Episode Transcription 

This is the ultimate advisor podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful, and scalable practice. Each week, we’ll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals, your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets, and create the advising practice that you’ve dreamed of. You’ll be joined by our hosts Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practices marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let’s jump into another amazing episode of the Ultimate Advisor Podcast.

Brittany A.: 

Welcome back to your ultimate advisor podcast, Brittany Anderson here with you, with an extra special guest who deserves a nice fancy introduction. Who I have with me today is Mr. Lou Diamond. Lou as you’re about to find out, he is an energetic, humorous and inspirational speaker, business development strategist and performance mentor. For over 25 years he has delivered winning tactics that have increased results of leading performers from companies all over the world. He is the CEO of Thrive company focused on helping brands become even more amazing through the power of connecting when he isn’t speaking or working on his top-rated Thrive loud podcast. He’s watching his kids grow up way too fast, obsessing over how bad his sports teams are listening to country music and playing some not-so-great golf. If you or your organization are trying to find the right way to make the connections essential to achieve your business goals. Lou Diamond is the man to help you make it happen. You are going to get some amazing golden nuggets, you are going to learn about the power of connection on a whole new level. And I can pretty much a test that there’s going to be some amazing takeaways where you’re going to want to listen to this episode a couple different times, I would like to welcome Mr. Lou Diamond. Lou, welcome to the show.

Lou D.:

I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Brittany A.:

Absolutely. Well, you know, I would absolutely love for you to share a little bit about your journey. What got you to this point? What makes you you today and talk about some of the stuff that you’ve got going on?

Lou D.:

Yeah. When people ask me what we do, you know, when when you hear solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, speakers, authors, there’s lots of different titles that go along with what I do. The best and clearest description I’ve ever been able to come up with is that I am a sales and leadership consultant. And I speak and write about connecting. And when I piece that all together, the people that I help better connect our sales leaders, top performers, brand companies and CEOs, who are basically trying to figure out better ways to connect to their audience salespeople to their prospects and targets, marketers their message to their audience, and leaders to their people. It is this aspect of what people do that really helps people grow and thrive when you connect you thrive. And interestingly, what I’ve learned over the last several years, which you have, as well as a podcast host is that a lot of the lessons that I’ve had behind the microphone, have actually come and been applicable into the work that I’m doing so that people can have better conversations.

Brittany A.:

Well, that is so concise. And I think you’ve nailed it on the head with how you can articulate what you do and how it can be hard for somebody who has a million things going on, to be able to say it concisely. And I think there’s this underlying theme here that I just want to pull out for a minute and you talk about connection. And I’ll have you in a minute talk a little bit about your book. And this is just kind of setting the stage for what we’ll talk about through the rest of this conversation. But you know, you definitely have this specialty of helping people in business and that whole connection factor. But connection is important in every aspect of our lives. And the absence of connection is where things can kind of start to go south. So I know I’m putting you on the spot a little bit with that. But it taught us a little bit about that and just the importance of connection and why this is a topic that’s even relevant for for really everybody. 

Lou D.:

And I would even add to what you’re saying. You that it’s probably more relevant today than ever. I think I think unfortunately, the world has, even though you think we have all these tools, they can try to keep us connected, we are probably more disconnected than we’ve ever been. Obviously, you know, I’m not making this into a political scandal or conversation, but we’re so on polar ends of the spectrum on that regard. There’s lots of unrest in the world, the economy is, is separating up the divide between all the different levels is only seems to be just getting pulled further apart. And a lot of the movement that you’ve been seeing in business over the last few years, specifically, the whole great resignation piece, people trying to figure out what they want to do, is causing people to recognize that maybe they weren’t as connected to one another at work or in business or in life as they can be. And, and we’ve seen this, I think a lot of our distractions that we have in this world, are pulling us apart, not bringing us together. And I think it’s really under, it’s really important to understand that when you are connected, we know what it feels like, we know how important it is when you have that sense of trust, the ability to know someone’s world and be very empathetic to how what you do can help them and what they can do can help you. And trying to capture and bottle that is actually what I’ve been sitting at the center of, I have a colleague of mine, we tried to summarize the problems we solve in our worlds in what we do into one word. And we actually sat down and we tried to figure out what the heck was the word, because it’s not about being disconnected, even though that’s a symptom of it. It turns out that the number one problem is selfishness. That’s the problem that I solve. When a leader of a company doesn’t want to include his organization and what his people are doing into his solutions, he’s being selfish to his own needs. When someone is keeping great ideas, and not reaching out to others, and not sharing their gifts with the rest of the world. They’re being selfish, when we start talking about ourselves in a sales meeting, and we don’t actually take into consideration the client or the prospect who we are actually going to try and serve in business, we’re being selfish and trying to talk about ourselves. These are the problems that I see out there. And the cure of all this, believe it or not, Brittany, is not something that you actually do to fix, there’s not something that you can do. There are not tasks, there are not assignments, there’s no emails, there’s no master course, there is no master thing that basically these are things that you need to do to be a better connector. It’s how you need to be if we all worked on how we need to be to be better connectors. And that’s actually what I’m all about the way you need to be to, in the way you approach situations, the way you approach your clients, the way you approach your family, your friends, it is in that way of being that enables you to want to be connected to others that others want you in their world. And if we start with that, we’ll start to bridge the gap with all these different pieces together. And that’s kind of the message and the thing that I can help your listeners with, on what are some of those ways that you can be, and how you can actually start to think about doing those things. So that you can become more connected at work. So you can become more connected with your peers and colleagues with so you can be more connected with your family, your friends, your loved ones, because we do tend to get disconnected with it. There’s a certain sense of appreciation on those things. And when we do those things, we then will start to understand how we can value and try and maintain a connecting culture that we’re trying to achieve each and every day.

Brittany A.:

You know, I think that, first of all, you’ve hit the nail on the head there. And the thing the theme that kept coming through my head, as you’re talking about this is the point of listening to understand versus, you know, speaking to be understood. And I think there’s this this massive delineation there. Like when you think about connection, whether it’s to, you know, the people, your loved ones in your life, or your clients or your prospects or wherever you’re at. I think that that is such a great mindset to have is to let go of that selfishness and you’re actually the first person when you think about the disconnection and the need for connection and what’s going on. You’re the first person I’ve heard use that word, selfishness. So I’m very intrigued by this.

Lou D.:

And I drill down on this Brittany that selfishness. I said, it must be something about it that I don’t like and and I’ve always been that way I hate we didn’t when we were younger, and somebody kept something for themselves. They were being selfish. She never liked hanging out with the people who were selfish. She wanted to be with the ones who were giving and sharing and caring. And I think that has always been in my life. I love bringing people together. So unfortunately, we can dive into our selfishness too often. And because of that, we might forget about the value that we have that when we’re not being selfish and we’re being more connected. And we start at that point that actually is where we focus on and doing those things first, will enable to make the other tasks that we have to do our sales meetings or our leadership conversations, the way we work with colleagues, all of that can be brought together better when we understand how we need to be first.

Brittany A.:

You know, Lou, you have done so much clearly. I mean, even in this this brief few moments that we’ve been talking, you know, just how deep you’ve gone with your studies and how deep you’ve gone to really help and serve people is obvious, it’s very obvious. So I would love for you to share, what is one of the biggest challenges struggles that you’ve encountered? Call it in your in your business life? And how did you overcome it? And how did you maybe even more importantly, keep a positive mindset through it?

Lou D.:

The positive mindset, I think I always had, which might have been one of the problems, to always think that the glass is, is half full, versus, you know, a bad situation. But I will tell you, that understanding and decoding that this is the problem. And these are the ways that we can help people solve and and coming up with who is best served to do this like that, what if for any one of your listeners that’s listening, you can take the messages that I’m sharing and apply it as you just said, to any aspect, it could be a professional way of doing things, it could be a leadership way of doing things, it could be a social way of doing things, right, I had to figure out exactly which lane was the best one to go in to help people the most, and where it would benefit me financially and be able to do it, you know, continue to do living in this space. And it was really interesting for me to figure out who I was able to help the most, what organizations benefited the most from it, saying no, to the ones that would benefit the most from I’d say that was the biggest challenge because of my natural ability to connect with so many people and wanting to do it and actually feeling joy doing it to someone would come to me say we need your services. And when I realized that, where my value was best served, might not financially be the best for me or might not be the best for them. That was a challenge for me a while to pick the right lane and who to focus on. And I think everyone in business learns this, after kind of, you know, experimenting and you know, dipping their toe in different types of things, you find the right temperature for where you’re able to play in the space you’re in. So as I like to say this and bringing this fully to connecting, I finally connected with myself as to where the sweet spot was, and the types of organizations and leaders that benefited the most from the work that I do.

Brittany A.:

And, you know, I think that is, you know, I think about businesses in general. And I think this could go broad spectrum across any industry. One of the hardest things, especially when you’re in growth mode, is being able to say no to people that maybe aren’t that ideal fit and who you know, deep down like you’re not best set to serve them. And it can be hard because you feel like you’re letting them down or letting yourself down or whatever. So I’m glad you went that direction with that with how you answer that. Because I think so many people face it, it’s hard, it’s really hard to say no. And I think that as you grow as an entrepreneur, the opportunities become abundant. And abundance breeds abundance. And all of a sudden you find yourself with a heck of a lot of opportunity on the table. And only so much time, energy, attention, focus all of that stuff, too. So I think that is so relevant.

Lou D.:

The positive mindset piece you hit was also really important because the word know most people just don’t like because it’s not a positive word. But let’s be clear, I recommend this to salespeople all the time, when they’re trying to better connect to their targets and prospects. Let’s make it clear, you don’t win every sale, you shouldn’t win every cell. In fact, there’s a percentage because obviously, you’re there mispricing, your, your services, or you have too wide of a net, you won’t be able to service them on the back end when you win something. So the goal is to get to know faster. And a lot of people are so hesitant and fearful of the work that they don’t want to play in that space. So I’m always about trying to understand, hey, we got to get to know and and obviously I had to drink my own Kool Aid at times. I’m like, Oh, I could do that business. I could do that. But you know what, no, it’s not part of the main things that we’re trying to do. So being really clear and being very focused, is so key in being a successful leader, salesperson marketer pick that lane and own it. And don’t try to sway too far outside of the lines. I know that’s like that’s so key. And the ones who do it the best, are even more streamlined into one specific niche that they do really well that they say the riches are in the niches right? And it’s it’s that couldn’t be more true in business and in growing in from the sales and marketing and leadership component to what I do.

Brittany A.:

Amen. And you know, I want to kind of push on on this topic a little bit more to so you have worked with a wide range of of professionals and business owners of salespeople of you know, this, this whole kind of walk of life here people trying to grow and serve. So where do you often find individuals getting in their own way? And do you think fear plays a big factor into that?

Lou D.:

Oh, God. Well, we wouldn’t be human otherwise, right? Like, I mean, let’s make it clear. We need fear, to be human beings. And fear is a component to who we are. It is all about knowing how to move through that fear into into courage. And, look, a lot of people are very inspired by a fear. And they literally like, you know, they, they almost work with that sense of I could get fired any day, or I might lose my job, or this might be the last day to do that. And some and that sense of urgency is irrelevant, but the right way to do it, is to understand what that fear is doing to you, right? If, if you’re trying to make a sale to a client, and again, let’s go back to that hearing the word no. Sometimes you need to hear the word know from somebody, because that might not be the right client for the right time, make it clear, you need the best, you’ve heard the sports analogy, right? The best baseball players fail 70% of the time. So that’s a lot of nose, when you’re when you’re in the world, you just have to understand that you actually need the nose. So don’t be afraid of the world now know, embrace it, let it come in, recognize how that is going to be valuable and how you could focus more on the assets. So it’s taking a fear and spinning it on its head. And a lot of us need to embrace that fear. One of the things I actually do in a lot of the workshops is I actually coach them through the fears, so that they can be a better connector. Because this is the selfish part. If you don’t want to address your own fears, you’re not connecting with yourself and understanding what holds you back and what you need to do when you want to be on the best thriving game of your life when you want to be a connector and a thriver, which is where I empower people to be, you have to understand that what sets you back what holds you back, when you were on my show, Brittany, and one of the things I asked you, you know, when, what when you’re not thriving, what practice Do you see or what individual do seek out, that’s working through your fears and your problems to get yourself back on track. We all need it. It’s essential. And it’s the most important skill. It’s not moving through the fear, it’s recognizing it, giving it a name, calling it what it is, and just saying up, I know exactly what that is. That’s I’m afraid and I’m not going to make you know, I’m not going to hit the sale or my quote of this month, or I’m afraid I’m not going to meet the expectations that I had set for myself. Well, that could be fear of failure, or that could be, you know, fear of higher achievement. My big fear is mediocrity. I don’t want to be mediocre. I want to be above average, right? Yeah, those are the things that drive us. And it’s just knowing how to identify it, name it and add a spin and on its head.

Brittany A.:

And there’s so much truth to that. And I think that’s with anything, right? Like anything that you feel like is hindering you in some way, like be it fear or some sort of obstacle in your way, if you can identify it, and like you said, put a name to it, all of a sudden, it becomes something that you can overcome versus something that’s totally blocking you from growth potential, whatever that is. So I want to pivot here a little bit because as driven entrepreneurs, driven business owners, people who are, you know, not comfortable with mediocrity, like you said, you want to be that above average, it can be easy to fall into the trap of just constant burn mode, right? You’re constantly churning, you’re constantly trying to think of that next level game. And we don’t always take time for ourselves to say, you know, what is like dreaming bigger? What does fulfillment really mean to us on more of a personal level, so I would love for you to share what some big aspiration that you have for yourself, for your family for your future that is really meaningful to you. And that really gets you out of bed in the morning.

Lou D.:

I think that’s actually who does get me out of the bed in the morning aside from the dog who’s like scratching means to go out. I, you couldn’t be more right there is this. I learned this about 10 years ago, you know how there was this big mode going in social media that someone would post like a picture of themselves. 10 years ago, this this was earlier in the year like this was me, then this is me now. Yeah. And, and I was working for those who you know, read my bio and everything. I worked on Wall Street for a very long time before I opened my own company. And I was in my early 40s When I looked at a picture of myself and I saw that 10 year thing and I didn’t post it. Mostly because I looked so much better today than I did back then. I was heavier, I was working out it wasn’t in shape. I probably was so focused on not doing what I was meant to do on this planet. And so here’s where it works really well. Getting back to that. That selfishness problem that solves this problem is not making sure you take care of yourself. I want to make something clear, that’s holding back your ideas and not using it to connect if I could break the three things in life is you do the things for the things you love. Those are those are the people you love and who you want to be with and the people you want to spend time with. There’s the work that you love, which is do the stuff that you love to want to work and do. And then yourself the body that you love. What you love about yourself working out making sure you eat healthy, do fun things Be adventurous, read educate yourself what Whoever it is, so that’s about yourself, that’s about your clients that’s about your family. And and as best as you can, you cannot draw a nine to five jobs of what work is, you cannot just do the home alone, you have to balance this out as much as possible. Great connectors, also connect with themselves when they’re not spending enough time in those three buckets, being aware of where you’re needing to do something today, you know, I need a day off, or I need to really focus on my client work, or I gotta focus on this, it’s hard. It’s never an equal amount of water, and each of those buckets if you’re carrying them around, again, awareness, being aware of when that bucket needs to be addressed, is a real skill set. Some people are really disciplined with it, I love them for it, they literally write down, I’m doing this today doing that today, I think naturally, I find a flow of where that is, I don’t think it’s an exact amount. But I do know that if you don’t address these things, you can’t thrive, you can’t be a great connector, you can’t be good in each one of those buckets in your life if you’re not getting balanced to the.

Brittany A.:

And that’s so true. You know, I like to call it it’s that perfect imbalance, right? Like, there’s no such thing and I like and I’m gonna give this analogy quick, like the teeter totter, right? And especially like, Do you have kids? So you know, I have children as well. And you’re trying to figure out what is this perfect balance look like? And if you think about the teeter totter, as long as one side isn’t staying too far up for too long of a period of time, you’re flowing, okay, right, like, as long as you’ve got this, and I had somebody say to me recently, they’re like, Yeah, with a teeter totter. And here’s what happens if you get to that point of this, what you perceive as perfect balance. Everything stands still. Yeah, that’s good. That’s not necessarily good, either. So you have to have that growth in both aspects. So I always think that when people talk about, you know, that imbalance that flow that you have to get and so, so true. So Lou, I would love for you to talk like what are you excited about? What are you working on right now? What’s next for you, and what’s next for the people that you serve?

Lou D.:

So I’m linking, if you’re watching on the video, if you have this room, I’m linking towards this little icon behind me, which is right here. The thing I’m most most interesting about is, as we started to mention earlier, that one of the things I’ve been helping people with is having great conversations so they can connect better. And then I realized that I actually have been very good at having good conversations. And it wasn’t exactly sure why. And probably because I’ve been having a lot of them. And I think we all know, as you and I connected through a great conversation, that great conversations bring people together, they enable people to really learn from each other, step into empathy, make partnerships, relationships, these are the things that we want to do so that we can move onward and upward and thrive. But not every conversation we have is a great one. Sometimes they’re just fleeting. Sometimes we don’t connect on on all levels. But what if you could? What if every conversation you had was a chance to make a great connection? What if every time you engage in a conversation, you learn you grow, you develop you improve yourself? What if every time you had a business conversation, your business opportunities led to the ability to connect, engage and win? What I ended up doing and what I’m most excited about for this year, is my new book called speakeasy, connect with every conversation. This is the guidebook from lessons that I’ve experienced that other professionals have done other conversation lists great professional interviewers have utilized and how they have navigated 1000s of conversations through their lives, and that there’s a certain way to master a conversation. And think about it. And a lot of it, as I’ve hinted to, here is the way you need to be approaching before, during and after the conversation, the way you need to act, we need to appreciate the moment and the way you actually can bring the best out of us so that you can engage in a conversation so that you can increase the likelihood they have a great connection, speakeasy is what I’m most excited about comes out on September 27 of this year. So very excited about that. That’s what I’m most excited about right now.

Brittany A.:

That is awesome. And you know what’s flashing in my head is I’m thinking about being a business owner being in an entrepreneurial kind of society, you’re let’s say you’re at an event and you have that dreaded networking word. And just being able to foster those more in depth like not the surface level, like what do you do or what, here’s what I do. And then it’s awkward, and it’s uncomfortable. And you’re like, Well, I don’t want to say too much. And I don’t want to say not enough. And I think that what you’re doing and putting out into the world is so relevant and so needed to foster relationships instead of that surface level stuff that nobody likes.

Lou D.:

And by the way, you use the word networking, I hate the word networking too. I actually use the new word which is connect working, which is basically to make to make connections within your network. You need a network, but you need to make the connections within it, and that’s what we’re trying to do. And those all start with great conversations. So having the ability to speakeasy is kind of where I want people to go with this and And oh, by the way, as a podcast as we depreciate it, the book goes from intro to outro. And this speakeasy name reflects the 100 year old reference to speakeasy which were common back in New York, in Chicago in big cities during Prohibition. There’s some hints to that. Even some conversational flights, if you would, that are presented throughout the theme of the book. So it’s kind of it’s got kind of that flavor, which is pretty cool.

Brittany A.:

I love it. That is awesome. So before I ask my last question, obviously, we’ve talked about you’ve got the Thrive loud podcast, you’ve got this book, you’ve got another book, you’ve got all kinds of stuff. So if people want to get a hold of you learn more about you connect with you, where did they go? What did they see? What did they do?

Lou D.:

Easiest way to find me, you can go to thrive loud.com On the website, where you can learn all about the consulting work I do. The speaking the podcast, the workshops that we offer for clients so that they can be better connectors, all of that can be found thrive loud.com. And everywhere across social media, I’m at Thrive loud, to get a copy of the speakeasy book, you can go there too or to make it really easy. Speak Easy, book.com. And you can pre order today.

Brittany A.:

Awesome. And we will make sure that that all goes into the show notes too. So that if anybody didn’t catch that you don’t have to scramble and right, we’ll put it there for you. So really
speakeasy book, I think you can’t even get easier than that we tried. So simple.
So simple. So Lou, what haven’t I asked you that I should have?

Lou D.:

Well, first of all, I think I think at this time you’re we’re recording this in early June, we have to talk about the fact of how many people actually you should ask me how many people listen to Brittany’s episode on Thrive loud.
Oh, how many people have listened or should listen to my episode on thrive loud.
I’m looking at her at the point that this time we’re recording over 16,000 people heard Brittany’s message. And that’s just amazing. We have an amazing bunch of listeners. They love the program. And but Britney’s episode was awesome. And I just wanted, it was so glad to return the favor. You know, like sometimes you see spikes and certain numbers and like, obviously, this person is a well connected person. We got the right person on the program. But she also provides great content and great advice on the show.

Brittany A.:

Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. That’s super exciting. And you seriously your podcast is amazing. The conversations that that Lou has. So if you’re listening to this tuning in the conversations Lou has on his podcast, I have become like addicted to it. I’m like, what’s next? What’s dropping next? So it’s so good. You got to check it out, check out all the work he’s doing get early access to the book. It is hands down. I know it’s going to be a quality piece because that’s what you put out into the world. So, Lou, thank you so much for sharing your time. It’s the only commodity we can’t get back. So it is completely precious. And we appreciate it.

Lou D.:

Brittany, thank you so much for having me. It’s truly an honor. I love both of your programs. Continue doing what you’re doing. You truly thrive loud.

Brittany A.:

No, thank you. All right. Well, that wraps up today’s episode, we will catch you right back here next time.

Hey there, Brittany Anderson here. If you are loving what you’re hearing on our ultimate advisor podcast, don’t keep us a secret. Share us with other advisors that you think would benefit from the messages that you are hearing. The easiest way to do that is to simply send them to ultimate advisor podcast.com. And if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out ultimate advisor mastermind.com. As always, we are so happy to have you here with us as part of the ultimate advisor community and we look forward to a continued relationship.