Do It FOR YOURSELF and NOBODY ELSE! [Friday Bullpen Session Episode 36]

Hey. Hey. Welcome back. It is Friday. You know what that means? It is time for Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 36. This episode is going to speak near and dear to my heart. It's something I feel very strong about, and it's a message I want to convey to you today because it's very possible that you are.

Living your life right now. I don't care if you're 18 years old, 28, 38, 58, you are still living out a life based on someone else's opinion, based on advice somebody else gave you. And so my advice today, and it's what we're going to talk about on this week's episode, is all I ask is do it for yourself. Don't do it for anyone else. And I'm going to talk to you about exactly what I mean. But before we get into this week's episode, I want you to do one more thing for yourself. I want you to go check out the Complete Game Mastermind. What is it? Well, if you are a health insurance advisor, a sales professional in financial services, and you're already having a fairly good amount of success in your career, number one, congratulations. But if you're trying to take it to the next level, what got you here won't get you there. I'm willing to bet that you have built your business today with a lot of hustle, a lot of grind, a lot of hard work and a lot of hours. But the problem is to take it to the next level to double that size in the future. If you're driven to do that, you. How many more hours do you have? There's only one of you. So it's going to come down to this. It's going to come down to working on your personal brand. It's going to come down to creating a ton of awareness for your brand and your brand message. And that's what the Complete Game Mastermind is about. Imagine surrounding yourself with 11 other professionals looking to do the same thing you are. You imagine the power, the accountability that's going to come out of that and the impact that's going to have on your business. So going to. You're. So do me a favor. I've included a link in the notes. Go check it out. Apply today and let's see if Complete Game is a fit for you. All right, back to today's episode. So let's talk about doing it for yourself and nobody else. What generated this thought in my head that create this topic for today's episode? I think about growing up and growing up with a dad who was the local high school baseball coach and.

Watching the progression of his coaching career from the mid-80s to when he finally decided to retire in the early 2000s. And the type of parent that he dealt with as a coach completely changed. When I was growing up playing for him in the mid-90s, you know, parents weren't as pushy. Parents weren't as driven to force their kids to play certain sports, to try certain sports. But today, I have to tell you that the game has completely changed as far as parenting and athletes go. And if you are a parent, this. This episode is twofold today. One, if you're a parent, I want you to listen to this message. But two, if you were that athlete or you still are that athlete, I want you to listen as well, because I think this is going to be a very important message today. People ask me all the time, you know, because I did play baseball. And if you had a kid, which I don't, Amy, and I don't have any children, if you had a child, would you be a coach, especially in the sport of baseball? And honestly, I would probably answer that with no, I wouldn't. I watch what coaches go through today and how much different it is from just even 15, 20 years ago. And there's. I don't know if I want to be a coach. If I had a child right now playing the sport of baseball, what would I work with him off the field? Absolutely. I would help him create the skills, the knowledge that he needed to be a good baseball player. But I probably wouldn't coach him. I would be that parent that just wants to watch the game from the sidelines, watch my child, his teammates, grow. Because right now, I am seeing so many parents.

Live vicariously through their children.

I watched them put them into these elite travel teams. Quite frankly, when a lot of these kids don't belong there.

And they're forcing their kids to play sports, and what it's leading to is a lot of unhappiness and a lot of burnout for these young athletes.

Again, I go back to when I was playing baseball at the high school, at the college professional ranks. I truly feel that you didn't see that as much from the parents. Yeah, you had. Every team had its one or two parents that really drove their kid. But I watched it. I had. I had teammates. I had a couple teammates in high school that when they were, I don't know, 10, 11 years old, they were probably the best baseball player in the town. If not the entire area. But by the time they hit their sophomore, junior seasons of high school, they burned out. They plateaued. And a lot of it had to do with the parenting. The parents were so driven in making sure that kid was going to play that sport. By the time that child, that athlete, was old enough to recognize that, they actually resented it. And so one, my message for if you're a parent right now with young athletes, don't force your children into certain sports. Don't force your children to play five or six different sports. Yes, I'm all about having the kids try different things to see what they like. But please, do me a favor. Do not force your kids to play a sport they don't like because it's something you want them to do. Do not force your opinions or your objectives on your children, on your young athletes. Because here's what happens.

When these kids become adults. And let's face it, most of them, if not 99% of them, are not going to become professional athletes. They are not going to make a career out of that sport. What's going to happen when they become adults is, is they're going to continue living their life based on what you want them to do. How many times have you heard about that kid, son or daughter who went to college to become an attorney, a financial advisor, a stockbroker, a doctor, because mom and dad wanted them to, and they think that's what mom or dad wants them to do. If you're listening to this episode today, and that's exactly where you are in your career, or you're even in a young athlete right now, and you're playing a sport could be baseball, basketball, volleyball, soccer, and you really don't like it. But you're doing it because you think mom and dad want you to. Here's my advice to you.

Do it for yourself and nobody else.

I think about growing up, I played baseball because I loved it. I truly believe one thing I valued more than ever from my parents, more than anything that my parents did for me, is even though my dad was the high school baseball coach in the town I grew up in, he never forced anything on me. My mom never forced anything on me. And so mom, dad, if you're listening, thank you for that, for being that kind of parent. Because it is something more parents need to have today. Because right now, wherever you are in your career, again, if you're a young high school athlete or you are early on in your business career, heck, you're 30 years into it and you're still, still In a career, in a job that you think you need to have because somebody else gave you that advice. I want you to use this time. This is the second half, the start of the second half of 2020. I want you to use this time to really figure out, is this what you do? Are you doing this because you want to or because somebody else told you you should? Or because you think you need to do it for somebody else? That's the case. It's time to reevaluate. I was the same way early in my business career. When I got into life insurance sales, I got into health insurance sales. Why did I do it? Because somebody else told me I should. Somebody else told me it was the good thing to do. By the time you're 30 years old, you're going to have a great book of business, a great living, and heck, you're going to be able to settle in, play golf times a week and enjoy making a lot of money. But guess what happened? I got to that point, I didn't enjoy it. So I kept going because I kept believing that is what everybody wanted me to do. And it wasn't just but a couple years ago that I had this thought that, hey, you know, I feel like I have a gift of coaching. I feel like I am born to help others grow. Just like my dad was an amazing coach on the baseball field, I felt like I could be an amazing coach.

In the boardroom helping businesses, helping sales professionals grow their careers. But I allowed that thought to stay in the back of my mind because guess what?

I took opinions from others in the industry. Andy, you don't want to do that. There's no way you can make money doing that. You're going to want to stay in the health insurance field. You want to just stick with being a health insurance advisor. That's the way to go. That's the way to make money.

And on and on. It went up until about a year ago when I said I finally had it. And I remember this conversation that Amy and I had and I still thank her today for this conversation. It had been well over a year before I had done anything about building this coaching business because again, I was living.

In the space of doing what I thought others wanted me to do.

And it was about March of 2019. Amy sat me down and she said, listen, I'm sick of you complaining. It's obvious you want a coach. If you don't take action on this right now, I am done supporting you. Quit living a life based on others opinions and go after what it is you want to do.

And I'm happy to say, as of June, 2019, I made that leap. I'm still a health insurance advisor. I still consult my clients, whom I love. But I started the coaching practice, and now I am living a life. I'm growing a business based on my terms, nobody else. And I ask you to do the same thing again. If you're a young athlete, you could be 18 years old right now. You're playing baseball, you're playing basketball. Your parents love the fact you're doing it, but you hate it. Stop. If you're early on in your business career and you're that lawyer, that attorney, that stockbroker, and you're in that position purely because you thought it was the thing to do, somebody gave you a piece of advice, whether it's your mom, your dad, a professor, that said you have to do this to be successful, but yet you hate it. Stop. Or, heck, you're now 30 years into your career and you've had success. But you know what? You haven't enjoyed the last 10 years? Because at the end of the day, you. It's not really what you wanted to do anyways. The money might be great.

Stop. Now is the time to reevaluate your future. We just started the second half of 2020. The first half might be the worst first half of any year you and I have ever experienced. Who knows what the next half is going to look like, right? There's a lot of uncertainty out there. There's a lot of people who are hopeless. But the one thing you can control right now is where you go from here. And my ask of you today is to start living a life, start growing a career based on your terms, nobody else. Stop taking so many opinions, stop taking so many pieces of advice, and stop living your life based on what you think others want you to do. It's the only way to control your future with happiness. It's the only way you're going to achieve the destination you know you were meant to arrive at.

So take the time right now. Sit down, evaluate where you are, and if you have to completely reinvent yourself and rewrite your future, do it. What else do you have to lose? All right? So I hope that helps. Today I found myself in the same position because just 12 months ago. But I am so happy I took that jump. I'm so happy that Amy gave me that piece of advice, the best advice I may have ever received, and I'm asking you to do the same. Stop living your life on other people's. Terms. Go take control of your future and rewrite the rest of your book.