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Micah Shilanski:  Welcome back to The Perfect RIA podcast. This is a special video cast that we’re doing for our Backstage Pass members in an audio cast out to the nation. This is a very special episode, not only because what we have going on right now in the economies, the markets, and this whole craziness with COVID-19, but we have a special guest with us, probably our most repeat guest that I would say that we have on our podcast, which is great, which is coach Joe Lukacs. Coach, how you doing, sir?

Joe Lukacs:        Micah, doing well man, as well as can be expected. How are you doing today?

Micah Shilanski:  I am doing great. This is a crazy time that we’re in, and I think the most important thing for advisors and for all of us, especially our families, our team, and our clients, is keeping the right mental focus as we go through this. We all talk about health is important, but mental health right now is the key to getting through this time, that’s going to be there. So I know from that perspective, and I’m really just not putting on a show, we’re doing good up here in Alaska. We’re doing good with our family, with our teams, et cetera.

Micah Shilanski:  We got to get in a good head space. As I talk to other advisors that are out there, I’ve talked with them across the nation, and you talk with a lot more advisors than I do is I’m hearing a little bit of fear and panic with some of our younger advisors, especially that haven’t been through ’08, so this is their first kind of recession and huge market downturn. But I’m also hearing some concerns a little bit, overall, with clients. They think they’re going to be okay, but they’re still a little bit concerned.

Micah Shilanski:  And so, I thought we’d kind of jump into head space, head trash. Joe, how do we keep our minds in a good space that we can make sure we’re in a good place to help our clients and to help our family?

Joe Lukacs:        That’s a great question. I think the first thing you need to do is see it for what it is, not any worse, not any better, but see it for the facts. And the facts in my mind are, look, it is what it is. It’s going to go on for as long as it’s going to go on for, you can’t really control it, the horse has left the barn in that regard.

Joe Lukacs:        But I think the other thing too is don’t sit there and say to yourself, well, I’m just going to operate as I’ve always operated from a mental perspective, from a business perspective, because you’re just going to get tsunamied with the whole thing. So this is where an advisor really has to mentally, physically, and emotionally, in essence, gear up.

Joe Lukacs:        Now to your comment about, we have a lot of younger people, which is great, we need that, they were not around in ’08, ’09, and if they were around, they were still kind of little tiny books, there wasn’t the giant responsibility you had-

Micah Shilanski:  It wasn’t the same thing.

Joe Lukacs:        Yeah, 10, 12 years later. So what happens is most advisors in that regard, don’t have a point of reference. I’ve never been through this before, so there’s not that emotional muscle that’s been built. There’s no muscle memory because there was never any training around that. And then conversely, the advisor who was through that, it was a decade plus ago. They haven’t worked out that muscle in 10 years, so it’s atrophied. So we’ve got to go back and take a look at that.

Joe Lukacs:        So I think the first thing you’ve got to do is really understand consciously, which is going to be a big word here, that we are in a nontypical time, and so you can’t employ a typical set of rules to nontypical. It won’t work for you. It won’t work at all for you.

Micah Shilanski:  Okay, so what does that mean? We’re in a different time. We’ve been in a raging bull market for 10 years. Yes, we’ve had corrections, but they lasted a little bit in time, then a couple months later we were back up. There was a little bit of concerns, but not like the concerns we’re seeing today. Now, I’m not saying this is the end of the world, I’m not saying panic. We had our other webinar where Jarvis and I were talking about really longterm focus on this thing and other things to do, but we all need that, as you said, that different set of muscles. What set of muscles are there?

Micah Shilanski:  And I think what I’d love to do is get into … Maybe we walk through a day. What should the day of an advisor look like when they first wake up? How do we get our bodies engaged for the right space to make sure we’re staying ahead of everything?

Joe Lukacs:        Yeah, so let’s get tactical real quick. So I think the first thing you’ve got to do, I’ve always said for 25 years this is it, this is the ultimate personal development business. So those advisors who are really taking care of their mind and body are going to have a competitive advantage in times like this. The analogy I used the other day with somebody, hey, for 10 years you’ve been rolling in a class two rapid, now you’re in a class five plus, plus. It’s water, but it ain’t the same water.

Micah Shilanski:  I like that analogy.

Joe Lukacs:        So it requires different skill sets, different energy levels. So, to go through a typical day, it starts the night before. Don’t end your day with the news and don’t end your day too late. If anything, you probably need more sleep, not less sleep right now. Like me personally, my emotional and mental outputs are really high, in fact, they’re probably ’08, ’09 high right now, and I’m getting an extra 45 to 90 minutes a night, meaning just in sleep and rest. And when I say rest, I mean like no TV, almost like a meditative state. Just let yourself and kind of control everything.

Joe Lukacs:        So the day really starts the night before. If you’re up late, you’re going to get up late and you’re probably going to reach for your phone, and you’re probably going to reach for the email, or CNBC, or the Bloomberg app, whatever you got going on, and then you’re going to start your day. It’s like nutrition, it’s like let’s just start our day with just a pound of sugar in our mouth and that’ll be our breakfast.

Micah Shilanski:  Just pure crap.

Joe Lukacs:        Yeah, it won’t work, right? So I think the first thing is I would say the first 30 to 60 minutes, depending on your situation, no news, no nothing. I know some people say, “But I got to know what the futures look like.” They’ll be there. Everybody’s up before the market opens, if that’s your gift thing, it’ll be there. Have the discipline to give yourself the gift of the first 30 to 60 minutes, so that’s number one. We’ll talk about what to do inside of that in a second.

Joe Lukacs:        I think the second thing you need to do is figure out how you’re going to take care of your body with exercise. Lots of gyms are closed, so don’t have a fixed mindset, “Oh my gym’s closed now. I can’t do anything.” Go take a walk, figure it out, if you’ve got stuff at home. The more you use your body, the more energy you’re going to have, and this is a game of energy right now, mental, physical, and emotional. You’ve got to cultivate all three.

Joe Lukacs:        So in the morning, what we want to do … So no news … is I want you to do some personal development work. So whether I’m watching a YouTube video or reading a book, stuff like that. If you’re a member of my tribe, we have our Magellan Morning Eight, our eight step protocol process. We’re going to visualize success that day, we’re going to visualize longterm success, we’re going to have a conversation with ourself, we’re going to meditate, we’re going to practice gratitude, we’re going to review our game plan, our goals. We’re going to do certain things like athletes do to put us in the right frame of mind and the right mindset.

Joe Lukacs:        In critical crises what people tend to do is abandon good habits. They kind of go, “Oh, we’re in a crisis. I can’t do that.” That’s where the discipline comes in because I’m hearing from my clients that, “Hey, that morning thing is really keeping me grounded. That morning thing really is getting me ready.”

Joe Lukacs:        And then I think the other thing too is, and I’ve been saying this a little bit in my personal work, are you prepared for battle today? And it’s not negative thinking. If you’re going in there, like you’re just going to stroll in and you’re going to have just a normal day because that’s what you want, it doesn’t mean reality is going to give that to you, and you got to be really, really careful with that. And again, this is not a negative thing, it’s just mental preparation. Prepare for the fight today and if it doesn’t show up, great.

Micah Shilanski:  You know this just-

Joe Lukacs:        But if it shows up, you’re prepared, period. So, that’s the morning piece right there.

Micah Shilanski:  And this is something we’ve talked about a lot on the nation about saying that, and I call it the morning success ritual. Right now it’s the M-Eight that we’re doing inside of the Magellan network, that’s there. It’s the same concept that’s going to be there, but you have to have something in the morning that sets it.

Micah Shilanski:  And I’ll be the first to confess, when I start going sideways, when I don’t start doing the things I need to do, when I start having head trash issues, the number one thing is I did not do my morning success ritual. And I’m just as guilty of it as any other advisor that’s out there, and so I got to recognize that and I got to get back to that morning success ritual that’s going to be there because it really gears you for that right thing.

Micah Shilanski:  I want to also kind of step in here real fast. You made a comment about the news and the media and reaching for apps and blah, blah, blah on your phone. Delete them, remove them off of your phone. You shouldn’t be getting any of those notifications. The world is not going to end without you knowing it, I promise someone will tell you. But especially in this time, with so much negative news and media getting pushed to you on a daily basis, I think this would just inundate you with so much negativity, it could almost undo a morning success ritual. So-

Joe Lukacs:        It does.

Micah Shilanski:  Yeah.

Joe Lukacs:        It will. I think the other thing, you make a great point about deleting the app and people go, “Oh my God, I got to delete my CNBC app?” It’s like that looks like a crack habit, like I can’t do it. So yeah, I think again, we have to be aware, so again, I’m not saying live in a cave, or under a rock or anything like that, but to your point, consume it judiciously. And so that’s number one. Hey, get rid of all your phone alerts. You got a lot of people that have them set up and you don’t need that because it’s like a monkey, ding-ding, oh, I got to go look. So get rid of those.

Joe Lukacs:        And then the second thing, if you’re in your work environment and you’re there, don’t have TVs on to CNBC news, just get it off. Put Nat Geo on, or I don’t care what you put on, just anything but the news, because again-

Micah Shilanski:  I’m going to jump in right there, because I care what you put on. I want something that makes you happy, you happy.

Joe Lukacs:        Okay, great.

Micah Shilanski:  Something that makes you and your team happy that-

Joe Lukacs:        Fair enough.

Micah Shilanski:  … when you see it, you’re going to be rejuvenated, you’re going to be excited. That’s what you need because that’s also what’s going to make your clients happy and excited to be there. So the example in our office is we have a big LCD screen up front and it has rotating pictures of all the team’s family and activities.

Joe Lukacs:        Yes, I’ve been there.

Micah Shilanski:  And so every time I walk out of my conference room and I see that, I smile because I see my family and the team’s family, our clients love watching that. So it’s important to have something that rejuvenates you in that front, in whatever space you have. So replace that news activity with something that makes you happy.

Joe Lukacs:        Oh great. I like that. And if you can’t find anything, because there’s no sports on TV, then just shut it off, and go-

Micah Shilanski:  Fair enough.

Joe Lukacs:        Yeah, fair, right?

Micah Shilanski:  Yeah.

Joe Lukacs:        But again, we’re in total agreement, don’t get … Because somebody will say, “Well, I have it on for background noise,” I hear that common … I said, “Well, you don’t understand, subconsciously you’re getting it in, it’s coming in. Your subconscious mind is listening to all that stuff. You may not be consciously aware of it, but it’s getting in there, so don’t do it.” And then you always have the breaking news crap, so just 86 it, focus on your game, stuff like that. It’s not like it was 20 years ago where clients came to you, “Hey, what’s going on in the world?”, or, “What’s going on in the market?” Most clients, actually, unfortunately know more about what’s going on in the market than a lot of my clients because, well, that’s what they’re doing today.

Joe Lukacs:        So the morning piece, again, if you can control the first 30 to 60 minutes of the day, the odds of you controlling your day go way up. You just made a great comment, that’s the first that goes. So if your morning ritual’s there, the chances for a great day are going to be there. You screw that up and it’s almost immutable, this doesn’t happen, my day’s not as good, or it goes …

Joe Lukacs:        I mean, it’s the first thing that I look at when I talk to somebody, if they’re not in a good place, “Tell me about your Morning Eight.” “Well, I haven’t really been doing it.” I said, “Dude, right there. Step one. You wonder why you keep pulling muscles when you go play a sport? Well, you’re not warming up, you’re not doing anything for yourself and you wonder why you can’t perform well, you keep blowing out hamstrings, like if you’re an athlete, because mentally, you’re not taking care of yourself.” So I think that’s the first thing, you got to have that morning protocol built in.

Micah Shilanski:  And I’ll just run through real fast what my morning success ritual is, that I go through. So I love Joe’s side of it, one that I’ve always been doing and I’m incorporating now more of that MM-Eight side of it as well. But it starts off with a daily Bible read because spiritual health to me is really important, so it starts off with a daily Bible read.

Micah Shilanski:  Then when I’m getting ready, I’m going to be listening to something, whether it’s a business podcast, not about the markets, or whether it’s something inspirational, something else. I’m going to put something on for 10 or 15 minutes while I’m getting ready, that’s going to be there. Then I like to write my goals, not my tasks, not my to do’s that I have to do, because it’s totally different, these are, what are my big picture goals, that’s there. And I know, Joe, you like having … And again, it’s whatever works for you.

Joe Lukacs:        Correct.

Micah Shilanski:  If you go through Joe’s business planning process, he actually has you review it on a daily basis, and he has it up. I love it. For me, I like to write it out, because if I’m just reading it, what I have found is I gloss over it, so I like to rewrite it every day.

Joe Lukacs:        That repetitiveness actually does give you a high level of internalization, which is great, and that works out well. So yeah, you and I both have our things right here, which for everybody else watching, listening, there’s a clue there in this, by the way, to have it handy. If you can’t find your game plan, then you have no game. I mean, it’s bottom line your reaction, period, and it’s good.

Micah Shilanski:  I find by doing that, it really focuses me on that big picture. Especially in times like this, you got to be able to step back and we got to look at the big picture on what’s going on, so for me that morning success ritual works. If I’ve tried pushing it more than that, like 25, 30 minutes, for me, my brain starts freaking out, especially in surge time because I got crap to do, so I know that’s my sweet spot. So again, these are some guidelines that Joe has given you and there’s some goldmines here, so figure out what’s going to work for you and make sticky changes. So if you don’t got an hour, fine, spend 20 to 30 minutes, get moving in that direction.

Joe Lukacs:        Yeah, five, 10 minutes is better than no minutes, right?

Micah Shilanski:  Right.

Joe Lukacs:        To your comment, that’s why we always put ranges on it because some people are a little bit quicker, and they’re good with that and that serves them well, other people, especially if you’re going to incorporate exercise into your morning game, that’s going to obviously push it out there a little bit more. Meditation, spirituality, all those things feed into the proper mindset. So again, to your comment, do whatever’s going to serve you, but do something and not the CNBC app, or any of that crap. Fair enough.

Micah Shilanski:  I love it. All right, so we’ve got the morning success ritual, we’ve got something they’re going to do in the morning in order to get our head in the right space, that’s going to be there. We go to the office, we find out the markets are down a few thousand points inside of that. For me, and I know this sounds crazy, that doesn’t bother me because one, I’m not looking, because I’m not managing money on a daily basis. That’s not my gig that’s going to go there.

Micah Shilanski:  But Joe, what are things for advisors that this is bothering or these fears that we have? And I guess maybe that’s the bigger question is it’s not almost a reality, it’s more the fears, the fears that we have that are going through that maybe … And you’re telling me a story as we were pre-gaming about an advisor that was a little bit concerned because all of his clients should fire him. He wasn’t adding any value. He should have saw this coming, all of these things. When we get that, what do we do with that?

Joe Lukacs:        So I think a couple things. Right now, as a world, as a country, we have is a big gob of uncertainty. And the mind does not do well with uncertainty, because when the mind is uncertain, it doesn’t know what action to take, and if it does take an action, it takes an irrational action. Just go to any food store, you see irrationality all over the place. Toilet paper is now the new gold, I mean, it’s crazy, right?

Joe Lukacs:        So, it’s just one of those things where you look at it and go, “That makes no sense.” So you know that as a society there’s a lot of uncertainty, so in your narrative, you come in the office and the market’s down X. The first thing you got to do is give it a meaning, because if you don’t give it a meaning, you’re not going to know what action to take. So you’re going to look at it go, “Okay. Hey, I’m going to have some tough calls today. You know what? Maybe it’s time to deploy some cash,” or whatever it’s going to mean to you. Look, I’m not here to say what it should mean to you, but it has to mean something.

Joe Lukacs:        Don’t sit there with a case of the, I don’t knows, or I don’t know what’s going on, because as an advisor, you’re a leader, you lead your team, you lead your clients. Any leader that has an I don’t know concept, is not a leader. You’re screwed. So the first thing is you’ve got to have a belief set around this meaning, and that’s critical. So number one, give it a meaning. Okay, X equals Y, and know what that Y is.

Joe Lukacs:        Then, because now you’re no longer uncertain … Because when you go uncertain, you go into fear, when you go into fear, you go into irrational and unresourceful. When I give it a meaning, I stay conscious, I’m now resourceful. I asked better Q&A, I control my mind, I can operate better, I can lead better. So you just can’t sit there and do this, it doesn’t work.

Joe Lukacs:        And I think for a lot our younger advisors who were not in ’08, ’09, who didn’t … I remember those calls, “Are we going to be in business on Monday?” “I mean, I’m not hearing that. I can tell you I spoke to probably 70 some advisors. It sucks out there, we’re not going to sugar coat it, but I’m not hearing the death of anything from that perspective.” So you got to put this in perspective.

Joe Lukacs:        And again, for a lot of you younger advisors, who just have not had a scenario like this, you kind of had the rosy scenario for the last decade, this is when … We make our money all the time, but this is when we earn it as an industry, if we’re doing the right thing. So in that scenario, hey, what does it mean to you?

Joe Lukacs:        And if you’re kind of like, “Man, I don’t know,” then the worst thing to do is to sit where you’re sitting and ponder life. So what I’m going to ask you to do is take a time out, five minutes, go take a walk. When we move our bodies, we engage our mind at a higher level. So I want you physically moving, go take a walk, go do a flight of stairs. I don’t care, whatever it is, but change your physiology, it’s a reset. It’s a reset and that’s the critical part.

Micah Shilanski:  And here’s a simple one, look at Joe and I. We’re both standing up, we’re both at a standing desks inside of this because it’s not just the getting out and walking, which I totally agree with, it’s important things to do, but it’s also this type of physical space that you have. How can you change up your environment a little bit, get more physically engaged to get better mentally engaged in what you’re doing?

Joe Lukacs:        Yeah. And to that point, a lot of advisors now have been forced out of their office and they’re forced to work from home, and so that creates … Number one, it’s new. That can be positive or negative, depending on how we’ll look at it. But if you’re going to be forced to work from home for a while, make it good, make it comfortable. I think that to me is so important that you do that. You got to make it feel like … Should you go out and buy a stand up, good desk, or a VariDesk? Maybe you should. Do what you need to do.

Joe Lukacs:        My advice to all my clients is if they have a home office, I want it to mirror, or mimic their office. So if I’ve got multiple monitors, I have multiple monitors at both places. If I got a stand up desk, I have it to stand up in both places. You don’t sit there and have it … Don’t be at a disadvantage because then that becomes your narrative, “Well, here’s why I can’t get stuff done because I’m working on a 17 inch laptop monitor, I don’t have my big screens,” hey, guess what? Amazon’s still delivering, go get some screens.

Micah Shilanski:  From my home office, the only thing that is different is the color of my standing desk, that’s it, because it matches. My wife wanted a different color than I have in the office for the house, fine. Everything else between the headset, the computers, everything is identical because as you said, Joe, when I get here I want to work and engage.

Joe Lukacs:        Correct.

Micah Shilanski:  Also, I want to talk about wardrobe and attire. One thing that we’ve found a lot with team members, working as I say this because I’m wearing the TPR tee shirt right now, don’t go to work in your pajamas. Do not roll out of bed, put a baseball cap on and then decide to start calling clients, get fricking ready to go in the morning. Even if we’re working at home, you got to put on that same perspective, you guys still got to do same morning ritual. And then I dress up. Sometimes I don’t put a tie on, but if I’m going to do home office recordings, I am still going to get dressed like I was in the office.

Joe Lukacs:        You’re going to put uniform on. You’re going to put a uniform on, that’s right.

Micah Shilanski:  I want that mental engagement. I know I’m an A-player when I’m in this, when I’m in my office, why don’t I want to be an A-player when I’m here? And for me, I need that mental connection, so if you’re having a little bit of issues in that home office, make sure you’re making that physical connection as well, just like you would in your office.

Joe Lukacs:        Yeah. And I would also say it, because I talked to somebody about this, this week, if for some reason you get a little cabin fever and everything’s closed, so I get that, then go take your notebook computer, go take your cell phone, go take a ride, go find a park or somewhere, not around people. Call your clients from outside, go somewhere and change your environment to where it’s really conducive. Don’t feel like … Because some people don’t have, I’ve talked to them, they’ve got small kids at home, they really don’t have a home office, or working off the kitchen table, the dining room table, and they start getting this narrative. Look man, I think your computer works in your car. I’m not saying you want to be there all day, but go take a …

Joe Lukacs:        I always say, “Where’s your local happy spot?” “Well, there’s this lake out here. I said, “Good. I want you to go there. I want you to take your call, get your headset on, your Bluetooth on for your … and I want you to talk to your clients from there. Tether your phone, tether the laptop to the phone. It’s not going to be super quick, but you’ll be able to pull up what you need to pull up and get an environment that’s going to … “

Joe Lukacs:        You know what? Now it becomes a little bit fun, hey, this is pretty neat, versus everything’s in upheaval world. Environments do matter and don’t be afraid to change yours up a little bit. And like I said, we can’t go to the cafes, or Starbucks, or anything right now. Go find a local happy place and … I’ve got guys who work out of their cars for a couple of hours a day right now, over the Pacific. California’s all locked down, so I got one guy who’ll drive to a little place where you can overlook the Pacific. He’ll make his calls there, watching the surf and all those things there.

Micah Shilanski:  And tell your clients. Tell your clients that you’re out of the house. Tell your clients that you had to take a drive and you’re taking it from the car if they notice a difference. They will love hearing things like that, that says, “You know what? I had to deal with this too. I need to get out of the house and go for a walk, so I’m calling you when I’m walking. I hope this is okay, and we’re chatting.” I mean, it is okay to let them know, because you’re human too, and they want to know how you’re doing. They want to know how you’re dealing with this. And it also gives them permission in this time as well to do the same things.

Joe Lukacs:        Yeah, agreed. And I think the other thing, so remember, we as human being always look for commonality, we always look for that rapport. And so, one of the ways you get commonality with human beings is a shared experience. So right now in our country we have a massive shared experience. So that’s why when I talk to clients, number one, we’re not hearing that the financial planning client, the investor, they’re concerned, but they’re not crazily … It’s not like ’08, ’09, where we had to talk people off ledges and everything else, it’s not to that level. And I think a lot of this is because again, we have this shared experience. And it’s health then wealth, and I think everybody’s more focused on the health aspect, so when you have the shared experiences …

Joe Lukacs:        And I’m finding also that my clients were finding it easier to talk to their clients about friends and family referrals, introductions. I was just on with one of our Magellan Elite, Phil, just did a Zoom cast, invited all his clients and stuff, and I actually popped in, he had I think 18 or 19 clients on a Zoom call, just Q&Aing it back and forth with everybody.

Micah Shilanski:  Yeah? Good for him.

Joe Lukacs:        And he’s going to do another one next Saturday. So my point is that as an advisor, one of the best services you can provide for your client base is to communicate with them, because what they’re looking for is information. Like I was saying, we as human being, when we go in crisis, we seek information, the problem is where they get it from. So you got to be the one that filters it for them, that puts it in a frame, perspective, so that it makes sense to them. And most advisors do it one on one, which is great, nothing wrong with that, but there’s a limit to how many per day, and mentally it’s a lot, you can really grind on that. It’s a lot of work.

Joe Lukacs:        I would definitely encourage everyone to think about doing some mass things where you do a Zoom cast, or a Facebook Live, or something like that where you can serve your clients, you can get your message out there. To your comment, we want to be the voice of reason, the voice of calm around everything. And just as a sidebar, it’s a great business development piece because people are looking for answers.

Joe Lukacs:        I will say this, which I know is not our topic, but it is from that mindset perspective, there’s two types of advisors right now, 80% of the advisors are playing defense right now, they’re like, “What’s going on? I don’t know,” and they’re just kind of holding on and hopefully they’ll ride through it. Unless you really have done a bad job, technically with your clients, if you haven’t done that, then you’ll survive this. And that’s the word, survive it.

Joe Lukacs:        The 20 percenters are sitting there going, “Okay, I’ve got to take care of me. I got to take care of my clients, but now what I’m going to do, I’m going to go out there and help others. So I’m going to go out there and develop business.” Well, that’s going to require a lot more energy, mentally, physically, emotionally, and that’s why you’ve got to take care of this to get to there.

Joe Lukacs:        This is, to me, again, especially some of your younger advisors, they’ve operated in a very benign environment, not a lot of pain ailments. Now we’re in a situation where people want answers, they want to talk to somebody, they’re seeking guidance. So if you just make yourself of service and you just make yourself available, that will help you now. You should be going back to all your prospects, all your COIs. Remind all your clients you hit up, hit up anybody that you know, just offer triage, if you will, financial triage. Doesn’t mean you have to take them on as a client if they’re not a good fit, but help. Find a way to help, so that you know you’re being …

Joe Lukacs:        And the other thing that does quite frankly also, Micah, it puts you on offense, because right now we’re kind of ducking and taking body blows, and getting kicked in certain body parts, where if you can get out there now and play offense, mentally you feel better. Okay, it still sucks, but I’m doing something. Human beings, all of us, when we’re faced with fight or flight, it’s wired in our DNA, well, there’s no flight here, there’s nowhere to go, so we’re left with fight. And so you see it in the food stores, with all that going on, what can you maybe do? Oh, I’m going to go buy toilet paper. Irrational, right? In our game, what can we do to fight? You take care of your clients at the highest level and you make yourself available for everybody else.

Joe Lukacs:        And when you get outside your head … And this is a key part of mindset. If you’re in here, what happens is, especially if you’re not in a good place, you’ll Q&A yourself and you’ll just spin out, that’s what happens, because you’re making it all about yourself, “Oh my God, my rev’s going to be down 30%,” dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, all that crap, and then it just locks you up. Where if you sit there and go, “You know what? It’s going to be interesting for a few months, but you know what? I can’t worry about that. Who can I help? Let me call some clients. Let me go check in on somebody. Let me see how my CPA’s doing.”

Joe Lukacs:        Just get external. If you stay external through this time, mentally you’re going to be in a much better place, your business will be in a much better place when it’s over. Remember I said 80% will survive, you want to be one of the 20% that actually thrive through this. That’s a whole different mindset, and that’s a choice, that’s a conscious choice. You got to declare that to yourself.

Micah Shilanski:  And on this, we need something to do, or our clients need something to do, and this is the part that, Joe, in that head space, this is about the taking action. If we’re sitting down and doing nothing and riding this thing out, we’re playing, just as you said, those mental games. We must take action, not only the physical action of working out, but we’ve got to do something in our business. We also got to give our clients something to do in how to take action. And Jarvis and I again just did a whole podcast on this for Backstage Pass members of things that you can do.

Micah Shilanski:  But real quick, on prospecting, we went through a three-part prospecting process. Number one, you should be running a pitch and miss campaign. Every prospect you talk with in the last year that was an ideal client and didn’t move forward, you need to be personally reaching out for them. Number two, you need to reach out to every single person on your network, whether that’s a social media network, for us it’s an email network. We’re doing now tons of communications and that. And then COIs as well, that’s there. And don’t give them crap, don’t give them market commentary that’s out there and that is crap. I don’t care who wrote it, it’s all crap.

Joe Lukacs:        No, agreed. Agreed.

Micah Shilanski:  You have to be giving them some good things. You have to be giving them perspective, that’s on there. You have to be giving the perspective of time, and also that you’re here, that if things come up and there’s questions and there’s concerns that you are available, that they can reach out to as a resource to help. So you are offering to help them. This is the point of all of this marketing that goes out there.

Micah Shilanski:  And again, Backstage Pass members, we have exactly how I’m running this because these are the three campaigns we’re really gearing up right now. They’ve already been super successful. We started them two weeks ago, well, three weeks ago, by the time this airs, and we’re getting a lot of people starting to contact our office again for request for appointments, because they’re scared and they didn’t have a plan.

Micah Shilanski:  What’s that boxing expression? “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” And a lot of investors, a lot of people that did not have a plan just got punched in the face, where they thought they did and now they don’t. You are the guidance for them and you got to be out there in order to help them.

Joe Lukacs:        Yeah. When we talk and when we do our sales training program, Get the “Yes”, we talk about no pain, no change. And so, in the last 10 years, as an advisor and you’re talking to a prospect, you’ve got to go find it. You got to do a lot Q&A, a lot narrative, stuff like that, and you’ve got to find it. Then, is it large enough for them to want to make a change? Because you represent change to somebody.

Joe Lukacs:        The environment today is 180, so the fear’s already present. It’s going to manifest differently for the prospect, but it’s there. And when people are afraid, fear equals they want to take an action. I was telling somebody this yesterday, remember I said human beings have an innate need to take action, that’s why we talk about the food store thing. So if we go health and wealth, on the health side, take care of the family, stock up, I guess have toilet paper, apparently it’s a big thing these days. Do all that stuff. But what action can they take on the wealth side?

Joe Lukacs:        So right now for a lot of people that don’t have an advisor, their idea of taking action is watching CNBC all day and trying to figure things out, or push the sell button on stuff when they shouldn’t, that’s the problem. So my point is, if you present them, here’s something you can do, and the to do in my mind is if you want to have a conversation, let’s have a conversation. Our industry needs to sell conversations right now first and foremost. So if a prospect, a human being’s presented with, here’s a course of action that you could take that will meet your emotional need to do something, they’re going to be way more apt to take advantage of that offer because they have a deep emotional need to do something.

Micah Shilanski:  Yeah. So Joe, I like it, we’re just running a little long, so let’s wrap this thing up because this podcast is all about action items. It’s all about advisors getting something that they can do to take action on right away.

Micah Shilanski:  So I’m going to jump in here and say the first action item is to make sure, and if they don’t have it, to create some morning success ritual that’s there. Again, Joe has a great … with his tribe that he has set up, he has that MM-Eight that you can run through. It’s really great stuff. But you got to have some type of morning success ritual and, end of day plan.

Micah Shilanski:  For me, I got to turn this thing off, and it’s hard to do, especially when I’m in surge time, meeting with clients. So I got to have a system in order to dump all of that stuff off my plate, mentally, so I can lay my head on the pillow at night and sleep, otherwise I can’t. So I’d say that’s your first action item. What’s another one that the TPR nation should take, Joe?

Joe Lukacs:        So in addition to that … I think 1-A, is the morning piece for sure. I think 1-B is, give this meaning. Do not have uncertainty around us, I don’t care if it is, hey, we’ll be fine a year from now, six months from now, you’ve got to have meaning to this. No uncertainty, number one. So number one, morning ritual, 1-B give this meaning.

Joe Lukacs:        Next, stay external. Don’t make this about you because if you’re going to start playing that game, you’re inside your head, you’re dead, so stay external, be of service to others. You’re going to feel good about that. The next thing.

Joe Lukacs:        Next, mind-body, so exercise, eat right, maybe a little bit more sleep. Our environment now is demanding more, and if you’re going to go be one of the 20 percenters that want to go play in traffic and go grow your business throughout this thing, you’re going to need even more mental and emotional energy, so you got to take care of yourself there. Don’t sit there and say, “Oh my God, I got to make all these calls.” Find time to work out, find time to eat right. Don’t make this the conversation with yourself that I can abandon all those things, I’m in crisis mode. Don’t, all right? I think that’s super, super important.

Joe Lukacs:        And then, be a communicator. I think the other thing, the more you communicate A, the better you’re going to feel because you’re adding value, you’re going to keep your clients in a good place, you’re going to grow your business. We are now not in the advising business, we are in the communication an influence business. That’s a little bit of a different business because it’s not so much based on facts and figures and it’s not intellectual, analytical, it’s all emotional. And the only way you can do that is if you check your own. You got to make sure you’re in a good place with that.

Joe Lukacs:        And then understand that people crave leadership in times like this. So lead your tribe, lead your teams. You and I had this off camera conversation before we got going here. Your staff, make sure they’re in a good place. What I mean by that is don’t take the, “Yeah, I’m okay.” Find out, “Hey, what are you doing for you? What are you doing for your family?” Your team’s working on the front lines and then they’re going to three quarter empty grocery stores, kids that have been home, and so there’s a lot more stress level.

Joe Lukacs:        It’s like a tip of an iceberg, you’re only seeing this, you have no idea what’s underneath there and you don’t want a member of your team to spin out on you. It’s all hands on deck right now, so make sure you do the job with that, lead. And I think that’s really key, get that leader mindset that I’m a cowboy or cowgirl, whatever you want to call it, and I’m not going to just get through this thing, I’m going to drive through this thing.

Micah Shilanski:  And crush it.

Joe Lukacs:        Big difference, right? Like I said, a class two versus class six, and you can coast on both, one of them is not a good idea. So get the paddles in the water and row like hell. That’s what we need to do right now.

Micah Shilanski:  And on the team side too, and then I’ll give one last action item, we’ll kind of wrap this thing up. On the team side, one of the things from one of our team members is they were seeing a lot of their friends, a lot of their peers starting to lose their jobs and they were concerned they were going to lose theirs, and it wasn’t something that we thought of quite frankly. I’m really glad we had open communication with the team, that we were able to talk about this. We brought everyone in on our big team Google Hangouts. So everybody came in on a big video conference and we made it clear, no one’s losing their jobs, just abundantly clear. We got work to do, we have people to help, we need our team. We have a great team and we’re going to be here regardless of the market corrections. So I like that, listening to your team and doing it.

Micah Shilanski:  The last thing I want to leave you with, and I think one of the key things inside of here, find the joy. There’s a lot of stress, there’s a lot of unhappiness, there’s a lot of concern, there’s a lot of great things that are happening as well. There’s some things that we can lock onto. One quick example of some of our communities are teenagers that now don’t have school, are actually reaching out to seniors and they’re saying, “Hey, if you can’t go to the grocery store, call and order, we’ll go pick it up and we’ll bring it to you.” That’s amazing, that’s a wonderful thing that’s happening in these communities that are out there.

Micah Shilanski:  So find the joy in your place and share it with your family, share it with your team, share it with your clients because we got to be a little lighthearted about this. No, not a goofball, but in trying times, we also have to be happy. We got to find the joy and we got to share that so we can all get through this.

Joe Lukacs:        Agreed. Again, it’s really about changing your emotional state is what you’re saying, bottom line. It’s great, great advice.

Micah Shilanski:  Joe, thank you so much for being on. I think this has been just a ton of information for our nation, so thank you very much for sharing your time, your wisdom, your expertise with us this morning.

Joe Lukacs:        Thank you very much.

Micah Shilanski:  All right. Until next time everybody, happy planning.

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