This is The Perfect RIA, in case you didn’t know. Bringing you all the strategies to help your business grow. Are you happy? Are you satisfied? Are you hanging on the edge of your seat? Sit back and listen in while you feel the beat. Another myth bites the dust…

Matthew Jarvis:   Hello, everyone. Welcome to another great episode of The Perfect RIA podcast. If you don’t know by now, I am your cohost, Matthew Jarvis, and with me, the man, the myth, the legend Micah Shilanski live. Well, I guess not live. You and I are live, but if you’re listening to this, it’s not live, but lively recorded from Maui, Hawaii.

Micah Shilanski:  Aloha. Mele Kalikimaka.

Matthew Jarvis:   Micah is actually wearing a grass skirt right now.

Micah Shilanski:  Nice coconut bra, so they’ve got that image going for you. Good job.

Matthew Jarvis:   Wow. Good luck to you on that. Good luck to you on that. Well, Micah, as always, it’s great to have you on the podcast. It’s fun to do these together. I’ve got to say we have had an overwhelming response from the $100,000 challenge. We’ve had advisors all over the industry reaching out to us saying, wow, they’re so excited about adding $100,000 of revenue.

Matthew Jarvis:   Our vendors that run our podcast have been contacting us about it. I’ve actually gotten calls from other coaching programs. Saying, “Jarvis, what’s the deal with this $100,000 challenge? You’re really setting a high bar out there.” So kind of excited for this.

Micah Shilanski:  I think it’s going to be phenomenal. It’s kind of one of those things that we get talking about and we get excited about, but it was the neat was the first response that I got. Was again, as you said from our outside vendor and he’s like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What did you just say? Is that possible? How?”

Micah Shilanski:  He started grilling me for this. I’m like, “This is totally possible.” He’s like, “This is a marketing gimmick.” I’m like, “This is not a marketing gimmick. This is not a trick whatsoever. This is real. This is things that you have to do to put in place that you can rise up to this 100K challenge.”

Micah Shilanski:  Now, if you’re not familiar with what we’re talking about because you’ve been under a rock or haven’t listened to our previous episodes. What we were referring to is Jarvis and I, a few podcasts ago, came out and said we’re going to challenge advisors in 2020. Can you deliver enough massive value to your clients, to your prospects, to generate at least another 100,000 in revenue for this year? If that’s not a big enough number, then it’s 20%. Whichever is greater. Not smaller, whichever is greater.

Micah Shilanski:  Sure, if you’re in maybe your first or second year of business, this may be really challenging. Other than that this is a very doable, realistic thing. We’re going to go over a blueprint in the next five to six months of exactly what you need to do in order to rise to that challenge and to crush it. Absolutely crush it.

Matthew Jarvis:   That’s right. The impetus for this $100,000 challenge is the whole purpose of this podcast, as we say at the end of every episode, is for you to take action in your practice. While Mike and I have a lot of fun recording these, if you’re not able to add $100,000 to your practice, this isn’t the right podcast for you.

Matthew Jarvis:   So kind of related to that, we want to talk today, clear some room for this growth in your practice by tackling a couple of issues where advisors really get stuck. One, is we find advisors all the time getting stuck on great ideas, or heaven forbid, Micah, million dollar ideas.

Matthew Jarvis:   They say, “Well, I’ve got this great idea. It’s going to transform my practice. Or I read this great idea. Or I heard of this great idea.” Micah, tell us what are great ideas good for?

Micah Shilanski:  Absolutely nothing. They’re not worth anything. Implementation is the only thing that matters. Great ideas do not. This is something that we just see time and time. We even see it in our own office. I mean I want to be the first one to admit this, that we will hold off on going forward with something because it’s not perfect. It’s not great. It’s this and that.

Micah Shilanski:  Or we get attracted by this new shiny widget, which is this million dollar idea that’s out there. We really got to stop and say, “Wait, wait, wait. Does this actually make sense?” Because a million dollar idea is worthless. The question is, what are we going to put our time and energy into in order to make it productive? Make it effective? And to help deliver that massive value to our clientele?

Matthew Jarvis:   Yeah, it really, really is. The key is what you’ll implement and really key is what you will implement. So there might be things, ideas that Micah can implement. There are ideas that I can implement. Then there are ideas that you, our listener can implement. Those are different for each of us. So a great idea if implemented …

Matthew Jarvis:   In fact, Micah and I have a good friend who’s built a very successful practice to this day on cold calling. Guy has a great lifestyle practice, he’s a good friend of ours. We’ll rib him in a few weeks when we see him. He made a great practice to this day on cold calling. That is not an idea that’s going to work for me. I’m just not going to implement that. No matter how much you tell me it’s going to add to my bottom line. I’m just not going to cold call. That just doesn’t work for me.

Matthew Jarvis:   So these ideas, not only do we get stuck on oh, this is a great idea. We need to focus on the ideas that we’ll implement. A related example, kind of to cold calling would be, it would be great if every day you called 10 people you knew and invited them out for a cup of coffee just to pick their brain. Or call 10 centers of influence, or call 10 clients.

Matthew Jarvis:   If you think, wow, I’m not going to get to 10, great. One is better than zero. So all action is better than no action. Would 10 be better than one? Yep. But one is infinitely better than zero.

Micah Shilanski:  I think this is the key part with this million dollar idea and why they’re worthless. Because so many advisors that I see and I talk to, will hold off on going for, taking action, because something else is out there. Something’s not perfect, or it’s not the best that’s going to be.

Micah Shilanski:  So example is a website. I hear this all the time. “Micah, I really can’t start my marketing just yet because I don’t have my branding there. I think I need to get a new logo. I think I need to get a new firm name, I need to redo my website, I need to do a brochure, I need a whatever.”

Micah Shilanski:  All they’re doing is creating excuses. They’re creating excuses, they’re putting up their own roadblocks, they’re arguing for their own limitations. They’re putting up these blocks instead of just taking action and moving forward. Because they have this perfect million dollar idea that they will never implement on.

Matthew Jarvis:   Yeah. Now, for our listeners, and again, Micah and I have both been incredibly guilty of this, just do some quick examination of yourself. What have you been holding off doing until? You tell yourself, well, when this happens, when I get my CFP, then I’ll blank. When I get my new office, when I get my new stationary, when I get my own blog, when I get my own podcast, then I’ll do these things.

Matthew Jarvis:   Whatever that thing is, set it aside. To Micah’s point, you need to be taking action literally this week. Not hypothetically, not fictitiously. You need to literally look and say, “What are three things I’m going to do this week that will get me closer to adding $100,000 of revenue in my practice?” And then just go out and do them.

Matthew Jarvis:   Micah, you and I always talk about forcing mechanisms. I want to tell you a quick story. I was working last week with a good friend of mine who’s a chiropractor, got a new practice starting. There was a couple of things that he had been putting off doing in his practice to help it grow. So I said, “Brady, tell you what, here are the three things you said you wanted to do this week. Do them or don’t. It doesn’t really matter to me. But if you don’t do them on Friday, you’re going to come over and wax my car.”

Matthew Jarvis:   “So I don’t really care if you do those things. If you don’t, Friday come over to wax my car.” He says, “Matt, I hate waxing cars.” I said, “Perfect.”

Micah Shilanski:  Perfect.

Matthew Jarvis:   “Perfect. So either wax my car or do what you need to do. I don’t really care.” Thursday he texted me, “Matt, not going to wax your car this week. And by the way, this was the best week my practice has ever had.” Perfect.

Matthew Jarvis:   So these forcing mechanisms, they work in every industry. He had, just like all of us. Well, I could do this thing when I get this. I’ll reschedule clients when I get a booking software. Whatever it is. Nope, just do it. Do it this week. Do it now.

Micah Shilanski:  Now let’s go back to that chiropractor example real fast. Now, would you have made him wax your car? Not like physically held him down to wax your car, but would you just let it go? Oh, he had a bad week and it didn’t happen and just wouldn’t mention it anymore?

Micah Shilanski:  Or would you consistently bring this up? “You better get your butt over here and wax my car because you didn’t get your crap done.” Which camp would you have been in if he hadn’t have done it?

Matthew Jarvis:   Oh yeah, no, he would have been over waxing my car. In fact, actually the deal was he was going to have to wax the car while wearing a bathing suit in front of our gym that we both go to in the rain, rain or shine. Now, again, those of you that are car geeks, you know that you can’t wax a car in the rain, but.

Matthew Jarvis:   By the way, I wouldn’t do accountability with anybody that I thought was going to Welch on their bet. So somebody, if I didn’t think they were going to pay on it, then they’re not serious about accountability. I’m not going to waste my time.

Micah Shilanski:  But it’s also having you as that accountability partner, right?

Matthew Jarvis:   Yes.

Micah Shilanski:  Or someone that’s going to hold you to it. So you don’t need someone that’s going to physically hold you to it. But someone that’s going to follow up on you, are you doing what you said you were going to do?

Micah Shilanski:  I know you and I do accountability for each other and I texted you the other day. Says, “Hey, where are we at with X?” Because I want to hold you to that higher level of accountability. Not because I’m worried about you’re going to Welch on the bet. But that’s my responsibility of that accountability partner. As well is following up to make sure your partner is doing what they’re supposed to be doing. That’s what you were doing. That’s what I wanted to highlight in that example.

Matthew Jarvis:   Yeah, please do. I would recommend, ideally this works when it’s reciprocal, when we each have something that we’re being held accountable to. I would discourage you from doing it with a romantic partner, with your spouse.

Micah Shilanski:  Oh, yeah, not a good idea.

Matthew Jarvis:   That’s just not a good plan. That’s a good role for encouragement. Don’t ask your spouse or your romantic partner to hold you accountable on things. That’s not going to end well. So a friend, a sibling, the guy at the gym, whatever it needs to be, put that in place.

Micah Shilanski:  Yeah.

Matthew Jarvis:   All right.

Micah Shilanski:  So this is, again, going back to that concept is the million dollar ideas are worthless, is because we hold out for them. We wait for the stars to align. We wait for things to be perfect, but you got to move forward and you got to take action in getting these things done.

Micah Shilanski:  It’s amazing when you start looking, especially in our industry, about people that have built really successful practices. It wasn’t rocket science. They didn’t have this magic potion, this magic thing that they did. They took action.

Micah Shilanski:  They just took small steps, one after another, after another, after another, and they were able to conquer the world and do some really amazing things. So what are those things that are holding you back today that you’re waiting on X stars to align to happen? Before you can be successful and quit arguing for your limitations? Step out and start taking action.

Matthew Jarvis:   Yeah, I’m glad you pointed that out, Micah. Because it’s easy to look at successful advisors or successful individuals anywhere and say, “Wow, look at how cool their material is and how pretty their office is and how well dressed they are.” Those are all luxuries that come with success.

Matthew Jarvis:   Micah, you and I have only known each other for a few years now, but I did not have nice suits in the early days. I had a terrible website. You could even go to the way back machine and find some more old websites. Please don’t forward me pictures of them. I want to pretend they didn’t exist.

Micah Shilanski:  That’s right.

Matthew Jarvis:   Micah, you and I are even joking about one of your first federal employees videos and how atrocious it was.

Micah Shilanski:  Oh, my gosh. Yeah, before we got up on air, I saw it the other day because I was going back and looking at something. When did I first start doing videos and I re-watched the first video. It’s a horror video. I mean it is. I cannot believe that I actually posted that video online and think … hopefully you will not be able to find this. Do not send me it again. It is horrible. It is absolutely horrible.

Micah Shilanski:  But I remember being at that stage, and actually I thought it was a good video at the time, but I had to get it out. I had to break inertia that’s going to be there. I joke with that now because I bet the videos I’m doing now, that I have a professional videographer, that he comes in, they record the videos, we edit them, we post them, all of these things done professionally.

Micah Shilanski:  I bet in a year from now I’m going to think they’re crap. I guarantee in three years from now they’re going to look like crap because time’s change. So you can’t wait for them to be perfect. Because when you go back and you look at them through the lens of history, they’re not going to be perfect anyways. You got to take action on these things.

Matthew Jarvis:   I’m going to confess a really painful story. I once, early in my career, called a guy who I knew briefly, and I was calling to see if I could give him a second opinion on his financial plan. Which is not necessarily the best approach, but that’s what I was doing at the time.

Matthew Jarvis:   He says, and I kid you not, Micah, he says, “Matthew, are you going to ride your bike over here?” I said, “What do you mean am I going to ride my bike over?” He says, “You look like you just came off your paper route. There’s no way I’m going to let you look at my nest, at my investments because you look like you’ve just have come home from your paper route.”

Matthew Jarvis:   I’m not even kidding. This is a true story. So I tell that just as, sometimes we’ll talk to advisors and they’ll say, “Well, I’m too young, I’m too young to do this.” Now, Micah, you and I both had the luxury of losing some of our hair early on. I’ve lost more than you. Whatever excuse you’ve got, every successful person has something similar to that, that they’ve run into.

Micah Shilanski:  Amen. I remember Kelly and I, my wife and I, thinking about do we put gray in my hair? Because what did I get my CFP at like 23 or something like that? So I mean do you put gray in your hair to make yourself look older at that time?

Micah Shilanski:  But it doesn’t matter your age, it doesn’t matter where you’re at, you are at where you’re at now. The only thing that matters is are you going to do anything different? And are you going to implement?

Micah Shilanski:  I remember I was working with a company, it was a startup, and they were going out and trying to find a VC. So I was on a phone call with a client when he was pitching this VC and it was just, we were working through some things and it was really interesting. The VC stopped him because my client made a comment as to say, “Look, this is a billion dollar idea. Dah, dah, dah.”

Micah Shilanski:  The guy started laughing and he slammed his hand down on the table and says, “Stop. I don’t want to hear anymore.” My client’s like, “What?” He’s like, “No, look, I don’t care about your ideas. I don’t care about the billion dollars. I don’t care about these projections that you’ve made. They are all 100% worthless. They’re not worth a damn dime. I got a million people on my door that have a billion dollar ideas. What have you actually done?”

Micah Shilanski:  “What steps besides coming to me and trying to take my money have you actually done? Because implementation is the only thing I care about.” That really drove home in that call. Sure enough, my client did not get any money from this VC, but it was a phenomenal learning experience that says, don’t wait around for something to happen.

Micah Shilanski:  While it was in a slightly different space, I love taking those examples and bringing them home here. You can’t wait for things to change. You can’t wait for your BD to make a change. You can’t wait for a new software program accountant. “If only I had X program, I’d be able to do this.”

Micah Shilanski:  No, it’s all up to you. What are you going to do with the tools and the tech stack you have now to go out and be successful? Anyone can do it. Are you going to take action? Or are you going to sit there and again, argue for your limitations?

Matthew Jarvis:   That’s totally. So related to that, I want to shift this just a tiny bit. We talked about ideas don’t count, only implementation counts. I think one of the biggest things that holds us back from implementation is making excuses.

Matthew Jarvis:   So an adage I like to use with my kids all the time, are we looking for problems? Or are we looking for solutions? There will always be an excuse why not to grow your practice. Micah, you mentioned a couple of them. My broker dealer’s compliance department, my website. If only I had that next designation. I was going to make those calls today, but I don’t really feel like it. Or the market’s down. Or this went on.

Matthew Jarvis:   It’s so easy to make excuses to not take action. That’s why I like to break it down into really specific pieces. What are three things I’m going to do today and this week, that I’m going to do no matter what happens? Short of me being dead, these are going to happen. Again, forcing mechanism on top of that, because I don’t want to go wax Micah’s car.

Micah Shilanski:  So one of the things that, as we talk about action items, this is going to kind of resolve back to our 100K challenge that we’re going to talk about more. Now if you want more details on this $100,000 challenge that we’re going to do, we’re going to do a live webinar here next week I think after this airs on January 30th, right?

Matthew Jarvis:   Yep. At 9:00 AM Pacific.

Micah Shilanski:  If you haven’t signed up for that, or if you haven’t got any information on that, that is because you are not on our email list. Make sure you jump on our website, The Perfect RIA dot com, sign up, get on our newsletter list. Because this is only going to be a live event. We’re not going to repost it at all.

Micah Shilanski:  We’re going to be going over what you need to talk about in your next surge meetings. Or at least what Jarvis and I are going to go over in our next surge meetings with clients. It’s really important. It’ll be a good episode for you to kind of go through and learn that information about.

Matthew Jarvis:   Real quick on that, Micah, and I just want to prime the pump a little bit for this webinar. This is an example where it would be easy to … so surge meetings, it kind of would be easy to just say, “Well, I’ll just do what I did last quarter. Worked.”

Matthew Jarvis:   “I’ll kind of wing it. I’ll kind of just half ass it.” No, you and I, we’re going to talk about this on the 30th, we want to look at each quarter. I want clients, if they were judging our entire relationship on that one meeting, to say, “That was worth every dollar I pay Micah. It was worth every dollar I pay Matthew.”

Matthew Jarvis:   That’s why we get referrals and that’s why we’re excited to see our clients because we’re delivering value again and again. So this all ties to the $100,000 revenue. I don’t want you to think that client service is somehow not tied to adding 100,000 in revenue.

Micah Shilanski:  No, it absolutely is. It’s all about client service. Because the better client service we have, that’s delivering massive value, that’s coming full circle inside of this. We talk about that implementation and when not to do things because we can always make excuses for things.

Micah Shilanski:  So the other day while I was here, I caught a bug and I was down and out. I texted the team, I was like, “Look, I am out. So if all else fails, please don’t contact me.” Well, I ended up getting a message because the client had an emergency. It was one of those things that says, “I have to talk to Micah today.”

Micah Shilanski:  This rarely happens. The team tried to do our normal rescheduling process and it was like, “Absolutely not. I’m at the hospital, my sister is terminal. She’s going to die any minute. We have issues. I have to talk with Micah.”

Matthew Jarvis:   Oh, wait, this is your client. This is not your sister?

Micah Shilanski:  No it’s not my sister. No, this is my client’s.

Matthew Jarvis:   I was like, oh, no, is Jamie okay? That’s terrible.

Micah Shilanski:  No, no. Jamie’s fine. Family’s fine. This is my client calling.

Matthew Jarvis:   Okay, sorry.

Micah Shilanski:  Thank you for that clarification. Now, it would have been super easy for me in that minute, I mean I was not feeling good. So it would be super easy for me just to ignore my phone or tell my team, “Look, I am sick. I will call him later whatsoever.” But no, it’s one of those things that says our actions matter.

Micah Shilanski:  So I bucked up, I got on the phone, I chatted with him for kind of 15 or 20 minutes. Sure enough, he was on the precipice of making some very bad decisions because his sister was about to die and a lot of his family and friends were saying, “Hey, just transfer everything in your sister’s name to you while she’s still alive.” Why is this a good idea?

Micah Shilanski:  But anyways, I mean, she had a farm, she had remote property, she had all of this stuff. There would be huge tax implications. So I was able to spend a little bit of time on the phone with him, answered his questions, got everything outlined, got some followup actions.

Micah Shilanski:  Again, it was about a 20 minute phone call and he said, “Micah, I just knew as soon as I talked to you, everything would be okay. I just knew as soon as we chatted, you are my financial coach, you were going to guide me with what I needed to do and there’s so many things. Thank you for spending the time and talking to me.” This is the idea that goes back to our concept of do you think you have a million dollar practice? Or do you really do?

Micah Shilanski:  A million dollar practice is stepping up to the plate when your client needs you, regardless of where you’re at. Not only was I out of town, I was down and out, but you got to step up in those cases to deliver high values of client service. Are you willing to commit to that? If you’re not willing to commit to that, then you know what, The Perfect RIA is not for you.

Micah Shilanski:  Because this comes with a tons of freedoms, it also comes with a ton of responsibilities to dramatically help your client and make sure things are taken care of. When that call wrapped up and he says, “Micah, I know this is outside of our scope. I am delighted to pay you more for this. It is totally okay.”

Micah Shilanski:  So not only does he pay me a substantial amount, got a couple million dollars of assets with us plus financial planning fees. He’s offering to pay more because he really needed that help and he values our service. That’s this type of service you need to deliver in this 100,000 challenge, 100K challenge, in order to rise to that occasion and to make that happen.

Matthew Jarvis:   Yeah, I really liked that. I really liked that. I think we’ll have to do a whole podcast episode on this. It does also highlight that adding $100,000 of revenue to your practice will not be easy. The steps are relatively simple and we’re going to go over those over the next six months.

Micah Shilanski:  It’s not complex.

Matthew Jarvis:   You’re going to have to do the work. It’s not complicated. But there’s a reason that not many people can add $100,000 of revenue to their practice in a year, or just period. It takes real hard work and that does not mean it takes a lot of time. It just means that time needs to be focused.

Matthew Jarvis:   But yeah, you’ve got to do the work. I haven’t met anybody. Maybe, Micah, you might know somebody, an advisor that kind of slacked off their way to a perfect practice. I haven’t seen it.

Micah Shilanski:  No, I’ve never seen that whatsoever. But the funny part is, Jarvis, is we talk about it’s extra work and it is. But what is it? 10% more work? I mean it’s not double. I mean it’s not. It doesn’t take twice as much work as an average practice to have a Perfect RIA practice.

Micah Shilanski:  It takes getting across that finish line, it takes an extra 10%. Which you’re really putting all that energy and effort into it anyways. It only takes that little bit more to make this a phenomenal practice.

Matthew Jarvis:   That’s right. So when we talk about that a little bit more and maybe we can transition to some action items. But even just the ones that you can commit to this week, and we’ve harped on this one again and again, but I see this mistake happening constantly. How many times are you checking your email a day? Checking your email will not add $100,000 of revenue to you practice. I promise you, in no universe will that happen.

Matthew Jarvis:   Instead, using that time to call those clients, to call those prospects, to call those centers of influence, that would work out. So your action item can be things to stop doing. I like action items that are in the affirmative. I’m going to do this. I’m only going to check my email once a day. So that could be your thing.

Matthew Jarvis:   “Hey, every time I check my email, I’m going to send $10 to my least favorite candidate for president.” Please don’t tell us who that is because it might get Micah and I riled up, but that could be your thing this week. “Hey, this week, $10 donation to least favorite candidate for president every time I check my email.” That’ll get you moving.

Micah Shilanski:  Yeah, it needs to be something, that take action. You can get your team involved with this. So your team can help with this. So if they catch you slacking off or doing other stuff, they can help hold you accountable and those types of things. Those are great implementation items.

Micah Shilanski:  The other things that I go back to, and I’m going to go back to this 100K challenge we’re talking about. A lot of this has to do with not only client service, but marketing. How are you going to onboard new clients? How are you going to bring on new clients? So who are you putting off calling?

Micah Shilanski:  So making that action commitment to engage in one marketing event every single week. Which really isn’t that much. So not saying do a live event, do a webinar, but one marketing activity, whether that is calling a center of influence. I don’t think you need to call 10 a day. If you just called one or two a week, you would be set for this next year.

Micah Shilanski:  Is it calling clients and chatting with them, your top clients, and then are following up on items or things that they did? Having your team follow up with items for your clients in a high service capacity. These are super easy things.

Micah Shilanski:  After a distribution has taken, I mean high touch item I think, after a distribution was supposed to take place, and unscheduled ones, not regular monthly distributions. But if a client calls up and needs 20 grand, does your team follow up with them in a week to make sure they got the money? Do they have any questions on it?

Micah Shilanski:  This isn’t even your time, it’s your team’s time. That is a high value touch item. If you want to talk about increasing your referrals, increase your touches to clients. Increase your high value touches to clients, you become top of mind, they will start giving you more referrals.

Micah Shilanski:  So these are little easy things that you have to do. Again, it’s not double the work. It’s just one extra thing and then this leads to that 100K challenge.

Matthew Jarvis:   Yeah, I completely agree. Those are all really great examples. It’s a good reminder that the time that you make money, the time that you deliver value, the time that you’re growing your practice, is when you are face to face, or at least ear to ear, if you will, over the phone with somebody.

Matthew Jarvis:   Sure, doing the Facebook posts and podcasts and blog posts, those can all create awareness for your practice and those will benefit your practice eventually. But, boy, if you’re trying to add $100,000 revenue this year, you need to be on the phone with people. You need to be in front of people.

Matthew Jarvis:   Micah, to your point, I love that. At least one marketing activity every week. Doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be a workshop or an event or a webinar. It could be as simple as, “Hey, Dave, I’ve made some changes in my practice. I’d love to talk to you about them. Could we grab coffee?” Perfect.

Micah Shilanski:  Yeah, easy things to do. So as you guys know, this podcast is all about action items, so let’s go and fire off some action items that you need to do. Number one, if you haven’t done it, sign up for our webinar. That’s yes, this is self-serving. Sign up for our webinar, which is going to be next week on January 30th. This was Jarvis’s idea, so I think that means it’s free. So we’re not charging for this one at first.

Matthew Jarvis:   No, not at first. We’re going to test this one out. So yeah, like Micah said, if you didn’t get the email yet, it’s because you’re not on the email list. Be sure to get on it.

Matthew Jarvis:   Next action item, I would say pick three things this week that you’re going to do and pick someone who can help you stay accountable for them. This can be anybody and the accountability doesn’t have to be crazy. That friend, I just had them set an accountability with another guy that he works out with. Every day he doesn’t … He has a daily checklist, really quick five-point daily checklist. If he doesn’t do his daily checklist, all he can do is cardio at the gym, no weightlifting.

Matthew Jarvis:   He found a guy named Kelly at the gym who would be glad to enforce that. So he says, “Great, Kelly, if I show up at the gym, ask to see my checklist, if it’s not done then I’ve got to do the cardio bike, I can’t lift any weights.” That’s what he needed to do that. So pick three things to do every week. Ideally something every day. Find an accountability partner for that.

Micah Shilanski:  I love it. Then what’s your forcing mechanisms on the professional and personal goals? Really create some. I like Jarvis’s idea on the little things. You can have forcing mechanisms for big things and for small things. So what are your top goals for this year? If you haven’t gone and set goals for 2020, you need to. You have to go through and set your goals.

Micah Shilanski:  Then your top three goals, what’s your forcing mechanisms for each goal? That’s going to be there. Now we’re going to talk about this in one of our next episodes and our backstage pass when we get into this 100K challenge thing. But we’re going to break down of saying, all right, if this is your top line goal, how do you need to break that down into action items every single week?

Micah Shilanski:  So that’s what I’m going to say is our third one. Make sure you got your goals for this next year. If you have those goals, just like Jarvis said, make sure you’ve got those forcing mechanisms in place to make sure you achieve those goals.

Matthew Jarvis:   I would add related to that, each morning that you’re working, ideally each morning, and, Micah, you’re really good at morning routines. I’m kind of hit and miss. But I do this. Each morning I get to the office, here are my goals. What am I doing this day that is going to get me closer to that goal? Because there’s such a risk of saying, “Well, tomorrow I’ll work on my goals. Next week I’ll work. Next month. When this happens, then I’ll work on my goals.”

Matthew Jarvis:   Every day you can get closer to your goal, no matter what it is. What am I doing today? And then make that a priority behind everything else.

Micah Shilanski:  Okay, I love it. As usual, if you haven’t done in the last couple of days, given us a five star review, jump on iTunes, give us another five star review. We’re totally fine with that. Vote early. Vote often. That’s our motto here. But if you could share this with another advisor, that would be amazing.

Micah Shilanski:  Not only are you guys helping us grow the TPR nation, which is great. Our downloads have increased, our communication on social has increased. Our engagement with listeners has increased and we’re really enjoying that. Hopefully we’re giving out a lot of value to you guys. Our TPR nation I think would be amazing.

Micah Shilanski:  We have heard you guys ask for more things and we are going to deliver. We’ve talked about it a little bit. We’re going to come up with this thing called a backstage pass. The backstage pass is going to be pretty … Well, we’re building it. So of course we think it’s amazing. But we’re going to go over some pretty cool things inside of our backstage pass which will be announced in the next couple of weeks.

Micah Shilanski:  We’re going to limit the number of people that can attend and that can come into this. So I would say stay tuned to that. Make sure you guys are paying attention that you’re going to have the availability to sign up. Jarvis, did I miss anything on that?

Matthew Jarvis:   Yeah, just on the webinar will be 45 minutes of really solid content. How Micah and I deliver massive value in our meetings this quarter. Then we’ll spend about 15 minutes talking about the backstage pass. It is going to be a really exciting piece.

Matthew Jarvis:   The t-shirts are getting out in the mail. We had some design issues and printing issues. Apparently our highest and best use of time is not creating t-shirts, but the new shorts look awesome.

Micah Shilanski:  Who knew?

Matthew Jarvis:   Yeah, we’re pretty excited for them. So for those of you that voted early, please accept our apologies that the shirt got delayed, but they are coming out and they look pretty cool. They’ll be worth the wait.

Micah Shilanski:  Happy planning.

Matthew Jarvis:   Happy planning.

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