Financial Peace Of Mind with Michael Nathanson
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary:
While being a lawyer and financial planner, Michael Nathanson was diagnosed with a brain tumor that completely changed his life. Realizing how we need a specialist in the medical field, he believes that the same should be true with our financial health. Now, Michael is the Chairman and Chief Officer of The Colony Group. He shares the reasons why going to someone who knows what they are doing is key to achieving financial peace of mind. Discover the five pillars for getting financial peace of mind and financial independence and learn some tips on finding the right advisor for you.
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Listen To The Episode Here
Financial Peace Of Mind with Michael Nathanson
Our guest is Michael Nathanson, who is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Colony Group. He’s been recognized ten times by Barron’s Magazine as one of the top 100 independent financial advisors in the nation and has been selected six times as a super lawyer as published in the Massachusetts Super Lawyers. He’s been included in Worth Magazine’s list of the countries top 250 wealth advisors. He’s published articles on a wide variety of financial, tax and legal topics and has a book out that we’re going to be talking about. That book is called Personal Financial Planning for Executives and Entrepreneurs, which is a path to financial peace of mind. Michael, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me, John.
I always like to ask my guest to take us back to their own story of origin. You can go back as far as childhood, college or wherever you want. You are a lawyer and a financial planner. I’d want to get a sense of when did it all start and what came first. Is it the interest in legal stuff or financial stuff?
I grew up in the days of a show called LA Law.
[bctt tweet=”Riches are in the niches.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I remember that show. Harry Hamlin, Susan Dey and the whole gang.
It was a great show. You mentioned the Harry Hamlin character whose name was Michael Kuzak. I loved that character and that’s what I wanted to be. My father is a lawyer as well. He always has been an inspiration for me. I always wanted to be a lawyer. I got into a great law school. It turns out that when I got to law school and looked around, there was a guy named Barack Obama. In all my first-year classes, we were in the same section. Neil Gorsuch was in our class, who is now in the Supreme Court. We had quite the group of very inspirational group of people to be around. You can imagine the dynamic when I went to school having a class comprised of such people. I thought I would always practice law and I wanted to be a litigator. I went to a great law firm and got interested in investment management companies. I started doing legal work for some of these companies. I practiced tax law primarily but became a business lawyer as well. Over time, I found this company, The Colony Group. It became one of my clients. At the time, it was a small company and I liked the group of people there. They recruited me to leave my law firm, which was a very hard decision. That’s how I got myself into financial services. As a tax lawyer, it was a natural transition for me.
I have interested myself in becoming an executive and in becoming an entrepreneur. I had been a great practitioner and had a great career for thirteen years and was looking to do something different. While all this was happening, I received one of those diagnoses that can change your life. In the year 2000, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Fortunately, it was not cancer but unfortunately, it was not something that can be operated on. That event changes your perspective on things. My story is one where I was on a clear path and I thought for sure I’d practice law my whole life, my whole career. I never imagined that I would be someone talking about having a brain tumor, but things happen. I had this great client, The Colony Group, that I wanted to go and join. I had this life-altering experience. The way stories go, sometimes you know the ending and sometimes you have no idea. I found myself where I am right now and I’m very happy to be where I am right now.
Personal Financial Planning for Executives and Entrepreneurs: The Path to Financial Peace of Mind
I must ask the question that I’m sure all the readers are asking themselves. You still have a brain tumor that’s still inoperable, but it’s not cancer so you’re still alive. Is that what you’re saying?
I do. I have a three-centimeter brain tumor. I used to not talk about it because it was something that I was afraid would diminish me and something that people would say, “That guy has got a brain tumor. He’s not long for the world. He’s got some diminished capacity.” I got into physical fitness and I met someone at the gym. This is the way stories transpire. You never know what’s going to happen. I met someone whose daughter happened to have a brain tumor. He was raising money for the National Brain Tumor Society, which is the largest nonprofit brain tumor organization in the country. Long story short, he recruited me to get involved in the organization. I became a board member in 2011 and in 2013, I became chairman of the board. I served as chairman from 2013 until the end of 2018.
When you have a position like that and you have a leadership role in a community in need, you’ll learn to talk about it. You’ll learn to own it and have pride in who you are and what you have. I’m very fortunate. My tumor should not end my life. It’s something that is treatable with medication. It’s inoperable because of its location, but it is treatable with medication that keeps it from growing. It doesn’t make it go away. I’m very fortunate. I must go get an MRI every year to make sure that I’m stable. I’ve been stable now for just about twenty years. I’m in good shape and I’m very grateful for the experience because while I would never have wished to get a brain tumor, I’m very happy to be part of this community. It’s a great community. It’s a community in need and one where I feel that I’ve made a difference in life.
You also talk about the similarities between medical and financial. You compare financial planning advice to medical advice. Can you expand on that?
I drive from my experience in the brain tumor community. I’m not a doctor or a researcher, but I’ve learned a lot about medical research. It occurred to me that as we make greater and greater advances in the medical space, there’s this thing called precision medicine. Precision medicine is the concept that some of the best and most effective treatments are treatments that are designed specifically for an individual. It’s not necessarily the same treatment that your neighbor would have. It’s designed for the specific DNA, the specific circumstances of a particular individual. Some of the most effective treatments are precise in nature. I also think from the medical space that there’s this concept generally in specialization.
[bctt tweet=”Financial peace of mind starts with a plan.” username=”John_Livesay”]
As you think about specialization, if you have a neurological issue, you tend not to go see a cardiologist. You might go see a general practitioner, but you want to see someone who’s a specialist that deals with your needs. As I got more and more into the world of financial planning and financial services, what I realized was that there were too many people trying to be everything to everybody. What we need to be thinking about is to provide the most effective type of financial planning service. It has to be targeted, it has to be precise in nature and it has to be delivered by specialists who understand the specific needs of the recipient.
I love that because I’m always saying the riches are in the niches.
For example, you mentioned our book. It’s about corporate executives and entrepreneurs. Corporate executives and entrepreneurs are very different from the professionals, from a lawyer, from an accountant, from a professional athlete. These are people who have very specific needs. They have very specific DNA. I believe that the right kind of service requires specialization and a precise approach.
There is such a difference because entrepreneurs do not have a lot of money to invest because we’re putting it all into the company. Who is your ideal client? How do you work with entrepreneurs? Are they people who’ve already raised series A and B versus starting out?
Financial Peace Of Mind: The decisions we make at the beginning of getting into a business starts with what choice you want to make in terms of what kind of entity to operate out of.
Certainly both because some of the best entrepreneurs are those that are just starting out. Often, you get someone who’s an entrepreneur that’s already done something before and now they’re on to another project. Let me just talk a little bit about the subject. The executive is a broad term that can include entrepreneurs. Many entrepreneurs are themselves, executives. It’s quite common to create a company and to have a product and to go get some financing. That person may have a title like a chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief operating officer and yet that person is also an entrepreneur, which is why we wanted to write about both.
What we did was we wrote about the example of two people, and we tell a story around this where one person is a startup entrepreneur and one person pursues a more traditional executive at a large company type of opportunity. Their needs are related but different. The entrepreneur, especially in startup mode, should be thinking about foundational decisions such as choice of an entity that needs to be made at the very beginning in order to achieve the best financial results. Whereas the executive at the more mature company is going to have another series of needs and those needs will include the need to be thinking about employment agreements and equity compensation.
It sounds like you have a lot of advantages of being both a financial planner and a lawyer. It’s not like you have to go back and forth and say, “You need a contract. You need to put your LLC together here in Delaware,” or whatever the needs are that fit into the overall picture of financial planning. Would that be accurate?
That would most certainly be accurate. Our philosophy at The Colony Group is that we believe that effective financial planning advice should be delivered by a team that includes lawyers. In fact, we have around twenty lawyers that work for us because lawyers provide their own perspective. That is not just in the area being able to think about things like choice of the entity or thinking about provisions in a will or trust. Lawyers also have the ability and are trained to understand risk and to measure risk and to manage risk. I think that’s an important part of providing advice.
[bctt tweet=”Some of the best entrepreneurs are those that are just starting out.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Can you expand for people who may not know what choice of entity is since you’ve mentioned it a couple of times?
Choice of entity is when you begin in a business, that starts without an entity like a corporation or a partnership or a limited liability company around the business. It may start as a sole proprietorship, but the decisions that we make at the beginning of getting into a business start with what choice you want to make in terms of what kind of entity to operate out of. Do you want to be a corporation, an LLC, a partnership? It’s a complex set of choices. About what the right choices are, it depends on the facts. It also depends on the state of the law. The law has changed with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. There are lots of nuances that go into that decision.
You also talk about the five pillars of financial peace of mind, not just peace of mind. Let’s give the audience a quick little description. The first one is maximizing the rewards of working as an executive. What do you mean by that?
In order to answer that question, we have to understand why corporate executives are different. Executives are different for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is that they often are employed under formal agreements. Many people are what we call employees at will, but executives tend to have some formal agreement in place. What we mean by maximizing the rewards of being an executive, first and foremost, is looking at your agreement. It’s negotiating appropriately and respectfully a good agreement. It’s understanding what’s in your agreement so you can harvest the benefits of your employment agreement. Maximizing the rewards of being an executive also includes understanding corporate benefit plans. It also incorporates understanding of equity incentives and other incentives that are put in place. Sometimes they’re cash related such as long-term and short-term incentive plans and making sure that the executive is well positioned to maximize the benefits of those programs while also observing the other four pillars.
Financial Peace Of Mind: The greatest strength of an entrepreneur is their passion. They have this courage where they don’t fear the risk.
The next one is achieving financial independence. What does that mean for you? Does that mean I never have to work again if I choose? How much money does someone need to have financial independence these days?
I want to be clear what that concept is. The concept of financial independence is a personal determination. It’s different for different people. This is not about, “If I have this much retirement and I take out 4% a year, I can be in retirement for this many years before I pass away.” This is beyond thinking about retirement. This is the concept of understanding what the person’s goals are and what their needs are going to be. Do they want to own two homes? Do they have kids that they want to educate? Do they want to leave money to their children in the future? When they do retire, what will their needs be from a lifestyle perspective? Understand all of that and come up with a plan to get to the point at which work is no longer necessary. That does not mean that you will retire at that point. It simply means at that point, you have the ability to do whatever you want. That’s what financial independence is. It’s understanding where you need to be. It’s getting to that place and then deciding at that point whether that may mean retirement or maybe it doesn’t mean retirement.
Planning and minimizing taxes is more important than ever now with the new laws. Certain states are not letting you deduct as much as they used to in terms of state taxes.
That’s right. Putting a cap on state and local taxes was a huge bite, especially in high tax states including some of the states on the East and West Coast. The third pillar is minimizing taxes. This is where many people go wrong, especially among executives and entrepreneurs. There are so many opportunities to minimize taxes. Whether that’s in the area of simply maximizing opportunities to defer taxable income, to maximizing use of deductions, to understanding the benefits of having capital gain versus ordinary income, to understanding how we’re using equity incentives by using a good tax approach that allows you to minimize taxes over the years. That in itself can generate a return that can sometimes exceed the great investment returns that we’ve been able to see over the last several years. People need to focus on a regular basis on the need to minimize taxes.
[bctt tweet=”Financial independence means understanding where you need to be.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Finally, planning for others. I don’t think most people think about that. Tell us a little bit about that one.
Planning for others, the fourth pillar, is the act of thinking about those that we love but also the causes that we care about. Planning for others is thinking about our dependence, thinking about people that we want to take care of while we’re here and while we’re not here after we pass away. That includes some traditional estate planning and thinking about dependent care planning, but it also goes beyond that. It’s also thinking about what are the causes that are important to an executive or entrepreneur. We find that most of our clients do have a passion for helping others and from making a difference in the world for what I called legacy planning. Think about what your legacy is going to be when you’re no longer on this earth. A big part of the planning exercise is identifying those causes and then figuring out the best ways to help those causes, not just economically but also in terms of providing your own services or just being part of the organization in some way. It’s complex. Choosing the right organization, understanding which organizations to get involved with and how to support them is itself a very complex undertaking.
Managing risk is so interesting to me because when you’re pitching to get your startup funded, you must minimize the risk for the investors by showing them that you’ve got proof of concept and who’s on the team and all those things. Even selling yourself in any situation to get people to change their behavior or the way they’re doing something with your product or service is also part of managing the risk that’s involved. How do you approach this for your clients?
Managing risk is something that we think about in many different perspectives. We must think about it in some of the most obvious perspectives, which would include from an investment perspective and talking about stories. One of the inspirations for writing this book is thinking about companies like Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers. I could go on. Years ago, these were companies that executives were just thrilled to be at. These were companies that the whole world admired. Those that had too much risk in those companies and those that had too much invested in those companies paid a very heavy price when each one of those companies suffered a very uncomfortable demise.
We think about investment risk. Investment risk can simply be asset allocation. It’s thinking about asset allocation strategy, thinking about the concentration of wealth issues, thinking about what your goals are and only taking the amount of risk necessary and no more to achieve those goals. That’s the more obvious way of thinking about it. A slightly less obvious way of thinking about it is thinking about the use of insurance. That insurance is life insurance. It’s casualty insurance. It’s directors and officer’s insurance. It’s thinking about all the ways that we’re exposed to risk and utilizing insurance to hedge that risk. Then we get to the broader and more nebulous areas of risk, which are the ones you were touching on.
Think about your business and think about all the risks that you take in your business. Most people don’t even have a clue as to how bad that risk can be. You get people who are so passionate about what they’re doing. That’s the greatest strength of an entrepreneur. The greatest strength of an entrepreneur is their passion. It’s their vision. Some people don’t have that kind of vision. That’s what makes the entrepreneurs the best. They had this courage. They don’t fear the risk. Fears are the instinct that we don’t always have. Fear is designed to make you exercise caution. As we operate our businesses, you should take as much risk as you need to take and hopefully know more than that. It is part of the business plan as well thinking about how much risk you’re taking to achieve your objectives.
You’re also talk about the criteria that people should use to decide what financial planner they should do. Should everyone have one? How do I find a good one?
There are studies that talk about executives. One of the studies that we talk about in our book indicates that executives worry more than other wealthier people about financial planning in every single category of financial consideration. They’re worried a lot. You might think that, therefore they’re also all going to be likely to go and hire someone to help them. That is true, but to some extent, it’s not true. We find that executives are prone to want to work with a planner, but only when they can partner with that planner. They don’t want to just completely delegate. They want to partner with an advisor that they can work with on a regular basis to achieve the best results. It may be a little bit of a surprise or an irony and that you think of an executive as someone who delegates. In fact, the larger group is the group of executives that want to partner with an advisor. There is a number that also wants to do it on their own, but they do understand that this is very important. What we found was that about two-thirds acknowledged the need for some third-party expertise.
[bctt tweet=”Fear is designed to make you exercise caution.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Whether that’s a formal financial advisor or whether they’re trying to do it themselves and work with a series of people like a lawyer, an insurance professional, an accountant, about two-thirds of executives want to work with someone. What are the choices? The choices generally relate to a couple of different service models. Most people are unaware of these models. One is what I’m going to call the suitability model. There is a legal standard called the suitability standard, and this is what is generally applicable to what we call wirehouses, the big brokerages. The standard at these brokerages is that the advisors there are bound by a standard that requires them to make sure that anything they do for a client is suitable in nature. They’re taking into account their personal circumstances, but they’re allowed to have conflicts of interest and operate in a way that may benefit them at the expense of the client provided what they’re doing for the client is suitable in nature.
That may sound like a negative way of saying it. That is the standard. I do want to be clear that there are many excellent people at these organizations who do great work for their clients. It’s about getting the right person. The other standard is the standard to which we adhere and are required by law to adhere is called the fiduciary standard. That is the standard by which an advisor must always put the client’s interest first. There will still be conflicts of interest. There are always going to be conflicts of interest, but they must be mitigated. You’ve got to mitigate your conflicts of interest and put your client’s interests first. That’s the preferred standard. You can get great advisors on both sides. It’s about getting the right person. It’s important to think about what the right standard is. Someone who goes to a fiduciary-based advisor is more likely to be able to get peace of mind that they know that their interests are being put first.
Michael, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your wisdom and your personal story. You inspire us all to not give up, have a plan and get some financial peace of mind.
It’s my pleasure, John. Thank you for having me.
Links Mentioned:
- Personal Financial Planning for Executives and Entrepreneurs: The Path to Financial Peace of Mind
- The Colony Group
- Quantmre.com
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The Power of Positive Thinking & Being Present
Posted by John Livesay in blog | 0 comments
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Have you ever heard the saying: “You can’t give something you don’t have”?
When it comes to being present it’s especially true.
What if someone asked you for a cookie and you didn’t have any cookies? That’s just like if someone asked you to hear them but you were too preoccupied to listen.
You are the gift, or the “present”, when you are present for others.
But in order to be present for others, you have to be there for yourself first.
When we harness the power of positive thinking and being present, we begin to SOAR!
Let’s empty out yesterday’s regrets, toss out tomorrow’s fears, and be here NOW!
Tell yourself:
In this PRESENT moment, I give myself the gift of NOW.
Of course, we’re going to need a flight plan to SOAR—not just fly—our way to success.
Like any good flight plan, there is a check-list, and we have to make sure the equipment works before we start to taxi.
Your mind is the equipment.
We are going to tune it up and check and double check all our safety procedures—our thought processes and beliefs.
Positive thinking and being present.
How do you create your own reality?
How is it that some people are calm when they’re stuck in traffic while others fall apart?
How is it that two siblings from the same family can have vastly different outcomes?
Shakespeare said: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
We are the judge of whether a situation is good or bad. We are the thinker having the thought.
When we know who we are and control our thinking, the thought does not think us.
Here are some of the most common negative thought defaults many of us face.
“What if this doesn’t work out?”
“What if no one likes me?”
“I lack” thoughts:
“There isn’t room for me to succeed.”
“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
Self-doubt thoughts:
“There is someone better for this job than I am.”
“I have never been…” (fill in the blank):
- thin enough
- smart enough
- handsome/pretty enough
- talented enough
The “I’m not good enough” thought:
This feeling is at the root of so many issues.
Dr. David Walker wrote a book called You are Enough.
When you really think you are enough and believe it—regardless of job loss, financial setback, loss of a loved one or even your health—who you are is bigger than anything external that you can use to measure your self-worth.
“As soon as” thoughts:
I used to play the “as soon as” game in my head. Maybe you’ve done this too.
- As soon as I move to California, I’ll be happy.
- As soon as I get a great job, I’ll be happy.
- As soon as I get married, I’ll be happy.
- As soon as I have a six pack, I’ll be happy.
- As soon as I have a great new car, I’ll be happy.
- As soon as I have a new wardrobe, I’ll be happy.
- As soon as I have a book published, I’ll be happy.
- As soon as I win awards at work, I’ll be happy.
If you’re always thinking of what will happen “as soon as,” how can you really be present in the moment?
The real challenges start when you get what you think you want and you’re still not happy.
When you hold on to the fantasy that if you had X you’d be happy, you still have hope.
When hope is gone, you know outside things won’t fill the hole inside.
That’s when the real work begins.
I have an actor friend who had a part in a hit sitcom and rented a home in Malibu Colony. This was her fantasy, one shared by many other actors.
She was miserable.
The script wasn’t funny; she had to force herself to memorize it.
The beach was often foggy.
Worst of all, no one wanted to hear she was unhappy.
She had it all—what everyone in acting strives for. If she wasn’t happy, how could anyone be happy?
Another big fantasy regardless of your career: As soon as I make over X amount of dollars, I’ll be happy.
We all have this magic number in our head we think will make us feel secure.
“If I had $1 million in the bank or $2 million or $10 million, then I would feel safe.”
It could all go away with one bad investment.
What do successful people say to that?
“So what? I made it once, I can make it again.”
Those who don’t know the power they have live in fear of losing the money they have.
These fear thoughts go away when we take control of the cockpit of our mind with positive thinking.
Are you the pilot, or the passenger stuck in the middle seat in the back of the flight of your life?
- Don’t sell out your soul
- Don’t sell out your ethics
- Don’t sell out your integrity
When our “reality” is happening, it is easy to forget that somewhere behind this experience of good or bad (however we are labeling it or getting agreement on with our friends) is a thought.
How can we remind ourselves of this? By being present!
How many times have you said: “The economy is tough now,” or “the weather is always a problem when I fly.”
Sometimes people will agree with you to try and establish intimacy.
They might say, “I know what you mean. I’m always on flights that are delayed,” or, “yes, it is so tough to make money now.”
Hit the reset button with new knowledge around how to build rapport and intimacy, by being the pilot of our thoughts.
We decide how much power to give any one thought. You need to be present to do this.
Let’s assume you have this thought: “I am an honest person.”
When you are confronted with a choice to act honestly or not, you follow your beliefs about yourself and do the right thing.
If you perform these honest actions long enough they become second nature—a habit.
After a period of time, the habit of being honest becomes a character traits and embodies not only how you define yourself, but how others do as well.
A character trait is measured by how you behave when no one is watching.
If you’re in a position to steal something without getting caught, but you don’t do it, that is a manifestation of honesty.
In a movie, they don’t tell the audience a person is honest through dialogue, they show it by their actions.
When your thoughts become fully integrated into who you are, they become your new reality.
Taking this even one step further, how you treat the world is how the world treats you.
You are honest with yourself and honest with other people.
If you lose your wallet or purse, you believe that someone will return it because in your reality, people are honest.
In sales, when you are honest with your clients, you give them a fair rate.
Over time you get more referrals, because you’re viewed as someone who is a straight shooter.
You are someone who understands that good deals mean both sides walk away from the table with smiles on their faces. Clients buy from you even when you don’t have the best rates, because they know you treat them with respect and honesty.
The importance of positive self-talk.
What you say to yourself is more important than what you say to others.
Think about it.
The person we have the most dialogue with every day is ourselves!
Is that conversation:
- Loving
- Kind
- Patient
- Forgiving
- Gentle
- Encouraging
- Supportive
- Renewing
- Calming
- Reassuring
OR
Is it:
- Angry
- Impatient
- Unforgiving
- Relentless
Ask yourself:
- Do you express more negative than positive thoughts, about yourself, to yourself?
- Do you believe that what you think will come true?
- What would it take to shift your negative thinking to positive thinking?
- What would it take to get at least 51 percent of your thoughts headed in the right direction?
When we drive a car or when a pilot flies a plane, it is a series of small “error and correct” movements. When you start to veer towards the wrong lane, you make a slight adjustment on the wheel.
The same goes for your thoughts: adjust the focus.
Let’s go over some common things people say to themselves and see which sound familiar to you.
When you’re present and aware of what you’re thinking, it helps you choose between negative or positive thinking.
Negative versus positive thoughts.
Negative: It just won’t work.
Positive: The things that need to work out will work out. (My life is unfolding perfectly at all times).
Negative: I don’t have enough time.
Positive: I have plenty of time to think, plan and do.
Do you see how lack of time comes from the same mindset of scarcity that says you lack money or health?
Negative: I’m always late.
Positive: I have enough time to get where I need to be.
Once again is there a lack of time or an abundance? Are you hitting green lights or all the red?
Negative: I can’t seem to get organized.
Positive: Taking time to get organized is just as important as anything else I do.
For example: “When I organize my closet, I get ready faster in the morning because I can find what I need fast versus wasting time looking for a belt, etc.”
Negative: Today just isn’t my day.
Positive: There are good things that happened even on “bad” days.
You choose if a bad morning decides the rest of the day. Hit the reset button in your thoughts!
Negative: That really makes me mad.
Positive: Getting mad is okay.
Enough therapy has taught me it is okay to have my feelings. Getting over it is the key. Let go—why hold on to anger? Does it hurt you or the other person?
Negative: Another blue Monday.
Positive: Monday is a great day for a fresh start.
Negative: I don’t have the energy I used to have.
Positive: I have energy to do important things.
Think of it this way: You have a new puppy who has tons of energy. Will he have that much later? Probably not, but he will have enough to have fun, regardless.
Negative: I never have enough money.
Positive: Money is not the only definition of prosperity. I am generous and abundant.
Money is energy in action.
If you are stingy with expressing your feelings of affection, you are probably stingy with the tips you give. Guess what? The universe will be stingy with you because it is like the law of gravity. It applies to everyone the same at all times of the day.
Here is another big excuse:
Negative: Why even try?
Positive: All my efforts are rewarded.
Negative: That’s impossible.
Positive: Nothing is impossible (Break the word into I’m possible.)
Remember, we want to soar!
“You can’t get the gold medal for diving if you stay on the ground.” – Edwene Gaines.
And…
Nobody soars with excuses.
“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else” – Benjamin Franklin.
Can you imagine all the excuses he could have used if he couldn’t fly a kite to prove static electricity?
- My kite tail is too long.
- The wind is never right.
- The key on the end of this is not big enough.
There will ALWAYS be excuses. But when we harness the power of positive thinking and being present, we’re giving a gift to others and to ourselves!
I want to hear from you!
Write in the comments some of your own negative and positive statements and practice using two positive ones in your head and see how it impacts your day.
Click here if you’d like to hear more about why John is the #1 choice for organizations seeking a keynote speaker to enlighten their force on storytelling as a sales tool, being a revenue rockstar and winning back clients.
Did you enjoy this post about positive thinking and being present? Be sure to visit these articles as well:
Exactly What To Say For Influence And Impact with Phil M. Jones
Giftology: Make People Feel That They Matter with John Ruhlin
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Mr. Persuasion, Jeff Tippett
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary:
The success of your business depends on how well you persuade. Sharing his mastery on the art of persuasion is Mr. Persuasion himself, Jeff Tippett. As the founder of the award-winning PR firm, Targeted Persuasion, Jeff gives great insights on what it takes to successfully do a pitch, whether you are a new client, someone who wants to get hired, or looking for funding. He talks about what captures people’s attention and, at the same time, how to be consistent with your brand and messaging. Believing that everyone has this superpower to persuade, he suggests ways on how people can tap into that. Jeff also reveals the steps to building trust, crafting a call to action, and storytelling.
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Mr. Persuasion, Jeff Tippett
Unleashing Your Superpower: Why Persuasive Communication Is The Only Force You Will Ever Need
I have Jeff Tippett, who is known to many as Mr. Persuasion. He’s a subject matter expert on persuasive communications. He speaks to international audiences through keynotes and seminars and helps everybody become more effective and he has some secret tools to share. His book is called Unleashing Your Superpower: Why Persuasive Communication is the Only Force You Will Ever Need. His bold statement is that we all live or die based on our ability to persuade. He founded Targeted Persuasion, an award-winning PR firm and has worked with big brands like Airbnb and League of Women Voters. He’s an expert on how to get your heart and soul into an emotional story. Jeff, welcome.
Thanks for having me on. I’m excited for us to talk a little bit.
Tell me a little bit about your own story of origin. I know in your book, Unleashing Your Superpower, you have that. I’d like to go back to your high school days.
My first experience as a kid was founding what I thought was a company at the time that I called Snoopy’s Yard Club. At Snoopy’s Yard Club, I would go out and I would knock on doors. In the summertime, I would get gigs mowing grass. In the fall, I would get gigs raking leaves and pine straw. I would hire my friends to come and fulfill those contracts for me so I could go on to then securing the next job. Being an entrepreneur is in my DNA. I grew up this way. It’s who I am. I’m excited that we can talk especially with entrepreneurs to help them better themselves when it comes to persuasion and moving their audience.
You not only sold the job but then you hired other people to do the job. In your book, you talk about the importance of capturing people’s attention. What is the biggest mistake you see people make when they open a pitch, whether it’s to get a new client or to get hired or to get funding for their startup?
The mistake that people often make in capturing their attention is crafting that message. Understanding what it is they’re trying to say to people. We have so much content all over the place and we haven’t figured out how to narrow that content down. Make that content user-facing, make it user-friendly, and speak to the needs of the other person within that content. Once we have this great content out there, it is extremely important to capture people’s attention early especially in today’s world. We have many things that are bombarding us and are out there trying to capture our attention. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it this way, “Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.” What can we do to be out there to capture people’s attention, but at the same time being extremely consistent with our brand and the look and the feel that we put out there for ourselves?
[bctt tweet=”Trust is the foundation to success.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I made a huge mistake in this at one point and here’s what I did wrong. I have a congenial type personality. I love to affirm people. I love to encourage people that match who I am. I love to see people succeed. However, when I look especially on social media and I see people make these little snarky posts and it seems to capture so much attention, they all of a sudden have 500 likes on their posts. I have to admit. I had this little jealousy, a little envy here of what other people were doing to capture attention. I tried it and I wrote a blog post. I sent it out on email, put it out on social media and it created a storm fire of negativity. The subject matter here was, “Your Social Media Sucks, But You Know That.” What I was trying to do here was to give people some great tips of what they could do to capture attention on social media and make things stand out. People took it personally because they know how much I care for people. They thought I had gone to look at their social media and I was upset. I spent days doing damage control over my brand because I tried to capture attention but I didn’t do it incongruity with my brand standards.
That’s a great distinction that it’s not just any attention you want to capture. You want to capture the right attention.
We all have to go through the phase of know, like and trust us. We’re dealing with new clients, pitches, whatever that looks like. We have to go through those phases and sometimes we’ve tried to push the envelope a little bit too much to gain more attention and it can backfire on us as it did for me.
One of the things you are an expert on is helping people unleash their superpower. You talk about that in your book and you say that everyone has this superpower which is to be able to persuade people. Can you tell us what you suggest people do to try and tap into that?
My bold statement in the book is that I believe that we all live or die based on our ability to persuade. That doesn’t matter if we’re a CEO moving a company forward, if we’re in sales, if we’re a sales manager, if we’re an entrepreneur. Maybe we’re pitching for funding. Maybe we’re trying to attract the right type of talent to help our company move forward. Maybe it’s attracting the right type of clients, the customers that we’re looking for. What I help people do is I go through the early stage of messaging, “How do you craft the message?” I talk about the audience and the importance of making that connection with the audience. We’re going to talk through how we position and how we structure a call to action. I talk a little bit too about trust and the importance of trust and building trust with our audience as well. I like to walk through all of those phases with people to help them understand and give them their cape of superpower to persuade others.
Let’s double-click on trust. Everybody knows it’s important to have it and get it. What shortcuts or ideas or must-have on a checklist do you come up with to give people some instant takeaways from the book, as well as your keynote and seminars on how to be better at building trust faster?
[bctt tweet=”In sales, it’s not just any attention you want to capture. You want to capture the right attention.” username=”John_Livesay”]
When I was finishing up my book, I got a note back from my editor. My editor said, “Jeff, you’ve talked about trust in every single chapter of your book. You haven’t hit this head-on, expounded and gone deep into the topic of trust. Is trust important to you? Is trust important to your message?” It was like a ton of bricks hitting me, “I really haven’t done this,” and here’s the point. Trust is the foundation. Without trust, every other chapter of my book you might as well shred it and put it into recycling. It’s of no value whatsoever. You can have the best message in the world. You can capture people’s attention. You can find ways to make your message stick. You can do all of those things, but if you don’t have the trust of your audience it’s not going to matter and you’re not going to go anywhere. In the book, I walked through ten tips that users can use to help them get trust with their audience. The first one is being consistent. That’s all areas of our life. Brand messaging, our imagery, our response, everything we do we have to create this consistency.
Sometimes especially with our online, we’re all over the place. People don’t even understand who we are. They don’t understand what they’re doing. How can they trust that? Be consistent day in, day out in every single aspect of our business. The second one is to deliver as promised. If we say that we’re going to get a proposal out by 5:00 PM on Friday, it needs to be there by 4:00 PM on Friday. People are watching every small move that we make, making sure that whatever we say that we exceed expectation. That we deliver as promised. This is one that we often don’t think about, but being open and being authentic with our audience. Sometimes we feel we have to have this fake facade of who we are and create this impression. We can gain more trust from our audience if we are open and we are authentic with them. When I’m on stage, people love to hear about my failures, which is great. I have many of those failures. I can be open about them. The fourth one is show confidence. If you believe that your product is the right solution, is a great solution, have confidence in your message. Have confidence in what it is that you’re doing. Be truthful with people.
Number six is to make people feel safe in our presence. That makes them feel safe with the things that we’re doing with them. If they’re on our website, make them feel safe. All aspects of interaction with people, making them feel safe. Number seven, saying no sometimes especially entrepreneurs. We want a break in the money or saying, “Yes.” Sometimes telling people no and say, “No, I’m not a good fit for what you’re doing here. However, let me tell you about my friend X or my friend, Mary, or my friend, John. That person would be perfect.” We can gain trust for them. When things do align in the future, they’re more likely to come back to us if we’ve been honest and we’ve said, “No, we’re not the right fit. No, this isn’t the right solution for you.” Being open to feedback, listening to what our audience has to say, and bringing value to what they’re saying to us. Making time for people sometimes in our busy schedule, we’re all over the place and we’re making things happen. We’re clicking but we forget the people portion of this. Making sure we make time for people. The last one that I talk about is being reliable in our relationships.
Talk a little bit about how you define reliability? The second one I sum up is integrity, doing what you say you’re going to do. You meet a deadline. Is that kissing cousins to reliability or is there a distinction between reliability and integrity for you?
Reliability for us is similar to some of these other aspects there, but what sets us apart is making sure that in whatever it is that what we’re agreeing to with our audience. Whether it’s through an email response or whatever it is. That without being reliable, the trust isn’t going to be there for our audience. Making sure that we’re following through, that we are the expert in this space, that they can count on us and they’re not questioning at any point, “Is Jeff going to show up? Is Jeff going to be on stage on time? Is Jeff going to return my email on time?” That reliability is there in every aspect.
The way to build that is through number one, the consistency. I love how there’s a thread that one of these characteristics supports the other, which is the overall vibe of at the end of the day, people trust you. I personally resonate with feeling safe and the biggest compliment I can ever give someone or get is that I feel safe enough to be myself in your presence. I can take down the mask, be open, and authentic. If you do that first, then when you’re giving your keynotes and you are open and authentic, that makes the audience feel like, “I can trust this guy. He’s not pretending like he never makes a mistake and therefore I can’t relate to him.” That’s a key takeaway for everybody in our audience.
[bctt tweet=”Without your audience’s trust, a good messaging and marketing is not going anywhere.” username=”John_Livesay”]
The foundation here is trust and we have to gain the trust of other people. Everything else is important. It all matters. This is the real foundation. We don’t even understand why, but if we were to get feedback from our audience, maybe they do not trust us for one reason or another.
I love saying no sometimes and how I don’t think I’ve heard that concept before. The clearer you are on what your product or service, who it’s for and who it’s not for, the better people can self-identify with, “He’s not trying to be all things to all people,” or “The brand isn’t trying to be all things to all people.” This willingness to say no is a huge differentiator if people are saying, “Suddenly, your trust factor in my book went up ten notches because you said, ‘No, I don’t do that. I’m not a specialist in blockchain or whatever it is. I know tech but not blockchain tech. I know sales but if you want marketing expertise, then that probably should be Jeff and not me,’” or whatever it would be. I always say that the riches are in the niches. Your niche is so clear that it’s persuasive communication. That could be for salespeople, but it’s a much broader use there because you’re doing deep dives in people’s culture from the work you’re doing. For example, with hospitals where everyone who’s not a salesperson somehow still needs to be working on customer satisfaction, which is different skillsets than selling skills. Correct?
Absolutely. When my editor first read this section on saying no, I got a little pushback from my editor and he was like, “Jeff, your whole book is about getting people to say yes. Does this fit in? Are you sure this fits because you’re giving them an out in this?” I was like, “Absolutely not about giving them an out and absolutely yes this is staying in.” This is extremely important. If someone comes to us and we know it’s not in our niche area, we know it’s not what we do too well, but we take it because we want the money, or we think we need it. We don’t perform well because it’s not what we do. We’re going to lose their trust versus handing this to someone else and saying, “No, I’m not good at crafting an exact pitch. I need to hand you over to my friend, John, because that’s his specialty,” and great. John makes the money. John gets the contract. They do the work there, but then that person will remember me and they’ll trust me because I didn’t lead them astray.
Targeted Persuasion: Sometimes, we’ve tried to push the envelope a little bit too much to gain more attention, and it can backfire on us.
This plays out into all areas of our lives. I’m thrilled to hear you say this about the message and the audience because that was my intent. I want to be a specialist. I am a specialist. I want to continue pushing that in persuasive communications. Does it play out in multiple fields? Absolutely. As an entrepreneur, does it play out? Yes. For healthcare professionals? I do a lot of work for healthcare professionals. Does it matter? Yes, because they have to work toward compliance. Sometimes they struggle a little bit in helping patients understand why this should be taken to the next step with them and what that looks like, but also satisfaction. Hospitals are graded by patients. Even now, a single tweet at times can create multiple havocs for us. It can span to go into the media. It can go all over the place if we haven’t had that customer satisfaction. Persuasion is around that as well.
One of your niches is how to craft a call to action that users can’t resist. Is this call to action something that’s on a website? Is it something a salesperson’s saying? Bring that to life for us.
The answer is yes. That’s what’s beautiful about this book. You could take the topics that are here and you can apply them to an email that you’re going to send. You can apply them to a face to face conversation with a person. You can apply them to a landing page that you’re creating. You could apply this to a regular website that’s part of your product. These tools apply across multiple platforms. They’re not media-specific. You can understand these tools and play them across a variety. Let’s talk a little bit about a call to action. I put thirteen tips in here to help people understand how to craft a call to action that users can’t resist. The first one is to make your ask clear. How many times have you read an email or left a meeting? You walked out scratching your head saying, “What exactly do they want me to do next?” Hang up the phone and like, “Am I supposed to do something?” What’s happening next in this whole thing? Making sure that our ask is clear.
[bctt tweet=”The riches are in the niches.” username=”John_Livesay”]
The second one is making sure that there are strong action verbs in the ask as well. We don’t want a passive voice. We want strong action verb in there. The third one is to make it personal. I encourage people to put the word you or your early in our communication, in our language, in our conversations. What it does is it pulls the person in. It helps them understand that this message is for them. This isn’t a generic message where it could apply to anyone. This is for you. This is for your success. This is for your results. When the user hears that or when they read that, they feel connected and they feel that what you’re offering is specifically for them. The fourth one is to communicate value. This is extremely important on the landing page. We’re asking people to give up something personal, oftentimes it’s their email address. What value are they getting in return? Making sure we clearly put in front of people, “This is the value,” and sometimes it’s affixing a number. Sometimes it’s an outcome. It can vary, but understanding, “What is the value that you’re offering? Have you clearly put that in front of the user?”
The fifth one is to be clever but don’t be tried in all of this. You’ve got to find a way that’s a little bit different, a little bit unique. It needs to adhere to your brand standards, but you’ve got to find some little way to stand out in all of this. Number six is emotion. We know that people buy for emotion, not logic, as Zig Ziglar has taught us. Making sure that we understand like, “How do we pull out the emotion in the person that we’re working with? How do we speak to that emotion?” The seventh one is to create a sense of urgency. Number eight is to create a singular call to action. Sometimes we have a call to action and there are five things that we’re asking people to do. They don’t know which one to do first, which one to do second. Am I supposed to do all five? Does number three fit me or is it number four? They look at all that and you know what they do? They do nothing. They take no action. I will admit, sometimes we do need people to take multiple steps with us to get somewhere but give it to me in a linear path.
Give me the first one. Get me to say yes. Get me to, “I bought into what you’re doing, and then take me to the second ask or the third ask.” That’s extremely important on landing pages and things of that nature, making sure there’s a singular call to action. I encourage people to use strong, punchy language when they’re asked to have the call to action there. “You were invited. Reserve your seat now.” Give us some strong, punchy language there. Number ten is to reduce the risk. Psychologically, when we look at this offer, we are analyzing the risk. What are the downsides? What bad could happen? Is this worth the money? How do we reduce the risk that’s there? Can we offer a 30-day money back guarantee? Can we offer three days? What can you do there? What risk are your users thinking of? What’s concerning them? How do you reduce the risk? Number eleven is scarcity. Pull back. Don’t have all of it out there. Create some scarcity. Number twelve is the social proof using the power of a crowd. The last one is make it easy, especially if it’s something online. If you make it too complicated, users are going to drop. You’re going to lose them. What is the easiest path forward for your user? Make it extremely easy. That’s my thirteen tips to craft a call to action that users cannot resist.
It’s similar to the steps you gave us on how to build our trust, in that a lot of these coexist. The sense of urgency is created by the scarcity. The clarity is connected to only talking about one thing to do next so you’re not confused. One of my favorite lines is, “The confused mind always says no.” People won’t even tell you that they’re confused, they’ll just say no. What I love is this emotional connection too. A lot of people intellectually know it and then forget it. That’s why I love storytelling so much because one of the best ways to have an emotional connection with people is to tell them a story. I know you have lots of great stories. Can you pick one? You can pick anything you want that gives people, “Intellectually I should have an emotional connection in what I’m doing. I’m going to remember the story Jeff told me about his personal life or whatever it is.” Maybe it’s your own journey of you can train at the same time, manipulation versus persuasion. What’s the story there? That’s an emotional hook.
I have a whole chapter in the book on making a connection and in that chapter, I’ll walk through five ways to make a connection with your audience, to make a connection with the other person. Number four is storytelling is extremely important. Early on when I’m on stage, I tell the story of going through an international adoption of where I brought a baby from the country of Haiti to the United States to be my daughter. It wasn’t a situation where I had a lifelong dream of adopting a baby or going to Haiti to bring someone here. It was not part of my thought process whatsoever. My father went over to do some humanitarian relief in Haiti. While he was there, he struck up a relationship with a translator who happened to be a ninth grader who was in an English-speaking Christian school and she happened to get pregnant. The school gave her a choice. They said, “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re either going to give up your baby or you’re going to drop out of school because we’re not going to allow you in our Christian school as an unwed single mother.”
I can’t even imagine what was going through her head or heart to realize that she has to give up this baby in order to continue in school. I don’t know that I could even make a decision like this, but she did. She decided that the best for her was to be able to finish school. She wanted to graduate from high school. At the same time, she felt like if she could find a home that could take care of her baby, it would be the best for her baby. I looked at the picture of this unclothed baby being held there by her mom. For whatever reason, I knew in my heart that I was supposed to adopt her. I didn’t know what was going on in Haiti. At that time, Presidents Aristide’s government was collapsing. There were riots going on between his supporters and his detractors, happening all over the country. I had no idea. This was the first time in my life that I had a gun held at my head. Imagine what she would do with the machete held at your neck? Having to flee the city and jump in the back of a pickup truck to get out of the city because the college students are creating these riots and you feel unsafe. It was the first time I experienced anything like that.
[bctt tweet=”Sometimes, we do need people to take multiple steps with us to get somewhere.” username=”John_Livesay”]
The lowest point of my adoption was I was back in the States and my Haitian attorney sent me a note and he said, “Jeff, this governmental office that needs to sign this next document for you is closed. We don’t think it’s going to open. We don’t know if it’s going to open. At best, you should consider your adoption on hold. At worse, you need to accept the fact that this adoption may be over and you may not finish this adoption. You may never be this girl’s father.” I was devastated. I had already been there. I’d held her. I had kissed her on her cheek. I was in love with this baby. I flew over the next morning and he was my mode of operation. Every morning I got up and I walked with my translator from my attorney’s house to this government office that I needed the signature. I went every day, optimistic. I thought I was going to get it signed, only to walk back totally deflated, devastated the person didn’t show up.
About two weeks of doing this, finally the person showed up. You can imagine what’s happening in my head. I had all these emotions. All this stuff was happening in me. I didn’t have any English-speaking people around me to start with. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to a lot of this. I’m scared. I’m frightened. I’m afraid. I lacked hope for the future. I started talking to him and I’m going off. For 30, 60 seconds I’m expressing all this stuff. I looked at him and he looked at me. I asked if he would sign it. His response was, “No, I’m not going to sign this.” I had to figure out what was going on. I only had seconds to do this because the life of this girl, she was in an orphanage at this point. She didn’t have anyone take care of her. She didn’t have money. No promise of hope. Nothing was happening. I had to turn this around.
I had limited knowledge of Haitian culture, but what I knew was this. They loved their babies and they loved their children. They love family and they view them as jewels in their life. I turn this around because what I found was I had been using words like I, me and my in all of my ask. I was twisting his arm. I was forcing. I turned it around and I looked at him and I said, “I know you love children. I know that Haitian children are valuable to you guys as a culture. Here’s what’s happening with his girl. She doesn’t have a home. She doesn’t have anyone to love her. She doesn’t have anyone to provide an education, to provide hope for her. I’ll do that. I’ll offer that but I need you to sign this document to help me take care of this beautiful Haitian daughter.” In ten minutes, he signed it. I started walking back trying to figure out what happened in that. Here’s what I realized. I realized that I was manipulating. I was making this all about me using I, me and my instead of persuading. That was this a-ha moment that clicked for me when I began to understand what’s the difference in persuasion and manipulation? How is persuasion of value where manipulation is not? That was that a-ha moment for me that started this journey of persuasion and persuasive communication.
Targeted Persuasion: The clearer you are on what your product or service is and who it’s for, the better people can self-identify with them.
The stakes aren’t always that high but the lessons from that story resonate with us all. I totally get that I need to learn how to become more persuasive. I understand I need to build trust. I know I need to have a clear call to actions and I need to stop manipulating and use persuasion by shifting my language. Is there anything else to put it all together for us?
Let me leave with a conversation with this. I finished the adoption. We fly out of Port-au-Prince and I make it back to Miami. I’m in the Miami terminal. I make it through customs and all that. I’m standing in the terminal and I’m holding this baby. She’s whimpering. She had screamed the whole way. It turns out she had double ear infections and lots of things happening inside of her body. I hold her and I’m looking down at her as she was whimpering. I do feel accomplishment. I’m proud of myself that I did this in a few months during this devastating time in the country’s history. I’m proud. I’m excited. As quickly as that comes, it goes out of the window when it leaves. I looked down at her and I start wondering about her life. I began to wonder like, “What’s she going to be? Will she be a doctor and heal people? Will she become a humanitarian and relieve suffering? Will she become a teacher and impact hundreds of students that could then impact thousands of lives?” While I couldn’t answer any of those questions, what I understood at that moment was the adoption wasn’t over. This wasn’t something that was completed. This is only the beginning, like tossing a pebble into a lake or pond. We toss it in. We hear that thump that goes in. What happens next? We see those rings. They go out, the ripples that continue from that stone being tossed in.
My adoption was that stone being tossed in. I have no idea the lives that my daughter is going to positively impact because I took that step. Here’s what I do know is that she will impact lives that I will never know. People that will far exceed even her life because of the actions that I took and the lessons that I learned. Oftentimes in business and being entrepreneurs and running our companies, we can get so much into returning emails, going to meetings, doing our pitches. Going to mixers, trying to shake the next hand, meeting people, we get into all of that. Sometimes we forget that this is even bigger than these business transactions. Things like growing our companies so that we can hire people, which mean that a person can then put food on the table for his or her child. Maybe we grow the company and someone gets a promotion and they get more money. Now they can afford to tutor for the kid. The kid can then expand the knowledge there and maybe can get into a different type of college or maybe have a whole different future. This is much bigger than we think it is. It’s much bigger than the transactional elements. If we lift our heads up, we can be encouraged that our actions can live well beyond us and impact many lives.
[bctt tweet=”If we lift our heads up, we can be encouraged that our actions can live beyond us and impact many lives.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Jeff, thanks again for being such a great guest.
John, thanks for the opportunity. Thanks for being a gracious host and allowing me to share. I appreciate it. I’m grateful.
Links Mentioned:
- Jeff Tippett
- Unleashing Your Superpower: Why Persuasive Communication is the Only Force You Will Ever Need
- Targeted Persuasion
- https://JeffTippett.com/
- Quantmre.com
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