The Art And Science Of Selling Luxury Goods with Dr. Isaac Mostovicz

 

Dr. E. Isaac Mostovicz has worked in the diamond industry for 35 years. After training as a diamond polisher, he ran one of the two factories of S. Muller & Sons Diamonds NV, one of the most successful polishing operations in the world, then becoming its CEO in 1990. Prior to this appointment, he established Allied Diamonds, which catered to jewelers both in the United States and Japan. This work experience allowed Isaac to become an expert in every facet of the diamond pipeline from mining, sorting, and polishing through to servicing the diamond’s retail customer. Among his many milestones, Isaac has been a key player in introducing several iconic diamond cuts to the market, including the Hearts and Arrow and EightStar cuts. Under his guidance, S. Muller & Sons was the only company to successfully market the De Beers Millennium Limited Edition Diamond.

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The Art And Science Of Selling Luxury Goods with Dr. Isaac Mostovicz

I am very excited. I have the privilege of introducing to you another titan. A former CEO, an expert on luxury marketing, also someone who knows a lot about the diamond industry. It’s someone I’ve wanted to connect for a long time. I’m so glad to finally have him. Dr. Isaac, welcome to the show. Dr. Isaac, share with us a little bit about your background. How did you get into what you do now?

Getting into what I do now was easy. I was invited to join one of the leading companies in Antwerp, Belgium. It was a diamond polishing plant, where I became a partner. I managed one of the nicest factories in the world. We were doing pioneering work because polishing diamonds changed tremendously in the 1980s. I was privileged to be the pioneer of this polishing evolution. As I was working and I started to look at the retail business, I came with one question. It was my question in the business. I was still in the factory. I was still polishing and still learning my way. I asked one simple question. I understand how I have to sell my diamonds. If I buy it for 100, I have to sell it for 200 to make some profits. When somebody goes and buys a diamond for his wife, how does he value that diamond? How does he know the price is right? How does he know what kind of price to pay for it? He’s not going to sell it. He is at the mercy of the jeweler to find out what is going on. I don’t buy the fact that the consumer is dumb. The consumers know exactly what they want. Maybe they don’t know how to express themselves, which is fine but they know what they want. I started to look around. These kinds of questions started to bother me. What happens at the retail level? It started when I opened my office in Japan. The business was starting to grow up at around 1985.

Somehow, somewhere we decided to address the retail market. I went to Japan visiting my retail customers, looking at how they treat their clients. Japan is a reserved society. People keep everything to themselves. They are very private. I couldn’t see much and I was wondering, “How do they buy? What kind of interaction goes on between the retailer and the customer?” I found one customer. I don’t know if he is a customer, a mentor, a friend or what. He was the only one whom I could see that he is treating his customers in a special way, in a different way. He was selling a diamond with respect. When we moved to America in about 1997, I opened another office in America. That office catered for the retail business. I was very upset with the way people were treating their customers. It’s one thing I learned from my clients because I discussed with them how to market, what to say to the customer, how to treat the customer. A guy told me, “Did you ever stand behind the counter?” Which was strange because me in my position, I’m a CEO of a large manufacturing plant, a very important one and standing behind the counter selling diamonds? I decided he was right. If I want to understand what happens over there, I stood behind the counter until the last few years. Every year, I spend about two to three weeks standing behind the counter and working with the customers to understand what happens over there.

You wanted to understand it at a ground level through interaction with the customers.

I wanted to understand what the interaction was. I started to ask questions and I found out that not only did the industry not have the answers, but the industry didn’t even think these questions are valid.

When you were working behind the counter, did the customers know you were the CEO?

Yes, I was introduced as the supplier of the store coming from Belgium. I told them, “I would like to discuss with you, I would like to talk to you to understand how you make choices. Why is it important for you?” One of the questions that I used to ask, “I would like to have a diamond.” Why is it? Because he wants to propose marriage to his dear one. I asked him, “Why did you decide to propose?” My customers were furious because they thought that I was going to question his choice. I said, “I’m not going to question your choice, I want to understand how your choice was made?” This set the ground for my academic research because I couldn’t find answers in the industry.

To be honest, the academia doesn’t offer too much knowledge about luxury either. Definitely not about diamonds, but it doesn’t offer much about luxury unless you know where to look for the answers. For example, I figured out the psychology behind luxury. I found out that we have two opposing theories that are interlinked, but they are opposing each other. You can’t hold a stick in both ends. Either you choose one theory or you choose the other theory. Both of those theories are valid. I contacted one guy named Tom Pushinski. I said “I’m not a psychologist, but I figured out that what you do is very relevant to what I’m researching. I’m researching luxury and what you do has a lot of implications to what I’m researching.” His answer was, “I don’t mind. If you enjoyed it, it’s fine but be careful. The other party who offered an alternative theory, if they think that you are using their theory for luxury, they will get furious because you are making their theory cheap.”

Luxury is about enhancing your self-esteem; it’s not about showing off. Click To Tweet

They want to keep the theory to themselves and they don’t want it out in the public?

No, luxury marketing sounds cheap for academia. You have to find out research that was supposedly irrelevant and say, “Its 100% relevant. You have to apply it.” This opens the eyes. What happened was I started to finally understand what luxury is about and how to treat the customer.

Before going into the two theories, I want to circle back to that. How is selling luxury different from selling other typical items?

Here you fell into a trap, which is fine, which is an honest mistake. People think about luxury as luxury products. Luxury is not about products but about our perceptions. If I try to define what luxury does, because you can’t define what luxury is, it’s a perception. What luxury does is overspending needlessly. Luxury is something that you don’t need.

It’s not a necessity.

You spend money on it and you overspend money on something that you don’t need. It sounds negative but it’s wrong because that’s what we are doing 90% of the time, 100% of the time. That’s what we are doing in our life. It doesn’t matter if we spend money, if we spend time, if we spend energy. People are going over the Himalayas spending months and years to prepare themselves. I’m not talking about the money or the energy they are spending, this is luxury. What happens if you don’t go over the Himalayas? You don’t need it.

It doesn’t feel good. It’s not an easy thing.

You want to express yourself. You express yourself in the most beautiful way. You put everything that you have into it. The same thing with luxury. You don’t need a luxury car for example. You don’t need a Ferrari, you can drive a small Toyota. It will get you to the same place, maybe even quicker because of traffic jam. People say, “I want my Ferrari,” and you ask, “Why?” They want to overspend on that Ferrari because they want to express something. They want to express that this is important for them. It is our job to understand what it is that’s behind it. Their owning the Ferrari is an expression of something very deep inside us. It’s something that we can’t even explain in words easily.

What are those emotions we are trying to express?

If we can get as close as possible to understanding what luxury is about, it is about enhancing self-esteem. It is not showing off, it’s not about behaving crazily. Somebody wants to feel like, “I am somebody. I am great.” They go and spend on luxury. Spending on luxury can be manifested in many ways. For example, if somebody is upset. Let’s say the boss yelled at the employee and she felt so frustrated. She felt like she is nobody. She decided to bail out. She is taking the day off. She might indulge in chocolate. She’s going to do something to enhance her self-esteem because it was so low. It was like a knockout. She was on the floor and she wants to raise herself up. She has indulged in luxury. It depends. You can eat chocolate every day. A Ferrari to buy every day is a little bit more complicated, even if you have the means.

People have all kinds of variety and people know exactly what, how and when to indulge themselves in luxury. There is something very interesting. This professor passed away and I still remember him 40 or 50 years ago and we went on a trip. His name was Amotz Zahavi. He was an Israeli biologist and he was very famous for what he did on his trips. He had what he called the “handicapped event.” What happened is if for example I want to show a commitment, I will destroy assets to show I’m committed to something. For example, if you have a peacock and a peacock wants to show off to all of the other females that he is the strongest, the most fertile peacock around. What the peacock does is it opens his tail and he says, “I’m so strong. I’m so fertile that I can allow myself to waste hormones on growing such a tail, which is a liability because it’s very heavy and it prevents me from walking freely.” This is a biological explanation but we do it all the time.

 

For example, we spend quality time with our children. What it means is, “I’m a very busy person. I don’t have time to do anything beyond my work, but I’ll take one to two hours of my time and I’ll destroy it. I don’t want to hear anything else because my children are so important to me, I’m going to spend time with them. What are we going to spend with them? Quality time. Are we going to throw them up? No, I’m going to play soccer with them. I’m going to play ball. I’m going to go to the swimming pool.” Who knows what? It’s the time we spend with them, we took the time which is very valuable to us. It’s the most valuable asset to be destroyed. If somebody for example spent on something which is extremely expensive like a car, a private jet, a yacht, a fancy hotel and so on and so forth. He will take a suite with five bedrooms but he can only sleep in one bed. However, he’s not stupid. He has a certain declaration to say, “I’m so strong that I can afford to waste this money uselessly.” He gains nothing from the fact that there are five bedrooms in my hotel suite. Maybe I’m going to sleep in one bed. If I’m busy I’m not going to sleep in that bed either. It’s a message that we set for ourselves.

Talk to us about the two theories. I want to make our audience get this.

The two theories are the Theta and Lambda. These are two worldviews. It’s how people see their world. We have those people for example who are looking for affiliation. They want to be the good members of their surroundings, of their own society. He is the top guy in his society. He is at the top of a social person. This is the Theta person. All his activities are to get respect from his peers and it’s not something negative. To the contrary, it’s something that motivates him. The other people are what we call the Lambda type. The Lambda type of individuals are looking for challenges. They say, “Here’s a challenge. I want to show that I can go beyond it.” The interesting way is when I treat my diamond customers, it’s not what they say but how they say it. For example, they will talk about expensiveness, they want an expensive diamond. I ask, “What do you mean by an expensive diamond?” The Lambda type will tell you, “Expensive diamonds means it’s beyond my budget. It means I’m going to stretch a little bit above my budget.” For the Theta people, expensive means a lot of money. We are talking about two different types of people. I’m talking about luxury and I do it in management as well.

I remember giving a lecture at my university. I was a visiting lecturer for a few years. I gave a lecture about luxury. In the evening, my colleagues invited me to dinner. I met the people that I knew from academia but were not in marketing. They were in management. A gentleman asked me, “What was your lecture about?” I said, “I talked about luxury.” He said, “What did you tell them about luxury?” I said, “Describe to me what luxury is for you.” He started to describe a yacht that he doesn’t have. You can imagine how long he can go describing a yacht that he doesn’t have. He mumbled a few sentences. I said, “I know how you run a center on corporate social responsibility. I know when you have to prepare a plan, you hate it. One sure thing about your plan is the next step, tomorrow after you presented the plan and got approval, is not to follow the plan. You should do something else.” He smiles and then I told him, “You are not looking for the best solution because you know there are many solutions to your problem.” He told me, “You made a research of me.” I told him, “No.” “You are using black magic.” I told him, “Luxury is about interpretation. I know how you interpret yourself.” It doesn’t matter if you’re doing it with luxury or you’re doing it with management because management is also about the interpretation. It’s not about logic, it’s about emotion. Once he told me how he behaves in one field, I know how he behaves in another field.

As you shared the two worldviews, I’m thinking about myself. What if I’m a little bit of both?

You can’t hold a stick on both ends. I didn’t pay too much attention to how you express your ideas, so I can’t tell you right now.

I’m leaning towards the first one, being a good member of society and respected.

The one who is going to hit the true needs of the customer better is going to win. Click To Tweet

Let me share something with you from the academic debates. You have these two groups and there are psychological theories and dynamic theories. We have three but the third one according to my sorting, we stay with two theories. An article appeared in the academic journal and those who are looking for affiliation say, “Yes, there is something in common with us. There is something that links us.” They talk about the commonality in those two theories because they are linked somehow. The other party says, “No, we are completely different.” They say the same thing but one sees the difference between the two theories, one sees how those theories are linked somehow together. You have an inclination to say, “Maybe I feel a closeness to the other worldview, the Lambda.” Let me ask you a question, in clothing for example. Can you think about a piece of clothing that you would consider a luxury?

I would say most of my suits are luxury.

What makes your suits luxury? If I look at your suit, can you pick out one or two attributes that make your suit a luxury?

I would say the cutting, the fitting of it and the material. A lot of brands don’t fit me, only certain brands fit me. I would like it to be different sometimes, not very common and not too boring like everybody else. I like something with a touch of uniqueness.

You can see the difference. Some people will relate it to the material. Some people will relate it to the cut, the workmanship. Nobody would relate it to both. For example, I remember one of my earliest interviews when I started to look into it and I asked a friend of mine, “What is a luxury for you?” He told me Cuban cigars. I asked them, “What is so special about Cuban cigars that make them luxury?” He said, “Cuban cigars are hand-rolled.” This is not important because for him the fact that the human skill, the workmanship on the cigar is not part of the luxury view. He mentioned it, I say, “This is not what makes Cuban cigars a luxury. The other piece is what makes the cigar luxury, but not this.” It’s fun to start talking to people and try to figure out what are they looking for. When I ask them about diamonds, some will talk about the diamond, how it should be bright and how the colors should be this way and the shape should be that way. This is one type of people, and the other type of people is, “This is diamond for me.” It’s how they talk about it, “This makes me happy. This makes me this.” This is a completely different person. When we have to treat those people, we have to treat them differently.

It sounds like the one is describing more the thing, what it does, the features, the other is more emotions; how it makes me feel.

Both of them describe emotions. We have to be careful, and this is something that might help people anywhere when we do marketing and when we negotiate. For example when somebody says, “I want to have a red car. I want to have this size of a diamond.” They are not talking about themselves. They are talking about the product and we have to link it to why it is important to them. We have to ask them, “Why is it important for you?” Then we can start to understand what is on their mind because they are not aware. It’s not that we are going to teach them anything, we are going to discover for ourselves what they feel subconsciously. We are going to check their subconscious mind a little bit. It’s very important in any product, in any sale, in any interaction when someone says, “I want this.” Why do you want it? Why is it important for you? My children, when I learned it because I was doing these kinds of interviews for a few years when I made my research. They automatically when somebody says something, daddy is going to ask, “Why is it important for you?” We have to always keep on asking and asking why it is important for you until we reach the right level, until we understand the real link between what they want and how they express themselves with a certain product.

 

For someone reading this because I want to make sure that we talk about the theories. It’s very interesting because it makes me look at my behavior and my motive and what motivates me in different ways. Thank you for sharing that. Let’s say for marketers and entrepreneurs, now we understand that people buy because they want to enhance their self-esteem. Luxury is not just about a certain brand, it’s about overspending needlessly. That we are exuding extra, additional energy, money resources that we don’t necessarily need to do, but we do it to feel something different. I like the analogy of we get knocked down and we’d bring ourselves back up again. When we buy that Starbucks coffee, it makes us feel a little bit better about ourselves. How can we apply this in terms of strategies or tactics in our day-to-day business whatever we are selling?

I’ll give you one answer. It means that I have to teach you the structure, the way and so on. One thing is don’t buy people at face value. If somebody comes to you and you own a bakery and asks for bread, don’t ask him which bread he wants because he doesn’t know. Ask him why he needs the bread? The point to a product, the point to the solution is you have to understand the reason for that solution. Why is it important for you? When you start to understand why it is important for them, you start to see their worldview and you can give them good advice. First, you give them an excellent advice, an advice that’s relevant to their deep needs, to the needs that they can’t even express.

They may not even be aware of these needs.

I wouldn’t say not even aware, they just can’t express it. It is in us, you provoke it and you know that it’s in there but they say, “I don’t know how to explain it.” If you start to shake that value a little bit, they feel very grateful for you when you offer them something. There’s another thing. If I sell you bread, I sold you a product but then I’m in competition with the rest of the world. If I didn’t sell you bread, if I satisfied your deepest need, how much are you going to pay for it?

Much more.

That’s why luxury is so expensive. That’s where the luxury is making profit margins. Ask me, why do we have to do all of this on expensive products? That’s how Starbucks managed to raise prices from $0.50, they sell the coffee for $3.5. It’s seven times the price. Just because they started to hit more on the deeper need of the customer. When Schultz started Starbucks and they asked him, “How did you manage to find only the workers that will smile? How did you teach them to smile?” He told them, “I don’t teach them. I interview them.” When a candidate comes, if she smiles, fine. She’s in. If she doesn’t smile, I’m not hiring her.” When you go to Starbucks Coffee, maybe you’re on lunch break and there’s a whole line over there pushing and time is running out. All the sudden you stand in front of the counter and somebody smiles at you, that’s a lot.

Don’t buy the fact that the consumer is dumb because consumers know exactly what they want. Click To Tweet

For this, you’re ready to pay. You don’t pay for the coffee, you pay for the smile, you pay for happiness. For the fact that someone relates to you as a human being, not as an ATM machine. It is not about your money, it’s about who you are because you don’t smile at an ATM machine. You smile at a person, so you are a person. Maybe now they don’t smile any more but here is where you can start to make profit margins. It doesn’t matter what kind of product you are selling because you are not selling a product, you are treating the customer.

For anyone reading this, the first thing is we need to ask why they are buying, not just what they are buying. Number two is you want to satisfy their deepest needs. Those emotional needs that they don’t even know how to express. Number three, once we know those needs, we need to think of added value. What are other things we can do beyond the thing, the widget or whatever that we are selling that can sell the experience in a way?

If I’m going to ask those questions, it’s very simple. Do what I did with you for example. We picked up a product, that’s what happens with a customer. They go and look for a certain product. Ask them for the attributes, “What kind of attributes are you looking for in this product?” For example, you want to buy bread, “What are you looking for in the bread?” It doesn’t matter what they say, “I like it fresh or whatever.” Start to ask the question, “Why is it important for you?” When you reach a certain level, if you exercise it, it doesn’t matter. Don’t learn for me, learn for yourself. Start to experience it. When you experience it, you ask, “If this is what you’re looking for, how does this express in that bread? Are you now satisfied?” Satisfaction is by finding exactly what the customer is looking for.

Diamonds are due 20-30% higher, for example, charge more. What are they going to do? Are they going to the competition? Is the competition offering them something that relates to their needs? Their true needs? Their deep needs? They offer them a product so you don’t have competition. People listen to you when you said you have 100,000 who are listening to this podcast. Imagine those 100,000 people are from the same industry and they are all buying my ideas. The one who is going to hit the true needs of the customer better is going to win. The one who is trying to do it because this is some skills that you improve over time. It’s like wine. It only improves over time. You become more professional, you are more attentive and more caring for the customer. That’s fine. You don’t have to give a discount. You can charge honest margins because you’re not charging for the product, you’re charging for what the customer wants. You’re trying to satisfy his deep needs.

I do it as an exercise and I do it with peanuts. I offer people one peanut each. Later on, I sell each peanut for $10. In selling peanuts for $10, nobody is that stupid, there is a reason behind it. They are happy to pay because I showed them where there are needs. Let’s say you buy the peanuts for $10 instead of $0.01. What are they going to do with it? They are not even going to eat it. They try to preserve it somehow. I propose to them to sink it in gold or silver so the peanut won’t deteriorate, and they put it on the table. They destroyed the entire value of the peanut. It’s not a peanut anymore. They wasted $10 on a peanut that they can’t even eat, but they learned a lesson and they enjoyed it. They learned that they were willing to pay $10 for something and it’s true. It’s not that I did a miracle or black magic. It’s something that they can explain, they can see, they can understand and they can relate to it. They say, “That’s right. I am happy.” They are happy to have the experience and to keep this memento on their table because they enjoyed what they did.

It’s interesting because when you’re talking about price, I’ve done a lot of researches. Also through my own experience, I’m interested to hear your perspective that when people pay a high price, there is a certain part of their brain that triggers a certain chemical that makes them enjoy that item more. The item has not changed but the fact that they have paid more that the brain automatically knows more.

 

It’s dopamine that goes in. There’s another aspect to it. When people ask you for a discount, not that they always ask for a discount and not that they want to pay cheaper. I was with a client of mine a few years ago, and he calls me to the side and tells me, “There is somebody here who wants to buy a diamond and he wants to have a discount for the diamond.” I don’t care if he gives a discount, but it was my diamond. That means if he gives a discount and he comes back to me, he’s playing with my money.

You don’t want a reputation out there. Everybody is like, “This diamond is on discount.”

I went to the guy and I started to talk to him. I realized that the guy is the Lambda type. He is looking for challenges.

He doesn’t need the discount, he wanted to see if he could get it.

He wants a challenge. He tells me, “I like the diamond. I want a discount on it.” I told him “You are looking for a challenge? I’ll show you a challenge.” I took a mirror and put it in front of his face. He didn’t know what I was talking about. I told him, “Challenge yourself.” He was there with his wife and I asked him, “How deeper can you put your hand into your pocket and buy a nicer diamond?” He is there with his wife. He has a budget of let’s say $10,000. If he comes with $30,000, you would say, “This guy is crazy,” because he knows exactly how much he has in his bank. If he says, “$10,000 and not a penny more,” he wants to prove it. He won’t like it. That means he has to go a little bit higher. I managed to push him to $14,000.

You flipped the challenge. Instead of low-balling, discounting you, let’s flip the challenge of, “Do it this way instead.”

I didn’t buy his declaration. I bought what was behind his declaration. People don’t have to explain and spoon-feed you with what they are feeling and whether it’s their subconscious. If they say something, you have to understand it. If you understood it, now we can say, “If this is a game, let’s play it my way.” If you don’t understand it, you’ll give a discount. When you give a discount, there is a chance that the wife would say, “I don’t want it anymore.”

Luxury is not just about the certain brand; it’s about overspending needlessly. Click To Tweet

They won’t like it.

Because she wants him to spend.

To show and demonstrate to her that you’re willing to stretch a little bit even though you need to go and work harder to make that money back or whatever it is. It’s that demonstration and expression of love.

I want to see the husband go to his wife with a beautiful diamond and say, “I’ve got a great deal on this diamond.” It doesn’t work. What happens is people panic. People don’t realize what happens over there. Relax and start to think about it and start to ask questions. We figure out that we made tons of wrong assumption. It was Kenny, who is a psychologist who said, “When you don’t understand something, ask the patient. Ask your client.”

I’m curious to see your point of view. You have been involved in the luxury space for some many years or decades. How have you seen it changed from before to now, all these years? What has evolved? What has changed? Or maybe nothing has changed?

A few things as an example, I’ll look at two areas. I’ll look at diamonds and Louis Vuitton because he was the first and the most successful in these certain terms. It was ‘83 or ‘84, the diamond industry was not in a good position. The BS started to balance the market and people were complaining. I remember a guy, he raised up and he said, “You don’t understand. We are not dealing with diamonds, this is our life.” The fact that you put yourself into it, it’s not a business, it’s beyond this business. It’s something that you invest all your emotion in. That you enjoy it, that you love it and that you were ready to suffer for it. It was there in the ‘80s and somehow it disappeared. It became a business now. Meaning it’s cold, trying to make a killing, trying to make a price. The more you try, the less successful you are.

Louis Vuitton was the same. Louis Vuitton in the early ‘80s was one boutique in Paris. If you went to this boutique, you could talk to the workers, to the owner. Those who were there in this boutique could tell you stories about the creation. They could transmit their feelings. That means you didn’t buy a purse and you didn’t buy a product, you bought an experience. You bought life, you bought stories. It was all emotion. Then Louis Vuitton started to grow. They started to open branches all over the world. I was in Hong Kong, it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday, in the middle of the week. You had a line queued outside the shop. For example, if they had five sales ladies, only five customers can be in the store at the same time, and the rest are queuing up in the street in the middle of the day. They’re successful you might say, but when you go there and you talk to their sales ladies, they tell you that there is no emotion, the emotion disappeared.

 

I bought a Louis Vuitton wallet years ago in Hong Kong. You describe to them, “What color do you want? Do you want leather or do you want other materials? This is what it looks like, would you like to touch it?”

It’s not, “Do you want this or do you want that?” It’s this product or that product, “What do you want? Then why did you buy this one to start with? Don’t you have a wallet in your pocket? Don’t you have where to put your money in? Why are you looking for this wallet? That’s fine. I’m going to help you but let me first understand why all the sudden you went into the store asking for a wallet?” Asking these kinds of questions that no salesman would dare ask because he is afraid that you will walk out, “You’re right, I don’t need it.” “You don’t need it, you want it, but why?”

Not that customer service is bad, the customer service is good. They don’t do what you are talking about going deep.

Go deep and raise prices by 5%, 10%, 20%, 100%. If I sell you a wallet and I give you a price and you say, “The price is right for a Louis Vuitton wallet. I’m happy to spend this money and I’ll buy this wallet. I’m very happy.” Deep inside you wanted this wallet, but if I start to expose that it’s about you, it’s about your expression, about your feeling, about your values, about your life, about your history, about your future, about your price. The wallet is an expression of all these. “You know how much that expression is worth? Then I’ll give you one wallet that will help you express yourself in such a beautiful way, such a big way, you can talk about your past and about your future. About your feelings, about your dreams, about your hopes, about your challenges that you are going to face, what motivates you, what your purpose in life is, and all those things and it’s just a wallet.” “How much is this wallet?” “I’ll charge you $100, I’ll charge you $500.”

It doesn’t matter. I’m thinking back and if she would have done that, I might have even walked away buying more things. I was shopping and walking around. I wasn’t even looking for a wallet. I was like “That’s nice.” I’m now thinking back. If she would have asked those questions, I might have bought shoes, bags and a bunch stuff.

She would come and say, “It’s not the wallet, it’s Louis Vuitton. Louis Vuitton suits you. It’s part of your life.” Do you know they have now not just one wallet? They have a wallet and a bag and maybe a suitcase. There may be shoes. You’ll come out with a lot of stuff because you want to express yourself and Louis Vuitton helps you with that. It’s not even the wallet, it’s the LV that is written on the wallet.

Dr. Isaac, any final thoughts? How can our audience find out more about you or maybe go to your website?

My website is now going through a transformation, but the material will stay there. There is a blog. I started in 2005 writing articles and there is a lot of good material on my website, www.JanusThinking.com. What I do extra for our audience is not an advice in the terms of, “Do this or don’t do that.” I want them to start working. I’ll give them a video. If they go to your site, download the podcast and they will have a link to the video. They can go to the video and hopefully they see the video. Ask yourself questions and I’ll be happy to start a discussion with you. I’m not going to sell you anything anywhere. If somebody wants to ask me for consultancy or whatever, maybe they want to buy a diamond, give me a call. This is not what the video is. The video is about asking questions, about reflection, about thinking, “What am I going to do with my life? How am I going to improve? What are the hindrances that I have?”

Thank you so much for inspiring us with your story. I learned a lot. I’ll be more self-aware and reflective of who I am, who I serve and who I sell to. Dr. Isaac, thank you very much.

You’re welcome. Thank you.

 

Important Links:

• Dr. Isaac
• www.JanusThinking.com

About Dr. Isaac Mostovicz

Dr. Isaac Mostovicz provides personal coaching, team training and marketing programme development. Following an early career in the diamond industry as CEO of S. Muller and Sons, he retains a strong professional interest in the diamond industry and in the wider world of luxury marketing where he continues to conduct research. Academically, his post-doctoral work is focused upon understanding human logic –- specifically the nature of human interpretation and its impact on decision-making. The work has application in the fields of ethics, leadership, social responsibility and marketing. His research has unearthed two opposite psychological types — Lambda (challenge-seeking) and Theta (unity-seeking). The tension between these two preferences affects choices we make in everything from diamond buying to corporate governance. His consulting work is focused on overcoming ‘high stress’ or apparently ‘intractable’ situations where existing strategy processes may be failing. Dr. Mostovicz applies ‘Janusian Thinking’ principles to help participants understand the hidden paradoxes undermining decision-making — and find ways to transcend them.