Black & White Truth About Benefit Advising Ep 2

All right. Welcome back to Black and White Truth About Benefit Advising. My name is Andy Neary. I'm here with Kareem Cade. Kareem, you ready to rock out today?

I am ready to rock out. Let's do it, baby.

Now, just so everybody knows, we're recording this on January 31st. Kareem is a die hard Kansas City Chiefs fan. Kareem, I'm sorry about yesterday. So you might see a whole new energetic level, level to Kareem right now because he's got to get some pent up frustration out.

Pent up frustration. Andy, I had a complete meltdown yesterday. You know, I was the old adage, I wanted to kick the dog and smack the cat and it was just bad. I didn't touch anybody. I didn't do anything. But it was a rough night, man. And if you could only imagine all of the texts that I received from all of my friends that are tired of hearing me talking about, I'm going to the Super Bowl. So it was tough. But I tell you what, we'll be back.

The wrong people are listening. No, our animals were harmed in the production.

No animals were harmed. That's why I made sure I don't want to get any type of emails and texts. He talking about he's kicking his dog. I don't own any animals. I didn't hurt any animals.

So for those watching in, if you're a benefit advisor, we want. Kareem and I are going to be doing this show very frequently. And here's the, here's the point. I think a lot of people think, well, they're going to talk about truths around the health care system, products, insurance, employer decisions. No, no, no, no, guys. What Kareem and I have learned to be true, the black and white truth is if this ain't right, it doesn't matter how much product knowledge you have.

Absolutely.

You're not going to succeed the way you want. So, Kareem, we're going to go into a specific topic today of personal development.

Ooh. One of my favorites and one of my favorites.

And one of the challenges I see in the industry, especially with young advisors, is this sense. I don't want to call it entitlement, but this view that it's their agencies, their boss's job to bring that personal development to them and pay for it. So let's, let's start here. You have shared this story a couple times, and I want you to go back into detail. Early in your insurance career, like mine, you failed.

Yes.

And I think a lot of it had to do with, you lacked some personal development. You lack that drive to go out and build yourself.

Correct.

So let's start there. Bring us back to what Kareem Cade was like early in his career and where personal development first entered your life.

Well, I'll tell you, Andy, that the original piece was just trying to develop confidence and where that was going to come from. Right. And in my, in my space, being a person that talks a lot, as you quite know, and you know, you start to think that your mission can be because I'm a great communicator, that that means that I'm going to be great in this career. And I found that to be furthest from the truth, that, yes, I was great at communicating, but again, I was not great at listening. And so I had to really hone in on listening skills. Now, where does that connect with personal development? I'd like to think that a lot of the arrogance that comes from a person that does have great communication skills is unfortunately, they do all the talking and they're never taking any information in on the other side. And a lot of that can be because you're trying to cover up where you've got some shortcomings somewhere along the line. And so part of that defense is I'll just out talk, out talk, out talk. So I realized that I had to really be introspective and say, okay, well what's going on inside? Because I'm talking a good game, but I'm not executing a good game. And so my talk was not matching up with my work. And I found myself really beating up on myself inside, right? So outside is was great. And everybody's like, oh, he's a great guy. He's doing X, Y inside. I was crumbling, man, because I didn't understand why I was not having success because of the way that I had imagined what my success was going to come from. And that was because I had great communication skills. So when I started looking at professional development, I remember being at New York Life early in my career and there was the book of a list of books that you should read. And you know, the greatest salesman, Ogden Dino. I mean, I could go on, you know, look at how to win friends, influence people, Dale Carnegie, those types of things. And these are books that have been written, of course, we know from the 20s and 30s with Dale Carnegie. And I'm like, I don't need all that stuff. There can't be anything there that is going to change what's going to influence my career, if you will. And I was so wrong. I recall going to my manager and saying, if you guys would give me this, or if you guys would do X, Y and Z, and then I would be more successful. And they were telling me at that point, I remember my manager sitting down with me, Andy, and saying, listen, you can go out and do whatever it is that you would like to do. At the end of the day, you have got to produce. There's nothing. Production equals privileges. And you can have all this crying and whining inside here, but if you don't come in with production, you won't be here any longer. And I remember sitting back and thinking about, the blame is on this company. I thought when I came to New York Life, when you all recruited me, you said that I would do X, Y and Z. But there was zero personal accountability. And so I think when we go back to that time, Andy, for me, is that I was just not telling myself the truth, man. I was not being accountable to me. And I believe that that's where my personal development came in, is that I had to really sit down and start taking an assessment of Kareem. What were my strengths? What were my weaknesses? What were things that I needed to work on, and how could I capitalize on what I was good at, but enhance it through professional development? And so that personal development and professional development ran hand in hand to me, and I began to just feverishly read, man. I was reading. And at that time, Andy, I'm a date myself. I had tape cassettes in my car, man, and I was listening to every tape that I could have, whether it was Zig Ziller or Tom Hopkins, any sales gurus, I was listening and looking to grow myself. And it wasn't until I started growing myself, Andy, that I really began to see changes in my business, man. That's it.

I agree. I agree. Yeah.

Differently.

Yeah. You know, you gave me my own epiphany just listening to you. And that was. I, too, have always been a good communicator. Now, my girlfriend will tell you that may not be the case.

I've got one of those.

But as far as communicating what I do, my message, I was always good communicator. And the one phrase I hated the most early in my career is that dude's got so much potential.

Yes. Yes.

Because, yeah, I said all the right things, but was I actually doing anything? No. And I, you know, up, you know, early on in my career, I lacked. So I started my career in. With a captive insurance company called Federated Insurance.

Okay.

And they were known as one of the best training organizations out there. In fact, independent agencies loved picking producers off from them because they knew the training they got. But it was all product. It was all product knowledge. They didn't teach personal development.

Okay.

And I will tell you, Kareem, first 10 years of my career, I didn't know what personal development was. And here's where it changed for me. My aha was when Amy and I moved out here in 2014. I went to work again for another independent agency. But I realized it was my chance for a new opportunity. Kind of create a new slate, clean slate. And one of the first things, I'll never forget this, the first thing I did was I bought this course, online course from Darren Hardy.

Okay. I remember Darren Hardy.

Yeah. So he was my first. Besides the guy who hired me before we moved in Wisconsin, Darren Hardy was my first big time mentor. Never met the guy.

Okay.

And I bought his course called insane productivity.

Okay.

$997, I'll never forget.

But, but, but, but you know what, Kareem? Did I go ask my agency to pay for that?

Of course not.

I didn't. And was it easy to cut a check or put it on my credit card?

Hell no, of course not.

But I'm like, I gotta give it, I gotta try it, I gotta do it. And here's what I learned there. This was my first self depression personal development habit that I really went, ah. Up until that point, I thought productivity was do more, work more. Have this huge to do list. I remember being an account executive at Burk, Wall and Associates in Wisconsin. And I was proud. My to do list was 30 things long.

Never once did I prioritize one of those activities from the other.

Right, right, right.

But now I take this course called Insane Productivity, and it says, wait, it's not about doing more. It's about focusing on the things that matter most.

That's good, brother.

And Darren's. Darren Hardy's belief is you can't. If you have more than three priorities, you don't have any priorities. And so that's where I earned. We talked about this offline. The art of time blocking.

Yes.

What are my biggest priorities this week? And they must get a time, time. Block of time on my calendar. But more importantly, it was where I realized that if I'm gonna have success.

It'S not on my boss, it's not on my agency. Come on. And it's not about product knowledge.

Come on.

It's about, are you preaching good? Investing in my own growth?

Yes.

And so I think that's what you realize too. You talked about the book, some of those books, I have them on my shelf, they're a hundred years old and they still apply today as much as they do back then.

And I'll tell you what's interesting when we talk about that is that I begin over a period of time to start changing from the inside, which ultimately showed up with what was happening outside. Right. And so I'll get new sales reps as. And in the last couple years, I haven't had as many sales reps that I was training. But in the years that I have, 20 years that I've trained, I keep a folder actually in the, in the drawer office of all of the reps that we've gone through over the years and keep up with kind of what happened with them. Some we've seen have gone on and do some fantastic things. Some totally out of the business as you might imagine. Some are working jobs or whatever. But you just kind of go back and look at the names and you know what? They all had potential. What you just said earlier, they all had potential. When I met, I wouldn't have hired them if I didn't think that they had potential to, to do what we do. But where they all had a challenge, the majority of them that were not successful was right here. It was, it was right here, the self talk that they had. Now they talked great when we were in meetings and they talked great when, when we were sidebar. But I, that was me. I, I, so I knew I could look at someone and say they're kidding themselves, right? They're, they're, they're, they're, they, they're, they're kidding themselves. They're not gonna quite get this thing going because they don't believe, they don't believe that they're capable of doing this and they're going to look to pin it somewhere. And that's typically where it happens as an advisor is you pin it back on your agency, you pin it back on your boss, you pin it back on your mentor as opposed to looking and saying, well, wait a minute, what can I do for me? No one is going to invest more in you than you. And so when you talk about that997, I can recall being at so many of those events where I had a choice to make. Hey, I need to either pay this. And by no means am I advocating for people to be irresponsible with their bill paying. But what I am saying is that if you're going to be in this business and you're going to be an individual that is 100% paid on what you do, what you produce, and there is no salary in place. Then you know what? You're gonna have to have real conversations with yourself. That's going to be the best conversation that you have day in and day out. But if you're constantly telling yourself the things that you've always heard and the things that you've always done and you're not replacing it with new ideas and new facts that have you thinking differently, then you're going to be in the exact same place. And I don't care whether you go from real estate to insurance to pharmaceutical sales, it's going to be the exact same. I always have a, I've had a saying that I've said for years, Andy, and my saying is this, you are the same you no matter where you take you. And so I would listen to these, these reps say, okay, I'm going go over to this agency now. Well, guess what? You're the same you no matter where you take you. So you're going to take your same self to the next agency and look for something different. And guess what? Nothing different is going to happen because you're the same you. You're the common denominator as to why you are or are not having success. And so what the personal development did for me was it began to get me thinking differently. Because before, I mean, the other thing you find yourself is that when you're not successful, Andy, you know what you end up doing? Hanging around non successful people. Because the stories everybody's talking about losing together. I mean, all the chickens are clucking at the same spot, bro. And I found out that I could always find a group of people that could sit around and commiserate with me on how bad it was, how bad the agency was. If my manager had taken me out more times. He doesn't believe it, she doesn't believe it. And I was always pointing that finger. And I found that that was the same group of folks, no matter what agency, no matter what organization that I visited, it was the same group of folks. And it was those other few, those selected few, that they never got engaged with those conversations. They weren't hanging around those folks. And when I got in their car, they were listening to something that was stimulating their mind. When I went into their office, they had some book they could tell me that they were reading and they were focusing on they were doing something for personal development that the other folks weren't man. And they were not holding anybody accountable but themselves. And that was huge for me. That was, man, that was just like, wow, okay, this is an inside job, Kareem. Inside man. What are we gonna do with this side, man?

And, and you just said it's, it's the work you put in when no one's watching, right? Yes. And to your point, I mean, I, I, in our industry, I call it the two year, the two year hop. I go look at my resume. I used to be that person where you could go look at somebody's resume, especially a producer, and every two years of switching from one agency to the next. Why? Because they were guaranteed a salary for two years.

Yeah.

They didn't know nothing to improve, they didn't sell like they should. And now all of a sudden it's, I'm going to go over here because the grass is greener. The problem to your point, guess who didn't change? Yes, your environment and your team changed, but you didn't.

You are the same. You, no matter where you take you, unless you change you, you have the ability to change you.

I want to ask you this because I talked about when I made that purchase of Darren Hardy's course grand scheme. I think 997 is not horrible, but at the time it was a lot for me, no question. And so talk about now. You've gone on to build a very successful agency with Great Lakes benefits throughout your career. I gotta believe there were moments you decided to make an investment in personal development or an investment in you.

Yes.

Whether it's money time, you name it, where it was a very uncomfortable decision.

Yes, yes. And I'll tell you so if I go back to those earlier days, I did go to some of those Tom Hopkins sales courses, things that were coming through the area, Dale Carnegie courses and things of that. And it always required me to make an investment. And I'll tell you, I would make that investment and many times it might be 500, be 1200, whatever the piece was, but once I make an investor, a good buddy of mine, man, and he always tells me that, Kareem, you're not serious until you put up some money. And so that's his thing, like if we're going to talk about running a 5k, 10k, whatever, he's like, you know what, until you put up your money, you're not committed. You know, you're, you're not engaged in that process because it hasn't cost you anything. And what I realized is when I started investing in that, that it Was tough times. There were times where I'm like, man, I don't need to pay $1,000 to go to this course. However, I knew from the previous time when maybe it was $50 and it was a stretch to go to something, the benefit that I gained from that. And so each time I began to kind of have a track record of, oh, wow, my sales, my. My. My internal conversation with myself shifted after this last meeting that I went to. And I really figured out for me, Andy, it was about getting into an environment right, where winning was taking place. Now, even though it might have been some smoke and mirrors and some of that stuff, because, you know, we can. We know we can go to these events, and there can be some smoke and mirrors of what's in place. But I. I remember the pastor saying years ago, you know, chew the hay and spit the sticks, you. You won't. You won't like everything that's there, but if you can get something from it, that makes sense, then that was it. And so I started investing on and on, but it was tough. But what I realized is that when I went, I was so focused on, I've got to get something out of this. Because I invested 500, I invested $1,000, and because I put my money up, I didn't want anybody talking next to me, man, when I was sitting in the sessions, I mean, I was like, hey, this is everything on the line for me. I'm here to continue to develop. And so when I look at that and I hear advisors saying that, you know, well, I don't have any money to do this. Well, I don't have any money to do that. I challenge that, because we all have disposable income for which we can focus in on. And what I will tell you is that the folks who focused in on themselves, I've always found them to be the folks that were willing to invest in themselves, man. They were willing to invest in what that profit process was going to be in order to take them further. And I think that that's what it was for me, man, is that each year I started picking up something, and I would encourage those folks that were on my team, hey, you need to go. And you know what I did, which was a huge mistake in the beginning, Andy, is that I would pay for people to go. And when I paid for people to go, man, I never got the same results because they don't appreciate it in the game. They had no skin in the game.

No skin needs no action.

Exactly. Exactly. And so. And what I Like about that is that when you talk about paying for it, then it debunks the same thing that you started out this conversation with. If me as an advisor, am I waiting on my agency, my agency leader to provide these types of things for me, then we already know the results are the same. If somebody's paying for all those things for you, you don't have any skin in the game. Guess what? You don't have any skin in the game. It's just that. It's just that simple. It's. And you know what? You'll be late to that meeting because you didn't pay for it. You'll have something that will get in the way of you getting there. That because you didn't pay for it. But when you paid for it, man, when I paid for it, I was there early, man. I was known for Andy sitting in the front row. And I was there when the door. It might be a line outside that venue, but I was going to be there early because I wanted a front row seat, man, because I paid for it. And I realized that the leaders were sitting up front. All the rest of the folks that were looking to play on their phones and whatever it was, they were talking and they're going on smoke breaks. Those are people back in the back, man. But the folks that were front, they came to get something. And I made sure that I was a front row dweller, bro, that I was gonna get everything I came to get in there and.

And talking about putting yourself in the room, I think it's important you surround yourself with people playing the game at a higher level with you than you, whether it's in business or in life, in person, you know, I. I've been a part of a mastermind that's industry specific and there's guys, women that are playing at a much higher level. It was uncomfortable as hell, but I wanted to get in that room. And more recently, Kareem, a friend of mine runs these men's retreats. He didn't intend to be for men, but it ended up being that way where he picks really cool experience, brings a bunch of guys together. It's a mastermind.

Yes.

And you interact over the course of two or three days. And I remember the first one I went to that he hosted. I was by far the least successful person when it came to money, wealth on paper.

Correct.

Correct. It was uncomfortable as hell.

Yeah.

You know what they forced me to do? I've now gone to three of those. And I just think and force myself to play at a Higher level now because of those guys that I interact with that are already doing it.

Already doing it, man. Already doing it. And again, you go back to thinking the books that you've read. And I mean, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room, right? I mean, that just doesn't make sense to be the smartest person in the room unless you're there for coaching them, right? You're there for a purpose. But if you're talking about that, those are the folks that you're sitting around and you're sharing concepts with, you're sharing ideas with. Well, you know what? In that other room that we talked about before, that's where all the naysayers are. That's where all the folks are saying, well, I tried this one time, it can't be done. Or I try to. But when you get in that other room, you got folks that are way out of the box thinkers. And a lot of that has come because of personal development, man. They didn't always think like that, they didn't always see it that way. But personal development, as you said, whether it's investing with yourself, from, from reading your books, from looking. As you started out earlier, we were Talking offline, the YouTube videos, just getting comfortable with getting new ideas, fresh ways of thinking involved in and what we already know, those books that you have on your bookshelf and I have on my bookshelf, you're there 100 years old, but guess what? The principles haven't changed. The principles are the exact same thing. So people go and they get on a thing. And one thing I will caution to our listeners is now what I'm not advocating for is that you chase the idea of the month club, right? I'm not advocating that you chase because. Because you can get caught up to chasing the next great speaker, chasing the next person that you think is going to be. Because what you'll find out still is that until you do the work, it does not matter what the speaker is going to do. He or she has gone out, they spoke, you bought their materials, and they're gone off to their next venue and they don't even know who the hell you are, Right? So what you've got to look at is to say, oh, I've got some information. Now that I have this set of information, I've attended this event. What one or two things am I going to implement from the event that I just attended before I go chasing the next event, go looking for the next big deal? And I'LL have people always ask me, you know, well, well, what books did you read? And I'm like, well, okay, here's the list of books I read. I've run read a ton of books over the years. But what you've got to look at, you got to eat as much of this stuff as possible, right? You, you gotta, you've got, you gotta keep on eating. That's gotta be your biggest piece is what am I feeding myself? That is changing me internally. And if I don't have that, then to your point, I as the funniest thing. You talk about that two year hop, Andy, man, I have business cards from folks, man. And I might have six, seven business cards from a man.

And I the same person.

Yeah, I think it's the funniest thing ever because I'm like, well, well, dude, last time you told me this was the best thing. And these are vendors that are trying to get me to place business with them. And I'm like, well, dude, you're only going to be here for two years though. I mean, you know, I mean, what are you telling me? Because think about this, Andy. A lot of times we're buying Andy, we're buying Kareem. I'm only looking at this deal because it was Andy. I would not even look at your company if Andy had not been there. And because I like Andy. And by no means am I saying that if people find a better opportunity, I'm a capitalist like everybody else. You find a better opportunity, that's great. But it should not look like every two years that you're hopping because, you know, my dad always tells me, he says I move around so much and he says, what are you running from? Or what are you running to, son? What, what is it? You know, because you're always on a move. And I'm like, dad, I'm uncomfortable being comfortable. Yeah, I'm uncomfortable being comfortable, man.

Yep, I'm the same way.

And each time that I expand here, it just removes all the limit thinking that I have. And it puts me in a place where I'm like, hey, don't tell me I can't do it. Tell somebody else they can't do it. But if you tell me I can't do it, bro, that's exactly the reason that I'm going to do, I want.

To say, about to prove you wrong. Yep.

Oh, I want to set precedent now, bro.

Well, but here's, you know, the two things I've done recently, Kareem, that I think have been the biggest game changers to that topic.

Yes.

Number one, it's so important. I think people get stuck on too. And you, I guarantee you were the same way early on when maybe you weren't as successful. There's that belief of I'm going to become this person when I.

Yes.

When I sell all that, when I sell all those accounts or when I hit $100,000, I will be. No, no, no, no, no, no. You gotta become that person right now, today that achieves those goals. And the second thing, going back to you, you talk about YouTube videos and stuff. One thing I've done recently that's been so helpful is I picked areas of my life. Remember, guys, this isn't about product.

Right.

Areas of my life that I knew I wanted to get better. Health and fitness. I, I'm, I, I take care of myself. But how can I get better?

Yes.

Happiness and joy.

Cryptocurrency, which both you and I are diving into. What else? My business mindset. And here's what I did. We. It's so easy to go chase all these different people because there's so many influencers out there today.

Yes, there are.

I said I'm going to take each topic and I'm going to pick one mentor and I am not going to listen to anything else.

Oh, that's strong.

So I'm gonna pick one mentor for each area. So here's what. I'll literally list this out. Mindset is a guy named Tom Bilyeu.

Okay.

He's the guy who built Quest bars to a billion dollars. Sold it.

Wow.

Mindset. All mindset guys.

Okay.

I said for crypto. Raoul Paul.

Okay.

Macro. Macro economist. I'm gonna follow him.

Yeah.

Health and fitness. Nick Bear, the guy I was mentioning offline, who's got the supplement company. And then Jesse Itzler. For happiness and joy. I'm gonna study those four guys. And there's no reason it's guys or women. Just those four guys. And it's. I'm just going to study them. They're my mentors and I like it. To your point, guys, all this stuff is at your fingertips for free.

Yes, yes, yes. What are you waiting on? And so I give it to you.

Let's wrap up this. We were going to go 15 or 20, but as usual with Kareem and I, we're already 10 minutes beyond our goal.

Because it's good, man.

Good stuff.

You know, it reminds me of the church, but it says the pastor said nobody else gets it excited. I'm preaching myself happy. So if nobody else gets Excited, then you and I'll be happy and we'll come back to this thing again.

Let's wrap this one up. Okay, Kareem with okay, you've read a boatload of books in your career as fi. If you said, I'm, I'm a young advisor right now, and I'm at that point where maybe I don't believe in personal development or maybe I think it's my boss's job, but I need to make a shift. Recommend one book. If there's one book you could recommend right now they read, what would it be?

It's called Personal Accountability. Personal Accountability. I can't think of the author right now. Gosh, I wish I had, but I'll make sure that you have it so we can put it in your chat. But Personal accountability, man, and, and that book, somebody, somebody gave me that book years ago and, and it, and it just challenged me to challenge myself, Andy. And I think that until you get in a space that you are challenging you, your personal being of who you are, that you will continue to tell yourself lies. You'll continue to be the person that everyone says has great potential, but you'll also be the person that will not fulfill that potential because you have had zero growth within. And so I think that personal accountability, when I read that is that again, the old adage of you've got, you're pointing a finger and four more pointing back at you. And I started realizing that all of this is inside. This is all something that I have to do. There's something that nobody can tell me. Someone, somebody said, well, how much time do you spend on it? As much time as I need. You know, everybody's at different place on where they need to be from a personal development. And so I don't know what your childhood was like, what your teenage years were like with your adult years have been. And so if you've got a lot of stuff to deal with, then you're going to need to spend a lot more time in personal development. Right? You, you, you've got to look at how do you get some of those things out of the way because you're going to continue to be in your own way. And so I think that that book for me really started getting me to think and, and just kind of separate those things out. Andy, as to what, what was factor fiction in my life. And I realized that I had a lot of fiction, man, that I was calling fact. And, and it was a lot of fiction, bro. And personal accountability helped me to really dig into that and, and be a better person at being accountable to me.

That's.

What about you? What would you think if you had that?

I would recommend, you know, I always recommend books like the One Thing for productivity and all that, but I'm gonna go a different route. I, I would tell them to read the book the Alchemist. And I don't know if I've ever read that book. Great once. Because once you dive into personal development, you start putting the action in, putting the work right. What's going to happen is God, universe, whatever you want to call it.

Yes.

Gonna start conspiring to help you out.

Yes.

And it's that ability to, when, when that happens to, as they talk about in the book, trust the omens, trust your gut. And there's going to be times you want to give up. There's going to be times that you don't believe it's possible. But because you're putting in the work and you've made the shifts between the ears.

Yes.

Just, just trust your gut and continue to follow the path.

Yes. I mean, I, I couldn't agree more. And I can't tell you how much that has played into my career. Just to your point. What, what. However people want to frame it, from my standpoint, it would be a fake faith standpoint. And, and, and I'll tell you, even from a, a Christian standpoint, if you look in the Bible, it simply says that faith without works is dead.

Right.

So in other words, you can have all the faith and work, but if you ain't doing no work, bro, that there's nothing to talk about. So all of this still comes back to getting the mind right and then executing right. Because the work piece has to come in. And so, man, this is always fantastic when we get together, Andy. I think the things that we're sharing with advisors, because even we can say young advisors, but we know that those advisors that have been around 20, 30 years, it's the thing where you do some things that work and you stop doing it for whatever reason. It's human nature. The things that we do that work, we stop doing them. And I'm guilty as well of stopping to do the things that have already been successful. And it's just us challenging you today to go back in and think about, you know, what does that look like from a personal development standpoint. And, and let's not leave that in the hands of anybody else. That is, it's called personal development for a reason. Right. And so we're looking at what we need to do personally and Looking at how we grow within, we know that if we begin to change this, the mindset that Andy is always talking about, that ultimately it comes from the inside out. And it shows up in numbers, it shows up in relationships. It shows up in relationships with our kids. Whatever we're doing, people will begin to see. And what you said, Andy, and I'll. I'll leave my comments with this, is that you will begin to attract what it is that you are now reading, what you are now listening to. All of those things will come out and then people will gravitate towards that and they'll be attracted to it. And so some of the things that you've had a challenge with, getting in a room with this CEO or that cfo and I was changing here and changing inside, will begin to attract those people and they'll want to be around you, which will give you the opportunity to ultimately talk about what it is that you do and how you help them. And so, man, I'm excited that we chose this to tackle today. What's your parting thoughts, Andy?

I would say, you know, I know it's a passion of yours to help others win. Same thing with me. And I think one of the reasons we created this show was there is a lack of training and maybe sometimes a lack of mentorship in our industry. And we want to be that source if we can, for those advisors out there. I've seen too many good young advisors come in passionate, energetic, and leave burnt out after a couple years because, yes, they have no direction.

Exactly.

And I think that's what you and I want to use this show as a means to help those young and veteran, young and old, as we call it, and newbies alike.

Yes.

To just make those small shifts they need to make between the ears that are going to change everything. Because I know it's helped my career, it's helped yours. And, man, if we can get more advisors make those shifts, you know what happens? The rest of the industry just improves. And that's the ultimate goal.

That's the ultimate goal. Well, man, this has been fantastic again today, Andy. I'm excited about where we're going with this, and I'm really loving the fact that we're focusing in on those areas that many people don't spend time talking about. And it's product knowledge. It. It's the. The next sale is that, you know, whatever the new. The new idea of the month is of how to get in front of people. But when we start with us, that is the best investment that we could ever make is in ourselves. And once we start there, we can ultimately become very much a. A help for those other folks that are there.

So that's it, brother.

Excited, brother.

That's it. So everybody else tuning in? I say this every week. If Kareem and I give you that clarity, that clarity gives you confidence. And when you're confident, you take the action. So go make that action to happen today. We'll see you soon.

Booyah. I love it.