Small Business Spotlight - How to Scale Without Burning Out with Dustin Booth

Welcome to another episode of the Above the Business podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we have Dustin Booth. Dustin is an incredibly successful small business owner, and this is part of our Small Business Blueprint series. What are the blueprints that actual small business owners are following to have the success and grow their small business? In this, uh, series throughout the year, we're gonna be bringing in small business owners and entrepreneurs from different sizes, some less than half a million in revenue, some over a million, and some even over $2 million. Dustin has had incredible success, but it's not been without challenges. Dustin's blueprint is for those business owners that if you've ever felt burnout, maybe you've even felt unfulfilled at different times in your career, this episode is for you. I think you're going to get a ton out of this. How does fitness and nutrition play into it? What does it look like to lead and develop other leaders? And what were some of the specific linchpin moments, those kind of moments when Dustin's life where it could have gone one direction or the other. And what has he been able to do? What's the blueprint he's followed to have success in his business? Without further ado, here's my conversation with Dustin Booth. Dustin Booth, welcome to the Above the Business podcast.

Hey, super happy to be here, Bradley. I'm really excited for today.

I am as well. This is a long time coming and I've been waiting for the right moment to be able to have you on. All right, Dustin, we always start with background and origin story. I think this year we've really wanted to be able to start to portray small business and actually small business owners that have been doing the thing and be able to bring them on and talk to them about their journey. And so obviously one of the questions we always ask is background and origin story. Like, hey, take us back where appropriate and kind of bring us up to present day a little bit about your journey.

Yeah, for sure, man. First off, I'm a child of God living a very, very blessed life. I have an incredible wife, Anna, two beautiful kids, Easton and Eliza, that I get to be dad to. And then from a business standpoint, I own two insurance agencies and also we do real estate investing. So kind of taking it back, I was a college athlete, had an internship with an insurance company, and just loved the variety in a day, loved the ability to serve the community, to lead a team and really enjoyed that. Kind of fast forward, that turns into agency owner career, um, where now I've had my agency for almost 13 years, um, opened a second location 6 and a half years ago, um, and man, obviously the, the customer has changed so much, business has changed so much, but at the core it's still leading people, it's serving, it's being a community leader and all those things I absolutely love and just fires me up each day to go and do what I do.

Where do you think, actually don't know this about your journey, where do you think looking back kind of early days when you first started your business and by the way, what you maybe share a little bit about how long that you've actually owned your agencies, but where do you believe that you first had the influence around leadership? I mean, was it in college that that you had really great coaches that were great leaders. I mean, what did that look like for you? Who were the people that, you know, even before you started, had the biggest influence on you about what it meant to actually be a leader?

For sure. My dad, big mentor of mine, was a community leader, was a college athlete himself. So that had a lot of influence, honestly, on me from the day I was born, right? I look back, I was a baseball player. So my high school baseball coach, I was blessed to start varsity as a freshman and I was the catcher. And our second game of the season, you know, obviously I made a bad play. And as the leader, he pulled me aside and said, "Hey, everyone's going to be yelling, 'Why are you starting a freshman at this crucial spot in this crucial game?' I believe in you. You got to believe in yourself." And so that was a very pivotal point to me there. Learned a lot of leadership in my fraternity, to be honest, in college. Of just dealing with people of all types of different backgrounds to achieve common goals. And then had several mentors in my insurance, including with the agent who first hired me, into corporate leaders throughout the way. And now I'm surrounded by, you know, great men like yourself and others in the Blueprint Community, surrounded by great men in the study group that just challenge me to be my best daily, to keep a growth mindset. And to work on that leadership. So a lot of that led into me opening my agency. I'm definitely— I opened January 1st of 2013. I'm definitely a different leader now sitting here in 2026. But a lot of those core traits and mentors, you know, that really instills a lot of who you are.

How do you think that you, you personally have evolved? How has how you lead people in your organization because clearly, your team is a pretty substantial size at this point. And so, we really believe that people have to— business owners and leaders have to grow first and then the business follows along the way. So, you obviously have grown into the business, but also the business owner yourself. And we'll get into the kind of the nuts and bolts about what you've been able to do to grow your business, but specifically, how do you think looking back on it over that, you know, 13 years or so, how have you evolved and grown?

There have been several evolutions. So when I first started, you know, I have a— I have 16 agents that work for me now. You know, when I first started, I had 3, and I was top everything, right? Top producer, top service person, take the trash out, open up, close it down at 7, 8 o'clock at night. And that honestly, at the time, was what the business needed. I was a bootstrapped entrepreneur. I was 27 years old with not a lot of money in my pocket. So that's what the business needed. Probably first evolution then was starting to pull out of some of the daily activity and take on more of a leadership position within the agency, running one-on-ones, doing more coaching, not just doing the thing, but I was still very much in an operator type role. The second agency really was a forced cause to change my leadership. All of a sudden now, I can't be there, right? I'm gonna be splitting time between two locations. That began the hierarchy and really a new structure in the leadership of having leaders at each office, me pulling even more outta the day-to-day operations and leading leaders, working on the business, working above the business because that's where the business needed me to succeed. Into really now where we are today, where I truly am much more the owner, you know, very, very limited client-facing, very limited of the day-to-day, but very involved in playbook creation, problem solving, leading my leaders, building my brand, marketing, finances, much more running it like a business and a true business owner compared to probably in the beginning, especially the first several years, much more of just the insurance agent operating a business at the same time.

Okay. So I got a lot with that because there's a lot of people that were at that first iteration, that first inflection point that I want to mention. But before I get into that question, I just want to make more of a comment. And if you want to follow up on it, you can. This last part where, and I think you're one of the, that I personally know, I think you've done an incredible job as while you've pulled out of operator, out of day-to-day and be in the business owner, you're still incredibly visible in your community. I like the term, you know, from, from one of my coaches, KPI. You really are the key person of influence in your community. So while you've pulled out, it's not like you've pulled your visibility back specifically. Matter of fact, you're probably even out there maybe as much anymore. You were just before we hit record, were talking to me about, you know, some social media things. And so you've been able to pull pull out of the day-to-day yet still be kind of the face of the brand and face of the business, which I think a lot of people think that those two don't go hand in hand, but you've been able to do that at a level of scale that I think a lot of people kind of aspire to being able to do. But let's go back to the first part, which is before you had the second office. I thought you used some great language there about that second office was a forcing function. Okay. So we'll get to that second one, but it's the first one. It's the first one that for, I don't know if you, you know, read E-Myth or something like that. I mean, you got around certain people that said, okay, wait a minute. I got to start getting out of the day-to-day, but they get so stuck right there between, you know, and maybe you can even give an idea of like where you were revenue-wise, you know, half a million, $600,000, something like that of like, all right, I'm no longer needing to do the thing. I got to start to pull out of it, but you actually executed on it. And I think that that becomes this big mountain to climb. What did you actually do?

Yeah. So I would say specific things I did was, was hired to some of the things that I needed to replace. Right. So I was very much kind of that roll the red carpet out, take care of this issue that came up or solve this problem and hold the customer's hand through it. So I believe strongly in customer service and serving people. So I needed to find someone then that had those same values and could do that at a high level like myself that I could then trust to hand the keys over to that. So that was a big thing. I think instead of just looking to hire like, hey, I need these rockstar salespeople or this super efficient insurance whiz that can serve, it was more like, hey, what are some of the things that I bring to the table that I feel I could pass on and train a quality agent to do to then level up my game in other areas of the agency. So that I would say was a big, big piece of that.

And where were you approximately, maybe revenue-wise back then?

I would say at that time, I want to say I'm about 2 and a half years in. I'm probably, you know, I started like top line revenue when I started was about $120,000. I tripled real fast. So I would say I was about there. I was probably hitting $400,000 $500K top line revenue. And I was bringing on like the first time I'd ever had 4 employees going from that 3 to 4 mark.

Okay. That's good. See, I think that's incredibly helpful for people because they can say like, oh, okay, that makes sense. I've got that many team members, that amount of revenue, et cetera. Okay. Now, do you look back on it? Because you know this, you've seen this yourself with people that had worked for another business owner. In your particular case, you had worked for another insurance agency owner. And it sounds like that obviously that that person was a great mentor, maybe a great person. I want to set that to the side for a second. Okay. But it sounds like what were some of the things that you picked up from them that you were like, ooh, I'm going to definitely adopt that. I see how they're being a business owner, not necessarily an insurance agency owner, one. And two, maybe is there anything that you kind of like almost I got to rewire my brain. I got to rethink that because you know, some people that have gotten really stuck into like, well, that's what I worked for them for 5 years. And so I brought that into my own business. And they have a hard time kind of retooling the way to do things.

For sure. Yeah, I think a couple things that stand out to the leaders as I got into the insurance career, they were very good about casting vision and communicating that often, right? So very good on goal setting, setting clear objectives, motivating a team, rewarding a team, having fun while doing it. That was very, very key to me, I think, and why I enjoyed working for them. The other was communication. And especially as a— like I said, as a 27-year-old, having to have very difficult conversations with employees, with clients, with the community. You know, I moved somewhere where I knew one person in the two counties that I moved to, right? So it's not like I'm this local boy who's just gonna bring in all the business, right? Like, I had to grind and build brand from scratch. So doing that, I was always, always conscious of doing things the right way, treating people well, while at the same time performing at a very high level to grow my business.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right. So we start to hand off some things. What were some of the tactical— so we're kind of going— I'm going to go granular here for a second. You've got the idea that, no, to be able to kind of bring on some more people, replace some of the stuff for you, but the handoff, right, from it being like in Dustin's head to handing it off, that might as well be a chasm. Okay. In a lot of, a lot of cases. Did that come naturally to you? If not, what did you begin to, to, to, to learn so that you could begin to you know, pass it off. Of course, back then, this is way before AI, right? I mean, this is way before the creation of assets was, was much easier today than it was back then.

Well, even, even our systems were so much different back then. They were much more labor intensive. So yeah, when I looked at it, the first thing that I thought I needed to hand off was more on the customer care side of the business, right? The delivery, claims, billing. You know, just day-to-day service tasks. Part of that once again was trust, right? I had to actually build systems, build playbooks that were documented, that were something you could actually operate on to where I could hold accountable while also having trust that, hey, we have a process of how we're following— we're following this claim. I know they're getting contacted. I know we're doing our best job. So that was the first thing that I really handed off. Also part of it, just with how we earn revenue, you know, things like life premium, high production of property and casualty are super important. And to me at that time, still being fairly low revenue, I needed to be hammered down on the gas right there. So I was still very leaned into that to drive revenue with the goal of basically always being like, hey, when revenue gets here, great, I can reinvest back in the business, get this type of agent to this type of role. Take that off my plate, and boom, Dustin comes up another step. So yeah, that takes time. I think unfortunately, you know, we're sold this highlight reel world of like, hey, get in, snap your fingers, and you're here all of a sudden. Like, that's just not the case in most scenarios that I've seen. You've got to put in the work, you've got to build the operating system, you've got to build the team to do it, and then honestly, you just have to do it, right? And build that confidence in yourself that you can make it happen.

Man, that is so true. And you know, we, there's some language that, you know, people have had on, uh, that we, we, we talk about often is moving from rainmaker to architect. But this is really important though. I want to just tap on what you just said. We do recommend, especially really up to about that half a million dollar mark, you do need to be the rainmaker of the business. But I think it's the understanding that it's around that 40,000 a month in revenue, and maybe you can share with you kind of what your proxy was in terms of that, that it's just you hit a glass ceiling, you hit a glass ceiling. And the thing that was working, that was working. Okay. It was working, but it eventually gets to a point where it doesn't work anymore. There's only so many clients you can see. There's only so many emails you personally can respond to. There's only so many of those things. And so where was that mark for you that you really kind of felt like maybe it was— I don't think it's a day, I don't think it's a month, I think it's like a year, you know, that you've been getting to see like, man, I was really driving the sales predominantly. Now I'm really starting to kind of back myself out of it and transition out of that. When— what year was that? Maybe give our listeners some sort of a proxy so that if they are around that phase, that, that, that, uh, stage of business that they also could begin to kind of see that they got to make a change?

Yeah, I would say, I mean, honestly, I was still about that 4-employee size, maybe getting up to 5, but hovering that 4 or 5 mark. It honestly was, I think I started realizing the exact people I needed in the seats. So instead of maybe hiring someone who can just sell transactionally, actually hire someone who is a relationship builder, right? Who can sell deeper. I was just noticing opportunities passing me by too, because there is only so much time in the, in the day at this point. Like I said, you know, maybe I'm 4 years in or so. There's also burnout starting to creep in. Like, you can do a lot of really hard work and it's fun and exciting. We all have bandwidth and eventually you hit it, right? So yeah, I think that was part of it too, of just this, okay, now, now I'm turning 30, right? I'm, you know, I'm wanting to start to slow down a little bit, at have a family, be home at a decent time for dinner, all those types of things, right? And I think that was a big piece of it too. And I had achieved a couple personal financial goals. I think that gave me some peace to say like, hey, I'm comfortable again, taking a step or two backwards financially here, because of what I truly see it can grow into, and what just me as a person needs and wants in my life moving forward.

Yeah, that makes sense. So we fast forward a little bit. You followed a blueprint to be able to grow the business. It has been successful. Now a second office comes in. It becomes a forcing function. The blueprint— don't want to put words in your mouth, but the blueprint probably has to change yet again. What was that like for you?

Yeah, I mean, I think of you and I grabbing lunch that day, right? And I've got all the pins and plaques. The financial success. I just find out that we're having our first baby and it's a boy. I've completed the interview and I'm getting a second office. Like all these things, if you're looking at my life and reading the story, you're like, oh my gosh, this guy has to be so happy. And I just wasn't, you know, that they're just— I wasn't fulfilled. I was struggling with all the responsibility in front of me. And so that is then when I leaned into Hey, I need to have a core group of people that I can actually train as leaders, pull some of their day-to-day off them, right? Like truly lose some daily revenue from them, or maybe some sales numbers and appointments they can run and stuff like that. Because I need them to help me run the business. I need them to help me be better leaders. Like I said, that forcing function of the two offices was a very, very big piece of that. It was an opportunity for me to just be real about where I was at and where I wanted to be. And then that evolution of the agency started. And really that road, probably the next 3 years or so, I would say was somewhat in that model of, you know, kind of lack of better words, a sales type leader, a service type leader, me still leading them, but also having some one-on-ones with the team. And then really developed a very strong leader in the office to then now be, in essence, that agent in the chair, right? To where, um, pull them out of production and have them in on only the highest ticket items, have them in leading the day-to-day, having the one-on-ones, and me working directly through them. And that's, you know, really evolved and evolved to where I now have a leadership team of myself plus 4. And those 4 leaders helped me in this last evolution, which occurred last year, to develop my role, right, and have true clarity on my role. So like you talked about, I'm ultra present. I'm extremely present in the community. I'm on boards. I'm serving. I'm out marketing, dropping cookies, going to customers' houses to shake their hand if it's something like that, because I love doing that. I love being in the community. I love building relationships. I love building my brand. I'm very involved in the marketing, whether that's social media, you know, direct clicks, Google Ads spend, like whatever it may be. Boom, I'm there on that. And I love that. I'm very involved in the finances of my business. I want to have a third party I work with, but I like seeing the numbers. I like doing the math. I like that. And, and then basically too, we made a box of what do I not do, right? Like, I don't lead the team huddles. I lead a team meeting once a week, not only the daily huddles. I don't run one-on-ones. Unless you're one of my 3 people I have a one-on-one with, right? I don't really talk to clients unless it's something— the rare items that only I can do as the owner, or it is very much a situation to save or apologize for an issue that us or the company has made, right? And, and some of that's training your customers. Some of that's being willing to say like, hey, I'm just— I'm not— we're not the right agency for you if you need to talk to the person with the name on the door. And that's a hard thing to do. But when you do it, it feels oh so good.

So, you know, we talk about when you get to, get to that million dollar mark, we've seen it just time and time again that as long as the business owner is engaged, things really accelerate past a million. There's just enough fuel in the tank. Talk about maybe the first time that you kind of recognized that you crossed the million-dollar threshold in a given year. And then also, how was that journey for you from, you know, like, hey, the next million past that? Did you see the same thing where like, wow, things really start happening, you know, pretty quickly? And then I want to talk about one of the things kind of past that to that I think is you probably offer one of the best examples that I know of being able to— you first really have looked inward and you've evolved quite a bit as a business owner. You have really led yourself first in a lot of ways and that you adopted that mindset and that methodology first and foremost for yourself. And then you've been able to go and give that out for everybody on the team. But part one, talk about that. Kind of once they've clipped over that number and then the acceleration past that. But then the second part, how you've had to evolve along the way.

Yeah, so definitely agree. I mean, that, that race to a million, especially probably that 500 to a million is hard, right? It's hard. Heavy lift. And that's where you start having to have— like if you really want to get there, there's some tough decisions you need to make and how you're going to do it and things like that. So that's really, really hard. I think a lot of it's just like compounding, right? Same thing with like investing. And so your first million is probably the hardest to make if you're put in the market or whatever it may be. But then just the time value of money and compounding takes over. There's a certain aspect of that with the agency that like, okay, here I have this revenue, I can pay my people more to retain them, right? I can take bold moves. So man, the market is ripe right now. We've got some competitors that are shut down, we're more open. I can go hire those 2 producers and put that marketing budget in them to go and get it right. So I think there's some things like that. This allows you to make some bold moves, allows you to retain some of your core and make sure they're taken care of so that I think there's just a lot more confidence and a lot more, I guess, safety, for lack of better words. I caution those that I think I've seen several slow down when they get there and then they just kind of stay. I think we all know those agencies that they've got 4 people, they've had 4 people for the last 7 or 8 years, and they're just very stagnant. That's not who I wanted to be. Very big believer in you are either growing or you are dying. And I always want to be— have a growth mindset, both in my business and in my personal life.

Yeah, so then you really do.

So then leading into the personal life, yeah, like this, probably one of the biggest things that I learned, um, especially from you, Bradley, was You have to put your oxygen mask on first. And so once I go back to our conversation in Charleston, you know, we begin the coaching relationship and start talking through some of these things. You know, things once again, like I said, I always feel like I've been a pretty good person, you know, and that type of thing. But I didn't have a lot of structure. I just kind of did it by, by hard work, willpower, and some talent that I had. So it changed. So structure and discipline became a huge focus of mine. So some, some beginning things to do, some tangible things. I'd never had a morning routine before. I started getting up 1 hour earlier to have a morning routine to where I could have quiet time and prayer and, and devotional time and, and look and strengthen my faith. I had time to read, to learn, to focus on areas I wanted to grow in. I had time to do, to take care of me, right, and, and have that quiet time with my wife because now we've got little kids, and that quiet time together is much harder to get, right? So we could have a cup of coffee together and talk about our day and our marriage and things that were important to us. So that development of a morning routine was crucial. I would say step number 2 that I did was I developed a perfect repeatable week. I— and I wanted to plan for the life that I wanted now. And to be honest, brother, I am living my dream. I got to pick up my son yesterday from school at 3 o'clock with 3 of his buddies and go to an indoor facility and play baseball for an hour and a half with him. I am living my dream, but it was intentional planning years ago that are allowing me to do it. So that perfect repeatable week includes what are my rocks for the week. Like I said, I'm always going to lead a team meeting. I'm always going to have one-on-ones with my leaders. I'm going to have time in the community. I'm going to have time measuring and, and marketing. Okay, so all those go into my calendar. They're non-negotiables. They happen at the same time each week, and I'm extremely disciplined to it. From there, I get to build my— and honestly, transparently, I build my personal stuff in first, right? So I build in 3 o'clock on Tuesday to go play baseball with my son. I build in my Triple Threat Friday where I'm, where I'm really remote in the morning, then off majority of the day to do things out in the community, to build my brand that just bring me joy, to kick off my weekend the right way. All that was intentional, starting with a morning routine, building out a perfect repeatable week, and then taking time weekly. And mine's on Sundays after church. We work out, we come home, cook a big brunch, and then as the kids kind of go down for quiet time, I get an hour of planning my week ahead. And what roadblocks do I have? What do I need to adjust to give me confidence to go in that next week? And to give me a game plan for success.

You know, I think a lot of people, whenever they have met you, been around you, you know, they see the discipline that you have and your commitment to certain things. And I think that they could really almost dismiss and say, well, Dustin's been— Dustin's a disciplined person. You know, that's just who he is. And I think that that's almost in not intending, but I think it's almost in, in a way, almost derogatory to the work that you have put in to actually become that way. And so for people that, you know, we call it a PRW, a perfect repeatable week, but whatever, people will start off and they'll create like, I need to get control of my— I need to get control of my week. I need to have some structure within my week. But then they don't adhere to it, right? They, they, they, they build the thing, they do the work. I think the difference is, is that you did it and that you've been committed to it for a really long period of time. And also too, you could also share with this, it's not that you've been perfect. It's not that every, every week has been just this, just perfect little song by no, by no stretch of imagination. You know, we've navigated through a lot of challenges that you've had over, over the, over the years, but What would you say to those people about that, that you developed and created the discipline? You've become the disciplined person. You were not necessarily that naturally. One. Two is the fact that you, you built it, but then have been able to adhere to it over time.

Yeah, 100%. I was not the naturally disciplined person, but it's a skill that I do believe. That's not just like, you know, you're born 6'10" or you're not, right? I don't think it's a you're born disciplined or you're not. I 100% worked on it. Like I said, coaching, um, peers to help me hold accountable to it. My wife, I think I had a vision of what I wanted my life to be. You know, I just turned 40 in November. I had a vision of where I wanted to be at 40 and what that life looked like. So I had that like powerful call, that, that real powerful why to get there, right? And read books. Like I think did all the things that you hear to do. I just actually did them. And then instead of just like, oh, that's a good idea, I just went and implemented it. Like, and when I learned something, it wasn't like, eh, I'm gonna put that up on the bookshelf, I might come back to it. It's like, oh my gosh, that's gold. I can do that. I'm going to do that tomorrow. And then I use the reminder on the iPhone. I will literally, when I'm developing a new habit— so I developed the habit this year of mindfulness, doing 10 minutes of meditation in the morning. It's a reminder on my phone until I don't need the reminder anymore. It might be a reminder on my phone for 3 months until it is ingrained in me in a habit. It just stays as a simple reminder on my phone to get me to do it daily. I will not snooze that until it's done. And I think that's part— that's that competitor in me. That's that hard work in me. I'm so much more intentional though, and I have so much more time and enjoyment because of what the discipline has created. With margin, with prioritization, with green activities that bring me joy. Like all those things have, like I said, helped me to be where I'm in. I'm truly living the dream.

Yeah. Yeah, you really are. What do you think fitness, working out, maybe even eating clean, that sort of thing? It's not something we've talked about a ton on the podcast. I think we should talk about more. How do you think that that has played in for you, if nothing else, like maybe physically, but also maybe just the mental clarity that that's given you? What, what, what, how has that played into you and helping you as a leader?

Huge proponent of that, right? And anyone that knows me knows I'm like, love talking exercise science, love talking nutrition. So several things there. Once again, I had a driving why. I'm going to be an old dad, especially in my community. I'm 10 to 12 years older than a lot of the dads that I am coaching against in T-ball, right? But none of them got my energy, right? I'm out there, I'm having fun, I can, I can throw it around, I can do everything. So I had a really driving why that I wanted to be a dad that could give my kids energy, show up for them when I get home from work, and they'd get the best from me. You know, I call it putting on the cape. I want to be able to leave work and be super dad, right? Super husband and have that energy. So I think a few things there. Once again, coming back to discipline, it took me a little bit to get in the habit of going to the gym every day. The first thing I had to solve was when am I going to do this, right? So with my morning routine, with little kids, just, you know, going at 7 o'clock or 6 o'clock, that's not who I was, and it was going to throw off my morning with my family. Same thing by the end of the day, I knew I was going to once again look into my future life, have activities, have things like that. So the 5:30 workout wasn't going to meet. So being a business owner and planning my week and having a perfect repeatable week, I go every day basically at 12, 12:30 and I go to the gym and there were days, especially this beginning where I didn't want to go, I would just show up and if nothing else I'd get on the treadmill for a little bit. Like I'd walk, like I did something once again to prove myself, hey, you can do this every day. Just like other things, I researched it. I listened to podcasts. I understand what movements I need to do and how to do it. I have a great group of friends and peers that are fit and push me to be fit as well. So that was good. Then with the eating, um, I've tried multiple different diets. It really just came down to, hey, um, lower carb, high protein, and try to maybe just have, I started with one bad day a week, right? So, and that bad day, man, it used to look like donuts first thing in the morning. How many fast food places can I eat at for lunch? And then a bunch of pizza for dinner or something, right? Now it's very much more like a cheat meal just because I feel it. I feel the lag in my body if I haven't properly fueled it, if I haven't taken care of it. And like I said, my energy and how I lead, it's a big proponent of who I am. I need that. So the diet, the exercise are core components. They're kind of that baseline that allow me to build a lot of other things on. So yeah, just kind of recapping that. I, I probably do weights, you know, 4 to 5 times a week. I hit a VO2 max once or twice a week, and then I do, um, very high protein. I try to get about 120% of my body weight in protein. And then I'm very, very low carb. And that's really helped my energy, helped my digestive system. It's been a great thing overall for me.

And, you know, for a lot of people, that particular diet may not work for them. You even specifically said, hey, that you've tried a few different ones. And so there's a lot of different things that work, you know, very, very, very low carb is challenging for me to go completely no carb. It's hard. I don't feel like that it works exactly the way for me personally. But I think the important thing is, is that, you know, you're doing that and it's helping you in all of these other aspects of your life, including like in the business, the clarity that you have to be able to make better decisions and, and not to be, you know, react as much. You can respond more to the challenges that ultimately come. Listen, We, we say business gets hard and it gets harder. As your team has grown and it gotten much bigger, your customer counts have gotten much bigger. There's a lot more that kind of comes into, into that. Can you just talk about maybe how, you know, yes, I'm living the dream, but that doesn't mean that there's not challenges. There's not, there's not, uh, things that you've had to deal with, with inside of your leadership team and other things that you've had to kind of navigate through over time? Because I think it's important that we don't let people know, like, oh, well, you know, that's— hey, that's great for Dustin, he's living his dream. You've had challenges and real big, you know, things you've had to navigate through along the way too.

Big time. Yeah. One more thing, I just want to double tap on the, on the exercise, the fitness journey. Like, my wife, so Anna, absolute rock star. She is crazy fit, leads fitness classes, like our commitment together, right? I, to be— I don't grocery shop, I don't cook, like, I don't do that type of stuff. She is committed to it as well, right? She knows how important it is, not just to me but to our family, that we do that. So we've had that conversation and how important that is, and reading labels, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, I think whoever those people are, they're gonna be involved in your life, they need to know about the big changes you're making and why you are making them, so they can either get on board with you Or if they're not going to get on board with your diet, they at least need to be able to cheerlead you on, you know. So I would really, really strongly say that for anyone looking to make that change. Then for the second question, 100%. I think just with growth is always going to come more opportunity but more challenge. So I have definitely been in valleys, especially the last 3 years. I have been— there have been peaks, but there have been valleys, and there have been some very, very challenging times. That's where I think having that strong why Having a great support system, a community of people to be in, people that can lift you up when you're down is so, so important, you know. And I'm in a season right now, brother, where I do feel like I'm kind of on top of that mountain. Like, I feel like, you know, I'm— my daily prayer right now is like, God, thank you for the strength. Thank you for all this joy and peace I'm experiencing. How can I be a light to others? Because when I've been low, I've had to look to those lights. To get me out of there. But same thing, it was never just sit there and wallow in it and oh, why me? It's like, okay, I'm here. Let's face reality. This is point A. I want to get to point Z, right? I want to get to this mountain. What's B? Then what's C? And right, and I'm gonna climb those next steps to get out of there with discipline, with intentionality, and with a focused game plan to meet my result. Whether that's a personal issue, business issue, whatever it may be. I think, you know, as business owners, as leaders, you have a lot of strengths and talents. It's just the intentionality of it, actually taking time to think and put together a game plan compared to just saying go and running in one direction and hoping you were right.

So I would be remiss if I didn't ask you before we, before we wrap up, part of your blueprint is, you know, we've talked about your initial transferring of knowledge, building playbooks and handing those over to the team, your structure and discipline that you've developed over time, that the fitness has been a huge part of it. But then also, Dustin, the leading of leaders. Okay. And so now let's kind of go— we maybe at the beginning of the episode, centered around that, you know, early stage business owner that's attempting to kind of build through their team and transfer over, develop some systems. Now let's go to the other part. At some point, often past a million, you start to lead other leaders. You start to develop a leadership team, and that's a whole nother thing. Okay, so now you are developing people who are then leading people. Can you talk about the similarities if you can reflect back on it to, oh, okay, well, this is my first leader I'm going to develop. Now my second. But also maybe the differences and what advice you could give to that business owner that's going to start developing their first, maybe sales manager, customer service manager, uh, maybe even an office manager or general manager that's in place.

Yeah, I would say in the beginning, and what is still true today, is there are certain core characteristics and skill sets that if you're going to develop a leader, they have to have, right? There are baseline intelligence levels. There are emotional intelligence items. There is knowledge, right? There is a growth mindset within them. You know, I think it's natural in our industry for sure to take your top producer and name them the sales leader and just think they're going to be a great leader. And that's definitely not always the case. I feel like it's more— it's finding certain characteristics in people that you see could be a leader and how you can lean in to develop those. So I would say that is very similar to beginning my first round of developing leaders to where I am now. The difference now, I would say, is we use what we call KRAs, key result areas. And in those KRAs, clearly defining the role of the leader what's expected of them and how they are to show up each day. So we typically keep that to 4 key bullet points with another 3 to 4 key bullet points in each area. It allows for transparency on what's expected, both of them and from me. It allows for accountability and allows— it just, to me, it allows for a very autonomous relationship to be able to grow together not always have to. Probably in the beginning it'd be like, I'd grow, then I could grow somebody, then I'd grow, then I can grow somebody. Now it's much more of a, hey, we're rising together. And there are a lot of areas now within my business that my leaders are stronger than me.

Yeah.

And I think that's scary for some early business owners. It's humbling for sure, but it's also a very awesome feeling when you've empowered people and they have possibly even surpassed your skill set. In certain areas of the business. That's a very, very rewarding feeling.

Yeah, that's great. Last question. With the success that you have, how do you keep from resting on your laurels?

Yeah, I think honestly it is a, like I said, growth mindset a lot. It's just like I enjoy learning. I'm competitive. I like winning. And the people that work for me, my agents, they are like family to me. So I want them to have limitless opportunity too. And that's only going to happen if I'm leading myself first and taking care of myself, right? I've got to— if I'm not showing up or if I'm not here, the business isn't here, right? Um, I think it is giving them opportunity. And when you see one of your employees buy their first house or come to you and say something like, I never thought I'd make this much money in a year, or just, this is a skill set I never thought I'd have, and here I am now as the president of Rotary Club, or here I am now as a leader in this because of these skills that I have. I even have people who do not work for me anymore, but we still have that relationship because I'm, I'm still cheering them on. I still care about them, and I love seeing them be successful. You know, I think that to me, you know, used to be, I think, the pins, the plaques, the customers I could serve. Well, all that is still important to me now. It's truly my team, seeing them be successful and watching us build this brand and this together.

Dustin, this has been fantastic. If people want to maybe connect with you on social and maybe kind of pick your brain on some of the things that you've been able to do. Uh, do you have somewhere that is best for them to connect with you?

Yeah, so you can always follow my business page. We're on Instagram, Dustin Booth Insurance. We're on Facebook, Dustin Booth State Farm. Those are, those are great ways to follow us. Um, an email address that I'd be happy to give out if some of these frameworks appeal to you, maybe the perfect repeatable week, or, you know, tell me a little bit more about this journey on leading yourself first. Dustin@blueprintos.com. It's another great place to reach me. I wouldn't be where I'm at without people pouring into me, yourself included, Bradley. And I am eternally grateful for everything you've done for me. I hope that there's a couple people that hear this and I can help you out on your journey too.

Yeah. Well, listen, I appreciate that. But at the end of the day, Dustin, you've done the work. You've done the work. The ideas are everywhere. You know, concepts are out there, but you actually took and implemented all of those. But thank you for the kind words. You know, I think when we kind of look at Dustin's blueprint, him understanding that the thing at the early stage was not the thing that was going to continue to sustain— sure, there's elements of that, but he's evolved along the way from the first time that he was kind of beginning to transfer that knowledge and delegate to other people. And then the second iteration of that with, with the second office. And then secondly, leading other leaders and the evolution of where that actually has gone, the structure and the discipline that you've been able to develop from your morning routines, developing PRWs and seeing the discipline as a skill. And if it's a skill, then you can actually develop that skill, I think is big. And then just seeing how much you've led yourself first from a fitness perspective, uh, from the nutrition perspective so that you can show up your best self. For your lovely wife, your two kids, for your team and for your customers. And then also you've been such a great example about being able to be forward-facing, front-facing in building the brand of Dustin Boothe Agency, but at the same time not feeling like you're stuck in the day-to-day of that. Dustin, you have been a true inspiration and such a good friend to me over the years. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And for those of you listening, I just encourage you, what is the blueprint that you're actually following to be able to grow and develop yourself and your business? Thanks, Dustin, for coming on.

Hey, thank you so much, Bradley. Same back to you, brother.

Well, what a great episode. Hope that helped you to have an idea of the different ways of being able to scale your own business and some of the takeaways from Dustin. I want to give a shout out to my podcast partners, DirectClicks. Coach B Consulting and Autopilot Recruiting. You want to go and develop your team just as Dustin has been able to do that. Autopilot Recruiting can help you get a dedicated recruiter on your staff that can help you to always be recruiting. So in the event that you do have some unfortunate turnover this year, they're always going to have somebody on the bench ready to go. Autopilotrecruiting.com. Autopilotrecruiting.com. You know, in this episode, Dustin talked a lot about the development and the coaching of his team. Also being around other business owners, but being— taking and putting your team around other peers that are doing the same thing is so valuable. If you've not checked out Coach Peak Consulting, go to coachpeakconsulting.com and let him know that you heard about him on the Above the Business podcast. You know, also in that episode, Dustin kind of mentioned in passing the investment that he's making with DirectClicks. Look, if you've not reached out to DirectClicks to see if they have your space available as they continue to grow because of exclusivity, some of those territories are continuing to get gobbled up. We actually had some people reach out to us to say, hey, can they make an exception for my area? And as much as they would love to do that, the exclusivity is so valuable. So make sure you capture your area and your marketplace before somebody else gets it. Go to directclicksinc.com/above-the-business. Directclicksinc.com/above-the-business. You have a plan for the business, but do you have a personal leadership plan to lead yourself first in 2026? As a small business owner, you likely did everything right in January. You set the goals, you got the team aligned, and you built the plan, but yet something still feels off. You're tired. Exhausted, actually. Decision fatigue is setting in. You're having to put out fires instead of working on the strategic initiatives that you put forth in this year. The small business owners, we feel like we're firefighting all of the time without realizing that sometimes we're better arsonists than we are firefighters. And that's why I'm hosting a workshop on Tuesday, February 24th. And that workshop is designed to help you to lead yourself first. You built a plan for the business, but do you have a personal leadership plan for yourself? Here's the truth: your time and energy is the most valuable and finite resource in the business. As small business owners, we're constantly having to make the decisions of finite resources—time, energy, and money—against unlimited options. What marketing plan? What team member we hire or don't hire? What strategic initiatives we move forward with. Sometimes those decisions can weigh on us. That's why we end up working long hours. We work into the weekends and we don't take care of ourselves. You have a plan for the business, but do you have a personal leadership plan to lead yourself first in 2026 so you can actually execute on the plan that you have for the business? I'd love to invite you to our workshop, Lead Yourself First, Tuesday, February 24th from 10:00 AM to 12 noon Central. And in 2 hours, we'll put together some systems and processes for you so you can actually put rubber on the road and execute on the plan that you have for this year. Real leadership starts when you begin to lead yourself first. So go to blueprintos.com/assets, blueprintos.com/assets, and you can register completely for free. I look forward to seeing you there. All right, everyone. What a great episode. Till next time, lead well and go be great.