237. Are You Committed To Your Success?

And it was a thought that I never in a million years would ever enter my head.

But I decided to make a decision that, looking back today, changed the trajectory of my baseball career.

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Bullp Sessions. My name is Andy Neary and this is episode 221. Today we're going to talk about one of my favorite subjects, commitment, and whether or not you are committed to putting the work in to reach your full potential this year. 2023. Commitment's a finicky word. And what I'm going to talk about today, I'm actually going to share a story from my past story while I was playing baseball at uwm, which really explains the trans transition I had to make. From a lack of commitment, not achieving or reaching my full potential and making that transition to going a hundred percent all in on commitment to become a better pitcher. And what it did for my career at uwm, how it allowed me to sign a free agent contract with the Milwaukee Brewers. But at the end of the day, it all came back when I realized that I had to make a commitment to the sport and to my success. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Because here we sit, it's mid January, and you're hoping to have a big year, I hope. And you're trying to figure out what you're going to do differently this year to get different results. And this is where a lot of insurance advisors I work with, this is where they go wrong. Because in their head, the shift that has to happen is on the outside. So you'll see advisors who are starting with a new agency right now, maybe they've taken on a different role.

But what they're trying to do is change the outside, because they believe if I change my outside environment, my results are going to change. This is how I spent a good chunk of my insurance career. If you go look at my resume, you'd be like, dude, you jumped around a lot. And that's why I always felt like the grass was greener. And if I would just changed my external environment, everything else would change for me. And guess what? It never did until I made a commitment that I needed to change. And that's what we're going to talk about today. And that's why I'm so excited to have this conversation. Because commitment is what has changed. It changed my baseball career commitment and changed my insurance career. Commitment is what has allowed us to build complete game consulting to the level it's at in just two short years.

And so this is why it's. I love this topic because it has had such a positive impact on my life. And quite frankly, there were times in my life it had a negative impact because I completely lacked commitment. So let's start with this story and I'm going to teach you a framework today, by the way. I'm going to teach you a framework that you can use if you are ready to go all in on committing to success this year. There's a formula I want you to I'm going to share with you later on in this episode. I think it's going to really help. But let's, let's start with the story. So here I was. It was 1998. I just wrapped up my sophomore season at UWM. Actually had a really good freshman season at UWM. Normally freshman.

Members of the team get red shirted. I did not. We needed pitching help right away when I got at got to uwm and I actually had a pretty decent freshman year. In fact, my freshman year included a win, a starting win over Notre Dame, which was a really successful program, still is today. And going to my sophomore year I had a lot of momentum, but quite frankly I wasn't focused. I wasn't very happy with the vibe of the team. We had some upperclassmen that I think just didn't really want to be there and it really impacted the underclassmen. I know it did me. And I had a terrible year. I wasn't focused, my head wasn't in the game. And if you go look at my statistics my sophomore at uwm, they were, they were brutal. And by the time my sophomore season came to an end.

I really was thinking about transferring. And if I'm being honest with you, I was actually thinking about quitting baseball, stop playing the sport altogether. And I was just at an all time low as an athlete. It was a level of defeat, a lack of success I had never experienced in baseball before.

When I think back as a kid, I was always successful. And I don't say this to be egotistical, but I was always successful in little league, pony ball, whatever we call it back then on into high school, right? But here I was after my sophomore year at UWM and it was the first time I realized like I was staring at, I think My record was 4 and 8. My era was like 6. It was, it was brutal. And I didn't know what to do except think about transferring from uwm. To think again. If I transfer, my external environment will be different and therefore my Results will be different or I was considering quitting.

And it was a thought that I never in a million years would ever enter my head.

But I decided to make a decision that looking back today, changed the trajectory of my baseball career because I could have easily quit in that moment. Because if you asked, it asked me In May of 1998, Andy, what was your level of commitment to the game of baseball? I would have probably told you it was a 7, maybe an 8 out of 10.

Not a 10 out of 10.

But I just, I made a decision in May of 1998 that I was going to take a month away from the game of baseball. I wasn't going to play at all in come June. Now, when you're playing college ball, the summer months are very important months because you're probably heading somewhere to go play in a collegiate summer league somewhere around the country. And I could have used that summer as an opportunity to go find one of these leagues so I can continue pitching throughout the summer, get the, get the innings in, get the work in, play against high level competition. But I decided to take a month away from the game. And I can remember after the month I just, at that time I had a landscaping job.

And so I just took the month of June, went home for the summer and just focused on the landscaping gig and had fun with it. It was hard work, hot work, but I didn't even think about playing baseball. And at that time, truth be told, in that month, June 1998, I didn't know if I was coming back.

And I can remember working on the yards we were working on having the thoughts of like, should I call my coaches and let them know that, you know, I'm thinking about hanging it up. But by the time that month was over, I realized, number one, no, I'm not going to quit. Number two, transferring isn't going to help because I need to change if my results are going to change. Going to another school isn't going to do me any good. By the way, side note, this is why I absolutely can't stand the transfer portal today that exists. There are a lot of good reasons there is a transfer portal, but what I'm seeing is a lot of college athletes transferring thinking their external environment is going to change the results. And this is why you see some kids transferring two, three different times. They haven't changed. As long as they're not changing, the result is not changing. For me, I realized at the end of June 1998 that it's my results on the baseball field were going to Change. I had to change. So I recommitted. I recommitted in time. I recommitted in my focus because that one month right there.

Is the month that I really went all in on doing everything I could to reach my full potential. Even Today at age 45, when I look back, I was 19, 20 years old at that time. That decision right there still impacts me today.

And I made a commitment coming back from my junior year that I was going all in. Ironically, at the same time, the team, the uw, my team at uwm, had named me one of two captains. So here I was, coming back not only with a recommitment to the game, but I actually had a leadership role on the team, and that came with responsibility. And so entering my junior year, I said, I'm all in. I'm a 10 out of 10, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to be successful my final two years at uwm, and we'll see where it goes from there. And that meant, you know, putting in the work in the weight room. It meant putting the work, you know, working on my craft, my skills, all the mechanical work you have to do to be a better pitcher. This, this was even on Friday nights at 7 o' clock when everybody else was out drinking. I was like, no, I'm going to go work on this stuff because I need to get better. And my. The pivotal moment, the. The moment I remember where this all came full circle for me was at the end of my junior season. We had just been knocked out of.

The regional, so we had made the NCAA tournament. It was the first time UWM had ever made the NCAA tournament for baseball, but we were in the Texas Tech regional. We got knocked out, had to fly home. I can remember being in the airport. Mitchell International, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We're all waiting for our luggage. And I remember our head coach, Jerry Augustine, having a conversation with one of our players who had all the talent in the world, but he just was making a lot of bad decisions off the field that was impacting his performance on the field. I remember him looking at my teammate, looking at the player, the player in the face and saying, next year, I want you to literally follow Andy around and do whatever he does.

And that's when I realized how committed I had become to getting better.

And this commitment, this recommitment to the game, this recommitment to myself, this recommitment to trying to reach my full potential is what allowed me to have two very successful years, my junior and senior Years at UWM were very successful, which ultimately allowed me to sign a free agent contract with the Milwaukee Brewers.

I could go on and on about my success or lack of success in the brewers organization, but my point was none of that would have been possible had I not made that decision after my sophomore year of taking a month off of the game to get refocused and recommitted. And that's what changed everything.

And I share that because.

It'S time for you to look in the mirror and ask yourself, how committed are you?

Or how committed am I?

Because I hope that you are committed to doing everything you can do to achieve your full potential this year. Whatever your goal might be, it could be a revenue goal. If you're an insurance producer, it could be a go. If you're an athlete listening into this, it might be a goal of making your team, or making the travel team or getting recruited to play at the collegiate level. The question you gotta ask yourself is, how committed are you?

Now, let me share another story where this this level of commit and even impacts our business today at Complete Game Consulting, when you schedule a strategy call with me with our team, the first thing you have to do is you have to fill out an assessment.

And one of the questions on the assessment asks at right after you tell us what challenge you're what what challenge you're dealing with, the question next question asks on a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you to solving it?

And what people don't know is this is a trick question, because anything less than a 10 is a lack of commitment.

And you'd be surprised how often.

That response or that answer on the assessment gets a score that's less than 10.

When I see a 7, I see an 8. Heck, even when I see a 9, I know you're not fully committed. It must be a 10 out of 10 if you want to win badly.

And so that's the question I ask again in this episode is are you a level 10 committed.

To reaching your full potential this year? And if not, be real with yourself. You're not going to hit your goals. In fact, here's what I want you to remember. If you remember anything from today's podcast, I want you to remember this statement. Without commitment, consistency is improbable.

Without consistency, championships are impossible.

Without commitment, consistency is improbable. Without consistency, championships are impossible. Now, championships can mean many things. It can be a team winning a championship. It can also mean you hitting your sales goals. But without commitment, you're not going to be consistent. And if you're not consistent, you're not achieving your goals. It's a known fact.

So here's the framework I want you to take away from today's podcast. Number one, ask yourself, do a gut check right now. How committed are you to achieving or reaching your full potential this year? And if you're a level 10, here's what you have to do. Here are three things you have to do this year to be a level 10 commitment.

Number one, are you willing to invest the time it's going to take to reach your full potential?

Whatever it is you do for a living today, if you're one of my insurance advisors, are you willing to put in the work? There's no secret sauce. You're not going to have success working 20 hours a week. Are you willing to put the time in to invest in time, the time to reach your full potential?

Number two, are you willing to invest the money.

To reach your full potential this year? What do I mean by that? Well, do you need help if you're going to reach your full potential this year? Do you need help getting there? If you do, who do you need to go seek out? And it might cost you money. You know, every time I meet with an advisor on a strategy call and he or she is reaching out for help and I tell them what it's going to cost to work with us, it's not uncommon for their immediate response to be, well, let me go see if my company will pay for it again. When I hear that, I know you're not committed because you don't want to invest your own dollars. You're hoping someone else will invest for you. That's not how it works. So are you willing to invest the money.

To be successful this year to reach your full potential? And last, number three.

Are you willing to invest the consistency it's going to take to reach your full potential? Are you willing to show up every day and do the monotonous things that are not sexy, that are not fun? But success requires?

If you're willing to invest the time, the money and the consistency to reach your full potential, you will.

But it requires you to be a 10 out of 10 with commitment.

So that's what I wanted to give you today is at the end of the day, championships are won when you're consistent.

But consistency cannot happen without a level 10 commitment. And if you want to have a level 10 commitment this year, if you're telling yourself you're a level 10, you need to invest the time, you need to invest the money and you need to invest in the consistency to get there. And if you do those three things, you will hit your goals. I promise you. However, anything less than a 10, even a 9.5 out of 10, isn't going to get you there. So I hope today's episode helped. Take it from someone who has sabotaged his career both in sports and business because of a lack of commitment. But a recommitment to the craft, to the career, to my own success is what has changed my trajectory multiple times in my life. And I know it can do the same for you. So you know what happens when you get the clarity. You mix it with the confidence. You do amazing things. So do yourself a favor, look in the mirror today, this week, sit down and ask yourself how committed are you? Think about investing the money, the time and the consistency to get there. And you will get there. Oh, by the way, one more thing before I let you go. If you are an insurance advisor listening in to today's episode. Number one, thank you. But number two, want to make one last reminder of our upcoming broker branding academy. In fact, the doors will be closing in just days. This is your chance. You want to go all in. You want to go level 10 commitment. You want to willing to invest a little money to get there. This is one of the best investments you'll ever make because you will learn all four tenants, all four pillars of the complete game marketing playbook to have the best year you've ever had. So if you want to know more, there's a link in the show notes. We hook up, we'll get on a call, we'll see if it's fit for you. But regardless, this is the year you go all in on your commitment. This is the year you become level 10 committed. Take care.