Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:00:05] Mindset, manifestation and building a board of advisors. They’re three very different approaches, but all can play a role in success, according to our guests this week. We’re joined by serial entrepreneur Hilton Misso, who will share his remarkable career journey from suburban law firm to major wins across law, real estate and childcare. Hilton will also draw on insights from his new book, How to Manifest Success, and explain the role, mindset and intuition play in building a successful career. Then we’re joined by LinkedIn strategist Karen Tisdell to hear how to use LinkedIn to build a formal or informal board of advisors as your business grows. Karen will share some crucial practical tips for finding the right experts, staying visible to them, and ensuring you have the right team in your corner to help navigate the changing business landscape. From SoundCartel. I’m Grace Jennings, Edquist, and this is Business Essentials.
Does “manifesting success” really work?
Our first guest is serial entrepreneur Hilton Misso. Hilton has built a career on resilience, intuition and purpose driven leadership. He started out at his father’s suburban Queensland law firm, Trilby Misso lawyers, which was a pioneer of the no win, no fee model decades ago. Hilton later sold that firm for $57 million to Slater and Gordon. In this compelling conversation, Brisbane based Hilton reflects on his remarkable journey and explains why he believes mindset and adversity can help manifest success. To get started, I asked Hilton what were some of the earliest challenges he faced?
Hilton Misso: [00:01:43] The earliest challenge, of course, was to become a lawyer, so that was certainly a challenge that I faced. And then that what followed on that after my becoming a lawyer was the credit squeeze of 1974, when there was a complete collapse Collapsed the property market because that led to work in the law office being dried up as well. The third was migraine headaches and general health. I’ve always been confronted with and had very serious issues, particularly with migraine headaches, that I would have four and five a week every week. It would just torture me. So that really gave me a lot of character and strength to keep going through that. And that was a real resilience builder then to be a suburban lawyer. If you go back 50 years and 55 years ago, suburban lawyers were treated a little disrespectfully and considered to be second grade lawyers. And when you’re dealing with the city lawyers, there’s a huge difference. So for me to have taken the firm from a one man, suburban crappy lawyer, if I may refer as such as it was then Been considered to actually outdo all the big city firms, and to be bold enough to take retail space on the main street and to be totally disruptive in the whole approach to law. Was fantastic to have gone through that first three years where you were attacked at every quarter about who the devil we thought we were sort of being so radically different. But then after three years, became the shining example of what a law firm should be doing. And then for me particularly, to have had the academic shorts through secondary school, to have had all the low esteem problems and all the other beliefs I had about being an imposter, etc., I actually fought through that, and to have achieved the level of success I did. When I reflect, I think, oh wow, was that really mean?
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:03:52] Absolutely. There’s so much to be proud of there and it’s quite a remarkable story. I wonder what is your proudest achievement to date?
Hilton Misso: [00:03:59] The proudest achievement to date? Would, I guess, becoming a lawyer? The fact that I took three attempts to get through grade 12 was absolutely evidence of my conviction to become it, notwithstanding all the critiques and so on. But I did it. I took a suburban practice to an epic level where we actually sold it for 57,000,000 in 2010, which was absolutely unheard of. So that is still considered today by most of the profession, if not all the professions. How did a suburban law firm rise so quickly and able to achieve such a high price? Then the other achievement was to have pioneered the no win, no pay like never before was certainly good, and that was because I had tested so many different things before then taking a the idea of personal development. Because I’ve always been engaged in personal development, my probably my greatest achievement is to have taken one simple idea from a personal development seminar went to. Within 24 hours, I was asked to look at what’s directly under my feet, under my nose that I’ve not taken notice of because the human nature to look to the horizon and look under your feet. And that little exercise was challenged to me to be done within 24 hours in a specific way.
Hilton Misso: [00:05:33] I did that, and it led me into childcare and childcare. Over the period of my time in childcare, I manifested through that little exercise and that exercise. Only a business with its realty holdings in childcare, only over $100 million. And that is absolute fact. And of course, all of the other stuff that I’ve been able to do through the journey, I’ve tried many different things. And truly, the good Lord has blessed me with success. But it’s not because of my applying the all the clinical, sterile sciences about business and its success. And you need to do these ten things. It was simply a matter of it really was through my being made invisible, irrelevant, redundant. I always wanted to remain under the radar, and I just never allowed myself to fall into the ego trap, because of course, I had low esteem with the idea of being called an imposter, etc. so I found it safest. My safe place, my happy place was to be completely out of sight and yet back of backstage, but strategically in control of everything. So when I look at that, that was all of that I’m very, very proud of.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:06:56] Absolutely. It’s fascinating stuff. I do note that reinvention seems to be a theme in your life. Can I ask, how do you know when it’s time to sort of pivot or evolve or try something new?
Hilton Misso: [00:07:06] Well, I guess that’s a case of learning to build your intuition. So again, it gets to that spiritual side. So when you dig deep within yourself and you understand that life is about energy and you’re working with energy, and if you follow the quantum sciences of energy, then building your intuitive skill is absolutely key to life. Your intuitive skill. Your instinct. So learning to pivot. I mean, I’ve pivoted many times through my life. I was playing rock and roll music as a teenager. I tried twice to grade 12, failed the third time that I had to give away music. My absolute passion in life to it was the last moment when I gave up music completely to pursue my study, to get through grade 12, to do university. That was the pivot. My shifting into childcare was a pivot. Then doing the shifting from speculative real estate to rental again, it was all that intuitive sense where you built that street smart. I often refer to the University of Hard Knocks, and that I’ve got a doctorate in the University of Hard Knocks, in the sense that you’ll develop your street smarts second to none. Your intuitive call is something you apply every moment of the day. Because every moment of the day, you’ve got to make a choice. Whether you do this, do you do that? Do I rub my teeth first or do I wash my face first? All of those decisions are intuitive tools, and you apply yourself according to what your dominant intention is, what your vision is for, so all of that will drive. You are your values. So certainly it’s that building that capability and practicing that capability, researching it, etc..
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:09:04] I want to talk about your book. It’s titled How to Manifest Success. What does manifesting mean to you beyond perhaps what some people might think is a buzzword?
Hilton Misso: [00:09:13] So manifest without doubt, is the ability to make thoughts of reality. Now there’s no science to prove that it works or not works. Although the neurosciences are now proving that it does work, that there is something real about it. It’s not mystical magic. And I often refer to its capability as making the seemingly impossible possible. It’s through the spiritual areas of mindfulness, mindset, and mind power. Mindfulness is about your awareness. Mindset is about your intentions and beliefs and attitudes, and Mindpower is learning the art and skills of applying your power within your thinking. Power to be able to use tools to be able to manifest the reality you seek through your thoughts. And in the book I refer to the five Pathways and retitled as the Miso system, which educates you on the five pathways. And briefly they relate to things like visualizations, affirmations, intentions, beliefs, and the actual doing of those things. Now those people will say, oh, but I’ve already tried that and it doesn’t work. But it does work. It’s a matter of what your commitment is and what you do to so manifest is making the seemingly impossible possible. But the fundamental thing is you’ve got to have a belief.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:10:46] Yeah. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about manifesting success?
Hilton Misso: [00:10:52] That you can do it without having a belief in it. If you don’t believe it, it’s not going to work. Now I talk about belief as being the number one key element to everything in life. So it’s your faith or it’s your belief, but you must believe in yourself. And if you haven’t got belief, then you are absolutely going to find it very, very difficult to achieve whatever you want to achieve. If you’ve got one single negative belief about something you’re trying to achieve, then that’s a blocker and you need to turn that belief around. So I’ve studied the science of success and what the importance of belief and the pivotal difference between the groups that have and the groups that have not. Now, that’s a very interesting exercise. And when you go to the dynamic of the twins who’ve got. Absolutely everything the same from there bringing up to their parents, to the education, to the same degrees, to the same everything. What has abundance and the other does not. And deep studies have proven that it is. The differentiator is the belief systems one has against the other. And if one has at a subconscious level, that money is the root of all evil. Money makes you work hard. It’s the cause of all your problems in health and has those sort of negative beliefs at a subconscious level. Yet at a conscious level, they don’t concede they have it. But when you do your little audits on your belief system, you can unpack that. And it’s been proven for the twin that hasn’t got abundance. When you get there and test and check and find that there are those subconscious negative beliefs. And when you set about with certain programs to reverse those beliefs and get rid of them. Then that queen who’s in the overnight group immediately shifts to the hate group. So it’s a very, very powerful tool in enabling the ability to manifest.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:13:02] Look, my final question for you is what advice would you give to business leaders looking to innovate with impact today?
Hilton Misso: [00:13:09] I think the most important thing is life is about not what you get in possessions and not the skills you get. It’s about who you are and what your why is. What is your compelling why in living life? For me, it’s to do good for the many with leverage and have impact. Now, if you want to look at it through the lens of what is the clinical business success to growth, those four elements are absolutely vital, right? But you’ve got to be authentic. You’ve got to be credible in terms of your quest to do that. So then you’ll say, okay, in what area if it’s to help the less fortunate, as it was for us in the law, then you’d look to doing no win, no pay law because the good is the no win, no pay. The many is the middle to lower socioeconomic. The leverage is develop a brand, get the technologies. All the systems you do to apply to to increase your efficiency and impact. It can be multiplied many times. And then it has to have impact and traction at the end. Now, with the law firm, it had all of those four things. And of course, when you get to the eight essential ingredients to making success and there is eight criteria, one of them is to make yourself invisible, irrelevant, redundant. Because if you, as the strategic manager of the thing, was able to create something that sell frame without the need of you, or the visibility of you or your name to it. Your multiplier on n value on exit is much higher, yet you see it repeatedly.
Hilton Misso: [00:14:55] The people who are doing the business and the innovation want to feature as the star, the hero and the key person of this cannot work without them, right? All that’s great for the ego, but it’s not going to get you multiple. So then when you get to the new person okay, remember those things. You need to have a vision that means something. It’s got to be aligned with your compelling why. All your values and principles have to be aligned not with your personal life only, but your business and everything you do in life. There has to be alignment. And when there’s alignment, magic happens. So my call to anyone who’s looking to do that remember form that compelling why? Just why you’re doing what you’re doing, and be very authentic about it. And there’s no failure. There’s no embarrassment. Because if you’ve got a compelling why, you get on the cycle of sees where you’ve got challenge, you need courage to take on challenge every time. Whether you win, lose or draw, you learn something, which means your capability goes up. When your capability goes up, your confidence goes up. When your confidence goes up, your courage goes up. When you take on the challenge, the next time the challenge actually diminishes, right? And you keep going through that cycle where you start to build resilience, you start to develop that belief in yourself because you’re getting these little wins. But you must take stock of that and know where you’re going. Work with your compelling why.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:16:33] You talked briefly about, you know, dealing with chronic migraine headaches. And as someone who myself, you know, deals with chronic health stuff, and I know a lot of our listeners also are managing this in the background. Do you have any advice or is it something that you address in the book at all? I suppose how to factor chronic health or chronic pain into, you know, manifesting success?
Hilton Misso: [00:16:52] I had no choice from a young age. At the age of ten, I started developing migraine headaches. But I always knew what I wanted, and I always knew that I wanted to do big things. So it’s that drive. So when you learn to recognize that your hardships, your health issues and all the other difficulties are a blessing to you, it is the raw material with which you build success. Because if I had good health, I had a normal physiology of anybody else. I would just be the average battler who gets nowhere today, frustrated with his life. But it is because I had the enormous challenge of headaches and bad health and all the other things that it got me to go deep within myself and draw on the magic, draw on that belief and draw on that will and determination to go through it. So you, you learn to embrace your adversity. When anything goes wrong. I immediately say, huh? What am I to learn here? Right? I’ve got to learn that it’s will and determination. How serious am I with my compelling why? And it builds resilience, right? And it builds your courage and confidence to face anything. So that is my answer to that. It is a blessing. I learned to play the game with the card, with the hand that you’ve been dealt. Do not engage in the blame game. Get on with it. It is what it is.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:18:26] That was serial entrepreneur Hilton Misso. Now to finding trusted business advisors using LinkedIn as the pace of change accelerates.
Building your “board of advisors” for LinkedIn marketing
No leader can navigate the future alone, which is why LinkedIn trainer Karen Tisdell believes every executive should consider building a trusted board of advisors. She also says online networking platform LinkedIn can be the place to find the right advisory board members. Sydney based Karen has a few simple, actionable steps to share, including how to identify gaps in your expertise, find the right people, and nurture meaningful advisory relationships. To kick things off, Karen tells me why a business leader needs a circle of smart advisors around them.
Karen Tisdell: [00:19:14] I do not believe that success happens in isolation, and we know that the pace of change is just so fast these days. It’s so fast. Even the expression pace of change has become a cliche because everything is just moving so quickly. We know that the future can’t be predicted as we had been brought up believing. We know that having a five and a ten year business plan needs to have the flexibility to take in unforeseen circumstances and changes, and we don’t know what’s going to happen with AI, and we don’t know what’s going to happen with our workforces. And will we have too much talent? Not enough talent? Will we have too many clients? Will we, you know, all these sorts of things. And so I do believe that by having lots of very clever people around us, we can not insulate ourselves from change, but we can adjust, we can adapt. We’ll hear ideas from other people that will help us to go, oh my gosh, that’s where my next move is. Or oh my gosh, that’s where my next move is not. And I know that on LinkedIn, you don’t have to wait for happenstance to hope to find the right people. Too many people think of that search bar on LinkedIn in the top left hand corner as a place to search for names. And they don’t realize that actually you can put a keyword in there and you can then search by location.
Karen Tisdell: [00:20:48] You can search by your second network. So people who know somebody that you know your first network are people you know, second network, you know, people in common. So high trust you have lots of friends in common, but you don’t know each other. Third network. You don’t know anybody in common. You can search by industry. You can search by who’s currently hiring. You can even search right at the very bottom if you click on all filters. Once you’ve put a keyword in that search bar, the very bottom, you can even search by job title so you don’t have to hope to find the right people. You can proactively go. Where are the gaps in my knowledge? What’s around the corner? What are my strengths? What are my less strong strengths? So for me, that’s around finances and accounting and to be honest, systems and processes and things like that, like all that sort of governance, legal stuff, you know, if it wasn’t for my husband, I’d never insure anything because I just never get through the paperwork. And so I love that on LinkedIn, I can proactively search for people so that when I’m stuck, I can just pick up the phone because I’ve built those relationships on LinkedIn and say, can you help me with this?
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:21:57] That’s fabulous. So just to go back to kind of the very basics for people who haven’t really thought about Board of Advisors in terms of in its relation to LinkedIn, we’re talking about people who are looking to build kind of an advisory board. So a group of, I suppose, external experts to provide strategic guidance and expertise. And we’re talking about using LinkedIn to sort of find those people and fill those gaps.
Karen Tisdell: [00:22:17] Yes. And I’m talking about it informally, but actually you could use it formally or informally. So we can’t navigate the future alone. The more eyeballs you have, the more people giving thought to your business. So you could formalize that. You could have a formal board of advisors. Or you could simply build an informal board of advisors on who is it you need? Who do you go to when you’re stuck? Who’s going to be that sounding board? Who’s going to be the person who’ll argue with you, who’ll agitate, who’ll be able to see that around the corner? Who’s got strengths and areas that you’re not? And I love that. On LinkedIn, you can proactively search for people. You can find these people.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:22:55] Look, you’ve spoken a little bit to some of the practical tips of searching and so on. But in case there’s others to add, where should business leaders get started in using LinkedIn to build a board of advisors.
Karen Tisdell: [00:23:05] We need to have a profile first that would make people want to connect with us. We need to show that we know our stuff and we have knowledge to give because there’s always value. If you’re planning on having an informal or an unpaid board in sort of, you know, how can we help each other? So can I help you? Can you help me? So we need to show that we can add value. We need to be clear on where We’re strong and where we’re not strong. What is it we need? And to do that, we need to be looking to the future. So and I’m not talking about future trends. I’m talking about our future selves. So where do we see ourselves going? What’s our big vision for ourselves and our business? And where are those gaps in your future self and proactively finding those people on LinkedIn, reaching out, building relationships with them, but also ensuring that you stay visible to them because nobody likes somebody who just takes, takes, takes. So once you’ve connected to somebody on the top right hand corner of their profile, underneath their banner top right hand corner, if you’ve already connected to them, there’s a little bell there.
Karen Tisdell: [00:24:22] If you click on that bell, you can ring the bell if you like, so that you’ve got two bells appearing there When you do that, that means that every time that person creates content, you’ll receive a notification. So I’m advocating for following people or connecting with people actually not following. Connecting with people, ringing the bell and using your notifications page as your home page to see who as your formal or informal board of advisors. Who’s creating content. And you might want to actually ring their bell and see what they’re creating content about for a while. See what conversations they’re contributing to before you reach out and say, I’d like you to be my advisor. You might want to sort of see what sort of ideas have they got and actively comment on their posts. Because attention is a gift and good people know good people. So if you’re commenting on people’s posts, particularly when they’ve just posted, you’ll get visibility not just with them, but also with all of the people who subsequently see their post and comment on it. So it’s a great way of getting known in your industry as the thought leader in your space.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:25:40] Just realizing that I think some listeners might not know about the kind of ringing someone’s bell function. Just to clarify, if you ring someone’s bell, you’re essentially subscribing to their feed, right? So do they know that you’ve rung their bell? Or is this kind of maybe just explain a little bit more about that? For those like me who are not as familiar?
Karen Tisdell: [00:25:56] I think most people are not familiar. I think this is hardly ever known about and LinkedIn don’t talk about it because it serves LinkedIn’s boss, Microsoft, to have people constantly scrolling through the feed. And so having a LinkedIn trainer like me who’s saying just ignore the feed and look at your notifications is certainly not something that LinkedIn talk about, you know, because it would mean that your time on platform would be much shorter, but in my opinion, much more intentional. So no, they don’t get notified when you’ve rung their bell. And a lot of people, I’ve heard people sort of paraphrase me and say, oh, so it’s like I’m subscribing to their content. But that is to have this idea that you’ll see more of their content in your feed, and actually you won’t see any more or any less of their content in your feed. Instead, it shifts every time they create content. You’ll see it in your notifications. So at the top of LinkedIn, you’ve got a ribbon. You’ve got your search bar on the top left hand side, and then you’ve got messages and who you know, messages. And you’ve got a tab called notifications, which most senior leaders ignore. But you can use your notifications as a way of going, well, who do I want to see? And if there are people in your notifications that you don’t want to see, you click on those three dots called ellipses and you get a drop down menu and you just say, I don’t want to see this. Don’t show me any more of this person. So you can train that section of LinkedIn, that notifications page. So it becomes very targeted and very intentional with what you want to see, not what LinkedIn want you to see.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:27:31] You mentioned something about approaching someone, connecting with them, and then obviously you engage with them and, you know, you’ve strategically made sure that they are someone you’d like to be on your board of advisors. How are you kind of then making that approach? So are you sort of is this building a relationship over time and then eventually putting the question to them, would you like to be my formal or informal, you know, on my advisory board, or I’ll just let you speak to that.
Karen Tisdell: [00:27:53] Yeah, that’s a really great question. I love that, and I’m answering that differently now than I used to years ago, because for a long period we were building relationships online. We were keeping those relationships online. And of course, during those Covid years, we had little choice but to live online. But people nowadays, I do feel that they’re yearning for that in-person contact. I also believe that every time we open our LinkedIn inbox, we almost brace ourselves for being sold to. And these days I’m finding myself doing the same thing with my emails as well. I sort of almost take a breath every time I open my email like, ah, how much spam have I got this morning? And so I don’t see LinkedIn as the end point. I see it as the starting point. This is a place to find people, and by using the notifications page, it’s a place to stay memorable with people and get to know more about people. And you stay memorable by commenting on their posts. But it’s just the starting point. You want to try and take these people offline by commenting on their posts a few times and then saying, look, we’ve obviously got interests in common.
Karen Tisdell: [00:29:01] I see we know a few people in common. It would be really great to catch up for a coffee. I’m going to be in your city. Or, you know, I like to catch up with people I haven’t met on LinkedIn. No mention of that board of advisors yet because you don’t want people. Oh my gosh, that would be amazing. How much are you going to pay me to be on your board of advisors? You want to take it offline to a coffee and then just have a 30 minute coffee and then catch up. And even if they want to talk for an hour, cut them short. Always leave your audience hungry. I was taught in sales years ago, so cut it short, make it just 30 minutes and then have another lunch date with them. You want to screen them as carefully as you would your most highest value employee. You want to make sure they’re exactly the right person. Linkedin’s your starting point, not your end game.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:29:44] What are 1 to 3 key things that you’d say you should avoid when you’re building a board of advisors using LinkedIn?
Karen Tisdell: [00:29:51] I think you should avoid making hasty decisions when you’re building a board of advisors. I think it’s really important to make sure that you’re finding the best person. And because in real life, as in outside of LinkedIn, it can be quite hard to meet the right people. So sometimes, you know, you just don’t know who you don’t know. And you think, well, this is all the people there is to meet and this is all the people there are in the world, and you need to be exposed to more people. And on LinkedIn you can meet lots of people, so don’t make a hasty decision. Go into it with thought and having lots of different people who are all in the same sort of space, so that you can really compare and contrast who’s going to be the right person. Not everybody creates content, so it can be hard to look at content and try and sort of screen out who’s the right person from that. So looking at who do you know in common? Linkedin always tells you who you know in common. So that enables you to do some background research on people as well, which can be very helpful. And also just by asking them a few questions, seeing how they answer it and looking at their qualities as well. You want somebody who’s genuinely curious or interested in your business, not somebody who just enjoys trotting out the same theory again and again. People often fall in love with their frameworks or their ideas. So you often have people, and I know this because I write for board members. You often have people who have a great framework or a great process for solving a problem, and they fall in love with their framework. And it’s and they’ve got a solution that’s looking for a problem. And you don’t want to be like that. You want to be find the right person.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:31:32] All right. Look, I’ve learned so much. This has been fabulous. Before I let you go, I’ll ask, is there anything else that you think business leaders should know on this topic?
Karen Tisdell: [00:31:39] I think we’ve covered a lot around being careful with your intention and your attention on LinkedIn, but I’d really urge people to think of LinkedIn as having three pillars, like a three legged stool. You need your profile. You need the right people. It’s not quite as stool, is it? Because you don’t necessarily need to create content to be posting, but you do need to be commenting on other people’s content. So three pillars, so profile people posting. And I think if we can think in those three different buckets, we’ll be very careful to balance where we put our attention as opposed to just put it all in thinking we need to create content or we need to just be commenting on content. This is not about scrolling through the feed. It’s about having a profile that builds trust, and it’s about knowing the right people, the right people who can help you to navigate an uncertain future.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:32:35] That was Karen Tisdell, LinkedIn trainer and Australia’s leading LinkedIn profile writer. Thanks for joining us for this week’s episode. Follow Business Essentials Podcast across social media and head to www.BusinessEssentialsPodcast.au for more. Business Essentials is a SoundCartel podcast. Producers are Nick Schildberger, Nicole Goodman and myself. Technical production is by Pete Letts. I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist thanks for listening. We’ll bring you more business essentials next week.
