180 – The Art of Delegation with Mike Mammini

John (Intro): I have been on a quest to learn everything I can about leadership obsessed with what makes the best leaders so good. After running companies small and large for the last 20 years, today I speak on stages all across the world to audiences who are interested in that same question. My name is John Laurito and I’m your host. I invite you to join me on this journey as we explore this topic: What makes the best leaders so good? Welcome to Tomorrow’s Leader. 

John: Hey, they’re tomorrow’s leaders, so you’re going to love today’s guest. This is one of the most impressive guys I have met. His name is Mike Mammini. He runs a very successful investment consulting firm in San Diego in the top fraction of one percent of financial advisors in the entire industry. This guy knows what he’s talking about, but more particularly, he has a formula for how he did it. And I just love the topic of what we talked about. We talk about a lot of stuff, but delegation, which has been one of the toughest, tougher things for me and tougher things for, I think most every leader out there, every business owner out there. And, wow, did this make a ton of sense? I loved our conversation. I know you will, too. And as he says at the end, just pick one of the things he says and implement it. I promise you, if you do that, you’re going to find a big difference in your life and your business. But this podcast is actionable. Take notes, implement. Here you go. Here’s Mike Mammini. 

John: All right, welcome to today’s episode of Tomorrow’s Leader, where we dive deep on all things leader-related, related to leading yourself and leading others. I’m John Laurito, your host today with a fantastic guest. I’ve got Mike Mammini here with us. He’s the owner of Mammini Company, which is a investment consulting firm based in San Diego that specializes in pension consulting and high net worth clients. Mike and I got a chance to meet a few weeks back or I guess a month or so back. Mike, great to have you on the show. 

Mike: Thank you, John. 

John: Yeah, great to see you again. And we had a nice breakfast out in beautiful San Diego at your country club. So it was a fantastic day. Great way to meet you. 

Mike: Yeah, not a bad place right now. 

John: Not a bad place. One of my favorites, I got to say. Well, I’m glad you could join us for this show. And there’s so much I want to ask you about. I know you’ve had tremendous success in this industry, and this is a tough industry for listeners that don’t really understand the financial services industry. It’s very competitive. There’s a lot of ways you can build your business. Mike, you’ve built a business yourself that is in the top fraction of one percent of advisers in the industry extremely successful. So obviously a lot to share with people. And I’d love to dove in because I know your business didn’t always look like this. Obviously, it’s grown significantly. And there were some really key things that help you do that. So why don’t you just take us through a little bit about what the turning points were, what some of the biggest contributors were when you tell us a little bit about the story. 

Mike: OK, thank you. I mean, the biggest he had a couple of big things that have really had one of them is we have a very specific target audience and clientele that we work with. So

it’s really a niche market. So that’s helped tremendously over the years. It was very difficult to get here. Right, because most people don’t do that in our business. They’re very broad-based work with lots of different clients. And I just made a decision about 20 years ago that I wasn’t going to do that. I was really going to focus on just a select group of people that I thought we could provide great value to, and we could also make a decent living. And fortunately, that worked. 

Mike: The problem was it worked really well. And so the business just grew and grew and grew. And as it grew and grew and grew at the time, I was probably a one-man shop. And since then we’ve grown to seven or eight employees. But the problem is it grew. So did my 

time commitment to the business. And that just was a bummer, right? So I was working 50 or 60, 70 hours a week. It was great, but it was an awful lifestyle. So about 10 years ago, I hired a coach and went over my issues with him and he said, look, how do you delegate? And I’m like, what are you talking about, delegate? I do everything myself. He said, Well, that’s the problem. And so really, the two things that really helped us is just focusing on a very select group of people that we like to work with. And over and then over the last 10 years, I’ve become a really, really, really good delegator. 

John: So let me, I want to dive into the delegation a lot, because that’s a huge thing that people struggle with. Every leader, every business owner, I think struggles with at some point another. Before we do, though, let me ask you a question about the niche, because there’s also a lot of people that struggle with this. They start a business and they feel like, OK, the best thing I can do is appeal to the largest audience possible. But you found that wasn’t the case. Tell us a little bit more about that. Like, why did that make such a big difference for you and why does that make sense? 

Mike: Well, I mean, one of the things you did is it allows you to become an expert with a specific group of people instead of being especially in the financial services industry. Most people that do what I do are generalists. They work with anybody that’s breathing. And that just I didn’t think we could provide value and I didn’t want to compete extensively on price and that kind of stuff. So I figured if we could separate ourselves and just work, become an expert in a specific area and if we were the perceived expert, we still have to be sensitive and provide value. But I thought No. One, we could provide value. And I also thought from a business standpoint, if we could focus like that, it would be much easier to grow and it would be easier to kind of multiply or, you know, we weren’t recreating the wheel every time we got a new client. So that was important. And without knowing that, it also made the whole delegation process a lot easier. 

John: Yeah, I’ll bet. How far into it did you develop that niche? I mean, was it early? How early into your business and what would you recommend for business on? 

Mike: I mean, I started a long time ago, so the first 10 years in the business, I was what they would consider a disaster unsuccess. But I was just trying to do everything right. Anything anybody wanted to do, I would be interested in it. And so probably 10 years into my career, I had a couple of clients in the niches that we work in. And I just said, you know what, I’m just going to stay here and focus here. And we went backwards for a couple of years. Let me just be honest. I mean, income went back, business went back, but we kind of rebooted and said, OK, this is what we’re going to do. We just committed to it and said we’re not going to

work with everybody. And then you fast forward it five years later. And we ran a really, really good position. 

John: That’s awesome. So going to delegation, you said that was one of the big things that kind of changed how you built your business and helped you grow. Obviously, it is a big challenge for people. Do you remember what was the first thing that this coach had you kind of let go of? And what was that like and what did it do? 

Mike: It’s scary, right, when you delegate, but I’ll just give you an example. So this is kind of where I started and kind of where we got to. So when I started, one of the things that my wife and I have always done is we’ve always been on a big vacation or people. But vacation was great. But I also dreaded it because we went on vacation for two weeks. I’d come back to the office and I’d have, you know, 87 voicemails. I’d have a stack of papers. This type of mail I had to go through 3150 one hundred and fifty emails I had to get through. It was a disaster right when I came back. But now I would say Tahiti in 2015 when I went to Tahiti for two weeks with my wife and two kids, I came back, I had 3 voicemails, no mail, and like 5 emails. And so that’s the difference, right? The first year I had it was a disaster. And five years later, I came back and I had nothing to do. 

Mike: In fact, that was a joke. I remember that day because when I got back, I went to my office and literally had no mail. I had no voice mail, I had no emails. And that day at two o’clock I was golfing and I just went on vacation for two weeks. That’s unreal. And that’s delegate. So, you know, I mean, delegating is hard, though, right? Because you have to, you’re giving up something that you’ve always done and you have to allow somebody else to do it. Do you have to empower them, trust them, give them guidance, all those kinds of things. And it’s hard. I gave up everything. I mean, I don’t do the things I do now. It’s client acquisition and relationship management. I don’t know how to do most things. I don’t know how to use Excel. I don’t know how to use our client management system. I don’t I don’t do any paperwork. I don’t phone. If I get an email, I usually can forward it to somebody that can take the action. I just don’t have to do it. So it took a long time, but over the course of three or four years of a big commitment to just getting stuff off my plate and again, just creating a list of things that I don’t do. 

John: Mhm. So that was a first step for you. You created that list of the things that you don’t want to do anymore. 

Mike: Yeah. So back to your question, because you asked about the coach, one of the things that he said is he just had me take my income and let’s just say at the time I was making $250,000 a year, that meant my time was worth somewhere north of $100 per hour. And so he just had me write down all the things that I do. And he said, OK, you answer the phone, we ask you, the phone is back in the day. It was a fifty dollar an hour job. You could hire somebody for $15 an hour to do that paperwork. OK, maybe that’s a $30 or $40 an hour job, whatever. So he just had me segment what I did and put dollar values on and anything that was less than $100. He said just get rid of it and tell your staff what you’re doing. 

Mike: And just so I told my team that here it is, these are things that I’m not going to do anymore. Who’s going to do it if I’m not going to do it? Who wants these responsibilities? And it was spread out among the team, but they bought. And because No one, I empowered them and I let them kind of own what they were going to own and own what I was going to

delegate to them. And so it made it easy. But when you think about I was with my wife, you should go to Costco to buy gas and she’ll wait in line for 45 minutes to save five cents and at five cents a gallon right now, honey, don’t you you don’t put any value in your time like forty five minutes you go right down the street. So true. Five cents more per gallon. You’re only buying 20 gallons. That’s a dollar. Right. So you can save a dollar but it’s Costco. But it makes me feel good. She still does that by the way. But I couldn’t talk about it. 

John: So I love that though. You get your team together and empower them to choose what they want to do. What if you don’t have a team? I mean, you got a lot of business owners out there or maybe they only have one person that they have because this, I think, is what goes through people’s heads. It’s gone through my head is, hey, I know how to do this task. I don’t 

know or I don’t think this person has the ability or is going to have the ability to do it. And again, this is just normal thinking. It’s just easier for me to continue doing it. What do you do if you have one person, is it that you got to hire other people or do you just take a chance and say, OK, I’m going to put this in this person’s hand, trust them to do it, give them the guidance? I mean, how do you do it? 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think if you’re you know, and the coach always told me I mean, one of the things you always said is you said if you hire the right people, you’ll never regret hiring them. So, I mean, it’s kind of if you read Jim Collins book, good to great, you get the 

right people on the bus. And then also when you get on the bus, make sure you put them in the right seat. So from a business standpoint, you know, I mean, I have all kinds of different employees with different capacities. So if I give somebody a job or I delegate some of them and they don’t have the mental capacity or whatever capacity they lack, then we’re probably 

going to be unsuccessful. 

Mike: But I think when you delegate, I think the first thing to do is just be clear and let people know what you want done and let them know why you’re delegating it to them and to kind of empower them. And then I think if you just set expectations and time frames, if you give somebody a responsibility and say, hey, John, this is what I want you to do, I know you can do it. I’m excited about you doing it. And today is Wednesday. Let’s see if we can have it done by next Tuesday and then just let them know that, hey, I’m here if you have questions or whatever. I’m here to help. And then once they do that, they just encourage, empower and pat on the back. And there they at least in my experience people welcomed it. I also asked my employees, what do you think I do that I shouldn’t be doing? And they don’t let you know because they’ll say, oh, Mike, you do this. There’s no reason why you should be doing that. I know you’ve always done that and you like doing that, but that’s like $20 an hour work. You shouldn’t be doing that if you just tell your people, even if it’s one person. 

Mike: But if you tell people what you’re trying to accomplish and they respect you and you ask them that, look, what are some things that I currently do that you don’t think I should do? Trust me. Don’t tell you. And those were great. They were great because they might say, you do that and you I, I really want to do that. But you would never allow anybody else to do it. It’s real. I didn’t know that you really wanted to do that. So I get like, you know, we have a newsletter that I always wrote and because I was the only one that could write it because no one could write it as well as I could. And that’s what I thought. Right. And company run, my team said I’d love to write the newsletter. It’s like, really? Well, let’s give it a shot. So, you know, it’s Wednesday. How about I give you two weeks? You write. And then they write and I

edit it, and we did that for six months and then six months later, I’m not even involved in it, just wow. 

John: And that wouldn’t have happened had they not said that to you. So that was something you just assumed. Hey, this is one of my key tasks. I gotta do it. It’s my unique ability. And but little did you know you had somebody on your team that could do it as a good example. 

Mike: They probably do better. 

John: Wow. That’s amazing. So my guess is that also I mean, you just think about what attracts and keeps great people to a business. Like one of the biggest threats that most businesses have is they lose, they’re great people, they’re players. And a big reason for that is they’re not challenged or they don’t feel like they’re tapped into to do enough to reach their potential and really make that big of an impact. And as you’re talking, I’m thinking, wow, you probably have noticed that it’s a better ability to attract higher quality people and keep them as well. Not that you’re not. Sometimes you’re going to lose people, of course, but my guess is that just keeps your team much more engaged because they’re doing higher level tasks. 

Mike: It’s not only that. That’s absolutely true. The other thing it does is I think it just gives them authority on stuff, right? They just take ownership of stuff. And so I think that makes them more. I just think they like their work more if they feel appreciated and they feel like 

they have authority over certain things. And again, I think it all gets back to you. I mean, you know, these little things my kids would always say, but it’s true. And I always use that Jim Collins thing. I mean, you really do have to just evaluate who you have on your team. And sometimes we’re not the right people. Yeah. And I think sometimes people are just reluctant to make changes. Look, I’m the same. I mean, you know, you have relationships with employees and they might have been with you for a long time. 

Mike: But I think if you’re honest sometimes maybe they’re maybe they belong on the bus, maybe they don’t. But maybe if they do, they kind of should be in the back. And you’re like you just I mean, businesses just have a big team and we really haven’t had that problem. But I’m sort of like I had to move some people around. And to your point, I think when people get in the right seat just to use that again, then it’s a seat that they’re comfortable with. They know they have capacity. They’re willing to take on that challenge and they’re willing to take ownership of whatever it is that you’re delegating. 

John: You know. Well, and it’s interesting because most and I know many business owners that know they need to make a change with personnel, either a person that needs to get off the bus or move to a different seat. And they’ve been hesitant to do it. And inevitably, when 

they finally do it, the rest of the team’s response is, well, it’s about time like that was long overdue. Or the person themself even says that, you know, yeah, you’re totally right. You know, I knew this was coming. I knew this was coming. So it’s interesting. Sometimes it’s just this mental block that we have about making the change that we need to sometimes. I mean, look, change is uncomfortable, right? I mean, everybody knows that nobody likes change, but change could be very productive. Yeah, it’s always uncomfortable, you know. I mean, we’re going through a little bit of change right now, my firm. And, you know, it was a little uncomfortable, but the expectation is when we come out, the other side will be better.

John: Are there times where or were there times where this backfired where you delegated either the wrong thing or you realized you went too far or too soon? What happened there? 

Mike: You know, I don’t think I’ve had anything backfire. I’ve probably delegated a little too much because it became kind of a sense to get rid of stuff. So maybe I got rid of stuff too quickly and people made mistakes, but they weren’t big mistakes. I mean, they were manageable. And again, I think if you have the right people and they make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world. But again, I mean, you just think about if you just think about it, if you think about what delegation is, it’s to give control, responsibility and authority to someone else. That’s a lot, right? I mean, think about control, responsibility and authority to someone else if it’s something that you really enjoy doing. But it’s twenty five dollars an hour work. I mean, reality is you shouldn’t be doing it because you could be doing something more valuable. So I don’t think I’ve had anything, anything backfires. 

Mike: You know, there are some growing pains when you throw that delegation process. But when you get to the other side again, I mean, you know, I mean, now I work two and a half days a week and yeah, no, I’m not in the office. And when I’m on vacation, I don’t call they don’t call me. I know when I get back, everything’s done. I don’t have to worry about it, you know, I mean, I don’t try and golf every Friday, I don’t go to the office, I don’t call the office, they don’t call me. Obviously, clients call whatever stuff just gets done. And I don’t even know about it anymore. I used to want to know everything that was going on. I don’t even ask anymore. And I know it’s getting harder. It’s getting it right. If if nobody is not sure, then they’ll let me know and say, hey, Mike, this might be a little bit over my head. Are you sure you want me to do this? And typically it’s like, yeah, you want you to do it. 

John: That’s great. That’s amazing. Well, you know, and I love that control, responsibility and authority, which means that they’ve got decision making ability, I mean, in reality. So that’s so that’s a big step, too. It’s one thing to give somebody control and hey, you do this, but to make decisions in regard to everything that has to do with that, that’s really stepping back and putting a lot of trust in that person. 

Mike: Yeah. And, you know, I mean, it’s hard when you start. I mean, it is because you’re, you know, like client correspondence, for instance. You know, it used to be I wanted to see everything before it went out. Well, that’s terribly ineffective. I mean, it’s micromanaging that person and they’re all adults and college-educated white. However, I write an email or a letter or whatever. I mean, my style is certainly different than everybody else’s. And everybody else is different from mine. It’s not mine, not better or worse. Nor is it just different. So, yeah, that’s hard. The authority part is the heart because, you know, you’re really handing over ownership to somebody else. And it’s something that you may have done for years. That’s your baby. I mean, it’s like, 

John: Yeah, this is your thing and your business and you’re doing something right. As you said, you’ve done for years and now you’re putting it entirely in somebody’s hands. So you understand, you know, you could see why people struggle with it so much because it’s just such a mental hurdle to overcome. But, you know, what I’m hearing you say is that it sounds 

like one of, if not the biggest game changers, and aha. Moments that turned into a totally transformed business and life. I mean, to be able to go away for two weeks and come back

and not skip a beat and then go golfing. And the lifestyle that you have combined with still continued business growth. I mean, that’s really everybody’s dream. 

Mike: Yeah, me too. I mean, you know, people listen, as I said. Yeah. Whatever I mean, the last ten years, our businesses, it’s done probably a three X, you know. I mean, that’s a lot, right? It just regards where it started. Three X is still a good number from there. And I work less than I do, maybe less than I’ve ever worked. But I don’t know, I work two and a half, three days. Yeah. And we can continue to grow at that stage. Right. So if, you know, when I started before, I really committed to delegating as the business grew, as I said at the very beginning, as the business grew, so did my commitment to the business there, because I was doing everything and I didn’t know how to delegate. And now, for now, the business could continue to grow. And my time commitment to the business is not increasing because I really only do two things. I do client acquisition and relationship management of the existing client. 

John: You just read my mind because that’s what I was going to ask you. So what is on your list that you do? So everything related to client acquisition and client management, is that what you said? 

Mike: Yeah. Then client management is really just relationship building. That’s really what my responsibility is. Everything else is. I mean, I don’t do it and quite honestly, I probably have forgotten how to do it. 

John: Yeah. Yeah. Well that’s you know, in reality you’ve you’re doing the things that you’re great at in the love doing. My guess is that two and a half to three days of work you love, it’s not like you’re doing stuff that you don’t enjoy. 

Mike: I know. And again, to your point, I think my employees are doing things that they enjoy. Yeah, right. I mean, I always tell people and this is true for me and it’s very true for you. It’s probably true for anyone at all. Listen to this. Look, if you could do it if you could if you have however many hours, but you could spend 80% of your time doing things that you really enjoy doing and that you’re pretty competent at. And the other twenty percent, there’s always 20% crap that you have to do. I mean, even though I do 20. There’s still crap that I get involved with that I probably shouldn’t. But 80% of my time, which is a lot, is spent on stuff day to day that I really enjoy doing. And I always tell everybody that 20% you just get the stuff that comes out, somebody’s out, whatever, whatever you just have to do. And, and that’s, but that’s the balance. I think that’s a pretty good balance. Yeah. That’s pretty good. 

John: That’s incredible. And then I mean your quality of life is just gotta have just in terms of your stress going down your time to to spend time with family and. Friends and do the things you love to do, I mean, my guess is your life 10 years ago versus how it is today and everything has changed dramatically. 

Mike: That’s a lot different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there are some things, too. I mean, I know some of the things that allow you to be a good delegator. There are some things just from a business standpoint that I think you need to try to do and that I think we’ve been pretty successful doing one of is just systematized stuff. Right. Since we work with a niche client, niche clientele. I mean, everything that we do is pretty standard. So we don’t have a lot of one offs so stuff. So it’s easier to delegate because there’s just not a lot of we’re doing the

same thing over and over again for each different client might be a little bit different, but it’s generally about the same. And then the other thing is, you know, like I mentioned earlier, you know, to get your team, even if your team is one, I mean, I’ve had this conversation with other people. 

Mike: They have like an administrative assistant or something, like you could delegate to that person, just tell them what you’re trying to do and ask them the same questions that I mentioned ten minutes ago. What are some things that I currently do that you think I shouldn’t be doing? And they’ll tell you. And then the other thing, just for two other things, just for office organization, we also implemented this helps a lot, too. We also don’t want just the three. We call it a three week rule and all that, as if a client calls and says, hey, I really want to set an appointment. I need to see whenever it’s an emergency, then this rule will be violated. But just generally speaking, if a client calls and wants to have a meeting or they need to go somewhere, whatever, we always use the three week rule. And he said, well, what is today? The 27th of July makes available the second week of August, and I may have nothing going on next week, but it doesn’t matter if I say Oh yeah, my two bailable on Friday, then that, which is what I used to do that would just create chaos in the office because suddenly I would need everybody to drop everything. 

Mike: And I’m like, hey, we need to get this together by Friday, which is the day after tomorrow. It’s like, how about August 10th? That’s the first day Mike’s available. Yeah, well, we started that. It was hard because my staff is like, Mike, there’s no way clients are going to go out there. And I don’t know if I should call my dentist or my doctor. I mean, I can’t get in tomorrow. Right, exactly. Like, why are we on call? Let’s try and see if it works right now and now. It always works because now if a client calls, I mean, they don’t call me for an appointment because I don’t do that. What do they call my assistant or call my office to say? Oh, yeah, I know Mike likes to go out a couple of weeks, you see available like August 10th. Yeah. And actually, August has worked perfectly. 

John: Well, it’s interesting. I love that rule. And there is, you know, in reality, there’s a perception in people’s mind or misperception that the faster or more available you are, the less successful that you are. So my guess is that it also gives the right impression, too. I mean, hey, if you’re not booked, I know if I call somebody and they’re not available for three weeks, my thought is, OK, well, they must be really successful. What is right, wrong or indifferent? That’s sometimes how our brain works. But I love your point about the chaos, too, because there are a lot of people that operate and I’m one of them. A lot of times it’s like, OK, let me just get let’s see if we can do it in a week. Let’s do it in a week versus two or three. But I hear what you’re saying because it keeps a good cadence for the business. It keeps a good cadence for your team. And that’s a really important factor versus OK, we’re in sixth gear this week, in second gear next week. That’s got to drive a team nut and reality to constantly adapt and adjust. 

Mike: Yeah. And then the last thing is, I think the other thing is, is, you know, what’s good for me is good for everybody else. So we really try when people do go on vacation, staff goes on vacation, the expectation for them when they come back from vacation is the same for when I come back from vacation. So we all circle around and we try to make sure that I mean, now that I mean emails and voicemails. So everybody’s participating in the same process because it’s no good if I’m the only one that comes back and, you know, and it’s

great when I come back. But they come back like, oh, crap, I’ve got all these emails and this pile of paper and all these voicemails. So we do try to incorporate that for everybody when people are on vacation. 

John: Yeah, excellent. I like that. My guess is our team likes that. 

Mike: I think it’s just more of that. It makes you more of a team member. Yeah. 

John: Yeah. Excellent. So what do you see down the road? What’s your vision? Any big plans and aspirations with the business in five, ten years? 

Mike: Yeah. I mean in five or ten years hopefully. You know I have a son that’s younger and graduated from college. You know, hopefully, he comes. Joins the firm and the firm continues to grow and grow. Instead of working two or three days a week, I work one or two. And again, maybe at that point I’m going to 95% percent of the stuff I really like to do. So at that point, I could work another 10, 20 years and probably be really happy. But, you know, then it’s just making sure that all these processes that we have in place continue. And I don’t think I mean, I’m confident that they will because I think people see the benefit again if everybody’s doing the 80% of the stuff that they like to do. I mean, you know, for employees, it is a job. I mean, I get that right. They’d probably rather not work. But since they have to work, it’s a pretty good environment. They all get paid really, really well. 

Mike: That’s another thing I think is the compensated people, maybe a little above, just to make sure you get good quality people and you don’t have turnover. Turnover is the killer. Turnover is, you know, I mean, it’s just like getting a new client. It’s way easier to keep a client that we currently have and to get a new one. Right. Yeah. And I think employees are the same. If you have really good employees, if you have to overpay them a little bit, I just think that just makes total sense. Now, the opposite doesn’t make sense. I mean, you know, we all know guys or girls that we know that own businesses and they just always complain about turnover and turnovers, either two things. Either people hate the working environment, that they’re not being compensated fairly. Mm. Yeah, absolutely. 

John: Any other mistakes that you see business owners make or financial advisors or. In really any industry, any other words of wisdom that cautionary words or anything that you see people do that you know is ultimately slowing them down. 

Mike: So you know what it’s like. For instance, you’re going to have how many people are in this podcast. So I would say you just think about what we talk about. I mean, we talk about standardizing your process, asking your staff for help, and creating a list of things you’re not going to do. The three-week rule is that vacation rules for all your staff. They’re making sure that you’re doing work that’s consistent with what it is you’re getting paid. And to do that, you just need to figure out where your hourly wage is. And if you were paid out, I would just tell people, do one of them. Next week, right, because the easy thing is you listen to this, you’re like, oh, that’s great, all that. Then two weeks go by, three weeks go by. 

Mike: Next thing you know, it’s freakin January and you haven’t done anything and you’re in the same mess. It’s hard. Just take a baby step. Just do one say, oh, whatever one of those and just know it’s hot. I mean, delegating is hard as you have to trust the person that you’re delegating to. But I think people would be surprised at how much ownership people will take

if they’re empowered and they know you trust them. I think I don’t think people make mistakes. I just think people don’t like that. People don’t like change. 

Mike: And well, look, if you’re working too much and you’re working too many hours, your business is growing and you don’t think your staff is fully engaged or whatever. I would ask if you sit down with them and ask a simple question. What are some things that I do that you don’t think I should do? People don’t tell you and you’ll be shocked. I mean, you know, again, I just think people don’t like it’s easy not to do anything. But, you know, I had to go on vacation and it’d be the same. Right. I come back and it’d be a disaster. That did not work. I mean, I hear people saying it’s not worth going on vacation. 

John: Yeah, well, it’s interesting. You know, this started with you hiring a coach that gave you advice that you implemented and took action on, and then you kept going and kept going. But you’re right. You know, people listen to this podcast. It’s 30 minutes of great, great stuff. Take one of these things and do something with it, because, you know, I’m writing down a whole list of this stuff that I’m going to do as a result of our conversation. I think it’s dynamite stuff and you’re spot on. So thanks. Thanks for sharing all that. Yeah, that’s right. That’s been great. So I know you’ve got your LinkedIn profile. I think you have your website. If people want to learn more about you, they want to get a hold of you. What’s the best way for them to do that? 

Mike: And just go to our website. It’s just money. I guess I don’t even know if you need that money. This guy looked like his daddy. Surprise, surprise, surprise. I’m not involved in it at all. I don’t think I’ve looked at it in years, but apparently, some day and then I don’t even do my LinkedIn. Somebody sent out LinkedIn stuff that’s you know, I have somebody in my office that does LinkedIn blurbs. You know, I don’t know. I don’t even know how often they do. But on a regular basis, we sent something out. 

John: Mean if you said anything different, I would think, OK, that’s it. You’re not delegating. Right. So that goes perfectly with what we talked about. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining Mike. Honestly, this has been phenomenal. And I’d love to know we’re going to see each other hopefully in September, the Wealth Management Forum. I hope if not, we’ll see each other sometime when I’m out of your way. But this has been dynamite. Really appreciate it. 

Mike: Right. Thanks, John. You got it. 

John: And thanks, everybody, for joining today’s episode of Tomorrow’s Leader. As always, make sure you like, subscribe, give a thumbs up, share. Always appreciate your comments and suggestions on future topics and future guests. Great ones like Mike here today. Make sure you direct message me or give me a buzz. Email me with your suggestions and go 

down below. Give a five-star review. Always appreciate that. Look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks, everybody. 

John (Closing): Thanks for joining us on today’s episode of Tomorrow’s Leader. For suggestions, or inquiries, about having me at your next event, or personal coaching, reach me at john@lauritogroup.com Once again, that’s john@lauritogroup.com. Thanks! Lead on!