Transcrit:

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Speakers: Joe Luckas, Matthew Jarvis, and Micah Shilanski

Joe Lukacs: 00:00 Yeah, the bottom line, just because somebody’s doing workshops doesn’t mean you should do workshops. Just because somebody has a podcast doesn’t mean you should have a podcast. Right? I’m asked this often. “Hey, Joe, what’s working out there for business development today?” And the answer’s everything. Absolutely everything.

Speaker 2: 00:15 Welcome to the Perfect RIA Podcast. The only show dedicated to helping you build a highly effective financial planning practice, that delivers both an amazing client experience, and an amazing lifestyle for you and your family. What you will hear today is not theory, but rather real world, tested in the trenches systems, that your hosts Micah Shilanski and Matthew Jarvis have developed in their own respective practices, which have been recognized as some of the best in our industry. Before we get started, a quick reminder from our attorneys. This podcast is intended only for a professional audience, and should not be considered as tax, legal, financial, investing, or even cooking advice. Past performance is not guarantee of future results and you alone are responsible for you.

Speaker 2: 01:18 And now, lean forward and let Micah and Matthew show you how to build the perfect RIA.

Matthew Jarvis: 01:28 Today’s guest on our podcast is Coach Joe Lukacs. Now Joe has been Micah’s coach for the better part of 15 years, and has actually been coaching advisors in our industry for decades, and yet despite his long history in the industry, I’m willing to bet that almost no one listening to this podcast has ever even heard of Joe before. And don’t let that dissuade you. In fact, I only discovered Joe a few months ago when Micah introduced him to me, and every time I talk to him he blows my mind, which is not a small feat. I’ve talked to a lot of coaches over the years. I’ve heard from a lot of industry experts, and Joe is always able to bring a new angle to the advisor space that I had not heard of before, and I’m certain that you will find it valuable.

Matthew Jarvis: 02:19 In this episode, as Joe always does, he turns on a literal, well not a literal, obviously it’s not a literal, figurative fire hose of amazing information, amazing advice, and guidance for advisors. Everything from how to not get bored by being an advisor. He talks why parading around top advisors at industry conferences is detrimental to our success, and he even goes as far to explain why he feels that financial planning is not a real job, and we should stop pretending that it is. So, with no further ado, please enjoy our discussion with coach Joe Lukacs.

Matthew Jarvis: 02:58 All right, welcome everybody to the Matt and Micah Perfect RIA Podcast. We are delighted to have Coach Joe Lukacs on the call with us today. For those of you who don’t know Joe, in fact, let’s even start out with this. Joe, there is a story in the Shilanski family lore about how you and Floyd started working together, and I’m really curious to hear your side of the story. Or, maybe you should tell you the story I’ve heard first.

Joe Lukacs: 03:22 I like that. Why don’t you start with your story, then I’ll let you know if it’s accurate or not, how’s that?

Matthew Jarvis: 03:26 You can fact check. Well, the way that I heard the story, and I am notorious for embellishing stories that have already been embellished on. The story that I heard is that somewhere you had posted something about or had spoken somewhere about the value of coaching, and Floyd, who of those of you that don’t know is Micah’s dad, and Floyd is a very successful planner and a great guy in his own right. Floyd, according to this story, had kind of called you out and said that was sort of all BS, and that most coaches were full of BS, and that must apply to you as well, and that you went back to Floyd and called him and said, “Hey listen, I’ll put my money where my mouth is and I’ll prove to you in person, this is really valuable.” Any legitimacy to that story there, Joe?

Joe Lukacs: 04:02 Yeah, I think, I mean that’s part of the story. But then the second part of the story was that he did not take me up on my offer, but mysteriously somebody in the office filled out an evaluation form, and so my office and his office scheduled a call between he and I, and it just so happens, he has a client named Lucas. Not my spelling, so next thing you know is, Joe Lucas is on the phone for him, he goes, “okay.” And so within, I think it took him about three minutes to figure out I’m not his client, I’m this coach person. And so he basically rips me a new one.

Matthew Jarvis: 04:38 On the phone. I agreed to call him.

Joe Lukacs: 04:42 Well, of course. We’ll I didn’t care. I’ll talk to anybody, I don’t care. So, it was interesting til this day, which is now 15 years later in round numbers, we still don’t know who actually filled that out. Nobody’s owned up to it. I think it was his wife, Micah’s mom, I think really was the one who did it, but so the back story on this, so to bring this thing full circle, he is not allowed, 15 years later, he is not allowed to fire me. Not allowed. The staff will not let him fire me, even if he wants to. Which he doesn’t by the way. We’re friends. But, yeah he was not exactly warm and fuzzy, the first few phone calls. Definitely more of a prove it kind of guy, which I’m fine with. I’ll put my strategies where my mouth is, if you will.

Joe Lukacs: 05:22 So totally cool with that, and then he referred me to his young son, who’s just believe it or not Micah, just starting out in the business.

Matthew Jarvis: 05:29 He was, yeah.

Joe Lukacs: 05:31 So here we are, you’re super successful, family, you know, adding value to the industry now. I mean, I’ve watched you do this over the last 15 years, which has been a big journey for me. So, but that’s the story, Matt.

Matthew Jarvis: 05:44 Wow. That’s a fun story, and you’ve gotta be really careful in this podcast of flattering Micah. We all know where that can go, so.

Joe Lukacs: 05:51 Yeah. I know, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll check and balance him. Don’t worry about it.

Micah Shilanski: 05:55 My ego is growing by the minute. What can I say?

Matthew Jarvis: 05:58 What can we say, what can we say. We’ll, Joe, maybe we can start with that then so … and so maybe this is a really big topic to jump into, but could you contrast kind of, you go to someone, an advisor like Floyd who has been in the business a long time, who’s very experienced, very successful, and so you’re coaching him, almost begrudgingly at first from his end. And then at the same time, you’re coaching Micah, who at that time was very young in the industry. Micah’s told us those stories about just working endless hours and not making any money. Those seem like real opposite end of the spectrum, right? It seems in my mind, having not been a coach, that it would be easier to coach successful advisors who are already making a lot of money versus inexperienced ones, but you’re covering the whole gambit there.

Joe Lukacs: 06:37 I get bored easily and I like challenges, I guess that is probably the best way to say it. Yeah, I mean look, I think there’s two coaching philosophies. One of them is process oriented which is I am the coach, this is what I’m really good at, this is my Kool-Aid if you will, and for the next 15-20 years I’m gonna keep it in the box, and because you know why? It’s easy to do, I’ve done it, so on and so forth.

Joe Lukacs: 06:58 I’m the second type of coach, which is more of a personality driven coach, where I’m always saying, “Okay, what’s next? What have we got?” So I’m constantly reinventing myself, constantly looking at what’s down the road, and I, quite frankly, I like a little change here and there. So, if you ever come, and I think, Matt, you’re actually gonna join us this year for business planning, you shall see. You will see a gambit of different practice models, and definitely a gambit of personalities, right?

Joe Lukacs: 07:28 The reason why I’m able to get along with everyone and be effective, is it’s never about me, it’s always about the client. I’m able to get where they’re at, understand how they’re wired, and then be effective with them, where I think a lot of coaches today, especially the practice management people and there’s nothing wrong with them, they’re necessary, they add a lot of value, but without the practice management, without the me management, you don’t have a complete coaching model. That’s the difference.

Matthew Jarvis: 07:54 Yeah, no that’s really true. Micah feel free to jump in here, but Joe, I wanted to ask you, two phrases that you just said that really stood out to me. First one is that you get bored easily. And I know that’s something you and I’ve talked about, when we had a Mastermind call at one point. But tell me about that. You say, “I get bored easily,” and yet you’ve been doing coaching for a long time, and I think this really applies to advisors, right? Those of us that have really refined practices. They become very easy, right? It’s just pull the level and it keeps going. How do you handle that? How do we reconcile that, “I’m bored easily yet I’ve been doing the same thing for a long time?”

Joe Lukacs: 08:27 Great question, so first of all, I think being bored and being in that comfort zone is very dangerous, and here’s why. I think once you’re there, it’s easy to say I’d like to versus I must. And what happens is, if you think about it, we as human beings are happiest when we’re in what we call expansion mode. We’re taking on new challenges. We’re trying to help more people, we’re trying to reach people. We have our own goals. Where we have a quest, in other words. The day you wake up you think you’ve got this thing figured out, is the first day of your decline. So for me, it’s always about not just challenging myself, but challenging my clients, right? To keep moving things forward. And for a lot of times, it’s not about making more money, although that’s a byproduct of it. It’s how do you have more impact? How do you live that ideal lifestyle? How do you contribute at the highest levels? How do you make this about more than just yourself? Right? Expansion mode, right? Doing things like that.

Joe Lukacs: 09:23 Because I think if you don’t have that, in this industry you get bored real easily. And quite frankly, Matt, the other thing is, probably the only reason why I keep all these different personalities around me? I never have boring calls, because I can have somebody like Micah, then I can talk to his dad, which are two very different people. Even though they share the same DNA pool, they’re different. Different approaches, different styles. So, I like it that way. But I think for advisors, you know you always have to have what’s next, and if it’s not about money, then find something that’s gonna make it about your next. Whether it’s a charitable thing you wanna do. A big bucket list item you wanna go accomplish. Whatever it is that’s gonna get you up in the morning, excited about the day. That’s what you need. Period.

Micah Shilanski: 10:05 Joe, question as you go through this and I think that what next thing is huge, and one of the things that I’ve talked to other advisors and I know I’ve seen a little bit in my practice is that, you get to a point where you’re just playing catch up, especially when you’re first started out. You’re trying to build, you’re trying to grow, you’re spending so many hours on something, and it’s more of a monetary driven and with impact. And then you get to a point that you add it up on the monetary side, but you haven’t thought enough ahead to that next level of what’s next, and so now you kind of flounder just a little bit with your practice or with your production because of that. Because you haven’t set that what’s next goal. So, how do advisors always look beyond just what they’re doing now? What are some things they could be doing to always seeing what’s next, so they’re always pushing themselves to a higher level?

Joe Lukacs: 10:54 Great question. So I think first off, let’s back track for about 30 seconds and talk about the three stages of an advisor. So, we have what we’ll call a scarcity startup, which Micah what you just described, which is hey, just doing what you gotta do to kind of keep food on the table and keep the lights on. And then with the goal being you hit an economic number, and then you’re in what we call, now we’re sustainable and we’re abundant, right? And that’s the comfort zone, that’s the middle area, right?

Joe Lukacs: 11:21 And so inside that middle area, and some people, and there’s no timeline. It could be five years, ten years whatever it is. Unfortunately for some people, it’s never. You get to the point where you’re sustainable comfortable, and then you’ve gotta have that what’s next question. That pivot point is what I like to call it. And a lot of times, if you make the pivot point about yourself, “Well, I’m gonna go get a second house.” Or, “I’m gonna have three cars.” Or, “I’m gonna go get the jet,” or whatever it is, you know most people, there’s a part of our subconscious that makes it sound selfish. And we go, “oh you know, it can’t be all about me.” We get subconsciously uncomfortable with it and either, A, we sabotage it, or B, we don’t really click in. It doesn’t really happen and we stay in this kind of zone.

Joe Lukacs: 12:03 So the pivot point, and this is a third zone, is what we call prosperity. Prosperity is about others. A legacy. About something bigger than yourself. So you gotta define what that is. Like literally, I released for my clients, I released a 20 minute piece yesterday and I had three or four emails in my inbox this morning, saying, “How do I reach 5,000 investors? How do I reach 10,000 investors?” Now, I’ve got a different conversation with these clients. It’s not about just making more money. It’s about how to impact. So I think, Micah, what it really boils down to, is when you’re in the zone, say okay.

Joe Lukacs: 12:38 What is it, we call it the rocking chair, right? And you sit back, and Micah, you and I have talked about this. I remember one day in Florida, in Orlando, we talked about this. what you don’t ever wanna do, is sit back, however old you are, and look back at your life and say, “You know what? I wish I had of done that. I wish I would have went for that.”

Micah Shilanski: 12:55 Wish I would’ve, should’ve club.

Joe Lukacs: 12:58 That’s right. Yeah. So to me it’s really about I’d rather go try something and fail, and if it means failing spectacularly, nobody’s going to die in the making of this, right? So, I’d rather go for it and then yeah, let’s see what happens. So I think it’s really about when you get to the comfort zone, when you get into the abundance sustainable zone, you gotta ask yourself a different set of questions. Because, for the first five or ten years, the questions are, how much money do I need to pay the bills?

Joe Lukacs: 13:26 And we’ve all experienced this, right? “Man, if I can just make a hundred thousand dollars a year, my life is good.” Well, the you realize it’s 200,000. And you realize maybe it’s 300,000, right? You’re always chasing something. Well, eventually you catch it. Now you gotta figure out, what you wanna chase next. And I think a lot of advisors have a real big challenge with that. Because it’s not something that you were taught to do. Whether it was in school, or growing up in this industry. It’s just something that most people don’t think about.

Micah Shilanski: 13:53 Well, that shiny gold object that’s always out there is always the dollar sign, right? It’s always someone saying, “Well once you hit this production level, once you do this much assets, that you have all the benchmarks that are out there,” and I know, Matt we’ve talked about this before. All the shiny things that are out there are all monetary driven. And it’s not really what you’re talking about, Joe. You’re talking about impacting people’s lives. You’re talking about adding massive value to so many people out there, and we don’t have a focus on that really as an industry, as that shiny object everyone’s trying to go towards.

Joe Lukacs: 14:26 Well, and the reason why I believe is because when you’re baby advisors, or baby planners, or baby brokers, whatever you want on there, you’re conditioned in this industry to focus on 30 day increments. Production months, and you can, and so from day one in the business, you’re conditioned to measure certain things, to do certain things a certain way, and unfortunately, there are guys and gals in our industry who’ll spend a 20, 30, 40 year career hovering between scarcity and abundance. They never make, they get in abundance, they think they got it figured out. They fall back into scarcity, and it’s rinse and repeat for a 20, 30, 40 year career. And in my mind, they had a nice job, they had a nice run, but it could have been so much more, and that’s sad. You know that’s unfortunate in my mind from that perspective.

Micah Shilanski: 15:16 Yeah, it is.

Joe Lukacs: 15:16 But we’re not gonna, remember this industry, why do people get in this industry? Couple reasons. They wanna help people, they like financial planning, they like stock markets, they like investments. They like portfolio management, they like money, it’s all good, right? Hopefully, a certain piece of them like you two guys have figured this out. Okay, this is a vehicle. I can draw off a lot of revenue, I can draw off a lot of capital. I can get to my … This is the only profession I’m aware of in the entire world, where you can have time, freedom, and economic abundance. The only one. Show me another one, we can have that conversation. It doesn’t exist. But, all it is, is an opportunity.

Joe Lukacs: 15:54 If you don’t seize that opportunity by thinking differently and shifting your thoughts, so a lot of what I do and I’ll use the term, probably doesn’t blow people out of the water, is deprogramming what happened the first 10 years of somebody’s career. Which is make enough money, keep the lights on, get the kids in school, kind of be in that sustainable kind of mode, if you will. But then you get bored. And that’s why you see a lot of guys, will mess with their businesses. They’ll go off and do dumb stuff, like start a second business or going through real estate, and all this stuff because they get bored. They need a new challenge. And my advice has always been, this business if done properly, should be kind of boring. Kind of the same thing over and over again. So, you want thrills? Go do a bucket list, go skydive, right? Do whatever. Go run with the bulls, whatever you need to do to kind of meet your needs for excitement, go do it. The business is not the place to go play with it.

Matthew Jarvis: 16:47 Interesting. I think it’s an interesting distinction there, Joe, but I love these stages of scarcity, abundance, and prosperity. And I agree with you, a lot of advisors, and I know I’ve been guilty of that myself, say when I’m kind of bored, let me kind of tinker with this. Let me almost throw a rock into the gears, just to see what happens. Seems like there’s a real difference between chasing and shiny object and really kind of having a meaningful search for prosperity. This bigger than me that you spoke of.

Joe Lukacs: 17:10 Correct, man, I mean and look, you know here’s the good news, bad news. The good news is, there are a lot of people that are willing to give you shiny objects, right? There’s different consultants, gurus, and stuff like that out there. Different vendors. And then so that’s kind of, and the bad news is you gotta be careful. To your point. I think guys wanna throw rocks in the gear, because they wanna go fix something. They’re bored and they need something to do. And part of my job, especially most of my clients are tenured for many, many years is to say, “Hey, we don’t need to do that.” Or, “Why are you doing that? Why do you even wanna consider doing that? We don’t need that.” You know, especially on the marketing side. I think a lot of guys get seduced into, “I need the latest and greatest shiny object,” and there’s a lot of cuckolded business partners out there who are happy to provide those shiny objects for you, right?

Joe Lukacs: 17:55 And I think the key thing is to realize sometimes less is more, it’s about focus, and doing too many things average will always be worse than if you do a couple things with greatness. I’m always about a couple things with greatness, than the mean, mediocre and the five, ten different things, quite frankly.

Matthew Jarvis: 18:15 Well, Joe to shift gears just a little bit to something else that you said, you early on in this call said that, “It’s never about me, it’s always about the client.” And I was hoping you could elaborate on that a little bit, both as a coach but also as an advisor, right? It’s something that Micah and I talk about a lot, is how do we deliver massive value to the clients? We say, hey that’s the key number one fundamental of everything, delivering massive value. So, talk to us a little bit more that. It’s never about me, it’s always about the client.

Joe Lukacs: 18:38 Correct. So I almost kind of had that conversation, so first off, look, everybody in this industry, if you’re successful, has somewhat of an ego. Otherwise, you couldn’t survive in this industry. Because this is a failure based business. So if you don’t have that armor on, you will get killed. So, that’s number one. However, there also has to be in the mindset, which is, “I’m here to serve.” Now serve doesn’t mean that a lot of people take advantage of you, and you know that you’re an employee of a client, or anything like that, but just understand that this is not about you. It’s like the doctor/patient, right? Doctors can have big egos, but if they have a great bedside manner and they’re highly competent, they’re Rockstar doctors. That’s kind of the whole build there.

Joe Lukacs: 19:20 So, same thing here. We need to have egos so we can handle things and be decisive, but yet when it comes to the client, we gotta have that nurturing, caring, all about the client, which is not false by the way. You have to have that, right? Otherwise it shows up. Trust me, people recognize that. So I think that’s the first thing. And as far as I’m concerned, you know look, I come on, I’m a little bit different. I’ve been in this for 25 years. I am probably the most experienced coach you’ll ever find and the reason why I say that is there are people that have been at this as long as I have, but then they’ve gone on to write books, and they speak at conferences, and they do the dog and pony shows and stuff like that. And that’s cool, look, there’s nothing wrong with that. I never found that’s something I enjoy. I like having deep, meaningful relationships. I like helping people.

Joe Lukacs: 20:07 My fatal flaw, if they’re is one, is I care too damn much about my client’s success. And that’s what drives me every day. It is what Micah’s doing. It drives me every day. What Floyd does every day, that’s what drives me. Not that I live vicariously through them, but I’ve never looked at a client and said, “Well, I’m gonna provide you with service.” Or, you’re a client, “I’m gonna provide you a service, you’re gonna pay me, and hope it works.” I care about all my … if I don’t care about you, you’re not a client. And I think that’s the approach I want my clients to take on with their clients, that you care about your people, that you, excuse my language, that you give a shit about them. And you care deeply, because at the end of the day like you guys, I am in the relationship business. That’s the biz we’re all in. And so in the relationship business, what is the currency that we have? The only currency that matters. Client good will. That is it.

Joe Lukacs: 21:02 Micah, you don’t have a lifetime agreement to work with your clients. Matt, you don’t have a lifetime agreement to work with your clients. I don’t have a lifetime agreement to work with my clients. We all trade in the currency of relationship of client good will. And when you wake up in the morning understanding that, your approach of things are different. You look at things long term. You know, it’s not, “How do I get a client?” But, “How do I keep them? How do I keep a client for life?” My philosophy is clients for life. That’s ultimately what I want. It’s different I think than a lot of other coaches who wanna sell their coaching programs, or wanna see how much money they can get, or it’s all about them, and I’m not gonna get into names. But I’m sure if you interview Micah’s dad, he’ll throw names around because he doesn’t care. That’s cool. But Micah’s dad’s worked with pretty much every major coach in this industry, and I’m still his coach 15 years later. I think that says something.

Matthew Jarvis: 21:52 Yeah, it really does. In fact, I wanna tie together two pieces you said earlier, and you said this now about this care too damn much. That you only work with clients that you really care about, and I’m trying to kind of search through my memory banks here, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard that said in the industry as far as a qualification for a client. Some will go as far to say, “Well, you know you’ve gotta have mutual respect for your clients,” but I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say, “Hey, you should only work with people for whom you care too damn much.” Or even without the colorful language.

Joe Lukacs: 22:18 Right. Right.

Matthew Jarvis: 22:19 Talk about the reprogramming, right? Kind of the core is, it’s gotta be profitable, they’ve gotta pay a certain fee, you know, maybe it’s nice if you respect each other but that’s kind of the end of it in most industry discussions.

Joe Lukacs: 22:29 Yeah. Likable, profitable, coachable. I always say likable first. Because if I don’t like you, how can I care about you? If I don’t feel connected with you, then I can’t work with you. And look, and I think my role’s not very different than the advisor role. And look, we’ve all done this starting out in our careers, and I was no different. If they’re walking, talking, and they can pay a couple bucks, they’re clients. Way it works, right? And that’s the rite of passage I think everybody has to go through. But then at some point, you’ve gotta get to that point, maybe it’s that kind of abundance, sustainable area where you’re thinking, “Who do I really like?” And in my test to myself and you also tell my clients, “Look, if you got someone in your schedule and you hope that they cancel, that’s a clue.” Right? If you’re gonna go meet with somebody and like “Grr.” You got that going on in your stomach, hey that’s a clue. Maybe you shouldn’t have them as a client.

Joe Lukacs: 23:19 Life is too short, and the only reason why so many holds onto a relationship like that, is because they’re in scarcity mode. They’re like, “Oh man, I can’t lose this person. I can’t lose that revenue.” And if you live your life that way, you run your business that way, you’re not gonna have a very good business. Because you’re always gonna be concerned over the next client. That’s not an abundant psychology.

Matthew Jarvis: 23:42 Yeah, boy that’s really the truth. In fact, I’ll take that just a little bit further. I would say, boy if your team is, and Micah and I talk a lot about teams on our podcast, but if your team has any kind of that kind of feeling or that resentment towards a client, that’s a good indication you’ve gotta separate with that person as well. We had a client a few years ago that, I didn’t mind this gal, but my team just really dreaded this gal coming in. And so I said, “Great, this gal’s making $15,000 in revenue for the firm, but if it’s that impactful for the team, then it’s just not a good fit anymore.” So I’m completely with you there, Joe. You’ve gotta have, if you’re dreading that person coming in, whatever money they’re paying you is not worth it.

Joe Lukacs: 24:16 Correct. And literally this Thursday, I had a call with one of my clients up in Canada, and he was telling me, “Look, we just parted company with a five-million-dollar client, which is you know, probably about 30, 25, 30 thousand dollars. And I said, “Tony, why’d you part with them?” And he goes, “Because they call once a week to complain, they treat my team with disrespect.” Blah, blah, blah. And, “You know what? I’ve gotta have my teams back.” So we graduated them. So, I’m with you, Matt. Totally great. You cannot let your clients, gonna use the word client, abuse your staff. You cannot do that. It’s not good in any kind of scenario.

Matthew Jarvis: 24:54 Yep, that’s really powerful. I really agree with that. Let’s, I’m gonna jump around a little bit more here. So, we talked about advisors, or you talked about advisors kind of getting stuck in that abundance stage, where they get comfortable, where they’d escaped from scarcity. What are some of the other traps that advisors fall into at kind of different stages in their careers?

Joe Lukacs: 25:13 You know, I think, and no again, just filming around here, yeah I think kind of monkey see, monkey do. Just because somebody else is doing something doesn’t mean you should be doing it. Right? And that pretty much falls into the marketing side, probably the most popular. Yeah, the bottom line, just because somebody’s doing workshops doesn’t mean you should do workshops. Just because somebody has a podcast doesn’t mean you should have a podcast. Right? I’m asked this often. “Hey, Joe, what’s working out there for business development today?” And the answer’s everything. Absolutely everything. Because I’ve got clients that, I’ve got clients that sell cold calling teams, right? Who call companies for rollovers. I’ve got people that cold calls, I’ve got seminars, I’ve got centers of influence, direct mail, Facebook ads, the whole gambit, right? So that’s never a good question. The question is, what should you be doing? What should you be in?

Joe Lukacs: 25:59 So, I think the first thing is, number one, just because you see someone else doing it, doesn’t mean that matters. Number two, this industry has done itself a very large disservice by the following. We as an industry, we’ve always looked at this as, you know we pray. I don’t care whatever conference you go to, they always pray. The super successful people up there, right, so in RIA land, you have the billion dollar, the multibillion dollar RIAs PD land, you know the top producers in the insurance land, MDRT and stuff like that. And so I’ve seen this consistently throughout my career. You can be an advisor and you can be making literally half a million dollars a year in W2 or 1099. So, by any definition, that’s gonna put you in the top one percent of earners in the United States. But you go to a conference, and you’re not in the top 20.

Joe Lukacs: 26:52 Sometimes you feel like a failure. And there are more people, and think about this. The median household income in the United States, I think last time I looked was $54,000 a year for a family of four. A lot of advisors make that in a month, yet they feel, they still feel like they’re failures. There’s a huge lack of a reality check in this industry. You guys and gals making 100,000, 150,000, 200,000 dollars a year will feel like they’re failures. The problem with that is, when you feel like a failure, are you gonna be inspired to go be great? No. You’re gonna have this psychology of survival, survival, maybe a little abundance once in a while, but you feel like a failure. So I think that’s the other thing that you gotta be careful about. Our industry is not normal, and you can’t view it through a normal lens. It doesn’t work that way, all right?

Joe Lukacs: 27:38 And I think the other thing, quite frankly, is you know this is a 24/7, 365 gig. There’s no fleshing out of technology, which technology’s been great. Technology’s a tool of liberation. It gets you out of the office. The other challenge with that is that the office now comes with you all the time, right? And you’re always connected.

Matthew Jarvis: 27:56 You know us.

Joe Lukacs: 27:56 That’s right. And so, it’s really understanding that it’s okay, it’s okay to be in your business every day at some level. That’s the freedom tax. So, whether Micah’s in Hawaii or New Mexico, it’s not like he’s disconnected. The only time I think he might get disconnected is when you go moose hunting, and even then you got a sat phone with you. That’s it, right? That’s one time a year.

Micah Shilanski: 28:18 Yeah, but disconnected means I have a global satellite texter at the office who can reach me, and then I can call in when something comes back and we’ve had to return client calls out there, and so disconnected is a relative term.

Joe Lukacs: 28:30 Right. No, agreed, and I think you want the hair on the back of my neck to stand up, tell me you have a job. Really see what happens. I hear that, “Oh, you know my job.” I said, “Bullshit, you know, since when do you have a job? Are you a guaranteed income? Really, you’re out at jail B, you’re told when to come in, when to leave, stuff like that? I didn’t know that, geez.” Right? Think about that. If that’s the way they frame it to me, how are they framing it in their own minds? They really get up in the morning, think, “I gotta go to work today.” Anybody says, “I gotta go to work today,” they need to reevaluate what they’re doing. There’s no work here. There’s no job here. There’s a career. There’s value add. There’s giving to others. There’s doing what we need to do, but there’s no job work here.

Micah Shilanski: 29:12 Joe, I wanna jump in real fast if I may on what you just said. I mean, all this stuff that you talked about are phenomenal points. But, the lack of mentality, the traps that we fall into. The monkey see, monkey do, we feel like a failure. We didn’t say about imposter syndrome, I’m sure it will come up in this conversation, too. All of those issues that advisors have, so really that’s boiling down all to mindset, right? I mean, that’s your mindset if you’re there. So I think I got a couple of questions, is one, if you’re someone’s listening to this podcast and they’re in that mindset today, number one, how do they start breaking out of it? And then the second question on that, how does someone keep, once they’re broken out of that mindset, how do they keep on the other side of that mindset? How do they keep out of that negative space so they can be successful, in the advisory space?

Joe Lukacs: 30:04 Two great questions I think. First of all, my protocol is, you must control the first hour of the day. So, you must have your morning success ritual. And inside of that morning success ritual, they’re protocols, right? What you read, what you watch, what you listen to. Quick sidebar note here, if you think about your listeners which I know are all independent advisors, what percent of them actually have a written business plan? And then second question is, if you do, when’s the last time you read it? So, here’s what I found. Less than 20% of advisors have a written business plan. And of those that have one, most of the time they haven’t looked at it in months. So, in other words, where’s my game plan, where’s my vision. Right? So I don’t have that. So I think that’s number one.

Joe Lukacs: 30:48 And so in the morning, you need to go ahead, and you’re gonna read your business plan. You’re gonna kind of reconnect to what you’re looking to do. You’re gonna be conscious, and here’s the other part. This kind of goes to Micah’s comment about the mindset. Most human beings live an unconscious life. We’re pattern-based creatures. We’re unconscious pattern-based creatures. So, we just run on auto pilot, and my job as a coach is to get you off auto pilot. But seriously, wait a second. You’ve been operating the same way for 15-20 years, and it’s gotten you this far, but you’re not gonna be able to work harder to get to the next step. You’ve gotta think differently.

Joe Lukacs: 31:21 So, I think that first of all, you’ve gotta recognize that you have to shift your mindset, and this is what makes me different than most other coaches. Most other coaches wanna play in the fun, they wanna play in the safe stuff. Practice management, which is all valuable. But unless the person’s mindset has a shift, evolves, all the practice management in the world is not gonna overcome that. That’s the challenge. Right? So that’s the first thing. Second thing is again, we’re on the island, right? So independent, you’re running your team. But at the end of the day, you’re on the island. So, I know like you guys are part, you have a Mastermind. You have a small group of like-minded advisors. I run a Mastermind. I have a group of like-minded advisors. I think it’s very important you keep good company. So, how do you break through and then stay broken through? Is by who you’re connecting with.

Joe Lukacs: 32:07 And the challenge though, going back to the ego part, is a lot of advisors have this concept, “I don’t need any help. I don’t need to be part of something. I’m good.” That’s the ego talking. So ego and arrogance cost a lot of advisors a high level of success, because they operate with those two basic psychologies. They’re egotistical, because you gotta have some of that to be successful to begin with, but then they got arrogant because they don’t think they need help. Or don’t need to be a part of something bigger than them, right? And so I think those are the two things that really, if you think about, okay what stops somebody from going from abundance to prosperity? You’re gonna find that those two emotions are gonna be prevalent in most cases. “I got too much of the ego drive. I’m good. I’m arrogant, I’m good. And so, I’m just gonna do it myself.” Here’s the reality, you can’t. Or, 99 percent of the people can’t. You need to be part of something. That’s the key thing, Micah.

Micah Shilanski: 33:09 I like it.

Matthew Jarvis: 33:10 Wow, that’s really good. On that note, Joe, let’s talk about Masterminds a little bit. You mentioned you’ve been running a Mastermind group, professionally running it for many years. You talked about this importance of keeping good company especially in an industry, and I loved this where you talked about how in industry we parade around these just Olympian level athletes and really use them to shame everyone else. That guy who was doing 100, 200,000 dollars in production, which to your point is a phenomenal amount of revenue or income relative to the world, but that’s still, that person is full of … I might run into advisors and they say, “Oh, Matthew, my practice is terrible.” I say, “Well, tell me some numbers.” “I’m only making $150,000 a year.” All right, well you still have a lot to aspire to, but Joe to your point, that’s a phenomenal income in our world.

Matthew Jarvis: 33:53 So, talk about Masterminds. How do you find this good company. In an industry that’s so brainwashed if you will, or so programmed with dog eat dog, and you’ve gotta keep going, and you’ve gotta be the top, of the top, of the tippity top table, how do we do this?

Joe Lukacs: 34:07 I mean, you know it’s gonna sound self-serving for the three of us here, but I think number one reach out to you guys, reach out to me. I mean, that’s gonna be my first answer without sounding too self-serving. Look, I think there’s a couple ways you can do it. You can go find one that’s run professionally, which is always gonna be what I think is a good idea, for the following reasons. I think when you try to build one yourself, the problem with it is, that it’s gonna be haphazard, it may go for a couple of meetings, and it’s gonna flame out, you know? And I’ve seen this in my craft, I have clients of mine create accountability groups, and all this other stuff. The problem with it is, there’s nobody whose real job is to make sure it happens, right? And there’s not an economic commitment to it, so I think first off, if you try it on your own, my experiences are that it will only work for a short period of time and then it will evaporate.

Joe Lukacs: 34:54 And the other thing is, if you’re doing it that way, you’re probably gonna have to draw pretty local, right? I mean that’s reality. I like the idea of having guys and gals from all over the country, different walks of life, putting them in a room and stuff like that, so I think number one is, seek one out. Seek it out, maybe you talk to some of your business partners. Like I said, I think they all, again sounding self-serving here, I think your listeners should reach out to the three of us, and we can guide them one way or the other. But I think every advisor needs to be, if you really wanna optimize your success, you wanna be a part of a group of like-minded men and women. I think that’s critical, because let’s face it, we operate in a negative world. Negative noise, negative news. And then this got nothing to do with anything.

Joe Lukacs: 35:37 Just look at the inputs the average human being gets in a day, and where’re you gonna go to, where are you gonna find a like … And this is not about going to conferences when everybody’s got ego up and stuff like that stuff. Going to people that really wanna support one another. That really wanna care about one another. That one of the by-products and I’m sure you guys are seeing it too, in your own Mastermind, is you end up with lifelong friendships. And a lot of times, the relationship is the most important outcome you get out of being in a group. Is like you and Matt. You and Micah, right? You guys. You guys started a Mastermind and look at what you’re doing today, right? You got this podcast, you’re doing a coaching program. But I don’t think you guys have known each other for more than what, a couple years? Right?

Micah Shilanski: 36:23 Or a year and a half.

Joe Lukacs: 36:24 A year and a half, right, exactly. So, that is the glorious
by-product of the right Mastermind, but the right connections, and you just can’t put a price on something like that.

Matthew Jarvis: 36:36 Yeah, you know I really wanna highlight that for our listeners. We’re all familiar with the concept of a Mastermind, it’s been written about. What did Napoleon Hill write about it, more than a hundred years ago. And on the surface it sounds really easy. Call up a couple of guys and gals that you know, you get together, and it will be magic and the fireworks go off. But, Joe, my experience has what you said, you get together and one person’s kind of haranguing the group, and it’s fun at first but then it fizzles out quick because no one’s really minding it. I would really just agree with what you said, and maybe someone called it self-serving but find, unless you have a Mastermind already built, which is very difficult to do, find a Mastermind, pay to be part of it, that’s professionally facilitated, and as soon as you think you’ve got it figured out, by all means spin off and find your own. Like anything in life, as soon as you’re not getting value that exceeds what you’re paying, then go ahead, spin off and do your own.

Matthew Jarvis: 37:27 But wow, one of the best things I ever did in my career was join what was at the time, called Million Dollar Producer. Tom Gau and Ken Unger. They call it Academy of Preferred Financial Advisors now, and it’s not really a Mastermind. It’s more of a group coaching program. But it just, it transformed my whole outlook on the industry, the whole outlook on my practice. Not just because of what they are saying, right? Tom and Ken are successful in their own right, but to be around other successful advisors, both to be inspired by them, but also at the same time for me, realizing there was nothing magical about these guys. I sort of had in my mind that they must be brilliant, these must be savants, or there’s something just extraordinary. So, these were just ordinary guys, they were just doing things in a smart way. So, so many benefits to a Mastermind, and I just wanna echo to your point, it’s very difficult to form one on your own.

Joe Lukacs: 38:11 Right, but the distinction’s like to your point with Ken, and his group, right, is you get these distinctions. A lot of times people say, “Well, I wanna go get training, I need to be trained, and so like you’re looking for training, and what you really need is just an example of distinction.” Some of that’s really meaningful, and sometimes it’s interesting. I’m sure you guys have seen this too, in your groups. You know you can go to a Mastermind meeting with basically, this is what I’m here for. And then there’s another member that has a totally, something totally different they’re gonna discuss, and you leave that meeting going, “You know what? I thought I was here for that, but that person talked about, I got 10 times more out of that conversation than I thought.” And that’s how you know you have the right people in the room. When you can sit there and say, “Not only did I get what I came for, but I got like eight or nine different things also from what people brought. People bring up things I never even thought of.” That’s what you want. That’s a good group, quite frankly.

Micah Shilanski: 39:10 It’s the energy that comes from being around those successful people in that group, and then after you, I know when we get done with our Mastermind, I’m just excited. And my wife Kelly has mentioned it too, I’m just stoked afterwards, because you spend that time with like-minded people, you brainstorm all these creative ideas, and then you’re just energized and ready to conquer the world afterwards. And that is really valuable to our clients, because now we come back to our practice, ready to implement things, ready to take on things, and I gotta say, that’s a huge part of the Mastermind to me. Is not only knowing people, not only the great ideas, but that pure energy that you get from it, that you can take back to your practice and really help your clients with.

Joe Lukacs: 39:50 Being inspired. I think you hit a great benchmark, which is if you’re not excited and inspired after your Mastermind meeting, maybe you need to find a different Mastermind, right? From that perspective. And so, you can, just to kind of backtrack for a second, you know you can create your own Mastermind group. Let me say this, you can, however you should have somebody facilitate it. You should have, that should be done by a third party. You should have a third party administer it. That way, you’re not responsible. Because if you’re trying to run your Mastermind, then you’re not running your business.

Joe Lukacs: 40:24 But I think the other part of this is, you should always try to seek somebody or some entity, to kind of run it for you, so that you can just focus on being a participant and now being the leader. Because that’s always another different sidebar piece.

Matthew Jarvis: 40:38 If you’ve got a coach that you like, somebody in the industry you respect, that’s a great person to approach and say, “Hey, there’s four or five of us, will you facilitate a Mastermind. And I really wanna stress for our listeners, I can’t stress this enough, there’s this kind of this misconception, this coaching program or Mastermind program is about equal with a conference. And those two are just night and day. A conference, an industry conference is totally different than what we’re talking about here. Sure, an industry conference is fun. Sure, you get fired up and they have these great keynote speakers, but they really have just no comparison to a Mastermind or to a group coaching style program. It’s just a night and day difference. So don’t think to yourself, “Hey, I went to,” and I won’t name conferences here. I get into enough trouble with the conference promoters.

Matthew Jarvis: 41:18 Don’t tell yourself, “Hey, I went to this conference, I went to five conferences and I’m covered.” That’s just a totally different space.

Joe Lukacs: 41:24 Correct, Matt, here’s what I say. I think there’s three areas all advisors need to take a look at. So number one is conferences, right? You wanna pick the conferences that you resonate with. And to your comment, I’m not gonna get into names either. I think some are good, some are not so good, but that’s neither here nor there. So, I think conferences. Second thing is training. So, the difference between conferences and training, conferences you go, you hear a couple keynotes, some breakouts. So, in other words, you get some superficial stuff. It’s good. You get some value add. Cool. Training is when you’re gonna spend a day, two days, three days, whatever doing something, right? So, it’s different. You’re gonna learn a skill set. And the third element is the Mastermind. Every advisor needs all three. You need to go to conferences, you pick out your conferences for the year. Pick out the trainings you wanna go to and the skill sets you wanna master. And then you wanna have your group.

Joe Lukacs: 42:09 Those three things, and if an advisor were to do that, that would position them in my mind, to really look to be in expansion mode, and that’s what we’re seeking.

Matthew Jarvis: 42:21 Yeah, boy that’s really good, Joe. As we do these calls, these are all things that man, I wish I had known these 15 years ago when I was starting out and not have to discover it the hard way, years and years in.

Joe Lukacs: 42:30 So, here’s the beauty of it, Matt. You have 100 percent of your career, and 100 percent of your life left. There’s plenty of time.

Matthew Jarvis: 42:37 Yeah, boy that’s a good point. We spend so much time dwelling in the past, especially on the negativity. It seems like we do on all the negative in the past, but 100 percent of it’s still there.

Joe Lukacs: 42:45 You guys may be old enough, you guys remember the old Cannonball Run? It was probably made in the mid ’70s, about the race across the country? Well, there’s a scene in there, I think it was Raul Julia at the time, he jumps in the Ferrari, and old Ferrari, and the first thing he does, he takes the rear view mirror and he rips it out and he throws it. And he goes, “The first rule of Italian driving, we don’t care what’s behind us.” And I never forgot that metaphor. I think it’s a great metaphor, and for the life of you, don’t worry about what’s behind you. It’s done, it’s in the books. Be forward thinking.

Joe Lukacs: 43:14 Look, human beings, we tend to replay things in our minds. That’s just kind of human nature. The challenge with it is, that it’s one thing to replay, it’s another thing to live it, right? And I feel all the time, and Micah knows because I’ve talked openly about this, I am always trying new things. I’m always looking to elevate what I do, and look, a lot of times it works. Sometimes it doesn’t work. It’s okay. I think we as an industry, or a society are so failure phobic, that we can’t un-elevate because we’re afraid to try. We’re afraid to go for something under the fear that we may fail. And question, and Micah knows the answer to this already, how do you define failure to yourself is very important for success, period. So failure, if you define failure as, “I did not achieve my goals,” and that’s your definition, you will never go for it big time, because you’re not gonna risk it.

Joe Lukacs: 44:10 My definition of failure? I go for it, I don’t get the outcome, and I don’t learn anything. My term is stupid in, stupid out. If I don’t learn anything, then I fail. I don’t know what I did wrong. I don’t know what I need to do different. But if I learn something that I can apply, so the second time I do it, then it’s okay. Again, assuming that I’m not gonna lose all my money, my family and my house. Stuff like that. So, again, you’re gonna keep things in a certain realm, but I think what all your listeners need to do, is really ask themselves that very conscious question, how do I define failure to myself? And then based on the answer, go, “Is that a good answer? Does that serve me? Does that empower me?” If it doesn’t, guess what? You can change it, because who gave it to you in the first place?

Joe Lukacs: 44:53 What most people don’t get, is that their mindset, you weren’t born with it. It was cobbled together by random acts, and yet here we are. And what I’m just saying to everybody, “Just look, you know you can reprogram yourself. You can make definitions from your beliefs, your values, rules, internal dialogue, your self-image.” There’re five things. Beliefs, values, the rules associated to those values, your internal dialogue. Self-talk, the man or woman in the mirror. Self-image and how you define failure to yourself. Those five things make up a mindset, and what every advisor needs to do, every human being quite frankly needs to do is consciously evaluate those and really peel the onion back. And really look at it, because at the end of the day once you’re smart enough to be in this business for five years, it’s not a question, can you be smart enough to be super, super successful?

Joe Lukacs: 45:46 The real question is, can you develop the mindset, can you evolve your psychology to really put you in the place to go expansion mode and to go into prosperity mode. That’s the real key thing here, and you’re not gonna find that at a conference. You’re not gonna find that with a practice management person or a marketing person. These are the five things that every true advisor must master if they truly wanna accomplish what they wanna accomplish in life.

Micah Shilanski: 46:14 And that’s why everyone flocks to those shiny object like marketing things or conferences, because what you just talked about was really deep and challenging. I mean they can’t just throw a credit card at this and buy a marketing problem that’s gonna fix these issues, I mean this is something that someone really has to tackle head on in order to work one day at a time to change your rules, to change your beliefs, to change your mindset, to get rid of that head trash that’s gonna accumulate over time in order to be successful. It’s gonna take work.

Joe Lukacs: 46:40 And to go back to my comment earlier about ego and arrogance, in order to do that effectively you’ve gotta put yourself in a self-reflective and an honest state. No BS, right? And in order to put yourself in a no BS place, you gotta put your ego aside, you gotta put your arrogance aside, and you’ve gotta really look at the man or woman in the mirror and say, who am I really? So, the question really be, is for your listeners, I don’t care if they have a half-of-a-million-dollar business, a quarter-of-a-million-dollar business, or a multimillion-dollar business. If they wanna grow their business, which I think is the goal here, let’s say they wanna double, triple, quadruple it. It is not the question of, “Well, what do I need? Well, I need these many employees, I need these many clients.”

Joe Lukacs: 47:26 That is not the question. The key question is, who do you need to become as a person? As a human being? As a professional? As a leader? Who do you need to evolve into? Unless you have an answer to that question, you’ll never accomplish it. To Micah’s comment, I don’t care how much money you spend on marketing programs, I don’t care what kind of consultants you bring in, I don’t care what kind of team you hire. I don’t care what kind of practices you buy. Until you have that answered, of who I need to become, and if you sit there and say to yourself, “I’m good,” then you’re lying to yourself. And that’s the thing. Can you be honest with yourself, put away your ego, put away your arrogance, and do the work to really elevate? That’s my specialty.

Joe Lukacs: 48:11 And that’s not easy. You just can’t stroke a check to me and I fix you. It’s work. And that’s, Matt, to your comment earlier on the session, I put a ton of emotional energy into my clients. Because if I don’t put that emotional energy in, I cannot facilitate change. And that’s the difference, and I have abundant emotional energy, and Micah will tell you that. I don’t just fluff my way through stuff. I care, that’s the difference.

Micah Shilanski: 48:42 It’s very true.

Matthew Jarvis: 48:43 Wow, that’s really awesome. This got really intense in a cool way, really quickly. I mean, I’m definitely gonna go back and listen to this recording a couple of times. There was some really great stuff right there. Joe, as we come to the end of our time, based on what you just said, this reprogramming, and actually I wanna be a cynic just for a second. I hear these things like, how do you define success. That strikes me as those old success posters, that the insurance agency would have in the wall. What are a couple of things that advisors listening could start doing today, to start this reprogramming process? And I know it’s more than just a one day process. What’s something they could do today, tomorrow, this week, to start that process in their own life?

Joe Lukacs: 49:22 I think the first thing is, make sure you have a vision. So, in lieu of writing a whole business plan, I’d ask you to come up with one sheet of paper and write down the following. Where do I wanna be in five years, business wise? What kind of person do I wanna be in five years? And then, where am I today? And look at the gaps. Number one. Number two, get your morning under control. The first hour of the day shapes the day. So, the morning success ritual is not negotiable. So you need to program yourself every day for success. It’s like an athlete pre-warmup, pre-game. You’ve gotta have that hour to get that. And then the third piece, if I could, Matt, find resources. Whether it’s the Perfect RIA, or anything that kind of floats your boat. Get around the right people. Get around the right psychology, the right group, the right mentoring group. The right tribe if you will, that makes all the … Stop telling yourself that you’re good, that you’ve got this thing figured out. Stop lying to yourself. Really raise your hand, say, “You know what? I’m good, but I wanna be great.” And if you’ve ever seen good and great, it’s not more. It’s a different mindset. It’s a different psychology. You cannot master that by just stroking a check and trying to fix something. You gotta do the work.

Matthew Jarvis: 50:44 Wow, that is really awesome.

Micah Shilanski: 50:45 It’s great stuff, Joe.

Matthew Jarvis: 50:48 It really is. Well, Joe, speaking of resources, how can people learn more about you and about what you’ve done, and what you’re doing? And why it is that Floyd, and again for those of you who don’t know Floyd, he’s just this amazing guy. But for Joe to have met the Floyd threshold says a lot. That’s a big endorsement in my book. Micah’s endorsement, we’ll kind of take that.

Micah Shilanski: 51:05 Not so much.

Joe Lukacs: 51:09 I mean, you know probably, there’s a couple ways. So first of all, you can just google me, and it’s coach Joe L-U-K-A-C-S. So, not as we always say it, but here’s the spelling, L-U-K-A-C-S. Website, ipginc. India, Papa, George, inc.net. And then Mastermind, magellenmastermind.com. So those three websites, there’s a fourth, practicepower.net. I think practice power is great for everybody, so first of all it’s free. I charge nothing. There’s no gotcha logins, or anything like that. You go join, there’s probably 300 hours of content. You guys play with that if you want. That’s my gift to the industry, and the reason why I did that is, because this industry has allowed me. Remember, I was one of the first coaches 25 years ago in this space, so I believe in giving back. So, I took a paid program and I made it open source.

Joe Lukacs: 52:02 So, from morning ritual builders, to daily game plan builders, to like I said about 300 hours of audio and video, it’s my gift to the industry, practicepower.net. You just gotta go sign up, and there’s no gotchas, okay. So, Matt, that’s how people can get ahold of me.

Matthew Jarvis: 52:19 Boy, that’s really awesome. Well, Joe, we really appreciate your time with us today. You’ve been very generous with your advice back to the industry. Any parting thoughts that you would offer to our listeners, or any call to action that you would suggest they take?

Joe Lukacs: 52:31 Yeah, I mean, first of all, recognize that you’re in the greatest profession that you can be in. Not only can you have economic abundance and time freedom, but you can impact people at the deepest level. I’ve always believed that an advisor is the third part of the troika. You know, you have the spiritual advisor, the health advisor, and then their financial advisor. So take that if you will, that space, and honor it. A few great things. Honor the business, honor the profession. And then lastly, I would say this is the ultimate personal development business. So, I want you all to commit, five to ten percent of your revenue/slash income to reinvest back in yourself. To join the coaching programs, the Masterminds, the stuff like that. Remember, you are the core product. Not your portfolios, not your planning process, not your service models. You are the core product. Reinvest back in yourself.

Micah Shilanski: 53:32 I love it. I love it. We’ll just-

Matthew Jarvis: 53:36 I look forward to having you on the call again, on the podcast again. It’s been really great talking to you again. Micah, thanks for getting coach Joe on with us. Micah, any parting thoughts for our group today, based on all the amazing things we’ve learned?

Micah Shilanski: 53:46 Coach, I’ve been working with you, I think I’ve only been working with you 12 or 13 years, but it’s been absolutely amazing and every time we talk I still get notes and go through stuff, so I still learn, so I’m just loving it. The biggest thing, my parting thoughts, and I would say the biggest thing that’s made, the two biggest things that’s made the biggest change in my practice, and both which the coach said today, number on is that morning ritual. We glossed over it real fast, but that is so, so important. Setting that type of mindset, so my number one action item I would say to all the listeners, start today. Start with that morning ritual. Tomorrow morning, wake up and fill your head with success. Focus on what you’re gonna do. It’s not email, it’s not CNBC, it’s not crap that you’re putting in there, what you’re putting in your mind in that first hour. Joe, I thought that was excellent.

Micah Shilanski: 54:32 The second thing is that P&D budget. That’s the other thing I would say. Start tomorrow. Take a percentage of your revenue. Start with five percent as a minimum. Just as the coach said, and start setting it in a separate bank account, as a separate item right off, so you know exactly what it’s for, and just have that to reinvest in yourself.

Matthew Jarvis: 54:51 No, those are both gonna be really transformative. Well, thank you both for being on the podcast today. If you have questions, to our listeners, if you have questions for Joe, you can look him up. You can post them in the comment section on our site. I really wanna give a special thanks to coach Joe Lukacs for coming with us on the podcast today. I think the advice he shared is really transformative, and that’s not something I throw out there lightly. As always though, good ideas are of no value. Everybody knows what they need to do to get six pack abs. Everyone knows what they need to do to become a billionaire, and yet, very few people are willing to do that. What counts, the only thing that counts, is taking action. Massive action, and there’s a lot of action you can take from this podcast from Joe’s advice. I would say, the most important action and you can accuse me of being self-serving here, the most important action from this podcast is to join a Mastermind group, or form one, or pay to be part of one. As Joe explained in the podcast, it is difficult to form your own Mastermind. Not impossible. I have done it successfully. Other people have as well. Of course, Joe isn’t the first one to come up with idea, but either form a Mastermind, or join a Mastermind. Be it Joe’s, be it another program. Find a group coaching program, find some group that will provide you with both guidance, direction, and accountability to achieve your own version of the Perfect RIA. Thank you so much for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you on a future episode.

Speaker 2: 56:26 You have been listening to the Perfect RIA Podcast. For more information on how you can build a highly effective financial planning practice, please visit tprdev0.wpengine.com.