3 Tips to Rock Your Week

Hey there. I am excited to do this interview because I am sitting here with friend, accountability partner and brokerage director of American Fidelity out of Oklahoma City, Michael Hart. Michael, great to have you. Alright, quick question. You and I are accountability partners, which means we connect with each other every single week, get on the phone, even if it's for 20 minutes, to make sure we're holding each other to our goals. What would you say.

Is one of the best or the best benefit to having an accountability partner?

The thing I love the most about it is the simple fact. You know, when you're sitting there in your mind, right. It races and you're going, I know I need to do this, or professionally I want to do this, or even personally I know I want to do this. A lot of times you talk yourself out of that because just life gets in the way and it's easier to not change. Right? That's the, the way the world works. It's a lot easier to not change. Whereas I felt, especially with us, we challenge each other. So when we talk about something, I'm like, I really think I need to do this, but I'm going to hold off. You always say, no, what's stopping you? And if I give a good enough reason, maybe we hold off for a week. Same thing. I feel like there's times where you're like, I think I'm going to wait on this. I'm like, no, you shouldn't. You need to make it work. It's just that extra nudge over the edge, quite frankly, to say, nope, the timing is now. And I think we need that in life. Right. And you need it to not always be your significant other. You know, you need to have that break where they're not always hearing you talk about work. And so this can be. And this is bled over and I don't know if this is part of the question you really want, but this is bled over into personal stuff too, which I really love. You know, we, we started out really just being 100% professional.

Yeah.

Want to talk about what we want to do with me and what I'm doing and then you and your career aspirations and what they're going. And I feel like 2019, we didn't start until May of 2019. I think in those seven months we're pretty transformative.

For me, absolutely. I would say the biggest benefit to it, like you said, is if you're going to do an account, if you're going to have an accountability partner, which I think is a must, you got to be able to look at that person in the face when you or the face or on the phone and when they're giving you an idea they have or something they want to do that you don't agree with, you do need to challenge them. You can't just say, yeah, that sounds good, pat them on the back. You have to challenge them if you think they should be stepping up more doing something bigger. And I think that's been huge for both you and I. Yeah. Travel. You travel all the time, man. You're working with brokers around the country. You take care of yourself, you're in shape. Former football player. What would you say are a tip or two that you would give people on this video that you use for yourself to take care of your mind and body while you're on the road?

That's such a great question because I see it all the time. I think in 2019, I started out the year in the first two months I was 40 days on the road. So you do that. January and February, there's really only 40 days. I was on the road almost every day and then it tapered off a little bit. But I think I still had 130 nights on the road in 2019. So it was a lot. And for me, when I'm not on the road, I'm a big believer in routine gym. 4:30 in the morning, that's just me. Everybody needs to find their own gig. My wife graduated with nutrition degree so that helps because I can obviously on the road not eat. I think you've got to do two things when you're traveling on the road. One, get yourself in a routine. So if you know that you're going to be traveling, it's definitely going to be like almost like you're prepping your clothes, you're going to put them in your suitcase. If you got to write it down, write it down. But have yourself routine. Okay, I'm going to get to the hotel and I've got an extra hour and I want to do some type of workout. It doesn't have have to be going to the gym for two hours. It could be. You know what, maybe it's a new place. I was in Santa Cruz last year and had never been there before and I decided to go walk along kind of the, the city and the beach and I just did a three mile walk.

Yep.

So what? Anything crazy. But I knew I had that plan ahead of time because it's really easy when you get to a hotel. You're tired, client meetings, whatever it is to go. I Just want to turn on the TV and sit there and do nothing. Right. And I've done it. I think you also need to give yourself a little bit of grace. Grace, because that's what starts that spiral downhill is you don't do it the first time you're on the road four nights and then don't do it the second night. Maybe give yourself grace. Say, you know what, the first night I'm going to relax, but after that I'm going to get a brew. I'm going to do something. I also think you need to be very keen on nutrition when you're on the road. So I know you're a big fan of this and I, I'm getting better at it. But I have a lot of clients that I have to take out to meet every night. So what I'll do is change up the menu for myself. So we go to a small steakhouse. I probably won't get steak, so if I'm taking salmon. Yeah, salmon's a great choice. I had Chilean sea bass last night. You know, it was knowing your inner workings and knowing that if you're going to have a really hearty dinner, you know, really pick strategically what your breakfast and lunch are going to be. Because if you're not holistically feeling better, then how are you going to be the best for your clients?

So true. Because you talked about, I think the number one word I heard come out of your mouth about travel's preparation. So when I, when I know I have a trip coming up, literally the first thing I do is when I book the hotel, I'll look to see if the hotel has a gym. And honestly, if I can see the picture of the gym and it's like just two treadmills, I will literally map around the hotel to see if there's a gym in the area that I can go to. Second thing I do is map around the hotel, see what restaurants are there. Because I think before time, before ahead of time, you need to be picking what restaurants have healthy choices. So you already have the game plan of where you're gonna go. So preparation is so key. All right, last question.

Yep.

You and I are believe a lot in taking care of this.

Yep.

There's a 25 year old sales rep, 30 year old HR director, whatever it is, sitting on this video watching. What would you say is the number one mindset.

Tip you could give somebody who's trying to roll their career right now, whether it's in HR sales, you name it. What, what would be something they need to Focus on when it comes to improving their mind.

Oh man, that's a great question and I could probably answer it 20 different ways. But I'll use myself for an example because I think you never stop learning. I remember when I first started in the industry and I thought I could do it just by quite frankly my posture and who I was and where I was going to go. I learned real quick that if you're not going to continuously learning, whether it's reading books, some people aren't into reading books. But whether it's reading a bunch of factual based stuff about how the mind works and how psychology works, because at the end of the day we're dealing with people. You can talk about facts, you can talk about self funded plans and you do all that, but you're dealing with people and if people don't trust you. So I've really gotten into psychology and I think that's taken me the furthest in my career. So I would say that mindset. I'm actually starting a book right now by Brian Holiday. Start Stillness is the key. And I'm really excited for that because it's one of those things. We have all this noise in the industry so the mindset really has to be of two things. So you said one, but I'm gonna say two. Psychology, figuring out the inner workings of how people think and then two, which is I think the most overlooked thing in our industry. And that's connections. I'm a huge believer in connections in anything that I do. So I don't ever. I try to never burn a brain no matter what. If I disagree with somebody, that's fine because there may be a time where they need my help or I may need their help. So that has taken me the furthest in my career is truly connection. And I think people are undervalued in the technology world we live in. And you know, text. I do a lot of tech still, but I pick up the phone a lot of times and call people because I want them to know I'm that human and they're gonna trust me at the end of the day. So hopefully that mindset.

Oh, that was exactly it. Because I think too things, a couple things you said I want to drive home. Number one, whatever industry you're in is so easy to get focused on thinking. You just have to grow with your product knowledge and knowledge of that industry. I told advisors at the Ascend conference we're here at right now, quit focusing on products. Start focusing on how you communicate. Study communication, study psychology. That's what you need to do to differentiate yourself, product knowledge is going to come. But if you just focus on that and fail to understand how to communicate with humans, understand the psychology of humans, you're not going to get anywhere. Second thing is, you have people who say you need to be reading 52 books a year. Here's the key, guys. Determine how you guys consume content, whether it's video, reading, audio, and then that's how you consume. I used to read books all the time, and then I found I really love watching videos. And to me, watching a video now is just as valuable as reading a book. And so whatever content and form you love to digest it in, go for it. But always, as you said, always keep growing.

Yeah.

Never stop growing. Never stop getting better. So that's it for now. Michael, thank you, man.

You're welcome.

It's always a pleasure hanging out with you. So that's it, guys. Again, you heard it from him. Starts with your mind, starts with your body. Take care of yourself and the rest will take care of itself for you. That's it.

Have a great 2020.