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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…

Micah Shilanski: Welcome back to the Perfect RIA Podcast. I am co-host, Micah Shilanski, and with me as usual is the legendary Matthew Jarvis. What’s going on Jarvis?

Matthew Jarvis: Man, life is good, Micah. Just enjoying the summer with my family, taking a lot of great time off. But I’m always excited to do these podcasts. It gives us a chance to reflect, to help the TPR nation, to help more advisors get the perfect practice. But also Micah, this is a great time for you and I to reflect and say, “Boy, how can we improve our own practice along the way?”

Micah Shilanski: This accountability that the podcast delivers for us has been phenomenal. And I really hope to the nation out there, this is something we would love for you guys to strive for as well and I hope this podcast is doing that for you. But the fact that Jarvis and I meet, we time block these pods. But the fact that we meet and we go over these things, then he talks about things he’s doing, and it’s a great reflection for me to go back, says, “Crap. I need to up my game, I need to do X, Y, and Z. I need to add these things.” Then my team listens to the podcast and it’s like, “Hey, remember we talked about this in the podcast.” It’s like, “Yeah, okay, we need to make sure we’re getting these things done.” It’s a phenomenal way just to grow your practice by implementing these things. So yeah, I really appreciate the nation. Thank you guys so much for being out there for listening to and putting it up with the two of us.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah, it really is. Now a quick fun thing that I want to throw out. This was not on our scripted thing, but we had an opportunity to talk last week with Michael Kitces, the man, the myth, the legend, if there ever was one. And an interesting takeaway we had from that call is he said, “Hey, you guys,” speaking to Mike and I. “You lifestyle advisors, you highly successful, highly profitable lifestyle advisors, you’re really kind of shunned in our industry. You’re sort of viewed,” and we had this on a call with a major back office firm. They said, “Hey, lifestyle is probably code for lazy,” but we’re kind of this hidden corner of the industry where we’re saying, “We can run a great practice. We can deliver massive value. We can be highly profitable, but we don’t need to work 60, 80 hours a week. We don’t need to work every single day or week of the year.” So kind of, we have our little niche here, our corner of the industry that is the perfect RIA.

Micah Shilanski: And it’s focusing on the family, is a really huge part of this.

Matthew Jarvis: Yes.

Micah Shilanski: Because yes, you could do any type of business working 60, 70, 80 hours, whatsoever. What type of family life do you have at the end of the day? How are you raising your kids? How is your time with your spouse? What’s your own personal self worth valued at, that’s going to be there? And that’s a lot of what we’re going to actually be chatting about today on that mindset side. And that’s why I think the perfect RIA is so perfect. What’s the slogan working it worth? Practically perfect in every way.

Matthew Jarvis: In every RIA. That was my kid’s joke, practically perfect in every RIA.

Micah Shilanski: That’s awesome. Hey, if you want to shoot us an email and you know where that quote came from, they’ll be some swag in there for ya. So yeah, no, I think that is so important because doing this sets the bar so much higher for the massive value that we deliver to our clients, that’s going to be there. And I had a conversation with my nephew and he’s going through college right now. He’s already starting off down the wrong path, going to college.

Matthew Jarvis: No kidding.

Micah Shilanski: So he’s going to college and he wants to be a CFP and his big thing is he wants to join the firm. He wants to do this. And the big question is how much money does he want to make? And how does an 18 year old describe that? I mean, just so challenging to think about it in that aspect, but as we go through, it’s all correlated with time and he’s not correlating it with value that’s there.

So it’s an interesting discussion. Again, it’s not a time question about how much do you work? It’s how much of a value do you add and what is your mindset to deliver that value? And if you don’t have the right mindset to deliver the value, nothing else is going to fall into line. So this really starts between your ears, between your mindset.

Matthew Jarvis: It really is. And I think that’s something that’s really ingrained in the American or at least North American culture, which is this idea that the longer and harder I work, the better I am, right? So again Micah, you and I, we talk to advisors that say, “Well, I care about my clients too much. I couldn’t take all that time off work.” And we’re saying, “Well, wait, this has nothing to do with how much you care about your clients. If we’re looking at the amount of value that you’re delivering and let’s measure this by the way, however you want, if we’re measuring it for them face to face time. If we’re measuring on the elements of the financial plan rate, you pick an element-

Micah Shilanski: Not emotions, not about not how you feel. Something quantifiable.

Matthew Jarvis: Not time it and see. Yeah. The perfect already delivers that, right? Micah, you and I have as much client time or more client facing time than almost any other type of advisor. It’s just, when we’re in the office, we’re not going to play office. We’re going to meet with clients. We’re going to lead our team, and then we’re going to get the heck out of the office. There’s no sense playing office.

Micah Shilanski: Exactly. So let’s jump into this. I want to talk about mindset, and my mindset got called out on me recently. Which is kind of the spring for this podcast that was there. And it was actually great. It was on a personal level it got called out, and it really made me kind of step back and reflect about, what was I talking to myself as?

What was I saying internal? What was my internal dialogue about this event? And then, how it reflected to when I was just starting out, it was kind of that same mindset, just starting out as an advisor. I didn’t have a successful mental dialogue that was going on and it attributed to negative success, a.e. not being successful. Right. And I really had to change that dialogue. And I had to set things up to trigger successful actions.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah. And we see this a lot with advisors, right? And we’ll run into it with advisors in the nation with, especially in the backstage pass, say, “Mike, I can’t do X. I can’t take on big clients. I can’t have a niche. I can’t go independent. I can’t hire someone until blank, until I get my CFP, until I get my college degree, until I have enough clients, until I make enough money.”

Micah Shilanski: “Until I change companies.”

Matthew Jarvis: “Until I changed companies, until I go fee only, and blah, blah, blah.” That ends up being a hamster wheel. We sort of tell ourselves that that’s a one. I just have one until, but then another until comes, and another, and another, and we’re just stuck in paralysis the whole time.

Micah Shilanski: It’s just an excuse. That’s all we’re doing is we’re making excuses for ourselves and we can justify our excuses and say, they’re real. And we can really make them real and insurmountable, compliance won’t approve this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I guess the short answer is I don’t want to hear it. Not that I don’t care. I just don’t care because success is about you and your mindset setting it up. So Jarvis, let’s talk a little bit about how, and I’m happy to go first. I’ll talk a little bit how we set up a success on a routine basis that’s going to be there, not just in your professional life, but as it gets triggered here in my personal life, I need to make sure I’m doing the same things as well. And for me, we started off, I think we talked to us on maybe podcasts or two. Definitely with Joe, we talked about it.

What I call my MSR, my morning success ritual. That’s going to be there every single morning in some capacity, what are you doing to trigger yourself for success? Now I have a slightly different morning success ritual when I’m in surge time because I need to gear up for clients. I need to be in client mode. I need to be in presentation mode. I need to be gearing up on that. So I’m going to have a slightly different morning success ritual to make sure I am on an A game for that. Versus when I’m in personal life, I still need a morning success ritual. I do not want to get out of the habit of doing my morning success ritual. Otherwise I won’t do it in surge time. Especially with the long gaps that are there, but I’m going to pivot it just a little bit, to be more of a personal morning success ritual versus the business morning success ritual.

So for me, that’s going to start off with getting up, getting ready for the day. I do Bible readings, first thing in the morning, and then it’s really writing out my goals that I want to have. And this is really big bets there. Now I’m not writing out my tasks of what to do for today, but I’m handwriting in paper… Jarvis and I were joking, we had a podcast the other day for the backstage pass members. And we both had paper right in front of us of the goals and stuff we were writing down. And writing down on a piece of paper, every single goal that I want to accomplish this year, and it keeps everything top of mind. I talk about the massive value I want to deliver to my clients. I talk about exceeding their expectations. So I’m ingraining this on a daily basis that these are things I want to achieve. Now I’m not writing down, how am I going to achieve massive value because that’s more of a task on what’s here. It’s more, this is the mentality that I want to have approaching this every single day.

Matthew Jarvis: I really like that Micah, it’s something we’ve talked about a lot. Now let’s step this back a little bit though. So you’ve got this morning success ritual, but you’ve got a pretty cushy life at this point, right? Let me tease you a little bit. You’ve got this great practice. You’ve got a great lifestyle. You’ve got a great family, right? You’re a CFP. You’ve got all these things going. You’re the co-host of the Perfect RIA Podcast.

Micah Shilanski: Right there. Why didn’t you lead with that one?

Matthew Jarvis: So there’s like a morning success road with like, “Well, every morning I get a massage. It’s like, this is important, but let’s rewind it.

Micah Shilanski: Okay, I’m going to add that to my list.

Matthew Jarvis: I get my handmade coffee and a massage. Let’s rewind this earlier in your career. Let’s rewind it from before you were CFP, before the perfect RIA, before you had a great revenue stream. What does it look like then? Now I want to make sure people catch. I’m not just teasing Micah here, but you did not start day one with a CFP. You did not start with 170 million in assets. You did not start with money in the bank.

Micah Shilanski: My net worth was negative for a period of time. Yes.

Matthew Jarvis: For a long period, by the way, not just like a day. Right?

Micah Shilanski: Correct. And keep in mind, I didn’t go to college. So that means it was not college debt that triggered a negative net worth. That was not student loans that was there. It was marketing dollars on credit cards that didn’t work. Different episode.

Matthew Jarvis: But I want to highlight this because you had a morning success ritual before you were a successful person, however we want to define success.

Micah Shilanski: That is correct. Now, and it was a direct correlation between getting in a morning success ritual really triggered that. And my dad would always talk about it for a long time, because my dad has been very successful in the planning side. And I remember always asking him, “How are you successful?” And he would always stop back and say, “You’ll be successful the minute you have a fire in your belly. And if you don’t have a fire in your belly, you’re not going to be successful.” Now I had to define that a little bit more. Like, what is that? And how do you get a fire in your belly, when it’s not there? And for me, it was sitting back and writing down these goals and what I wanted to be, not who I am today.

Who am I aspiring to be? So what are these longterm visions of myself out there? Like, I’m a phenomenal husband. I’m a great father. All of these things that I want to be, how do I put those out there so that’s how I’m framing this? And no, I started and by the way, when I started this and I’d write down who I am and who I want to be, and my brain would be like, “No, you’re not. No, you can’t. You can’t do this. There’s no way you’re going to achieve that.” My internal psychology was very negative, and it still can be from time to time. And I got to be conscious about that.

Matthew Jarvis: Totally.

Micah Shilanski: And so it’ll so be negative when you’re writing these things out, and you just have to push through it. And your brain is going to say, “No, you’re not.” It’s going to say, “Stop.” It’s going to say, “This is stupid. This is, dear diary, blah, blah, blah.” All that head trash is going to be coming in. And you’ve got to push through that. You’ve got to have the perseverance to push through that. And that eventually your brain’s going to be like, “Okay, we’ll find you are successful. Okay. Well fine, you can do this.” And then it’ll be kind of neutral. And then it’s going to move to positive. And then all of a sudden it’s about, “Yes, you can do this. Yes, you are this. Yes, you’re going to be able to do this.” So this isn’t writing down things that I’ve achieved in the past. This is things that I aspire to be, which gets me excited.

Matthew Jarvis: I really liked what you talked about, kind of reprogramming your brain. So for whatever reason, our brains tend to be naturally negative. I’m not this. I can’t do this.” And it’s really a re-program, and sometimes we think, and Micah, you and I were joking on this before the call, you and I, and again, for those of you who don’t remember, Micah and I have only known each other for like three years now, but early in our career, it turns out we both got the same silly designation because we were both convinced independently that if all… Because neither of us had a college degree going into the industry, no designation. So if only I had a designation-

Micah Shilanski: That’s right.

Matthew Jarvis: … then I would be successful. Obviously the CFP was kind of the gold standard, but we were so far away from that, that wasn’t even an option. So we both found a designation, which the SEC sort of later banned. And Micah, I don’t know about your experience, once I got that designation, you want to know what happened? Nothing. Well, actually worse than nothing. Because now I had to get new letterhead and new business cards because I wanted that designation up there. How many prospects called? Goose egg. Not one. The only person who called was probably the credit card company, wanting to know how it was going to pay for the designation fee.

Micah Shilanski: You know the horrible part about this right? Is I had this mentality going into it, and you probably did too, that as soon as I get this, people are going to be beating down my door. Absolutely. I’m going to hang this out there and people aren’t going to be able to hold back, coming in, in that, such that let down, that’s going to be there because it’s not about what’s behind your name, if people just don’t care.

Yes. Some people may do a Google search for CFP, blah, blah, blah. But reality is people do not care. In point in case for that, are there are some very, very successful CFPs and there’s a lot of very unsuccessful CFPs. So if everyone of the CFP, if people were beating down your door, then every single CFP would be booked solid. And they’re not. Now, this isn’t saying CFP’s a bad designation. I’m not ragging on the CFP, but understand what it is. It is a minimum bar that potentially you need to accomplish. I say potentially, because there’s a lot of very successful people without this. And Jarvis, you were joking about a minimum bar that you don’t get praised for, like bathing.

Matthew Jarvis: Like bathing, having electricity in your office. Yeah.

Micah Shilanski: Right. These are minimum bars that you must hit, but just because you hit them, people are not beating down your door. So this is all about you and what you’re putting out in the world is really going to reflect what’s coming back.

Matthew Jarvis: That’s right. That’s right. Now let’s let’s use the CFP one as an example, again, Micah and I both have our CFP designations, and it is definitely a great bar to aim for. So let’s say you’re not a CFP. Can you still be a successful advisor? Yes, indeed you can. So Micah, you mentioned advisors that are very successful, not CFPs. And ultimately, almost every advisor got their start, not as a CFP because you had to have at least five years of experience. And so they had to survive the first five years. Micah, you and I should go back and look to see what our assets were at before we got our CFP. That might be an interesting one.

Micah Shilanski: Oh, that’d be fun.

Matthew Jarvis: I don’t recall what mine is. So if you’re not a CFP, how do you handle that? Well, I would say first you got to understand that’s head trash. You can be a great advisor and not have your CFP. You can lean on CFPs. So if you say, “Wow, I’m really worried that a prospect’s going to say I can only work with a CFP.” “Great news. I’m mentored by a team of CFPs and I’m steadily working my way towards the designation myself. Right now I’m focused on delivering massive value to my clients. Is that okay with you?” “Sounds really great to me.” So everything can be, I don’t say spun because that sounds manipulative, but everything can be used to your advantage.

Micah Shilanski: Yeah. It really can. Because again, this goes back to the good faith thing, right? What’s the intent when you’re talking with clients in your communication? If you have a good intent, you need to frame things in a very positive light of how it’s going to be effective for the communication. This comes up, I was talking to an advisor the other day and he wants to make a big change, but he can’t do it because he’s not a CFP. And I really pushed back on him, said, “That is just a bunch of crap. Your CFP has nothing to do with making this change, right. That is a pure excuse.” And by the way, when you achieve the CFP, you’re now going to have another excuse, and then another excuse, and then another excuse, right? Because when you use one excuse, you’re going to use 50. So have to eliminate those things.

Now again, and I’m going to push back like I was talking to someone else who wanted to go get a masters in financial planning and I’m like, “Oh, for the love of Pete, do not do that.” And I’m sure it’s great education, but what are we solving for here? Do you want to go teach as a university professor or do you want to deliver massive value to individuals, small businesses, and families? What are you going for? And if you’re going for the latter, I have a really hard time correlating a master’s in financial planning to delivering massive value that’s out there that you could. So you can’t use it as an excuse. And if you want to go for it because you love it-

Matthew Jarvis: Sure.

Micah Shilanski: … knock yourself out. I’m not saying don’t do that, but don’t use it as an excuse not to achieve success.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah. A tool that I used later in my career, I wish I would have thought of this one early on, was to write out if I did this. So if I had my CFP, if I had my masters in financial planning, what would change? What would change?

Micah Shilanski: I like that.

Matthew Jarvis: And I would write this down because you can get stuck in your head. Like, “Oh, if I get my CFP, I’ll get all these referrals.” Probably not. Probably… But write that out. So if I get my CFP, I’ll learn new things, great. What specifically will you learn and how will that improve the client’s process? And is that information available any other way? Kitces asked me one time when I was on his podcast, he said, “Hey, when you got your CFP, was that a big learning thing?” And I said, “Really no disrespect to the CFP. I didn’t learn anything new when I took that course. By the time I got to it, I had already figured that stuff out.” I think I learned some nuances on property and casualty insurance, which has not been super helpful.

But write out, “Hey, if I had this, if I had a fancier office,” what exactly would happen? And then have someone fact check that for you. If you’re a member of the backstage pass, throw that in our forum, “Hey, I’m really thinking about doing X. And I think it will deliver Y. Who else has had this same experience? Who else got their masters in taxation and suddenly got a bunch of referrals?” It’s a short list.

Micah Shilanski: Yeah. And that’s a good thing. Right? And really praising the form that’s out there. It’s not a bunch of vultures that are going to rip things apart. It’s really supportive information about just pushing back on how things are set up and then across the entire nation that’s there. How are things working for you? So yeah, use that forum as a backstage pass member. It’s been a huge, valuable tool, really is.

Matthew Jarvis: The other tool I would use there, find someone that you find successful. However, you’re measuring success, that does not have what you think is the condition. So if you think, “I have to have a CFP to be a successful advisor,” great. Find an advisor that you respect that’s successful in a measurement you appreciate, who’s not a CFP and figure out how they did it. They must have had a way to get there. College degrees are example of that. There’s all sorts of things that are example of saying, “Hey.” You can tell yourself, “I have to have that.” Well, wait a sec. If that was a prerequisite to success, how come all of these other people didn’t meet that prerequisite?

Micah Shilanski: And don’t use this as an excuse too, right? Because this can be a fine line that’s going to be there. You can see someone’s more successful. “Oh it’s because they have a team. Oh, it’s because they’re in an affluent area. Oh, it’s because they’re in a different niche. Oh it’s because he has better BD support.” I mean, you could throw out any excuse that you want to be, and the point of this exercise is we can find a very successful person without any of those things, across the board. In my mentality, kind of my rule of thumb that I have, can two people do this? This is how my mindset works. If only one person in the world can do something, okay, that’s a unique set of skills.

Matthew Jarvis: Sure.

Micah Shilanski: Maybe I’m not going to ever be able to do it. Yep, that’s a limiting belief. That’s just the way my brain works. But if there’s two, if two people in the world can do this, that is a doable task. If two people can do it, that means I can do it. It’s trainable. It’s learnable. It’s achievable. That’s going to be there. Short of giving birth. Don’t think that one’s going to happen. But those other two, I think I’m pretty solid. If at least two people can do it, I can achieve that same level of success. So what is that mindset for you, and allow yourself to create some pretty liberal rules here that allow you to see success. I don’t want to say if 10,000 people can do this, then I can do it. That’s a pretty daunting rule set that I’d have to achieve by me. Just saying to people, man, that’s a pretty easy rule set. If only two people can do this, man, I can do it too.

Matthew Jarvis: I like that. If two people can do it, I can do it. Another one that I use is to put my… I use this one all the time in my career. It was always what would I do if my practice was at a million dollars? What would that version of Matt do? So I’d say, “Wait, If I was at a million dollars in production, what decisions would I make in this situation?” What works is saying, “All right. Once I have my CFP, what would CFP Matt do? What would college degree Matt do?” And sometimes the answer was, “Gosh, he probably isn’t going to do anything different.” But again, the million dollar one, or what would Matt do that’s going to take six weeks off? “Well, he would reach out to all of his clients proactively. He would make sure his team was comfortable with it.” And then, so I just kind of foreshadow, like what will future me do when I get there. And is that really a different situation?

Micah Shilanski: I love putting another CEO in that role, right? Like what would Elon Musk do? How does he run a meeting? How does he set this up? And then all of a sudden it changes that dynamic. So it’s not just you, like if you want to be someone real successful, pick someone really successful. How do you think they’re doing this? And maybe I should mimic that.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah. And don’t fall into the trap of thinking they have some kind of super power. More often than not, in fact I just read an article the other day and I forget all the points though, but he was saying, why are smart people smarter than other people? And number one was they read a lot. That was it. While everyone else is watching Netflix, they’re reading books, they’re listening to podcasts, they’re improving themselves. And that’s a hundred percent true to what everybody else isn’t willing to do.

Micah Shilanski: Now let’s talk a little bit about ego versus mindset that’s there. So, because this can be a little bit of a trap with talking with some people, some other advisors out there. I think it’s again, a limiting belief. People say, “Well, I just don’t have that big of an ego, or I’m just not egotistical or self centered to do dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And really we’re using this as an excuse. So we can be highly successful. We can have a very positive mindset and not have a big ego. I know we’re not the best example of this. We’re still working on that one.

Matthew Jarvis: The perfect RIA. Yeah.

Micah Shilanski: So humble, perfect RIA. So, but these are two different things that need to be there. You can be extremely confident, great in your mindset, still have a little bit of an ego, because I do think that is a powerful thing, with not being egotistical. So again, don’t use this as an excuse, why not to be successful? You get to choose how you set that up.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah. You really do it. And that’s so important. Something else that’s helped me along this way, when I was earlier in my career, I had in my mind that people that had great practices, they had perfect RIAs. We didn’t call them that at that time, that they knew something that they had some level of gifted ability, whatever it was that I could never have. And it really wasn’t, a real turning point in my career was when I went to the first session of Million Dollar Producer, which is Ken Unger and Tom Gau’s group. I was in a group of 150 other advisors, very transparent, unlike any broker to their conference.

And as I’m talking to them, I realized, “Wait a second, you guys are basically the same as me. Maybe you’re better looking because that’s not my thing. You have better hair obviously, but you’re not any smarter. You don’t talk any differently. You’re just really dialed in on that.” And it was such an aha. Like I thought there was some mystery. Like I needed the Holy Grail before I could be a good advisor, turned out I just needed to do the work. And that changed everything.

Micah Shilanski: Yeah, very much so. And this doesn’t shy away, as we talked about before, about work that has to get done. It’s not that complex, but that doesn’t mean there’s not work. Question is, how are you going to do it? Jarvis, let’s transition a little bit before we-

Matthew Jarvis: Please.

Micah Shilanski: … get into our action items. Let’s talk a little bit about using mindset effectively in client meetings. Because I think this is so important. We’ve talked about it again and again and again, client prospect communication is absolutely the key. It doesn’t matter how much you know, it doesn’t matter how many certifications and designations and master’s degree, and how much analysis you have completed. If you cannot effectively communicate that analysis into action items in your meetings, your client’s no better. You’re not delivering any massive value. And I think this starts with your mindset going into the meetings.

Matthew Jarvis: It totally does.

Micah Shilanski: What is your mindset like? Like when you walk into a prospect meeting, how is your mindset? When you walk into a client meeting, how is your mindset? Are you just showing up to chitchat and see what’s happening? Do you have a plan? What’s your outcome for the meeting? Yes, things can come up in meetings where we’re going to have to-

Matthew Jarvis: Of course.

Micah Shilanski: … pivot and change. That’s the joy, I think that’s the fun of meetings, quite frankly. But what’s your plan going into that meeting? And Jarvis, how do you set your mindset when you’re about to walk into the conference room?

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah, the most powerful strategy I have for that I still use to this day, is taking a few minutes to turn off all distractions, especially on prospect meetings, or client meetings where I’m nervous. Like if there’s some big issue going on or I’m worried that they’re upset about something. So I turn off all my distractions, my computer, my phone, everything. And I sit for 10 minutes and I visualize that meeting being a success. And I used to be a real downer on visualization. It seemed really woo-woo and whatever.

Micah Shilanski: Bust out your yoga mat. Yeah.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah, yeah. Do some sun salutations. No, I would just visualize the prospect coming into my conference room, and me sitting down, us having a great conversation, them being really impressed with my knowledge. I would visualize them throwing me a hardball question, and how would I deal with that? So, and this is something we run into. We said, “Well, I have to know the answer to everything.” I got to be honest. Off the top of my head, I don’t know the answer to hardly anything anymore. But what I do know how to is, “That’s a really great question. I could do some back of the napkin stuff right now, but with your permission, I’d like to dig into that a little bit deeper before I give you a final answer on that. Is that okay with you?”

And you know what? I’ve never had anyone object to that. I’ve never had anyone say, “Wait, you don’t know which section of the tax code addresses net unrealized appreciation off the top of your head?” I don’t. Nope. Sorry. But to visualize that through, especially to visualize through how I’m going to handle whatever I fear. How about you, Micah?

Micah Shilanski: I really like that and let’s focus on a couple of things that Jarvis said one, he doesn’t know that much about NUA. And a lot of other advisors do, yet he’s very successful. How is this possible? All right. So, but besides that, the other thing I wanted to focus on is you said you were nervous, going to be walking into a client meeting.

These are natural things that are there. I still get the same way. We still get a little bit of the jitters. And again, I think that that makes it a little bit fun. We’re still going to be a little nervous. We’re still going to have the jitters, but you absolutely have to visualize it. And that’s one of the things I love about our pre-appointment checklist that we have, and our DMVs, our delivering massive value items that we have because that allows me to focus on a very positive, successful outcome. I know I’ve done the homework. I know what value I’m going to be able to deliver in the meetings, and I focus on that value delivery. Again, if there’s an issue, I’m thinking about the fear setting, what’s going to happen, and what’s the best way to handle that. But I’m focusing on delivering massive value in those meetings.

If it’s a prospect, the same thing, I’ve reviewed their information as best I can. I’m focused on delivering massive value in being a totally open to answering their questions in that meeting. And I know the more value I put out, the better outcome this is going to be, and that’s controllable. I cannot control whether they say yes or no. I cannot control their reactions to questions that come up or how they’ve set things up. What I can control is what I do, my mindset, and I can control adding value to their lives. And if I can add value, everything works. That’s my bar I’m setting.

Matthew Jarvis: Yep. The one other thing I would say for client meetings, prospect meetings, or really anything like that is really the Jocko mindset of good. If I can go in there, and I have to beat myself over the head with this again and again, and again, this idea of like, “Hey, everything that happens is going to be good. Either it’s the outcome I want or it’s an outcome that I can learn from.” And that’s a mindset issue. And I tell myself that again and again, “Hey, it’s out of the outcome I want or an outcome I can learn from there are no bad outcomes.” And the critic in me, the cynic would say, “Well, there’s lots of bad outcomes.” All right. Yeah, you’re right. There are, but that’s not the attitude I’m going to take. I’m going to take that lens of great outcome, outcome I want, or outcome I can learn from.

Micah Shilanski: And that’s all mindset, right? Because if you’re starting out and you do your, it’s like, again, I get seven, eight meetings a day and I start off with one and it’s a crappy meeting. And now I’ve allowed it to be a crappy meeting. This is my fault. I’ve allowed it to be a crappy meeting. I got six other clients coming in. What’s going to happen in those other six meetings? Am I really going to deliver massive value? What is my job? My job is to deliver massive value to my clients. And if I allow my mindset to get screwed up, because this was all what it comes back to, is that mindset. So real quick, let’s talk about resetting mindset. Because sometimes it happens. Sometimes you don’t have a good meeting. Sometimes the outcomes don’t come the way that you want to have. Jarvis is rubbing his head right now. So yes, this happens.

Matthew Jarvis: It does.

Micah Shilanski: So resetting this is that same thing. Going back, and sometimes I’ll sit there and I’ll rewrite my goals that’s going to be there. I’ll redo my morning success ritual. I’ll put on some music that really gets me amped up for a client meeting, which is, I mean, that’s the TPR podcast intro right there. Right? Boom. We’ve got that sucker rolling.

So I’ll listen to music. I’ll write it down. I’ll re-visualize what I want this meeting’s to do. And I’ll reset and be like, “All right, that’s done. Now I’m moving on.” Same thing you would do in sports, right? If you had a bad game, you had a bad pitch. Whatever those things are, you now need to reset. Now this is new and I can control these outcomes.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah. I would throw one other tool that I use that actually that came from Stephanie Bogan, good friend. She had this exercise called, I don’t know if she called it Truths and Lies. So you, whatever you thought was the truth, you would write that down. I’m a bad advisor. Okay, that is that’s one truth. Now, write a dozen, a hundred variations of that. So I am a great advisor. You can go down this path. And an example, I see this as advisors that say, “I’m too old to be an advisor. I’m too young to be an advisor.” Great. That’s one truth. Another truth is that you’re very experienced. Another truth is that you’re on the cutting edge of the financial planning industry, or that you will be there long after they retire, whatever it is.

We seem to think that there’s just one truth. And that’s what we zero in on. There’s lots of ways to explain any situation. So that’s a really valuable exercise. I’m a bad advisor. Great. That’s one truth. Another truth is I made a single mistake. Another truth is I could spend some time brushing up on that aspect. Another truth is a client was just having a bad day and they decided to take it out on me. Perfect. Because there’s always more than one explanation of anything that happens.

Micah Shilanski: Awesome. Let’s roll into some action items.

Matthew Jarvis: Let’s do it.

Micah Shilanski: All right. So the first one I’m going to say, create your MSR, create your morning success ritual. Now again, I’ve talked a little bit about what ours are. I want to keep mine short because my attention span is not that long. Yep, that’s a self fulfilling prophecy. But I really want to keep it where I can be focused and make sure I get it done. Joe Lucas, definitely do a shout out to him. Coach Joe, he has great stuff on this. I think he calls it now his morning eight or Magellan 8. He changed the name of it, but same concept there. He has a phenomenal program you can go through and learn about that. So if you need help, I would totally recommend that.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah. I think there is a book, Miracle Morning. I can’t remember, but I think that was the title. That’s another great one. And then of course, second action kind of related to that would be actually to do your morning success ritual. And I will confess that I’m not yet consistent with my morning success rituals. Funny thing is when I do them, my life goes really well. And I stop doing them, and then my life kind of ebbs back down until Micah says, “Hey, how’s your morning success ritual going?” “Well, I haven’t done it for six weeks.” “Really? Huh? Big surprise.”

Micah Shilanski: My wife is the first one that calls me out on this, by the way. She can tell when I’ve been doing it and what I haven’t been.

Matthew Jarvis: Interesting.

Micah Shilanski: Yeah. So, all right. Third action item, create a game plan for each meeting you have, each meeting you have. I don’t care if you’re going to a rotary meeting. I don’t care if it’s an inner office meeting that’s going on, a client meeting, a prospect meeting. Whatever meeting you have, what is your game plan for this meeting? What outcome do you want to achieve? Why do I say it for every meeting? One, because now you’re going to be delivering massive value to every meeting you go to. This gets you in the habit of delivering massive value with every interaction you have. This should be your focus. How do you deliver massive value out there?

And you know what? If I get to practice it every single time I go to rotary, man, that’s going to up my game every time I’m in front of a prospect or a client. If I get to practice this every single time I’m in front of a team member, man, that’s going to up my game. Every time I’m talking to Jarvis, every time I’m in front of a prospect, every time I’m talking to a client, every time I’m talking to people in the backstage pass. This is the importance of doing it every single time.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah. And I would say, by the way, if you’re getting ready to do a meeting of any kind and you’re not ready to deliver massive value, you need to reschedule that meeting, right? Unless there’s an integrity issue there.

Micah Shilanski: Oh horse crap.

Matthew Jarvis: You need to come, there’s none of this, like I’m going to show up half assed to a meeting. Right?

Micah Shilanski: True.

Matthew Jarvis: Don’t do that. If you committed to, and I guess I’ll rephrase it that way. If you’ve committed to come to a meeting, you’ve committed to bring massive value.

Micah Shilanski: There you go.

Matthew Jarvis: If you’re consistently saying, “Boy, I’m not bringing massive value,” then you need to stop doing those in the future. So Micah, thanks for calling me out on that. Don’t bag out of your meetings at the last minute, but you committed to be there, which means you committed to deliver massive value, committed to be on time. And if that’s not a priority for you, then you need to figure out something else.

Micah Shilanski: I love it. Action item number four, have a pattern for interruption, for interrupted strategy. So what happens when your strategy gets interrupted? What’s your plan for when things go wrong? How are you going to get back on? And Jarvis, you used a rubber band, right? Snapping your wrist.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah, yeah. I used to keep a rubber band on my wrist. And if I started thinking negative thoughts about myself, which those are in a downward spiral, right? I would pull it up from the top of my wrist, like where your watch would be and I would snap it. And I read once that physical pain interrupts your thinking. I wouldn’t get carried away with this. This isn’t like a magic thing, but it could be something positive to it. There could be like a drawer that you keep with candy and your desk like, “Hey, whenever I’m really down on myself, I’m going to have a piece of candy. I’m going to go for a walk, whatever it is to break that cycle. I’m going to look at pictures of things are important to me. I’m going to write down my goals, interrupt that cycle because I can… I could spend hours, days, weeks, months, probably in a funk, if I don’t try to break out of that. And I want to break out of that as fast as I can cause it just gets darker the longer I’m in it.

Micah Shilanski: And my sister and I, we actually have this and do it pretty well. If either of us are having a, whether it’s a business issue, personal issue, et cetera. Because she works in the firm, she’s a great advisor, we’ll just text each other coffee time. And in between meetings, there’s a coffee shop that’s just like two minutes away. We’ll just walk out there together, BS for a quick minute, grab a cup of coffee, and come back. And it’s amazing how just being in that outside, that interaction with her just helps reset my mindset that’s going to be there. So having those outlets hugely, hugely important.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah. Masterminds that. I mean, Micah, you and I text each other all the time, mostly just harassment. But like if something’s going on and usually the response text is, “Well, let’s take some extreme ownership here and figure out where you made this go wrong.”

Micah Shilanski: That’s the nice version of what Jarvis says. He doesn’t actually say that to me. Maybe a few adjectives, maybe a few other things.

Matthew Jarvis: All right, last action item is whatever you’re hung up on, find someone who you respect who’s had success and doesn’t have that item. So if it’s being independent, if it’s being fee only, having a designation, find somebody who doesn’t have whatever you think the hangup is, and has still managed to be a success and be like, “Well, if they did it.” Or find two people to Micah’s point, if those two people could do it without a CFP, without a college degree, without a great haircut, whatever it is, then you can also do it.

Micah Shilanski: Awesome. And of course our final action item, which is the most important, jump on iTunes, give us a five star review. You know you love it. Hopefully you enjoyed those commercials. Those came to you custom from Jarvis. So go ahead and check them out. There’s some really good information onside of there. So go back and listen to that. Jump on the website, leave your comments, leave your feedback. We love hearing from the nation. We have our assistance webinar coming out, which is just going to be amazing. I think that’s on August 19th. So we’re going to deliver tons of value inside of that. By we, I mean our team. So this is something that you and your team member, you and your assistant have to be on. We’re really going to be talking about team coordination, what your team members should be doing. And it’s not just for you again, it’s for your team member because sometimes when you say something, “What do you know?” But now third party comes in and says something, now it’s spoken with a little bit more authority. So allow them to listen to our team to get some great ideas on delivering massive value.

Matthew Jarvis: Perfect. Love it Micah. Well, until next time, happy planning.

Hold on before we go. Something that you need to know. This isn’t tax, legal, or investment advice. That isn’t our intent. Information designed to change lives. Financial planning can make you thrive. Start today. Don’t think twice. Be a better husband, father, mother, and wife. The Perfect RIA. The Perfect RIA.