Do You Have The Drive To Succeed?

Get around people that are going to make you uncomfortable. Don't put yourself in the room where you're the smartest and you feel the best. No, get yourself in a room where.

You'Re like, dang, I don't really belong here. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the accelerate your insurance sales podcast. My name is Andy Neary and this is episode two. In today's episode, I am going to challenge you to think bigger, be better. Yeah. I'm going to ask you to ask.

Yourself the big question.

How bad do you want it this year? I talk, I work with a lot of advisors who tell me they are ready for an amazing year. But I'm not quite convinced their actions are going to back up their words. So what I'm going to do in today's episode is share my six year journey that I went on between 2014 and 2019 to ensure that I achieved and reached my full potential in my insurance career. It was about betting on myself. It was about investing the time and the money and never, never expecting anybody to do it for me. So if you are fired up to have an amazing year, in fact maybe.

Make this a record breaking year, you.

Are going to absolutely want to tune into episode two. I am going to be blunt, I might ruffle your feathers, but man, no growth occurs unless you have an uncomfortable conversation. And that is what episode two is going to be about. Let's dive in. Here's the accelerate your insurance sales podcast. Episode two. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the accelerate your insurance sales podcast. How you doing today? How is the year started for you today? I want to talk to you about effort and I want you to ask yourself this question today. How bad do I want it? And I wanted to talk about this subject today because I've had the opportunity to kick off our year with some in person workshops and it's been fun to go on this mini road show to provide these half day workshops, really helping insurance professionals build a clear weekly blueprint to go grab attention from the right prospects. That's the name of the game. I call it your attention blueprint. And what's interesting is when I'm out delivering these in person workshops, the energy in the room is great, right? And there's nothing that will replace the the energy that you get when you are in the same room with other advisors. But what's interesting is when I start to go into the work that's going to be required to grab attention to become the thought leader your prospects think of, you can just see the look of disappointment come over Some advisors faces when they recognize how much work it's going to take.

And it hit me, you know, when I see these looks, my first reaction is, how bad do you want it?

How bad do you want success?

And that's what I want to talk about today. I want to ask you the same question. How bad do you want success this year? You know, when I think of our industry, I see a lot of advisors right now who are very casual about their success. You know, right now, I am dming a lot of our clients and prospects on LinkedIn saying, hey, you ready for a great year?

And of course, everybody's going to say.

Yes, this is going to be an awesome year.

Who's going to.

No one's ever going to message me and say, yeah, actually, Andy, I'm hoping to have a pretty mediocre year this year. I'm going to take my foot off the gas just kind of coast. No one says that. Right.

Everybody is psyched for, for a big year.

But I'll be honest, most people are lying to themselves. They say all the right things, but then you go look at their actions, and their actions don't back up their words. And so when I think about what it takes today to win the attention of your prospect, I'm going to be blunt. You need to put in the work. And what I'm going to share with you today is my journey between 2014 and 2019 that really set the stage for where I am today. Now, I want you to think about that on a timeline. We're 11 years removed from when I started this journey.

It takes time.

There is no such thing as overnight success. But if you're committed to put in the work to have a successful career in the insurance industry, what I'm about to share with you is going to unlock a lot of ideas for you if you're committed to success.

Now, I'm going to be very blunt during this episode, so if I say anything that ruffles your feathers, I apologize. But you have to hear it. You have to hear it. You have to have those tough conversations with others, with yourself. If you're going to get on the other side to have success, you know, you might be. Think about the advice you're giving your children right now. If you have kids, you're listening to this episode, and you have young kids who are in sports, think about the advice you're giving those kids. You're telling your son, your daughter to show up every day. You're telling your son, your daughter to put all that work and you got to put in the work and when.

No one is watching, if you're going.

To improve in this specific sport. But, but are you doing the same in your business, in your career right now? Are you following the same advice you're giving your kids? I bet you you're not. And so again, I'm going to ask you, how bad do you want it this year? You know, for me, this journey started in 2014. I was not an overnight success in the insurance industry, nor do I even consider myself today very much a big success whatsoever.

But for the first 13 years, I coasted.

I was very mediocre, which is interesting because I understood what it took to be successful by putting in the work, off the field. That's what I did in baseball, to be able to go on and have the success I had in my baseball career. But I did not apply that in my insurance career. I was very lackadaisical. I half assed it a lot. I expected my boss to do a lot of the work for me. I expected leads to be handed to me. I complained about how hard it was. I complained about how poor my territory, my prospects were. I was that advisor you hate to hang around, maybe it's you, but in 2014.

We made a very big decision in our life, and that was to pick up our stuff, leave the state of Wisconsin where Amy and I had spent our entire life, and move west to Colorado for a new start. And when I got out there.

I realized that I had to get my shit together if I was going to have success in the insurance industry. And I had a lot of tough discussions with myself about whether or not I wanted to keep going in the industry, if I'm being honest with you. But I knew that if I was going to turn this thing around, it was on me. I couldn't ask anybody else to do the work for me. I couldn't ask anybody else to invest the time, the money in my success. It was on me.

And early in my career out there, I made the decision that the first thing I had to do is I had to get better with how I used my time. So in my effort to get my shit together, I made my first investment in me in 2014 by purchasing a productivity course from a gentleman named Darren Hardy, who is still teaching it today. He was my first real big business mentor. Never met him, but Darren Hardy's course, Insane Productivity.

Was my first journey into personal development. And so I purchased the course. It was, I think, 9.97. It was about a 12 week online self Taught course, you go through it as fast or as slow as you want. Every week, a new module from the course would be released to you via email. And you just went through, worked your way through the course. But I knew that if I was going to get better at leveraging my time, I had to invest in becoming better at leveraging my time. And so this course, insane productivity, is really where my ability to get a lot of shit done every week launched. Because that course.

Taught me how to stay focused, how to focus on the things that matter the most, my biggest priorities that are going to move the needle the farthest. And quite frankly, did I have a thousand dollars at that time to invest? Absolutely not. One one part of my story I don't share a lot, but I'm going through right now. When Amy and I moved from Wisconsin to Colorado, I lost $40,000 on my condo. Yeah, I was, I was the guy that made that decision to buy my condo in summer of 2007. So do the math. You. We all know what happened in 2008. I lost $40,000 on my condo. I had to bring money, 30 grand to the table to buy my, to sell my condo. But we were so committed to starting over, to moving out west, it didn't matter. So did I have a thousand dollars early on in my journey in Colorado to invest in my own personal development?

Absolutely not. But I knew I needed to bet on me.

Now, fast forward 2015.

I make my second investment. This one was in time, not money. I knew that I wanted to start a an email newsletter.

And at the time, I had contact email contacts for 30 prospects and I had my Outlook account. Now, none of these 30 contacts asked to be on my email list. But in January 2015, I wanted to start a newsletter because I knew that if I could deliver valuable information to these prospects, I had a chance to earn their trust and their credibility.

And so off I went, sending out this email newsletter once a month. Now, in the meantime, as I'm trying to build this email contact list and continuing to send out this newsletter on a monthly basis, I'm investing hours. What equated to hundreds of hours that year in learning how to write good emails. How can I write emails that deliver value? How can I write emails that ask the right or implement the right or put in the right call to action to get somebody to want to book an appointment with me? Right. I invested the time to become a better copywriter at email. And lo and behold, that first year off of 30 contacts, which eventually grew to roughly 100 contacts. I wrote $180,000 of business by three prospects who came to me because of that newsletter. But it would have never happened had I not invested the time to become better at writing emails. I didn't go seeking some silver bullet script that one of my peers was using. I knew I had to be good at it. I had to learn. Hey, it's Andy Neary. Thank you for listening to the Accelerate your insurance podcast. Did you know the ideas we share on the show are things we actually specialize in helping you implement? If you want to increase your sales, make more money, and be the thought leader your prospects, reach out to, Please go to my LinkedIn profile DM me and sign up for a free discovery call. Again, go to my LinkedIn profile DM me and we'll get you set up for a free discovery call. All right, now back to the show. Now, in 2016, I said, all right, I think I want to become a better speaker. Up until that point, I had not really utilized the art of public speaking to grow my business. I'd given a few speeches, mainly at weddings as a best man. But I really felt public speaking could help grow my career. And I knew I couldn't half ass it. I didn't want to be mediocre at it. So in 2016, I made two investments that equated thousands of dollars. The first one is I is investing in a speakers academy that was hosted and run by the National Speakers association, nsa. And they had a great chapter down in Denver, Colorado. And so for six months, one Saturday a month, I would drive down to Colorado, Denver, excuse me, and spend the whole day in class. And it taught me how to become a better speaker, how to market myself as a speaker, all the little nuances in public speaking. And when that course was done, I immediately invested in a speaking coach, a gentleman by the name of Jerry Sandusky. No, not the one you're thinking of. This is Jerry with a G. Jerry is still a very good friend of mine. Today he's the play by play announcer for the Baltimore Ravens. But I invested in Jerry to help me become a better speaker. He's a wonderful. He's an amazing keynote speaker. And so in that year, I ex. I, I spent several thousand dollars to make myself a better speaker. Now I'm going to say it again. Did I have the money at the time?

Absolutely not.

But I had a vision, and I bet on me. And lo and behold, public speaking launched, launched me as a producer, as a sales professional. Public speaking today is still the number one channel I use to generate revenue for our company not from speaking fees, but from the leads, the opportunities that it creates when I stand on stage. But none of it would have happened if I hadn't invested the money and the time to become a better speaker. Now in 2017.

Amy and I sign up for an all day Tony Robbins seminar down in Denver, Colorado. And I'd never gone to one of them, forget which one it was. It wasn't Date with Destiny, it was just a one day. It wasn't his four day immersions, but it was an all day seminar down at the stockyards in Denver. And if you've ever been to one of Tony Robbins events, you know the first half of the day is a lineup of speakers, a lot of them well known speakers, people we all see on TV. And then Tony comes on at about 1 o' clock in the afternoon and then he goes till she's 10, 11 o' clock at night, sometimes midnight. But that morning we had a lineup of speakers who, who took the stage to inspire us. You know Robert Yerkovich from.

I'm forgetting the Entrepreneur show with Mark Cuban and the others. I apologize, my mind is blanking right now.

But in the middle of the morning, this guy walks on stage. Somebody had heard the name of but had never seen. And Gary Vaynerchuk took the stage and.

Started to tell us about this concept that was still evolving at the time called social media. And he stood on stage and, and told the audience how social media is going to be the future when it comes to growing a business, growing a personal brand, you name it, it is not going anywhere. Of course, he used several curse words to get us to the the takeaway and the key message from the the keynote itself. But after hearing that keynote, I said, you know what, he's right.

Social media is the wave of the future.

And I'm going to use social media to grow my insurance business, to grow my speaking business, because this is an opportunity to get a good message in.

Front of a lot of people at one time.

Now, did I just start posting and hoping things went well? No. After that keynote, I went back home and every single morning.

For eight years running now.

I started watching Gary Vee's videos on YouTube. I started studying how to become a better creator, how to record effective videos, how to edit videos. I put hundreds of hours into becoming a better social media creator. And we sit here today at the beginning of 2025, blessed to say social media is our number one lead generator we have.

Why? Because I made the decision in 2017 to spend hundreds of hours to get better.

I have people today make one post.

And they're about ready to give up.

Because it didn't get the likes and.

The comments they wanted.

How bad do you want it now?

In 2018.

I knew that.

I had a gift to coach people. And I don't say that to brag. I say it because one of my peers, Jeff Fox. Jeff, if you're listening in, man, I owe you where I am today. To you, my friend. I was at a speaker's academy that a gentleman in our industry had asked me to be a part of, asked me to be a coach at. And we were helping other insurance professionals become better speakers. We were teaching them how to use speaking to grow their business. Now, again, remember, why was I asked to become a coach? Well, because I had invested the time.

And the money two years prior to.

Becoming a better speaker. So at that point, I was really utilizing speaking as a big piece of my business growth. And it was at that academy that I was coaching at. Jeff Fox looked at me and he said, hey, man, what are you doing in this business? Why are you selling insurance?

You need to be coaching people.

That's your gift, brother. And at the time, I just looked at him and I nodded and I put it in the back of my head. But I went home with that, and I chewed on it for a long time. And in 2018, when I realized Jeff's right, I made another investment. I decided to invest in a mastermind, Fast Foundations.

Where I would learn how to become a better business operator, a better entrepreneur. Because at that point, I didn't know if I had what it took to be an entrepreneur. And I invested well over $5,000 to become part of this mastermind again. Did I have the money in the moment? Absolutely not. But I had a vision, and I bet on me. And the reason I feel we have made a lot of good decisions running complete game consulting today comes from that mastermind and where I learned how to become a business operator.

I joined that mastermind for two years before the pandemic hit. And I learned what it took to be an entrepreneur. I learned that I could be an entrepreneur, but none of it. I probably would not have started this business had I not joined that mastermind and surrounded myself with other people and mentors who gave me the confidence that I had what it took.

I still connect with an accountability partner.

From that mastermind every week to this day.

Now, 2019.

I'm speaking, growing my business, starting to coach others as a side hustle, still Selling insurance.

I knew it was time to start a podcast. At that point, podcasting had been become, become a pretty mainstre channel.

And I knew that through speaking, podcasting could become a great advantage for me because it's, to me it was just another form of speaking. You're just doing it in a microphone, not on a camera. And so I launched the Bullpen sessions podcast. And at the time, I didn't know what I wanted to do with it, quite frankly. I wanted to just interview current former professional athletes like myself who have gone on, who had gone on to have a successful chapter two in their life. And I got to interview a lot of cool people. And then a few years later I really said, all right, if we're going to use the podcast to grow the business, I've gotta, I've gotta shift its focus to the insurance industry and specifically teaching the insurance industry. That's why we just changed the name to accelerate your insurance sales podcast. But in 2019, I made the decision. I was going to start a podcast to continue putting my message in front of a lot of people at one time. Now the good news is it doesn't take a lot of money to start a podcast. But I invested hundreds of hours to learn how to podcast, how to start a podcast, how to interview people, what equipment do I need. And now we are 320 episodes in, if we're counting Bullpen Sessions and now accelerate your insurance sales podcast.

But none of it would have happened.

If I did not invest that time in 2019 to become a better podcaster.

Now think about that.

That is six years where I made.

A decision to invest time and or money in becoming better at my craft so I could have the business I desire. I could achieve the success I want. It started investing in productivity.

Went to email, went to speaking, followed.

By social media, followed by podcasting and joining a mastermind so I could become a better entrepreneur. There is no way in hell I would be where I'm at right now if I did not go on that six year journey to become better. And when I look back at 2014.

Not once did I hope somebody else.

Would make the investment for me.

I knew that if it was going.

To work, I had to bet on me. I just heard this said on a.

Podcast this morning, the reason people aren't succeeding right now is because you want guarantees from everybody else. But you're not giving yourself a guarantee.

You won't join a coaching program unless.

There'S a 90 day guarantee.

But how often have you looked in the mirror and Guaranteed your own success.

Yeah.

This is the time you need to look in the mirror and say, how bad do I want it?

Yeah. I'm getting fired up now because this is what I am seeing far too often in the insurance industry right now.

We have too many people who are casual about their success. You tell me you want it, but when I look at your actions, you tell me a different story.

So what I'm going to ask you.

To do this year is if you.

Are committed to success, if you're committed to hit your sales goal, whatever goals.

You have, I want you to start.

By looking in the mirror and saying, how bad do I want it? Am I willing to commit the time, maybe the money to achieve what I need to achieve so I can reach.

My full potential in the insurance industry?

And if you're not that committed, you're not that interested, go find another job.

But, dang it, I want you to win this year, but I need you to be a little more committed to your own success. Stop looking for guarantees from everybody else and look at yourself and guarantee you're gonna do whatever it takes to win.

My buddy Kareem Cade says it best. You can make all the changes you want, but you're gonna take you wherever you go and you will not change your results unless you change you.

This is the year that you finally get fed up with your current results.

And you do something about it.

I actually moved across the country to get my together.

You don't need to, but you need to shift your perspective on what it takes to win. And then you need to put in.

The work so you can win.

So that's my advice for you today. I know this was a little fired up version of me today, so thank you for listening. But, man, this is the year to do something.

This is the year to go all in on you. Don't let the slightest little challenge or hurdle prevent you from getting where you know you are capable of going.

Just because your boss says, no, we're.

Not going to invest in your own personal development.

Don't stop there.

Do something about it. Seek the mentorship. Seek the coaching. Seek the people. Get yourself in the room with others who are playing at a higher level with you. Get around people that are going to make you uncomfortable. Don't put yourself in the room where you're the smartest and you feel the best.

No.

Get yourself in a room where you're.

Like, dang, I don't really belong here.

When I joined that mastermind in 2018.

That'S exactly how I felt I was one of the oldest in the room.

Yet I didn't feel like I belonged at first. It was uncomfortable.

So you're the only one who's going to do something about it. You're the only one that's going to take what I just had to say today and actually take action. So I can't do the work for you. You're going to have to do it yourself. But man, I hope you're committed this year. I love you and I want to see you have a record year. But at the in order to do that, you're going to have to put in a lot of work. You're going to have to put in work when no one is watching and the biggest bet you're going to have to make is betting on yourself. So I hope you do it. I hope I see you on the other side with a record breaking year. And if we get an opportunity to help you get there, I will feel very grateful that you committed the time and the money in having us help you. But no matter what you decide to do, let's make this a record year. I want you to bet on yourself. But the one action item I want to give you from today's episode is turn this off. Go walk into the mirror in your bathroom, in your bedroom, look at yourself and ask, how bad do I want it this year? Be good. That's all we got for this episode of the Accelerate your insurance sales podcast. One of the most valuable things you can do to help us and other new potential listeners find our show is for you to rate the show and leave a review. So as a special bonus for you if you leave us a review, take a screenshot of your review and send it to me as a DM to my LinkedIn profile. I will send you a free copy of our LinkedIn Diamond Playbook, our proven four step strategy to grow your business on LinkedIn. So go right now, leave us a review, screenshot it and send me a DM on LinkedIn. Also, please share this podcast with anyone you think would enjoy it. That's it for now.