Michael Fishman learned he had a half-sister through a Facebook message on March 5, 2010, when a woman named Heidi revealed his father's secret second family. He argues that transparency builds credibility and deepens relationships, freeing people from the burden of keeping secrets.
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Her next words in writing, I'll remember my entire life. She said, michael, I'm your sister. I'm your half sister. I was born to your father and my mother who he had a 10 year relationship with in Texas in the 70s. So transparency and the truth apparently were not major asset. A major ideal, a major commitment in the family that I grew up with because my father really had a second life that we didn't know about. And that's when so much became clear.
The word transparency has been used a lot lately in business circles. But what does the word actually mean? Here's our working definition for the next 10 minutes. Transparency means first, self knowledge, knowing who you are and what has made you who you are. Second is your willingness to share this self awareness through stories. This enables others to understand you and appreciate you even more. For Michael Fishman, this subject of transparency has been a long time passion and is part of the foundation he uses with his many clients. For over 25 years, Michael's been a leading advisor on marketing, positioning and business growth. His clients are experts, authors, entrepreneurs and business owners. Michael has seen throughout his long career how one of the most powerful attributes of your voice and message is transparency. In Michael's talk, he will share a very personal experience that few, if any people here know about. Michael's title is how Transparency Enables Freedom. Please welcome my friend, Michael Fishman. Come on up. What up?
Awesome.
Thank you.
Good afternoon to you. It's beautiful up here and you're beautiful out there. Wow. Hi. Some of our core personality attributes are genetically predetermined things like introversion. Others are forged from things that we've experienced or in some cases actually endured. I've always been about openness and transparency. And a few years ago it became clear to me why. On March 5, 2010, I received a message from a woman named Heidi, a private message on Facebook. Heidi is a name we've all heard, but for most people, they haven't met a lot of women by that name. And I knew I had only met two women named Heidi in my life. So I responded back. I'd been at a conference that weekend when her message came through. When her private message came through and I said, I'm sorry, I don't remember who you are. I thought it was someone from high school, something like that. Her next words in writing, I'll remember my entire life. She said, michael, I'm your sister. I'm your half sister. I was born to your father and my mother, who he had a 10 year relationship with in Texas in the 70s. So transparency and the truth apparently were not a major asset, a major ideal, a major commitment in the family that I grew up with because my father really had a second life that we didn't know about. And that's when so much became clear.
Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.
Have you ever learned something that actually reframed your entire past hands? Yeah, quite a few of you. So when I was growing up, transparency was not a thing that was actually honored or committed to. Now, as Joe said, what is transparency? Transparency entails the self awareness to identify the formative moments in your life that actually had you become who you are, who your friends are, who your intimate partner or spouse is, and even what you do, who your friends are. So not only the awareness about those formative moments, those formative stories that have forged who you are, but accompanying that, the willingness to share those stories. Now, does that mean you walk around telling everybody the story of your life and the formative things that happen and what happened when you were 8 years old and why it was painful and so forth? No. But just the willingness has you have an openness, has you have an availability to people? Do you see that? Just the willingness to share who you are, has you show up as available, as open. Now, just like animals know when we're afraid of them, human beings have a same set of sensory resources that we don't necessarily talk about all the time, but which we do have. And people know when you're real, people can sniff a fake a mile away. So here's where freedom comes in and particular to this room. Here's where the ability to build your business and to be more effective with your customers and clients and everyone in your life comes in. That kind of openness and that kind of availability has you be consistently truthful. Consistently truthful. Consistently truthful enables you to have freedom. You don't have to think what you said and where or who knows what story because you have an openness about you. Your stories and what made you who you are are available from here you can see when you have that kind of freedom and when you don't need to worry what you said and where your attention and your consistency and your ability to Focus creates amazing results in your business, in your relationships, and in fact, in all of your life. Now, how many people in this room have a business bearing their name like a personal brand hands? A lot, probably half. And even so, even if you don't have a business with your name on it, your business has a voice. All businesses now have a voice, even if it's not personalized. With your name positioned with your name, your business has a voice that could be humanized by you as the founder. And look, it's great to have a New York publishing company publish your book. It's great to have a Hollywood product production team say, yes, we rubber stamp your talk show. It's happening. But the fact of the matter is the platforms are open right now. You can publish your own book. You can put up your own talk show online. And with the availability of those platforms, more personalities than ever are publishing their own books, putting up their own podcasts, video shows, all these kinds of things. And how are they doing it? In the most raw, factual terms possible. They are saying what happened in their life. They are giving you the facts. They are giving you the violations. They are giving you the hurts. They are giving you the things that happen in their life. They are available. So here's the deal, and here's the point I want to share. When people experience you, you are only as transparent as the most transparent person they have ever previously encountered. And the bar is raising. The bar raises with every passing day, with every personality, with every author, with every founder, with every CEO that goes online with their story, the bar raises. And so it's critically important. In fact, Transparency establishes credibility even better than credentials and degrees, no matter what they are. If you have credentials, fantastic. But the transparency of who you are and who you're not and the story of what had you become, who you are and what it is you're committed to, that is the most compelling thing that you can share. It drives connection. It turns transactions into relationships. Transactions into relationships. Transparency is not a tactic. It is something that you own. It is something that you be. It is in the domain of beingness. It's not a doing, it's a being. So here's what I'd like to say to you. There's something you have that no one can buy, nobody can train for, and nobody can ever hope to have. And that's you. Nobody can buy that. Nobody can train for it. They can never hope to have it. And that's you. So think about what raising your bar for yourself in the domain of transparency would mean for you, for your family, for your friendships, for the intimate relationships and fear customers and clients. Think of what that kind of openness would mean for you, how people would respond to you, how people would relate to you. You know, our beloved Joe Polish is a shining example of openness and availability and so many of the amazing people in this room. So let people know who you are. Let people know who you are. And now, coming back to my sister Heidi. I really moved her from half sister to sister right away. And if you are looking for your brother on the Internet, who you have always known about, but he doesn't know about you, and you find me, I'm a good guy to find. We're very close. She's close with my kids and my fiance and my ex wife and my entire family. And she's even reunited with my dad, who she's been out, who she knew from 15 through her early 30s, but was out of touch with for the seven or eight years until Heidi reached me and I facilitated the whole family being together. So it's a happy ending. That's why transparency and openness has always been so important to me in ways that I never fully realized until this story came to light. So I hope you'll take that on. Thank you.
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