The Formula to a Lasting Legacy and Business Success with Michael Smikun
Anyone can start a business or law firm. Creating success is the real challenge. But success means different things to different people. For some, it's nothing more than the bottom line. Others want to leave a lasting legacy of financial success, such as generational wealth, a stable business, or a contribution to the community — ultimately, you define your goal. However, reaching that goal can come down to a formula.
In this episode, Michael Smikun joins us to talk about creating success for the business side of your firm while continuously creating value and building a lasting legacy. He shares the formula he used to get financial, time, and impact freedom.
If you want to bring success and leave a lasting legacy through your business, then this episode is for you.
Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode
- Find out how to create value and leave a lasting legacy of success using your law firm.
- Discover how the Fit to Exit Formula can unlock business success for your firm.
- Learn how to build foundational and impactful relationships with your clients.
Resources
- Check out the new Profit with Law YouTube channel!
- Want to implement what you’ve learnt in this episode? Download the Action Guide, a workbook designed to help you process and implement the knowledge gained from this interview.
- Learn more about the Profit with Law Elite Coaching Program here.
- Connect with Michael: Email | LinkedIn
- Join Michael’s weekly Unblinded shared experience.
- Living Forward by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy
Episode Highlights
Michael’s Background
- Michael is the child of first-generation Ukrainian immigrants who came over in 1970. He was born in America, making him American.
- As a child, he had an ingrained need to not feel like a victim of circumstance.
- He took a BBA in Finance and Investments to become a broker. One of his professors encouraged him to become an attorney instead.
- Michael joined a law firm, but they let him go when the firm downsized. One of the partners referred him to Sean Callagy of Callagy Law.
- He worked with Sean in two ventures: The Unblinded Movement and Fit to Exit.
The Three Circles of the Law Firm Growth Formula
Moshe: “Even as attorneys, there’s only so much impact that we can have with the work that we’re doing in the law firm.”
- Moshe shares that he built his business to help people create a lasting legacy of generational wealth.
- He lists three circles in which there are three freedoms we want to achieve with law firm growth: time freedom, financial freedom, and impact freedom.
- Time and financial freedom push you to replace your job because you want more money while being free to do what you want.
- That is until you realize that something is missing — impact. Success lies in knowing the impact you create and how you can impact people better.
Michael Smikun’s Formula for a Successful, Lasting Legacy
- There are three pillars: self-mastery, process mastery, and influence mastery.
Michael: “In order to be an effective business developer, to grow and to create more profit, more money, more time freedom, and more impact, you need to be able to have a superpower. That superpower is influence.”
- There are two parts to using the pillars. You have to understand the concept and practice the formula's concepts in reality.
- Learn more about Michael’s formula for success by joining his weekly Unblinded shared experience.
Unlocking and Achieving Business Success for Your Law Firm
- Michael shares that the key is to unpack value and identify what value people see in you to achieve.
- Learn to ask questions that guide you to your next goal.
- He adds that there are four values that you must strive to add: identity, relationship capital, monetary capital, and team with unique skills.
Michael: “Learn how to discern what value people need instead of telling them or being so presumptuous and audacious to assume that they're just looking for your identity. [Be] able to ask for it and [understand] how to amplify all of those values inside of yourself so you can make yourself as productive as humanly possible and connect with people as much as possible. [This] is the super skill.”
A Lasting Legacy of Client Relationships
- Michael emphasizes that a powerful relationship begins by listening to your client’s challenges and connecting them to someone in your ecosystem.
Michael: “What does it really take from you to give a person the gift of listening and to help and to give them more parts of your value by connecting them with other individuals that could support them in other facets of your life? You do that enough times consistently then your growth is almost assured, and it's not linear, it's exponential.”
- Do outstanding work, and your clients will tell everybody about you.
- You'll realize that all you've done is give them more value than you asked in return for yourself.
- Remember, creating a lasting legacy of success does not happen overnight. You need staying power. Be consistent with your actions.
Michael’s Advice for Lawyers & Entrepreneurs
Michael: “If you don't have all of the money that you want, all of the time freedom that you desire, and you're not making the level of impact or having the magic and fulfillment that you have in your life, you need to consider the system [or] the formula that you are using to achieve success.”
- If you don't have an action plan or lasting legacy yet, Michael's formula is an excellent place to begin before innovating.
- The formula is portable and deployable in any aspect of your life.
- You can also reach out to Michael through his email at [email protected] or join his weekly Unblinded shared experience.
About Michael
Michael Smikun is the co-founder of Fit to Exit and a nationally-recognized litigation attorney who has achieved two top 100 national jury verdicts - the 1st largest jury verdict in Arizona in 2016 and the 4th largest jury verdict in New Jersey in 2014.
As a business and corporate lawyer, Michael strives to confront challenges, reveal unspoken objections, and bring certainty to his clients' deals. He attacks each case with immense care, unstoppable urgency, and ferocious aggression to fulfill Fit to Exit's mission of fundamentally changing the way people feel about lawyers — one client at a time.
Before Fit to Exit, Michael worked as a partner and litigation attorney for New Jersey-based Callagy Law for 13+ years, as well as Aromando Light & Croft and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Connect with Michael on LinkedIn or visit his website..
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Have any questions? You can contact me through Facebook and LinkedIn. To request a show topic, recommend a guest, or ask a question about the show, please send an email to [email protected].
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Author
Moshe Amsel
Author
Moshe Amsel the host of the Profit with Law podcast is not an attorney. As the owner of a successful accounting firm DreamBuilder Financial and Law Firm Growth coaching organization Profit with Law, Moshe has proven that there are better and different ways for a law firm to do business and be successful.
