Career Advice For Lawyers From LeBron James

Hate it or love it, it seems that NBA superstar LeBron James' decision yesterday to leave the Cavaliers and join the Miami Heat boils down to positioning himself to win NBA championships. He knows what he wants to achieve in his career and he knows he needs help to achieve his goal. He looked for teammates and an organization that he thinks will provide the best opportunity to succeed. He made a tough and controversial decision about his own career.

My theme here is not to encourage you to leave your place of employment. Rather, I encourage you to look at how you can best position yourself to get what you want in your career and then have the courage to take the actions to achieve your goals.

If you want to develop a specialty within your practice or firm, what do you have to do first (and then next and then after that), and whose support do you need?

If you want to work with more than just a handful of lawyers within your firm, what can you do about this and who can help you make it happen? If you have tried and failed, what can you do differently next time? How can you match your needs and interests with the firm's needs and interests?

If you want more referrals, how can you expand your network into more meaningful relationships? How can you first provide value to people who are in the best position to give you referrals? How can you make it easier for other people to think of you and remember what you do when they have an opportunity to make a referral?

If you want more clients, who is in your target market and how can you best position yourself in front of your target market? How can you let more potential clients know what legal services you offer? What can be your unique niche? How can you differentiate your legal services from other lawyers' services?

Instead of sitting in your office wishing your phone would ring, or attending numerous yet random and unproductive networking events, figure out what you want, make some decisions, and take action.

As a client of mine said the other day, you're not going to get a hit if you're not in the batter's box. And you won't even get near the plate if you're not in the game. Or, as some say in golf, never up never in.

So take charge of your own practice and career. Make decisions about what you want and start positioning yourself to get what you want.

Get in the game. Step into the batter's box. Give the putt a good roll. Circling back to basketball, be your own point guard. No one else will.

If you would like help figuring out what you want, making an effective plan and/or taking actions, let's set up some coaching. You'll be glad you did, especially since you still have six months left in the year to make this one your best.