Connection is the New Currency to Build Wealth with Lou Diamond

Hey there, real quick, before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, Grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Oh, my God. I just had the best conversation with the one and only Lou Diamond. No, not Lou Diamond Phillips, but Lou Diamond. Listen, here's the deal. One of the things that will drive your wealth, drive your business, drive the richness in your life is your ability to connect deeply with people, connect deeply with experiences, to connect deeply with your communication.

And what Lou does is he helps people understand how to communicate and connect as salespeople, as business people, as individuals. And we had this great conversation that went all around the journey as an entrepreneur, how connection fits in, how to do it. He even gave us a framework tactically of what to do before you get on stage, before you do a podcast, before you go into a sales call, before you pick up the phone to make that happen. All of this is going to elevate your money, your wealth, and your life. Enjoy the episode. I'll see you in the episode.

Cheers.

This is the Affluent Entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom, because that's what it really means to be an absolute entrepreneur.

Hey there, Lou. So good to have you on the Affluent Entrepreneur show. Man, this is going to be fun. Let's have some fun.

I was born to have fun. I was born to be ready. And I was ready since the minute I woke up this morning to be on this program. Mel, excited to be here.

Oh, man. So we just, as I said in the introduction, we got introduced by a good friend, a mutual good friend of ours who and. And I had the blessing and the opportunity of being on your show, and that was fun. And that episode is out, and we'll have to check it out. We'll make sure that we hook that up already in the show. Notes that we're already starting references already. But here's the thing. Some people don't know who Lou diamond is, and they should. So let's just start back a little bit. You know.

Who is Lou diamond, what does he do, and why is he doing.

Oh, I like that. All right, so who I am, just to be clear, I'm not Lou Diamond Phillips. Just to be clear. Although if you keep searching on Google, I'm pretty sure you'll run into Lou Diamond Phillips. He was a genuine gentleman. I've had a chance to meet him as well, which is a story for another podcast. But who am I? I am a sales and marketing consultant, and I speak and I write about connecting. And when I summarize why I do what I do, Mel, I was put on this planet to work with the most amazing businesses, leaders, and brands and help them thrive. Through the power of connecting. I help top sales performers better connect to their targets and their prospects. Marketers better connect their message to their audience, and leaders to better connect to their people. Because what I've learned in this life and what I am so passionate about is that when we know how to connect and when we engage in great conversations to improve the way we connect, we truly thrive. And that is what I love to do. Love to work with people like that and love to help people do that better.

So I love this because, you know, I talk about the whole idea of being an affluent entrepreneur, and often people will confuse affluence with opulence. And I go, whoa, it's not. It's not the same thing. At least not in my book. Opulence is something totally different. Affluence starts out with living a meaningful life.

Yeah, I like that.

And I look at, you know, what you're talking about. Where does meaning come from? Where is it? You know, I talk about this idea of living a richer lifestyle. And I said, richness, to me, isn't wealth. Wealth is a statistic. It's a. It's commas, it's zeros, it's. It's a bank account. But it has no emotion, it has no feeling, it has no connection. And it therefore typically has no happiness, contentment, or anything else. It's a tool. It's. It is. But richness is the stacking up of meaningful moments in our life.

Yeah. Oh, I love that.

And they're not meaningful if we can't connect.

It's really interesting. So I have an example of this. I worked on Wall street for a long period of time now. And I worked in what was Merrill lynch and then bank of America, Merrill lynch and institutional sales and trading. And that was like the sexy job that I always wanted and had been in consulting for years before I ended up going on Wall street and did really well and really liked it and was enjoying it. And I. Could you remember when there was that whole big trend to take a picture of yourself like 10 years before?

Oh, yeah.

Like it showed you, like, you know, here's a picture of you at 40 and here's a picture of me at 50. And then you look at those pictures in the comparison.

Recently, I'm. I'm 52 years old. When that 40, 50 thing happened, Mel. I looked at the picture of when I was 40 and I was in the midst of working on the street, working my tail off non stop. And I was looking at the picture of myself at 50. I looked younger at 50 than I did at 40. Wow. And I knew in that moment, I thought about it, when I was working on the street, I wasn't seeing my kids as much as I liked to. I was burning the candle at both ends because I was on a sales and trading from the sales aspect, part of the role. I was out a lot with clients and traveling a lot. And obviously I worked really hard and was being rewarded when things went well. But even when things went well and sometimes I didn't have control over how, you know, compensation or things would be, it wasn't any different. And something else was happening. I was doing really well in a small universe which felt like the only place in the world for me because this is what I'd been working for. And this was the most important. This is what mattered. This is how much money was next to, you know, your, your income and all of that. And I wasn't happy in the least. And I came from a family of a dad who was an entrepreneur and a salesperson, and my mom actually was a coach. And that had always been something that I had been doing in the work that I'd been doing as a consultant, as a salesperson throughout the years. I'd always been selling and coaching and leading and being creative in the way that I connected with people, connected with my clients. And I recognized I was shortchanging not only myself, not only my family, not only my kids, but I was shortchanging the whole freaking world, Mel. Because the work and the way that I would do things was only being limited to this universe of clients that I'd been working with. On Wall street. And I was unhappy, and I wasn't doing what I really was meant to be doing. I just didn't know what it was at that moment. And that power of connection that I mentioned in the opening here was something I was always really good at, but I didn't know that. I didn't actually know that other people didn't have the ability or the skills or the way of thinking about how to connect with other people. I just figured everybody did. I didn't realize that not everyone did this. I had a certain way of doing things and a certain way that I knew I needed to be in every single interaction. And somebody actually. This is a true story. Mel. I. When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next, I recognized I wasn't happy. I wanted to do something different, but I didn't know exactly where in that place I could be and what I could do. And that entrepreneurial spirit of mine was just screaming out at me. It was like punching me. Punching me so much that what it did. If you knew this about Wall street, like, you almost had to raise your hand to be let go sometimes. And by the way, there were layoffs and layoffs and layoffs and layoffs. And I was surviving every one of them because I was a very important person in the roles that I was in. And I wasn't getting paid so much money that they said, get rid of this guy. I was getting paid just enough money to keep them. And I just said it was screaming and screaming and screaming for me to get out. And it was basically raising my hand, saying, please, please, let me go, because I'm going to figure out what to do next, which is something I needed to do. For those who worked on Wall street, they pay you in weird ways, which, like, you know, they could lock you in and stuff, but that's. That's not important. And I knew that I had to stop and break and figure it out. But when I was trying to figure it out, a friend of mine took me on a trip to Las Vegas. He was running a technology company. He knew I was really good in sales. He knew I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. He said, why don't you come out with me and see how we'll do at this event, One of those massive trade shows in Vegas. I go out there, Mel, and I'm meeting all these people. And he's been at this show for six previous years. And he was questioning whether he would ever go back to this trade show within the two And a half days that we were in Las Vegas, we inked signed contracts, two prospects that he'd been going after, which I helped bring together at that meeting. And within 30 days, there were five more people that we met with that also closed business with him. On the flight back, he handed me a napkin and a piece of paper and a pen. I think the napkin was for the drink, which he ordered me, the pen was for something and gave me a pad. And he goes, I want you to write this down. I want you to write it down. What it is that you do that enables you to understand how you can better connect with people. Because what you did in this trade show, I've been comic for six years and I've never seen anybody do it better. And it seems like you don't think that this is a superpower. And that spawned the outline for my first book, Master the Art of Connecting, that spawned the outline for my company Thrive, which was exactly what I said to help companies, top businesses, leaders and brands thrive through the power of connecting. And it launched my professional speaking career. It launched a high end sales training and coaching career is really the area that I've focused in the most and working and sales, enabling a lot of organizations in different industries outside of Wall street and other areas. And it launched me on a path towards being that better version of a picture at 50 years old versus the one I was at 40. To see my kids, to live life I wanted to, and in time become really good at it.

This is so cool. I, you know, I love, I love this. I'm just taking notes because there's so much, there's so much there.

That I want to. Which way I want to go with this. But, but here's, here's the thing. Let's start with this and then I'm going to come back to the idea of sales. Because one, this show is about, it's about financial freedom, it's about, about entrepreneurship, it's about changing and improving the human condition. It's about a lot of things, but I think that the two elements that you kind of hit on that affect that is one, our ability to sell, which connects to our ability to connect, but also our ability to choose when we.

Feel like maybe we're not on the right path and we're called to do something else. And I'd love to. This was not something we talked about, but I. And for everyone listening or watching, none of this is scripted, so who knows where this is going to go? So. But I'd love to explore what it Was like for you to sit back and say, I had this path, Wall Street. I knew what I was going to do. I knew what I was supposed to do. Everyone expected it. Everyone looked at me, I'm going to make a U turn, I'm going to make a left turn, I'm going to make a right turn. And that struggle, because I think, I believe that there's a whole lot of people in that moment in their life right now. They may not be on Wall street, they may be going to school, in school, they might be out of school, they might be in a career, they might be transitioning out of career, in their ladder, you know, chapter of their life, season of life, saying, what do I do now? Just to explore that. That decision and what it was like to make that decision and navigate that.

Now I'll add two other things to build up to that point, a couple of important caveats. First of all, I didn't hate the career I had on Wall Street. I loved it a lot. It had just changed a lot around me and I had outgrown it and needed to be getting what. Doing what I was doing more successfully outside of the umbrella of working under for that company. In fact, I'd say a ton of the skills I learned on how to be a top professional really happened in that industry. And I am forever grateful for that and for all of the amazing relationships and friendships I still have today from that industry. That's an important piece I want to put in there. I want to address something really quickly because this is going to help lead into that next part. I don't know if you're either born or not born to have the ability to sell.

What I do know is that the ability to connect is coachable. And that was a big difference. And I want to make this clear. And this is the connection you need to hear from this. I needed to. It wasn't a left turn, a U turn. It was a. Truth be told, it was Thelma and Louise jump drive off the cliff.

Because, you know, you went from actually having a. I had two kids, a mortgage, a house, paying, you know, getting ready to pay for college, and I'm driving off and I'm going to start my own thing right from scratch. Wow. Which is. Which is risky. And not everyone's born to do that risk. And not everyone knows that that's what's in them. However, there is something I always knew. I always knew that the ability to help salespeople, marketers and leaders understand how they can better connect, which will help them Sell market and lead better was something that I could focus on and I knew that I could always make a living doing it. I knew it was something inside of me that was in my DNA. As I mentioned, from my dad, who was always his own boss, and to my mom, who really has turned in and it's still to this day working as a top career counseling coach. And she's one of the best listeners with clients I've ever witnessed and is and provides wonderful advice for helping people navigate their own careers. So here I was literally driving down, trying to figure out how I can get that car across the canyon. But I recognized it wasn't a car. It was a. It was, it was a DeLorean that can go through time. It was a time machine.

The ability to choose for me to do that was something that was inside of me and is inside many of us. By the way, you don't have to leave your own job to experience your own entrepreneurship journey. You can start your own endeavors inside of companies. You can do what I did and start your own business and your own brand. You can go work for a startup company that is more equity than versus salary. The thing that is about being to your point, a wonderful word. The affluent entrepreneur is embracing all the best qualities of inside of you. Everything that makes you who you are, the incredibleness that makes you want to take on this wonderful life that we have, which is so wonderful and open with opportunities and try it, because not everybody passes and not everybody wins every day. And sometimes you might fail, but you're only going to get better from it. I think the hardest thing that people say to me all the time is you and I are both podcasters. This podcast program that I have called Thrive loud has over 800 some odd episodes, has actually been a huge revenue source for my business. Trust me, Mal, I had no idea that this was going to be a means by which I could actually grow my company. I thought it was an opportunity for me to get more speaking gigs and promote myself more on. On this medium. It turned out to be a phenomenal way to improve my skills and do something that has become really where I launched the car to the next level and plateau, which is helping people connect, engage and win through great conversations. None of that happens without me taking the leap of trying and leaving Wall Street. None of it happens without me starting Thrive and figuring out where to go. Absolutely none of it happens without starting the podcast, because none of that leads to the path that enables me to figure out that what I was put on this planet to do was to help the world speak easy and connect with every conversation, which is how this whole thing came to be. And that came from one choice that built onto another and built onto another decision. What we need to do when we're in that moment and we're not sure what it is, you can choose to try it. And your level of risk and your appetite is going to be different for everybody.

Yeah.

But what I urge everyone who has a little bit of an entrepreneurial edge to them or wants to try something, start yesterday. Because I wanted to raise my hand way earlier. Mel. I wish I had started five years before I had done what I was doing. But of course, I didn't know that at that point. And timing is what it is. And eventually something screams out at you. But it is important to recognize that you have to connect what you're trying to, what you want to do inside with something that you can add value with. And here was the big part, the big thing for the greatest entrepreneurs out there. So you have to find the void that's missing in this world and fix that problem. Solve that problem. Figure out that you're the person to solve that problem and match it up with your energy. That is where the entrepreneurship opportunity comes in again. That could be fixing a new cost accounting way inside your large organization. That could be helping people understand how to start their own financial practice and financial advisor like you. And that could also be working with these marketers, leaders and everyone to figure out how they can communicate and connect better. That is the problems that we find and when we're really good at it and we just own up to that superpower. Dude, the world is our freaking oyster.

It certainly is. Dude. How long ago did you do this? When was that choice?

So at the really in the middle of 2013 was when I made the choice and thrive. Like officially started 2014 to be.

So I'm guessing that when you made the choice, what you're doing today is vastly different than what you started doing back then.

Yeah, we failed a lot.

Yeah.

I had created certain trainings and workshops and were inviting companies to those things as opposed to realizing the model was the other way around. Where they were inviting me in to come into their organizations and filling the needs where they needed to go. That was the first change and the other big change when I created the curriculum and the method of what we were trying to focus on. A lot of it had to do with what my first book was about, which was Master the Art of Connecting. And those were working on the connecting core Muscles, which are still a very important baseline to the message I work on today. What I double clicked down on was where every connection begins. And that's the hardest part. If we get that skill down, if we understand where we connect. And, Mel, you and I connected in a conversation.

Yeah, we did.

You were on my program, and that was the first time I'd ever spoken with you. Couple of emails here or there, and here we are, we start talking, and that is where every single connection in our life starts. And if you think about it, all the conversations you have in your life don't lead to really good connections. In fact, many of them are just passing and fleeting. Some of them. We never actually get the opportunity. And in sales, we have lots of conversations all the time, and it never turns into a win.

What if it did, though? Yeah, what if it did? And that was the problem. I figured out it wasn't doing that. I knew a way that we can work on how we need to be to be a better connector to help people connect, engage, and win. And it starts with understanding how we need to be ahead of every conversation.

I love this. I love this. Why I asked the question about when you started and how it changed is that too often I think that we're scared to make the decision because we're afraid to make the wrong decision.

Yeah.

And, well, I. I keep telling people and. And I coach people to realize is that the reason we actually make the decision is not to set a direction, but to just get a little more information so we can make another, better decision.

I like that. I. I'll even. I'll even add that where Wall street helps in this. There is an old expression, you know, never get emotional with any trade or transaction you do. Right. Don't get. Don't get.

I tell people, when your emotions go up, your financial goes down.

Yeah. So, you know, you love a stock. You love the price that you got in and all that stuff. Everybody loves it. Let's make it clear. If you. If you bought. I always loved this one. Yeah, I bought this. The stock at 34. It went to 40. I sold it. Can you believe I sold it? The thing went to 80. I always went. Yeah, but you made money from 34 to 40, and your decision to get out was your decision at that time. Done with, move on to the next. Don't go regretting whatever that that decision might be. And I think that actually has a lot to do with the decisions you make in entrepreneurship too. Hey, let's try this. Let's see where this would Go. I'll tell you a perfect example. I had gone on many podcast shows as a guest promoting my first book, Master the Art of Connecting. I was out there promoting it. And, Mel, I was on some pretty shitty podcast shows. In fact, there was one. I will leave its name out. I don't know if it's still around today. I don't care to find out. But they made me write down all of my responses in an email response, and then they wanted a rehearsal for me to practice reading the responses that I gave.

Oh, dude, that's fingernails on a chalkboard for me.

Well, the two of us, I mean, I'm a conversationalist. And by the way, certainly. And here's what happened. I'm literally starting the rehearsal process with the associate producer of this show, and I'm reading my responses, and he stops me in the middle and goes, you know, you didn't say exactly what you wrote in question 3.24. And I stopped and said, you know what? Can you do me a favor? Can you cancel the scheduled interview I have with this host? Because this version of me is not the version I want the world to know, and I don't need to be on your program to actually waste another hour of my time to go do this. Please, let's cancel. And I hung up the phone and I called someone who had told me, I really think that you should start a podcast program. And I said, you remember what you asked me about the podcast program I'm in? Let's figure out how to work together. And that's the type of decision, because in that moment, I said, that's the right decision. This is where it is. And I knew that I could do a better job. In fact, my thought was, I'm going to create a program that's the exact opposite of what that guy's show is about. And it's these moments in our lives, Mel, that we have to take the choices, take the options, and recognize, hey, let's do it and let's go. And by the way, some of these decisions are harder to do.

Yeah, they are.

Buying and selling a house, picking the time to time a market. Nobody does any of this stuff. You shared this in your message. No one times a market, and no one could time the entrepreneurial market or the decisions in your career either. What you can do is you can try as best as you can to take advantage of those opportunities. Some of them will work out. Most of them will not. And this is the big thing. It's the baseball stat, right? You get three Hits out of ten, you're a Hall of Famer. Okay? Understand? And by the way, all you need is one. One win that makes you who you are, that gets you a chance to show. Hey, I gave that a shot, and that was the thing I loved. And if you get a chance to do what you love every freaking day, Mel, you're winning every freaking day. And that's what I wanted to do, and that's what I want to help other people do in whatever field they're in.

I love this. It's just. This is so good because I. You know, we're talking about, you know, people that are looking at affluence, looking at wealth, looking at financial freedom, but it's really about life.

Yeah.

Because when it comes down to it, and you said something that.

This connection is so important, and I think that we. I think we discount it. I think we discount it. We've gotten used to social media, these zoom calls, and. And technology that we think that's connection, we misinterpreted. There is. There isn't connection. And we think that we have to do these grand things to have an impact. But I have always said, and I remember when I met my wife, because I would. I talk a lot about legacy now. She came from Philly, so her. Her interpretation of legacy was. I wanted the Rocky statue on the steps. Somewhere I go, that would be cool, but that's not what I mean. I said, legacy isn't something we leave behind when we leave this earth. And too often, we're living for something we leave behind, but legacy is something we actually create in the moment. Yeah, it's that connection that. That smile, that. That handshake, that pat on the back that. I watched a video the other day about someone. I don't even know who he was. He was a sports star who finished college in four years. He, you know, he broke records. And he said, my dad still to this day has never said, I'm proud of him. And he said, a boy's life isn't complete.

And I said, wow. That moment, that little thing that seems so inconsequential, is a connection point that can shift someone's life.

And I couldn't agree more, because you have to remember, this is why you and I do what we do. And when you have guests on your program, whether you know it or not, conversations are the points that we make, the connection. And what is a connection. And when I speak on stage, I used to show this crazy PowerPoint slide, which had a lot of moving parts to it. But I made it. Thank God I found a really good graphic designer who showed me how to do it really simply. And it was really simple. It was basically like, here's your world in one circle and here's mine. And a connection is not these two worlds getting together, like, really close. That's like networking or having a company meeting or just working together on a team. We all know that a connection looks like the circles overlap, and you create kind of like that Venn diagram space, the area that you overlap. And what you're doing is you're bringing your world into someone else's world and their world into yours. And what that is doing is it's doing two things. One, you're giving something up of yourself to someone else so they can gain, and you're earning something from someone else that's adding to your world. If you think about us as people or as humanity or whatever it might be the way we constantly are growing and trying to bring together, it is the connections in our lives that bind us. And it is where we grow and we work together that we always are successful or have the moments that we remember the most. And that's when I got really passionate, Mel, into trying to understand how can we do that more often? How can we always make sure that those circles connect? How can we make sure that every conversation we have creates the connection we need so we can have another conversation? And it took me a long time to figure out with a whole career in Wall street and consulting before that, and working with so many clients in customer service and serving them, I've realized that you turn on a switch often when you need to be on in the service industry. And I would say this to every single person, especially for the young people who listen to your program, Mel, if you're looking to figure out careers and whatnot, I'm going to let you know the greatest thing you could ever do is work in service in some form or fashion. And by the way, that could be a server, as a waiter, that could be working in a hotel staff that could be parking cars, whatever it might be. Getting an experience to help serve other people is such a huge win because one, you're working with people, and two, you're learning how to interact and have conversations with them. Because at the root of everything that we do is make sure we can practice that skill. The pandemic did something really interesting to us in that it kept us away from being together with people. It amplified a bunch of other things, like the medium you and I are talking on. And the ability to at least make sure that we kept talking. But a lot more conversations were being had because we needed to listen, as opposed to just gathering together and being a bunch of circles nubbing up against each other. These connections are where we do our best. This is where entrepreneurs thrive. This is where business leaders thrive. This is where us as human beings, to your point, thrive and grow. So it's almost like our imperative, forget about just what work you need to do. Every conversation you have in your life is a gift.

Yes.

And appreciate it for it being a gift. And when you do that with that sense of appreciation and gratitude, trust me, Mel, the person you're trying to have a conversation with is going to feel it from you and is going to sense your gratitude that you're spending the time with that person and is going to do something so wonderful, they're going to either want to continue speaking to you or they're going to want to talk to you again. And that is why the gift and the appreciation that you can have of having a conversation is so vital. That is, like, where it all begins. Doesn't matter what industry you're in, think about who you interact with and the conversations you have. This is what the skill you need to work on. This is the tool that you should be practicing. This is the way you should work on being a better connector each and every freaking day.

Mel, I love this. So. So let me ask you a question. Can we get tactical for a moment?

Yeah, do it. Bring it.

All right, so let's say that I'm someone that.

I can talk to anyone, but. But, you know, which is really alien for an accountant. You know, But. But at the same time, kind of funny.

Yeah.

Yeah. What did they say? An extroverted accountant looks at the other person's shoes, not their own.

Good call.

But here's. Here's the thing. Let's say someone is. Doesn't feel like they're a good connector.

Yeah.

What. What's like one or two things they can start to do because this is going to permeate every aspect of their life. Not just financial, but. But even more so that energetic how they feel and how they experience life is going to be vastly different.

Totally.

So how do they go? What are the. What are one or two things they can do and put into practice?

I'm going to teach you something that I do, and this is truly. I drink the Kool Aid in this. This is an exercise that I do before I start a podcast interview as a guest like I did before the show. Whether I'm on the other side of the microphone hosting my own program. Whether I'm about to step on stage and speak, whether I'm about to conduct a workshop, whether I'm about to pick up the phone and make a sales call. Doesn't make it doesn't matter what it is. This is what I do before every conversation. I have to make it real easy for your listeners. Mel. I connect my voice. V O I C E V I visualize what I want out of this conversation. In this particular case, I'm providing information to your listeners on this show. I said, all right, I got to put on my giving hat. I want to share. In fact, connect your voice is one of the things I probably said. I want to visualize talking about this and I want to see a great conversation. I want to make sure that the affluent entrepreneur listener is uplifted, motivated, and moves onward and upward from listening to Lou diamond today. That's literally the visual realization I have. O as I mentioned a little bit earlier, is to appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation. I am so excited to speak to Mel. I told him I was excited from this morning. I saw it on my calendar, like, great. By the way, listeners need to know this. We actually recorded my show not to long ago. We tried to split it up a little bit because we knew there'd be so much energy between the two of us. But I am appreciative to be on your program and I'm making sure I'm giving that here, and I hope that's coming through. I is the identity you need to play in every conversation. For those that are afraid to enter into conversations or meet new people or feel that they're not sure how to make that connection, know the identity you're going to play in there. You might be the listener trying to observe and meet somebody or someone's asking you questions. You might have a lot of questions and be the question asker. You might be an advisor, a consultant, whatever it might be in that role. Know the role you're going to play like you're going to step on a stage. That's the identity you need to play every time you have a conversation and C and E are paired together. C is charisma, and that is to bring your own uniqueness into every conversation. A little bit of you. I always bring Lou diamond, this high energy, very loud, vocal person, into everything I do with a little bit of humor because that's my charisma. Let it come out. Let your superpowers be unleashed. And E is Energy. Because in a conversation, you have to raise it a little bit, even if you're a quiet, introverted person, to connect with somebody. This is a connection. We have to elevate that moment, elevate the energy, because no one wants to connect with a dud.

So good.

So good.

I love this. So voice. All right, we're going to make sure that we have this all in the show Notes. This is gold.

Because it sets the stage, you know, and actually that's the.

Chapter that it's in in speakeas.

Is it really set on stage?

It's called Set the Stage.

It's a very important part. And the way that we describe. We'll talk about this. But that actually is the name of the chapter that Connect yout Voices in. That's really funny.

Awesome. So you have two books or more.

No Master Connecting I wrote initially and the one that is coming out on September 27th. I'm not sure when your episode's gonna air, but that is Speakeasy Connect with every Conversation. And that is what if you see any of the branding when we give all the show notes and plugs at the end of the program here. Everything is LinkedIn revolved around the message that I've been building. So we have Thrive, which means to move onward and upward is all about the message that Speakeasy shares, which is helping people better connect to Thrive.

So good. So that's coming out September 27th. So we'll make sure that we get this thing dialed in for you. And is there a place for them to pre order that book?

Absolutely. You can go to speakeasybook.com and that'll take you to thriveloud.com and you can order the book right then and there, right on that page. Speakeasybook.com or Amazon, Barnes and Noble and a bunch of other smaller sites and stuff because we like to connect with all the bookstores where we can.

Well, here's the thing that I think people need to think about is that. And if we look at our society today, we are getting this wrong in a lot of ways.

Oh, yeah.

Our greatest skill now, and this was something that I didn't know coming out of school because I went to school to be an accountant. So it was columns, rows, you know, arithmetic numbers, data, Data. Data, data. But I quickly realized because I moved out of that arena in the sense that I was doing mostly expert witness work, strategic consulting. And you know, much like you, I. The only way I was able to build my business because no one wanted to hire me to do expert witness work because I had no experience. So I said, well, I'm going to try and speak because that's the next best thing to cross examination, which it is. And. But I had no idea, you know, because, listen, I got in trouble in school for speaking. Now I get paid to speak, which is really kind of cool. But. But I think that what I realized is the greatest skill that any one of us can nurture, develop, and work on is communication. Is communication because our relationships are better, our businesses are better, our customers are better, our teams are better, our world is better. The reason that we have challenges in many cases is our inability to have a connected conversation, even though we might have different beliefs. And I'm not getting political or anything here. It's simply the facts. I mean, I look at it just in the money space because I talk.

A lot about money.

And I said the first thing we got to do is get rid of the money taboo. We grow up saying it's impolite to talk about money. And they think that they have money problems, but they have money symptoms because they're symptoms of the fact that they're one, not talking about, two, not learning about it, three, having behaviors that aren't serving them. And so. But the other side of that is we'll never solve a problem without communication that's connected. And so if we want a better life, if we want a better existence, if we want better relationships, if we want better in business, it starts with everything you're teaching.

And to all your points about this, you know, a lot of us have thought that it's, you know, telling someone what to do, and that's part of a conversation. I want to make it clear that you need to come from asking versus telling when you want to have a conversation. That's something that we talk about and I speak about a lot and how much more power there is in asking great questions versus telling someone what to do. And a lot of that gets back to your conversation about money is a perfect example of the challenges we have, because.

Value has a lot to do with our value of ourselves has been valued with money. Sometimes, therefore, talking about it is a very difficult challenge. And a lot of the messages is to make sure that you put forward the value that you have versus how much something costs. And if you do that and you order your conversations in certain ways, that actually helps a little bit more. But it also has to do with how you come to the table to discuss it openly. Not so timidly, just matter of factly. In many Cases and how much better that is. We always know this, and everyone who's listening knows this when there's a difficult conversation that needs to be had. Mel, how much better do we feel after we've had the conversation? Yeah, it's never like, I feel worse after having the conversation. I can't ever imagine an instance, ever. A lot of it is that anticipatory feelings and issues and worries and preconceived notions and what might be said and what might not be said. No. Holding all that back is no different than not choosing to do something entrepreneurial that you want to do. Having the conversation and talking it out, hearing both sides of a story, taking the value of the gift that a conversation is, will make the uncomfortable conversation way more comfortable. And you'll get comfortable in those uncomfortable conversations more often.

So good.

So good.

I could talk with you for a while, because I think this is so magical for people.

To really understand, to get a grasp of, to bring into their life, because we're starved for it right now. We truly are.

I got the menu item.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. And so I really. I'm not hoping. I'm imploring everyone to start to look through those eyes and say, how can I connect deeper? How do I take what Lou's got and bring that into my life? Even if you believe you're. I believe I'm a great connector, and I'm a good communicator. You know, I do it all the time. But I also believe I can always get better. Oh, I can always be better.

Absolutely. You can always get better. And here's the fun part, and this is the little backstory from Speakeasy. When I was deciding what I wanted to write about, one of the earlier versions of the book actually had to do with listening, specifically with listening, because of how important it was. And to give you an idea, I flew to the Pacific Northwest to a company that actually makes hearing aid devices so that I can understand what they're trying to process for those who cannot hear and how they can better listen. What a interesting concept. Really, a couple of things. Couple of things came out of that, Mel. One, I realized, wow, there's a lot more to this content, and I'm not the person to tell that story. Those are the two things that came out of it. But the big one was, wait a minute. It's half the equation. And it's also what I'm not the best person to be sharing the message of, because as we're talking and enjoying our company right here. I'm hoping our listeners are understanding the importance of when you have a conversation like, like this and how valuable a conversation in and of itself is, whether or not you're even involved in the conversation, which is something we talk about. Observing conversations is something that we all learn from. The listeners on your program are doing it right now. Viewers of late night television have been doing it for years. This content is some of the most valuable content that we have on this planet and we're getting more and more of it. So one thank you, male, for putting on your platform and your program the Affluent Entrepreneur, because let's make it clear, this is providing incredible connected content so other people can be better connectors in and of itself because you're creating conversations. The more of this we do, the more exposure and the more connections we could bring those worlds together, which is, as to your point, what we need today.

So good, so good. So tell us, where can people as as we start to wind down? I've got a couple money questions I want to ask. But before we get there, where can they learn all they want to learn about Lou Diamond?

Anyone wants to learn about me, you can go to thriveloud.com if you haven't figured that out yet. That's Thrive, the name of my company and Lou D all mixed together. And Thrive Loud is also the podcast where you can find us there and where you can get Speakeasy book and master the art of connecting as well. Everything's there and everywhere in social media. Rivaloud, you could find me there. Easy to do.

We will make sure it's all hooked up in the show notes and, and that that they have all the links to make that happen.

So now the finance questions. I'm excited. Let's go a little bit of money questions.

So let me ask you this because it's not a money show if I don't ask a money question, but the first question really is this. And what does money mean to you?

Ironically, it used to mean a lot more.

You can't live without.

Let's put it this way, it is an important aspect and it's something that I still seek every day and make it clear. I get paid to speak, I get paid to consult. And it is something that it's at a premium because I've earned it over these years and it is something I value. But to me today.

Money enables me to do the things I love to do with the people I love to do them with, whether it's spend time with my wife, whether it's to go on trips with my family, whether it's to go out to dinner with extended family and extended friends. To me that's where it's important. It is not the end all, be all. It is not what I seek after. In fact, when I give workshops or I work with sales teams specifically anyone, if I ask them to set a bhag, a big hairy, audacious goal, I say, what is it? And all of them says, oh, to make 2 million this year or to give a number, I will always shoot it down and say, none of your goals should ever be dollar signs. All of your goals should be really meaningful things that mean something to your heart. So to me, money helps to get those things along the way. But it is certainly not the end all, be all.

I totally agree, Jose. Money is not a result, but not a purpose. It's a result. And so that leads me to this other question. If you had one money message to give to your younger self, what would it be?

I didn't warn you about some of these questions.

No, no, no, it's good, it's good. I had, I was, I was going to make a funny to myself which was I made a joke about selling a stock at an early point in time. Yeah, there's probably a few million that were left on the table by selling a certain computer stock that has every single product they have way earlier than I needed to be. The only money piece. Hold on, hold on to at least some of your investments. That would be one piece if it's the one.

I know it's running like crazy right now too.

Yeah, exactly. So that would be the one. You know, one, two. I would have said to myself to, to have been when I made gains on certain things to hold a little bit onto some of it. That was just from a transactional point of view. And the other part, which I actually was really good with was I always put money away and I would say keep doing that. I probably would have said put more away. And that paid for my kids schooling and obviously homes and made me live in a situation where I was never over leveraged. There were probably times I probably should have over leveraged myself if I could ever. That would have been the risk taking tip. I would have told myself take a little bit of risk with some debt sometimes and don't feel you need to always pay it out in cash or whatever it is. That would be a good advice. That having watched interest rates for so long be so low at one particular window would have been a good. Would have Been a good piece of advice. Awesome.

All right, so this one is really just what would be the parting thoughts that you'd give my audience as it relates to connection and their future, making it meaningful?

I'll sign it off in the way that I signed off my show and that is to be brief. Be bright, be gone, be brief.

There's not a lot of time on this planet that we have. It is a limited quantity. So when you are with another person in a conversation, be respectful of their time, ask them how much they have, and try and be concise in your messaging. When you speak to people, be bright and say the things that are really most important. Don't just, you know, open your mouth to say something that you just feel like you need to talk. Say the bright, brilliant things that will elevate people, that will inspire people and not to bring people down. Don't be harsh, give positive, sun shining, bright type of messages, diamond bright shining messages, if that helps you remember it. And be gone doesn't mean drop the microphone and walk up the stage. Be gone means move onward and upward. Every conversation you have should lead to another conversation with that individual. Always leave a path to make that next conversation better because that is how your connections in life will continue to grow with everyone you have a conversation with.

Dude, we should be dropping the mic on that. Holy moly. Thank you so much, Lou. This is going to be great. This has been awesome and I know that this is going to lead to many more conversations with you and I absolutely, I appreciate you, my friend, and I'm blessed to have you in my life. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me, Mel. Thank you for your audience and really, really appreciate being here today. Thanks for giving me the time.

Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent, affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building your money machine where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple podcast or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright. And I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.