2010 Planning Planning With Your Husband

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers 2010 Planning: Planning with Your Husband/Wife During December I have focused on planning for 2010 and shared ideas from lawyers I coach. Staci Riordan is a Fashion Law lawyer I coach with Fox Rothschild‘s Los Angeles office. In a future blog post I will share with you some of the innovative ways Staci is using social media. Here is Staci’s approach to planning for 2010. I printed out copies of my most recent business plan, which I did in August 2009 when we started working together. I also printed out copies of my first two sets of 90 day goals we did together. I was pleased to see that I have been regularly accomplishing my short-term goals, probably because I kept them small and manageable and am making progress towards my long term goals. The one item on my list I am most proud of accomplishing is launching my fashion law blog. I am spending a great deal of time on this so I realized I needed to revise my business plan to account for this new activity. While working on my plan at home later that week, my husband came into the room. A light bulb went off in my head. I asked him to sit down with me and review my plan for feedback and suggestions. Because my job is important to help support our family, I thought it was important to share my goals and dreams with him, and my plan for accomplishing them. It was also a great tool in helping him understand how I spend my time when I am not at home with the family. Planning together this way led to a wonderful discussion and has brought us closer. Also, we did his plan next (which is a first for his personal training business â€" see www.mytrainingtime.com). I proud to say that he is considering launching a blog too! So not only has making a plan helped my professional life, but it is working well for my home-life as well. I am always taking about what Cordell says and I think Chris feels like he knows him by now. We read many of the same books (Chris is reading Crush It! and I am reading Who’s Got Your Back) and discuss the parts we like best. It is a nice to be able to share this with your spouse, even when we work in two very different jobs. As I look towards 2010, I hope to continue to grow my practice through speaking engagements, branding, social media and old fashion networking as well as providing outstanding legal services for my clients. I am not a patient person so I constantly struggle with the rational concept that takes time to build a practice. I also tend to focus on the trees and forget to look up at the forest. At this time of year, it is nice to reflect on what you do, how you do it and who you do it with. I am thankful that I work at a job that I love and able to work with clients that I actually like. I am passionate about the fashion industry and am grateful my firm believed in me enough to encourage me and provide with the support needed to launch this unique practice area. I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.