Black and White Truth About Benefits Advising Ep 1

All right. This is exciting. We are here. I'm here with the one and the only Kareem Cade. This is episode one of the Black and White Truth.

Yeah.

About benefit advising. And now just because I said that, we're gonna get canceled. All right, Kareem, you ready? White.

I'm the white guy.

You ready?

I'm ready, baby.

Let's do it. So let's talk about. Let's just get right to the point. This is what the whole show is about.

Okay.

We're at a conference. Ascent.

Yes.

One of the things you and I have talked about at length is we come to these conferences, brokers come to these conferences. They get all excited because they learn all this knowledge, but then no one applies it.

Exactly.

Give me your thoughts on that right now. Theory versus application.

Well, I've heard it best spoken this way, man. I would take ignorance on fire than knowledge on ice. Any given day, right? Any given day, man. And so what ends up happening is that you get all this stuff. Stuff, and we just revert back to what we've been doing all along. And there's no shifting or change. There's no execution. And so I remember talking to a motivational speaker years ago, and what he said to me, Andy, was that he sold all of these books. But what he realized is that when he went back and kind of looked at people who had actually read the books, that 85% of the people never read it once they left the function. So it was still sitting in plastic, sitting on a shelf somewhere where they never executed. They got an emotional side when they were there, fired up, ready to go. And then you know what they did? They went and made that first phone call. Somebody didn't respond the way that they thought they should, and they went back to doing the things.

And the answer they need to everything is sitting, gathering dust on the show.

Oh, my goodness. Right there.

Who was that motivational speaker?

This was a gentleman named Jonathan Edison. And so I tell you, man, what's fantastic about it is that when we think about coming in here and I'm thinking about. About all the folks, I've seen a lot of these people, you've seen a lot of these same folks, and then you look and see their business, and it's still stagnant, that nothing's changed. You know, they haven't moved forward. And you start looking at all of the money that you're investing in something like this. And I don't know about you, Andy, but anytime I'm investing money and time, I need a return on that, brother. Well, absolutely. I need a return on that.

Our, our time is worth an hour, is worth a dollar amount. And you know, I want everybody to know we're not just pointing fingers, we're also doing this. There was a time in my life that I was talking a great game.

Yes.

But at the end of the day, I go back, look at my clients, and I'm doing the same old same old. I want you to talk about your story. Obviously you shared with it. Yeah, shared with it. Shared with me a lot. Your own mother fired you.

Yes.

Because you weren't doing your job.

Because I wasn't doing my job. Had nothing to do with. I was not doing that. It happened. I recall being at home. That was a time prior to cell phone. So I'm dating myself. I'll be 50 this year. I'm excited. It wasn't a flip up phone. I hadn't even gotten there yet. And she was leaving a voice message on an answering machine at the house. And I pick up the phone. It's about 11 in the morning. I pick up the phone and she's like, like, hey, why are you answering the phone right now? And I'm like, well, yeah, mom, I'm gonna get ready. I'm get out. And at the time I called her, you know, Mr. K, I'm gonna call you. And she said, you know what? My ages have all been out since 6 this morning. They had breakfast meeting, They've actually had sales appointments. They're having lunch meetings right now. And you're still at the house. You're never going to make it in this business. And it won't be because I fired you. You'll fire yourself. And you know what? No sooner than she said that, I probably, maybe about eight or nine months later, found myself looking for a job in which I started teaching because I needed to have regular income coming in. But I had all of the answers, man. I had books for days. Had books for days, you know, and it's, you know, fortunate, unfortunate, depending upon who you ask. But I was married for, for 17 years and then was divorced. And people say, well, what did you.

Get out of that?

My book collection. That was the most important thing that I had.

All my mentors.

I'm like, man, I need those books. You can keep all the other stuff because I. Because these books help me get stuff.

Well, it kind of goes back to. So you gave me a thought. I hear young advisors a lot. I hear people just jealousy have the benefit of.

That's nonsense.

I'm trying to Learn crypto right now.

Yes. I am as well, because I'm gonna start investing. Yes.

And it's funny, I had a conversation with my mom. Sorry, Mom, I'll call you out for a second. YouTube.

Okay.

And she said, oh, there's so many weirdos on YouTube.

You know what I'm doing right now?

I am attending an MIT course. Come on now. On YouTube for free. Learning how to do crypto.

Yes. Yes.

MIT.

Yes. So when you, like you said, so, I call bullshit. When the advisor tells me that he or she doesn't have the ability to go and do it, I'm saying, not anymore. Not back in my day, even if I went to the library to take a book out, I would go out and photocopy some of the pages to make sure I had it, but it didn't cost me but the 10 cent to photocopy. So you cannot tell me that in this day and age that you can't figure out how to get the information.

So I want talk about, okay, you get fired.

Yes.

Go into teaching.

Yes.

Then you come back.

Yes.

What did you change when you came back to part two of your insurance, man?

Right here, this real estate, this was it. Because what my mom said when I came back, when I called her, I remember calling her and said, hey, I think I shared this with you. And I quit that day in the school. I'm like, you know what? I always knew that I was going to do something different, but I quit that day. And I called my mom and said, hey, I'm going to come back into the business. And she said, well, nothing has changed since you were here last time. Everything's exactly the same. And I'm like, oh, crap, so what are you going to do differently? But I got up every day on purpose, man, and said, you know what? I'm going to go after this. I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. I wasn't trying to prove it to anybody else. I wasn't trying to show anybody else. I need to prove to Kareem that you say that you believe that you're this good or that you're worth this amount of money and somebody can't afford towards you, but you're not willing to work for yourself the way you would go and work for somebody else. Come on, that's nonsense. And so that was my mantra, that every day I got up, I got focused, I got out, and I wanted to be a part of that group that my mother was talking about. At 6am, I was up, I was up and I was out. I was on the streets already because I knew that my competition was still in the bed sleeping. They weren't out. They were doing what I was doing before. And so once I got that burn, because like you, I was talking about it when I got that burn, man, I'll tell you, man, I used to have sticky notes all over the mirrors in my house, man. Just, you know, you'll be great today. Here's what you do. All the affirmations, man. And I'm like, I'm in there, and I'm like a prize fighter. I'm going and I go outside and do nothing. And then I finally get matter of fact, some of those times, I'd be hanging in my buddy's house with my suit on, hanging out, maybe drinking a beer or something. In the middle of the day, man, I'm like, I'm not doing right. Then I got that burn, man. And I started saying, okay, I can get out here and get focused. You know what? I have control over what I can do in this career. And if they don't give it to me, I'm gonna go find it. So I started watching people in that time, all the journals and magazines, who's doing what well, and I called on those folks and said, hey, man, what are you willing to share? Can you tell me? And they were like, okay, if you're willing to invest to come out, I'm willing to invest to talk to you. And so, man, that has been it. And so now that's why I think for me, me, as you and I talk and we look at, talking about other advisors that I get a chance to share, because I remember, feel that deal. I'm a phone call away.

And guess what? Anybody can reach out to you today via LinkedIn.

LinkedIn.

All day long, you are accessible. Yes, everybody is a phone call away. You have the resources.

You have the resources.

Just put the work in.

I mean, this.

This.

This trip today, when we think about the snowing here in Nashville, I had.

To make sure when it snows in Nashville and there's three inches, that's everything.

Shut down, is that it's bad. And he's from Michigan.

Like, dude, it's nothing. Call us when you get.

And it's done. Like, it's. It's over. But what's interesting about that is last night, and it's just talking about the mindset. Last night, Southwest cancels my flight. And I had to make a decision. It was the fork in the road of, yeah, do I become and do I stay Focused on what I promise to do for Nelson in this conference, or do I just take the easy road? I'll be like, hey, Nelson, I can't get a flight out and not even try, not even shift. And so I think when it comes down to the mindset of us saying that I'm gonna make it happen no matter what, I don't care what obstacle is gonna get away, because it's life is gonna happen. I'm not gonna tell you, like, everything has been great. However, it's still the old adage of, you know, with all this in here, it's got to be a pony around here somewhere, right? I'm looking for the pony, man. I'm always looking for and saying there's an opportunity for us to do more. And I think as advisors now, in a time when mergers and acquisitions are taking place and large houses are buying up everything, you've got to look at it and say, what am I going to do to separate myself from the pack? Because the pack is going to do the deal. Guess what? They're gonna still be buying something. Everybody's gonna buy something. So if they. Everybody always tell me, oh, well, in healthcare, if they go to a single parent system, like, well, they're still gonna buy life insurance, disability insurance, they. They're going to buy other things. They're going to need a consultant to guide them through that maze. So why are we getting worked up on things that we can't control? What we can control is understand what we're learning at these conferences and go out and implement.

It's so funny. I remember when we. When I am. I just moved to Colorado and I went to the first nav event.

Yes, yes.

And I remember sitting there and it was right after all the ACA stuff was really starting to take hold. And all I heard for literally an hour is one advisor coming up to the microphone after another. Because they had a whole panel of.

Legal people that are in charge of some of the rules and regulations. And all they were doing was.

What are you gonna do about Mike? I sat there and go, wait, what are you gonna do for your clients? Why are we not having a conversation about the client? You're making it all about you.

Yes. And now I'm covered. Fine. I mean, it's because it's too easy because those, Those brokers have been transactional over the years. That's all they have to do, man. It's not. There's no thought process in actually coming in and saying, here's your spreadsheet, here's Your renewal.

That is when you have to actually start going to do some work. Now. Now, you look at this deal and you're like, what the hell? They cut my income and I don't want to go back out. Have you ever read the book who Moved My Cheese Right? And you look at him and Han sniffing scurry. And the bottom line is, at the end of the day, those guys are like, man, I don't want to get back out here. I gotta put my tracksuit back on. They move the cheese, I go find somewhere. It's still there. Nothing's changed in our industry, man. Our industry is still there. So now we've got to disclose everything. Where we get paper, we should always have to disclose what we get paid for, because guess what? If we're doing what we're supposed to do, you're gonna want to make sure that I'm taken care of as an employer, because I've done well by you. But that leads back to. What you just said is not about me. If I do what's best for them, and I'm truly in a servant leadership role with them and my. My role and part of their board and their C suite is to be this person that's a part of the team, although I'm not on their payroll per se, I'm indirectly benefiting from that. I gotta make sure, man, that I've got value, bro. And if I don't have value, man. Come on.

Well, and what you just said is.

Backing up your talk with water. Yes.

It's. At the end of the day, you know, you just said something.

I. I got to.

About your challenge with the Southwest flight.

Yes.

I'm at a point where when a challenge is presented to me.

I actually go, cool, because that means something really good.

The heart gets better at. Come on now. Come on.

But here's the funny thing. So it kind of goes back to what you said when you got fired by.

Yes.

What was the secret sauce?

It's putting in the work. Come on now.

Getting up at 4:30. So you're at that 6am yes.

Yes.

This is the thing. And, boy, this we're gonna focus on series.

Yeah.

Is you've been sold that. This industry about. Hey, you make it through five years, you're gonna be golfing three days a week and enjoying life. Guess what? Here's the secret. Work your face off.

Work your face off. Every day.

Every day. I hope they enjoy this episode, man.

Listen, listen, We. We're ready to turn this. This black right here.

This deal here is what people need to hear all the R. I love this, but I love all the rock. That's fun. But when it gets down to getting the word done, the old everybody likes sausage. Nobody likes to see how it gets made though, you know what I mean? And so when you look at that, that work and behind the scenes, when nobody else is looking, you know that from being an athlete, they'll work behind the scenes.

When we look at the folks that.

Are at the top of their game, athletics, you never look at the fact that all the time they're in the gym, all the time they're looking on eye, hand coordination, all the stuff that they're doing to train themselves to make sure that that happens. You just think that they arrived there. Come on, man.

That was the number one thing that would tick me off dream. When I was playing pro baseball, I would get a lot of people saying it must be nice, like to play, to be able to play professional baseball. And I'd be like, you understand the hours. Come on now to get here.

Since you were five. Yeah. I mean, since you were five.

That's something. And I, I think that's important. I've, I've said this a lot more lately. I played pro baseball at age 21.

Yes.

But I started falling four, five years old. Yes. That's 17 years before I became a pro.

Before you became a pro.

You're not getting into benefit advising and in six months. No. You're gonna be an awesome.

No, there's no way. I don't care how much information you look at because every situation is going to be different and you've got to be in the game in order to be able to uncover the things that you can do differently. You know, you got to be able to look at that film and there's no film, man. You think about that. If there's no film, how do you compete against what's out there when you haven't seen anything that looks at how it's going to take you to the next level. So, man, I'm excited about this. We've got to do this because our community, our broker community, I'm banking on us doing what we need to do because again, the larger houses continue to buy and take. And I mean this, this market continues to shrink, but we've got to have smart young advisors that are coming into this deal that says, wait a minute, there's a better way to do what we've been doing. You can still drive that nice car, but let's refinance it and do it A different way. Let's do something different about this deal. So this is gonna be fun, man. I'm looking for one of the reasons you were one of the reasons I came here, man. That's what I'm like.

Listen, listen. Episode one. I want to tell you guys, there is nothing that supersedes work. The work is it. You've got to stay in the game. And here's the deal. Tune out all of the other folks. If folks are not going in the way that you're talking about going, don't worry about this. They'll be there. Trust me. The folks who were telling me they wouldn't work years ago, they're still there now. Now they're like, oh, it's fantastic that you're done. I'm like, but wait a minute, this is now 22 years later. So you're saying 22 years after the fact of all the work that went in, you don't see all the disappointments. You don't see the tears on the pillow at night. You don't see, hey, we had to miss a mortgage payment over here. You don't see all the other crap that went on behind the scenes to get.

Anything.

Don't on you, don't give up on.

You because you're the most important person to you.

And here's the last piece I'm going to give you. And this is why this show exists. It's the fact that we don't want you going chasing the Chinese, the shiny metal objects. There's no script, there's no strategy that's going to change your career.

Come on now.

A shift here is going to change your career. And that's what Kareem and I are going to do with help you shift your mindset.

We're going to share this real estate. It's real estate.

So here's what we want you to do. If you got a topic, if you got something you want to ask, you want Kareem and I to address in the black and white truth, we will do it. So hit us up. Leave a comment. We're going to do this. We're going to be sharing the truth. It's going for the first episode of the black and white truth of employee benefit advising.

I love it. My man. Appreciate you.