is to put yourself in situations where you can actually create and articulate this future, this vision that you want to create.

And then to work backwards to figure out, how do I need to show up? What needs to be different? What needs to change about the way I'm showing up? About the way the people in my firm show up? About the kinds of cases I take? All of it. What needs to change?

Then honoring those shifts, and honoring those changes, in a way that is in alignment with where you want to go. And we can get more granular and more focused on what does that need to look like specifically, day to day, and we can be helpful with that.

A lot of people listen to this podcast love James Clear. That's where his stuff comes in. When I was at ClioCon, I got to hear him speak, and I could not help but think of our clients and members, that the topic that he digs so deep on and so brilliantly lays out in his book Atomic Habits, that is this part. It's overriding the default thinking. He has a lot of great things to say.

And we try to be helpful to the people in our world, to make sure that they are aware of that, and that they are plugging in in a way that is in alignment. And this, again, feels really important to say all the time. This is about progress, not perfection.

One thing that I heard James Clear say, when it comes to the actual execution part, one thing I heard him say that was great was never miss twice. I didn't remember that from the book. But never miss twice. You may miss a day that you said you’d do something and you didn't. Okay, that's fine, but never miss twice. That way you keep going, and you experience progress without having this sense of perfection.

I mean, how many of us have missed a day doing something we really wanted to have as a habit, or as part of just who we are and what we do, and we miss a day and then we just stop? Yeah, you never miss twice. I like that. It's a different way to say ‘progress, not perfection.’

Another important point with this, that I maybe should have said earlier but I'm going to say it now, this vision… So your job as an owner is to have a vision and move towards it, get in alignment with that vision, and you have to believe harder in that vision than anyone else. If you don't buy into it fully, no one around you is going to either.

But here's what I want to say. You have to have data. You have to have data. You have to trust and have done the work to see how this vision can unfold, and how far away you are currently from the vision. And while the conditions are easy… Without data, the conditions oftentimes, that you want to have when you reach this pin in the map or this milestone, are easier to do without data.

For example, you want more freedoms. You want more space. You want to be able to come in and work a few days a week and not have to work as much as you're working now. You want to work on the things you want to work on. There's some clarity about that being a condition for you whenever you hit X million dollars a year, or a certain amount of profit margin, etc.

But if you do not have data now, for where you are currently with revenue and what contributed to that, what practice areas, what case types were really meaningful in getting to that number… So what does that look like?... And you don't know anything about how many cases you're opening a month. You don't know anything about how many cases you're closing a month… depending on the firm. It can be important.

If you don't have some of this data, if you have no idea what your conversion rate is or how many leads you tend to get a month… This is all just very basic data that I'm sharing with you that everyone should understand about their business...

And if you don't understand these numbers, if you don't have the data, then it's impossible to really think through what it's going to take to get to your vision. Because you need to know the difference between here and there, and you cannot do that without data.

So a lot of the things that I'm saying about vision, everything I've said is true. But the other thing I want to say, is how important the data is. Because if you don't have that, all of this is just pie in the sky. We’re just making our way towards… and not that you can't have improvements. Not that it'll all be bad. But you are not going on facts. You're going on feelings and hunches, and that's it.

And feelings are a part of this journey. You want to feel a certain way in your business. But if you do not have data, you are totally sabotaging everything. So move towards the vision with data.

OK, so let's recap a bit on some of the most important points that I may or may not have said exactly like this. But these are the gist of what I really want you to understand. Your job is to have a vision and move towards it. Align yourself with it. Align your firm with that future state and work towards it.

The decisions made today should be based on the vision to make the future. The decisions made today should be in alignment with that future that you envision.

And oftentimes, what prevents this from going well is your mental framework. It's a mindset that is not going to get you there because there is lack of belief in your vision. There's lack of commitment in your vision. There's fear of your vision. There's fear of what it will take to get to your vision. There is a lack of security. You can't get out of, where's the next dollar going to come from? Even though it always comes. It always comes.

So it's a mental framework. What you need is a mental framework that's based on trust. That the decisions that you make today will result in that future state. And it doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but that's how you line yourself up there.

And it takes guts to make those decisions today, to align yourself with that future state rather than stay in your own paradigm, down here where you are, your current state. If you get stuck in that paradigm, you make decisions for that paradigm. You don't get out of that paradigm. So you have to be capable of seeing the future.

It's a mental exercise that many people are not comfortable with because it requires them to come alive in a different way. It's a mental thing. And this is why you hire a coach. I have to say, I have learned over the years that facilitation is so important. I cannot even stress to you how important it is.

Because what people will do, and facilitation is focused on the numbers. There's a framework to move through to get information out of the owner's head and information on the table from certain key team members. And we look at exactly where we are now. There's a lot of data involved, and we look at where we're going.

There's a lot of projections involved, “And if this route… Or if this route,” and we start to narrow down, what feels the best here? What are we trying to create here? All of that is facilitation. Coaching is around mindset. It is the mental framework. It is the way that you are thinking. That coaching is what addresses that.

There are some people in my industry, and in other industries, that are great coaches but they lack facilitation abilities. So, yeah, they can coach you on mindset, but there's nothing real concrete and deliberate and well thought through to have a good mindset for.

A lot of times there are coaches out there that work on mindset, but for something pretty fuzzy and for general improvements. And if you're in Velocity Work that's just not. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in helping you articulate and get clear. That is facilitation.

Sometimes, depending on the nature of the relationship with us, if you're a private client, that's heavy lifting on our part. We get the data. We work on this to figure that stuff out. And we articulate that back to you, about the current state, so that then we can help you build the future that we have pulled out of your brain that you say that you want. We can help you get from A to B or Z. We can help you bridge that gap.

And then, once we have all that mapped, it's mapped, then the coaching comes in. That's where the mindset stuff has to come in. That's where I have to really work with people and watch people, and listen for people's signs and signals that they are not day to day in alignment with the thing that we all talked about. Like, “This is where we're going.”

So coaching is very important for mindset. But if you're anything like me, you're really not interested in wasting time or being inefficient. And coaching for the sake of coaching, in my relationship with law firm owners, this isn't true. There are different chapters of life that require different things.

But in my relationship with law firm owners, coaching is effective and worth it when you have something very specific that you were going to go do. Whether you want to be a $2 million firm or a $5 million firm or something more... And if that's too high, put a number in. Where do you want to be? What would delight you, totally delight you, to be at in terms of a milestone?

And of course, there are certain conditions there. It's not at all costs, right? But let's just say $2 million. If you want to be a $2 million firm, do you believe that you are capable of being a $2 million firm? And let me just tell you, whatever number you have in your head, it is possible.

I guess I'm saying that to those of you who you're not sure if you can believe in it. You don't know if you have permission to believe in it. You don't know if it's asinine to believe in whatever it is you'd like to see. I'm telling you, it's not.

Have the courage to say what you want and believe in it. You have to believe in it. If you don't believe in it, no one else around you will either. You cannot fake that.

So again, going back to the $2 million example, do you believe you are a $2 million firm, if that's what you are shooting for? Do you believe that that's what you're on the path for? Every time I facilitate someone, every time we map this stuff out, I do believe it. And also, I have a ton of data. So I can see the path that we're on. So can every client that's sitting with me.

But I believe in the path because I don't have a reason not to. To me, there are facts, there's a vision, and it is our job to line up with it. It doesn't have to be any other way. I believe the path that we put ourselves on. I believe in the plans that we make. And I know if those plans are executed on that you will become the future state that you envisioned. That is how this works. This is how your dreams come true. And that is our job, is to facilitate that.

But if you don't believe it, if you're not mentally equipped to believe in the future, then that's where the coaching has to come in. And so I'm noticing where I need to give coaching, and that's why I wanted to do this episode. Are you mentally equipped to believe in the future that you want to create?

And if you're not sure, that's okay. This is all about self-awareness. This just means that you have a mental hump to get over. If you don't fully believe in it, with every cell of your being, you don't believe that that is what is being created, then it's not going to get created. That's not how this works.

People who get to create that for themselves are those who believed in it. And so this mindset, this mental framework is very important. You have to think from the future. And the only way you can think from the future is if you actually believe in that future.

The final thing I'll say today, that I will definitely reiterate on the next episode as well, is that the decisions you make today… I think it's easy for this to sound like, or for you to imagine, that if you just believe in the future that it's going to be frictionless on the way there. And here's what I need to make sure that we all are on the same page about, the journey there is not easy.

I know “easy” is subjective, so maybe some people would say it is and some people say it's not. But listen, I have been privy to that journey hundreds of times. It's not easy. There are going to be things that feel tough. There are going to be decisions that are hard. But you make them because they align with your vision.

And the reason they're hard is because you care about people. You have fear about doing X. They're real; real internal barriers to get over. They're hard. But no hard decisions align with where you are right now. Hard decisions line up with your vision for the future. Easy decisions typically line up with what's right in front of you. The big decisions that take guts, those are the ones that line up with where you want to go. They align with your future.

Then your mind is going to need help. It's going to need to catch up. It's going to need to stay the course. It's going to need to not be in default mode, right? You have to adjust to how the future can look. You have to adjust to that right now. You have to adjust to the vision that you have. You have to adjust right now towards it. You have to be attuned towards it.

You do not get to a future that's better without pulling that future into your mental framework. I hope this makes sense. You don't get a future, the one that you want, you don't get that vision without pulling that vision into your mental framework right now.

You do not get to experience that future that you want without making decisions from that future, and for that future, aligned for that future, right now. Not just big decisions, big and small decisions.

And the ability to do this, it's like an optimistic reality that you choose to live in. It's a belief, it's a vision; it's very mental. It's very paradigm-y. It's like, what paradigm are you living in, the one now or the one you're creating? You have to live into that.

I've mentioned this before, but there is an episode about if your self-image, or even the image that you have of your firm, matches where it is that you want to go. And this is sort of saying the same thing, but it's different.

I hope this gives you something to chew on. I know you don't necessarily have the perfect way to deal with this, but this is very personal. It's very specific. When I'm working with people, I definitely ask specific questions that make sense for their internal barriers and mental framework, what they're presenting with against their vision, which is unique.

So that's why this is such personal work, but work worth doing. Because if you really understand who you are, and what you are and how you think and how you operate right now, and you have a really solid awareness about that, and you're looking to the future and you understand what you want that to look like, both of those things that I just stated are very unique to each law firm owner.

And if you don't know both of those, then it's very hard to ask the right questions. It's very hard to have the kind of inquiry that will produce a better mental framework. And so this is where coaching comes in. If you know both, then you get to really work with it.

If there's a lack of clarity on one end or the other, or a lack of awareness on one end or the other, there's not much to work with other than general positivity, general coaching towards having a better mindset. And there isn't anything wrong with that.

But if you're listening to this podcast, you could have a vision for the future. You can paint that. You can decide that. You can get a little more educated on the current state right now. Not just generally, but for real, the current state, and then fill in the gaps.

So this is all just good food for thought. Some of you listening to this will see on one end of the other, point A to point B. Meaning your current state. Is there room for education and learning about what that looks like for you, in black and white, facts, not feelings.

And then, maybe, some of you listening, there's room for, in the future, getting clear about what it is that you want, and specificity around that. So no matter where you are, there's something to be taken away from this.

And I would just, whatever is top of mind, the one thing, one nugget from this episode, just run with that. Just think about that. Focus on that. Maybe journal on that a little bit. Maybe ponder it as you go for a walk or a run or a bike ride. But just noodle on it. Just start to open up about it. Start to get to know yourself around it. Start to get underneath whatever it is for you. But it's important.

So I think I said what I need to say on this episode. Next episode will be a follow up, and we'll dig into a few more things on that. It's fascinating... I'll say this as a note from me to you… about how I'm thinking about this episode as we sign off.

This episode feels more amorphous than I typically like. But the truth is, the only way to make this concrete and tangible is to work with someone on it. Everyone is so different. And I know I've said that on this episode, so I'm hoping it didn't come across too amorphous for you. And that's why I'm telling you, grab the nugget. Don't let this be amorphous.

Don't let this be too vague. Grab the nugget, the sentence, the point, the thought that it spurred for you at some point in this episode, and just throw the rest out the window, because this topic is so important.

I will give an example on next week's episode. I’ll lay it out for you, and how this has shown up for people, and what it's done, and how it's sabotaged. On the flip side, once they kind of get over that, how it's let them really fly. But you can't ignore this, so that's why I'm doing an episode on it.

When I get to work really closely with people, I get to do this work. And it's hard to do this work and talk about this side of things to the masses, to the general listenership. But it feels like a bit of a duty to address the thing that gets addressed in my work with people so that you all can start to have an increased awareness about a typically inevitable phenomenon that happens.

And you're probably not a special snowflake. You probably have some version of this for you. What is it?

All right, guys, have a wonderful week. I'll see you here next Tuesday.

Hey, you may not know this, but there's a free guide for a process I teach called Monday Map/Friday Wrap. If you go to VelocityWork.com, it's all yours. It's about how to plan your time and honor your plans. So, that week over week, more work that moves the needle is getting done in less time. Go to VelocityWork.com to get your free copy.

Thank you for listening to The Law Firm Owner Podcast. If you're ready to get clearer on your vision, data, and mindset, then head over to VelocityWork.com where you can plug in to Quarterly Strategic Planning, with accountability and coaching in between. This is the work that creates Velocity.