Overcoming Fear and Embracing Change [COMMAND YOUR BRAND PODCAST]

Foreign.

Hey, what's up everybody? Jeremy here. And guys, I'm very excited for the conversation we're going to have today because as you guys know, I love talking to athletes and I love talking to people that did it at a high level professionally. Our guest today was a pitcher in the brewers organization as well as being a two time Ironman finisher and the founder of Complete Game Consulting. I'm really excited to dive into things today. Andy Neary, thanks for hanging out with me today, man.

Awesome. Jeremy. I'm excited to be here. And I just got to tell you, hearing the two time Ironman finisher burns me because I actually try. I did it three times because.

Okay, well, sorry about that.

I didn't finish one of them, so it hurts me to hear that, that, that I'm a two time.

Well, you know what, man? I've always been a competitive power lifter my whole life. And I'm short and stocky too. Like I'm five six. So like, I hear Ironman and I'm like, yeah, no thanks. I'll go lift something heavy. Like, I run a mile every day and that's about all you get out of me.

I don't mess around with those guys, those crossfitters and the power lifters.

No, I'm closing in. I'm 40. I turned 36 last week, so it's like. But in my 20s I was 40 pounds heavier. So I was like 215. At 5 foot 6. I pulled an 80,000 pound army tank. I was, you know, deadlifting. 700 pounds. Not anymore. Because when you have kids, you want to keep up with them. But running man, I do a little bit every day because I've been following. What's his name? Nick Baer. I don't know if you know Nick.

Bear, one of my favorite guys to follow.

Okay. I've been following him. I interviewed him three months ago and he shamed me into starting running. So I've been doing that all year.

I, I, he has his, he has all his workouts out on the app playbook. I've been doing his workouts for the last two and a half years.

Wow. I love, I want to dive into a little bit of like the baseball side of things, first and foremost. And I'm curious, you know, what lessons did you learn? You know, being a, you know, a pitcher in professional baseball. Because like, it is, you know, you and I were talking a little bit before we got started, like, you're not a super tall guy, so it is different and it taxes your body differently. It's different type of preparation. So what lessons did you learn from your baseball career?

Yeah, a lot of people, when they hear my story, they think, wow, that must have been great. You know, how lucky it was that you got a chance to play pro baseball. But what they don't realize is, you know this. As an athlete, I didn't reach my full potential in pro baseball. And the lesson I took away, unfortunately, was when all you're trying to do is fit in, you will never stand out and you will never ball. Fear of comparison. Because you're literally compared to your teammates via stats every single day. And then I had a fear of failure. I was a free agent. I wasn't a high draft pick. So I had that fear that every time I took the mound, I had it to be perfect because it's easy to cut a free agent.

That's really interesting. So the thing I'm interested to find out then, Andy, like, like looking at that, then, you know, you mentioned, you know, you felt like you didn't reach your full potential, you know, playing professional baseball. I'm curious, like, then, like, what do you take with that lesson and what do you do with that lesson?

Right?

Like, it's one thing to realize it, but it's another thing to take this and like, use it for something. You mentioned the three things that, you know, you learned about, like being a free agent, these different things. But I'm really curious in life implementation, where that took you.

I'll tell you what, Jeremy. I'm 45 today. My last year in pro ball, I was 22. It still drives me today because the first 10 years of my insurance career, I've spent 22 years in the insurance industry. The first 10, I still battled those issues. Fear of failure, fear of comparison, fear of judgment, just wanting to fit in. And I was terrible at selling insurance because of it. And today, growing my own business and helping others in the industry grow their business, what drives me every single day is that drive to reach not only my full potential, but helping insurance professionals do the same.

You know, that's really interesting because I'm a big believer in adversity is actually a gift, right? Like, if you look at it, I'm going to use a football comparison here, but if you look at, there's very few number one overall picks that make it. And you know why that is? Because every day of their life, they've been told they're the best. They've had natural talent and natural ability. But when you get to that level, everybody has natural talent. Natural ability. What matters is what's in here and what's up here. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's a good gift.

You know what? I was thinking about singing about this two nights ago, driving back from the airport.

Yeah.

LeBron James may retire at the end of the year. Right. And there's always debates about Jordan was the best, is Jordan better. Right. But one thing I will give LeBron James that I don't think anybody gives him credit enough for. He came out of high school with possibly the most pressure a high school basketball players ever had.

Yes. And to some extent, he lived up to it.

He's the all time leading scorer. Right. He lived up to that pressure. And that's that point of when the expectations are high, are you stepping up to the plate and reaching your full potential? And so you're absolutely right. The number of first round draft picks in baseball that never make it to the top is extraordinarily high.

Well, because you also have guy for the Braves, I think this year that just blew out his elbow again the second time. Because you also look at it like, you know, you could be the most talented, you could be the best, but your body may give up. Because I look at it, that's what happened with my dad in pro ball. Like, you know, had the mental aspect, he could play hard, but your body also gives out. So you also, and I think that's important also looking at your business career. Right. Because you know, we mentioned your ironman and we mentioned your competition. Like keeping yourself physically in good shape is also really going to help you in your drive as a person in business.

Yeah, I agree. You know, when I was still advising.

I was selling health insurance and my perspective on it was this. If I'm going to walk into a business and deliver the bad news that their health insurance rates are going up. Right. And I'm going to tell them the reason it's happening is because their employees are not healthy. I better be a beacon of health. And that was one of my drives outside of the drive of trying to reach my full potential. One of the reasons I work out every day, Jeremy, is the only way I can help other people achieve their full potential is by constantly striving to reach my own. And I know hindsight is 20 20. I've had this conversation with a lot of my friends and peers lately. I wish I could go back and play pro baseball. Knowing what I know now with the habits I have today, I think it would be a lot different. But it's because you learn as you go through life, right, you learn by failing, you learn. But early on in my career, I just wasn't willing to take those risks. And I would say today, I'm a very different person. And that drive to reach your full potential is something that. Something that gets me up every day at 4:30 to just go out and get after it.

Five, 5:30 is about all I can do, man. 4:30 seems just a little bit early. But I'm curious then for you then, because, you know, you've. You mentioned you've had a long career in insurance. You've been very successful at it. You're helping a lot of other people to figure out how they can be successful at it. What was that thing that changed for you then? Like, what was that thing that changed where you approached this? And you're like, man, I'm just going to kill it. You can.

Great question. 2014, Amy and I decided to move to Colorado. Amy's my girlfriend, and I'd been in the industry 13 years at that point. And so here we are, May of 2014, full circle. We're moving back to Wisconsin here in a few days.

Oh, no, no. I'm a Packers fan, so. No, man, that's cool.

Moved from Wisconsin nine years ago. You and I are recording this on a Wednesday. We're moving back in three days.

Oh, my gosh.

But when I moved out here, I found myself in a market, nobody knows who I am.

And I said, I have a choice. I can continue being the person I've always been. Now just trying to fit into a market, nobody knows who I am, or I can use this as an opportunity to rewrite my future.

That's what I was going to ask you. Is it a benefit? Because it's like nobody knows who I am. Do you know what I mean? That's actually a huge benefit, in my opinion.

I don't share this with many people, Jeremy, but this move we're about to make back in three days, there's a little fear in it, I won't lie, because Colorado changed me, and it's where I built my brand. It's why I have the business I have today. Now that we're moving back to where we came from, there's that fear of, I don't want to go back to that person. Mm. And that's all mindset, Right. That's my choice. But absolutely. You know, as I look back on the nine years we've been here, that's. It's when I decided to say, you know what? I'm Going all in on me. It's my chance to literally create a new chapter because nobody knows me out here. And it's the only reason I'm sitting talking to you right now about my business and what we're doing to help the insurance industry.

So let me ask you this then because I think it is important like you have that realization then I guess, like what things do you put in in place for yourself to make sure that doesn't happen? Right. Like how does your approach change? So you can. Because, you know, listen, people are listening to this. You know, maybe they've been an agent in one place for at one point in time. But you know, markets change, families change, the economy changes. We've seen that last two years. Like people had to, you know, move to Florida, move to Texas, move to different places, but at the same time you want to keep doing what you're doing. So how do you maintain that person you are when you change that space?

Habits. You know, I look at, I look at things. You'll get this as an athlete, like I look at starting my day just like the routine I had when I was starting on the mound. You know, if I had a game in college, I was pitching in college and I was a starter in college, my routine would start an hour before the game and I had a certain ritual I went through. Right. Because I knew once I took the mound in the bullpen to get ready, I was locked in. And I look at it the same way with business today. How do you start your day? What's my pre game routine to get ready? So I realized that, well, my habits are going to be the same in Wisconsin as they are here. I'm just changing geography. And so that's, it's that mental of, okay, I've got all the right habits locked in. Just keep incorporating the habits and you're going to keep getting the same results no matter where you live.

Yeah. So let me ask you this then because I think the thing that's interesting is if you kind of look at, you know, like I think insurance and some other industries, they haven't been quick to innovate. But I think the reason you've been successful is you've been very quick to innovate. So I'm curious for you how you've approached it. Right. Because I feel like there are industries that move slow. I'm curious how you've approached it differently and how that's. How that's helped you to win.

Yeah, great question. I know not a lot of people aren't A fan with what I'm about to say. One of the challenges in the insurance industry is we have a difficult time looking at the future because we're very proud of the past. Mm. And I think the training in our industry is outdated. And I know I was trained. I'll give you a real quick.

Well, I sold life insurance in my 20s, so that's where the viewpoint. That's where the viewpoint from that question comes from.

I was speed. I was speaking at a conference back in October, and I remember I looked to my left and I asked a gentleman sitting over by the wall, it had to be in his early 70s, how he got trained when he got in the business. And after he gave me his answer of, I was given a phone book desk and a plan to go door to door. I looked to a woman sitting in front of me who was probably 40 years younger than him, who's been in the industry three years, and I asked her the same question. She almost gave me the same answer. Wow. And that's our problem, is we're not training producers how to win today day. And that's why my company, Complete Game Consulting, exists. It's. What are you doing today to get your message in front of more people at once so people. You can get more people to know you like you and trust her faster. If you just think about this, Jeremy, it takes 18 calls today to reach one prospect, which means it takes 180 phone calls to reach 10. If I can do that fast, one minute a call, which I can't, let's say I can, that's three hours to reach 10 people.

And that's really interesting because as I mentioned, I sold fraternal insurance for the Knights of Columbus. So it's like. It's a little bit different. It's not quite the same as your, like, standard insurance sales, but, like, we were told, like, you're not making 100 calls a day. You're not doing things right. I'm, like, not to be mean, man, that fucking sucks. I don't want to do 100 phone calls. Like, I got good at it because I did it. And it's benefited me now in my life because I could call anybody for anything. But, like, at the same time, like, that seems like making every problem a nail. You know what I mean?

100%. And I don't tell people. Don't cold call. It's gotta be part of your.

Well, no, it's. It's a very important skill to learn. And if I had anything, it is the single skill I would learn. But at the same time, there's gotta be more productive ways.

Here's how you can leverage it, though. This in 2023. What I learned back in 2014, 15, when I moved here, is I learned what it meant to create exponential awareness. What can I do to get one message in front of a lot of people at one time? That's when I started using LinkedIn. I started public speaking, I started using email campaigns and webinars. It was just a way to get one message in front of a lot of people at once. At that time, I had a lot of peers saying, dude, what are you doing? We don't do this in this industry. But it worked. It got a lot of people to know me quickly, which brought a lot of the right prospects to me, which allowed me to go into a market where nobody knew who I was and grow a really nice book of business. And what I realized, didn't know it back then, but I know today. Today it's a game of who knows you, not who, who.

You know 100%.

And where that helps cold calling is if you build name recognition and now you pick up the phone, they're gonna know who you are. To me, that's a lot more fun than calling people who have no clue.

Who you are a hundred percent. That's the biggest thing I talk about, like, because I think people don't understand, like, public relations, marketing, and sales. Like, to me, those are the three major components. If anything's not going well, like, if you're not selling, you take a look at your marketing. If your marketing's not converting, then something's wrong with your pr, right? Because people should know you, like you and trust you so your stuff actually converts. If it's not converting. You're just making it too damn hard for yourself, man.

Absolutely.

So let me ask you this then, because I think a lot of insurance people, like, they're working on a local level, right? Unless they're working with bigger companies or something like that. And they're like, well, you know, I don't know if I see the value in that. Like, should I be doing that locally? Like, who really cares? I guess. What would you. What would you tell somebody that has that viewpoint about it?

You know, I was taught 22 years ago that the, the number one thing I should do as I got in the industry was grow gray hair, dye my hair gray so I look more trustworthy, and go join, get a membership at a country club even though I can't afford it, and go eat lunch at the places the CEOs eat. Well, we don't do that as often as we used to anymore. And I'm holding my phone right now. This is today's country club.

Yes.

Where are people hanging out? They're hanging out on social media.

Yes.

And I'm not saying that's the only thing to do, but if you're in the B2B business, business to business, you need to be using a platform like LinkedIn to grow your business because that is where your prospects are hanging out. And I think in our industry, it's that pride of the past. People are bringing their personal bias to a platform like social media. I don't like social media.

Yeah.

There's a lot of toxicity in it.

Yeah.

But I gotta be there to grow my business.

So I guess, like, looking at that, then, you know, like, what things, in terms of what you're creating, then should you be concentrating most? Like what creates the most trust and what actually moves the most business forward.

The number one. So we teach a strategy on LinkedIn we call our LinkedIn diamond, and it helped us grow tremendously last year. We grew, not to brag 75%, but it's because it was off the back of our LinkedIn strategy. Sure. One of the top things I can tell anybody looking to create content for social media is it must do two things, create likability and credibility. And you can't have one without the other. Here's why. If I just create likability, so my content's all these personal stories to get to know me. Your prospects will love you. They'll take meetings with you. They're never going to take you seriously enough to hire you.

That's really, really, really important because I think there's some people that, and I think this is on LinkedIn especially, they can get into, like, really creating all this social content. But then they're like, you know, I don't, you know, how do I make money and how do I monetize it? And it's like, if you're asking that question, you're doing something wrong.

And this is the response I get almost every time. Jeremy. But Andy, when I create, like the educational stuff, it gets low engagement. All my personal stories get awesome engagement. I said, exactly. That is, that's going to happen. But it's your educational content that creates credibility. But you can't just have credibility alone, because if you just create credibility, I know you're smart, but I don't know if I like you. I don't know who you are. Yeah. So I'M not going to hire you either. And that's why you have to have both. So when we teach people how do you create content on platforms like LinkedIn and others, it's are you creating content that gets people to know you and trust you? You do that through your stories. And are you educating them? Are you bringing them value? To create that credibility, you got to have both. If you can create both, you are going to create activity opportunities with your content.

You know what's interesting too, is this. The past two weeks, I find that one of the hardest things can become with coming up with ideas for the right content. But then once you got the idea, running with it's pretty easy. So we've actually started to use, and I don't know if you guys are doing that, we started using ChatGPT to actually just generate like a list of ideas so we have things to write about. Because I think that can be the number one logjam. Is that something you've tried at all hundred?

When I saw ChatGPT again, of course, mainstream. So mainstream world said, oh, this is going to be used for negative. Right. It eliminated every excuse anybody could ever have from creating content. We help. I'll give you an example, Jeremy. We actually help some clients write emails from time to time. The fact I can go into ChatGPT and say, Write me an email about why your health insurance costs are going up and write the email to a CFO who's frustrated and is curious why her costs continue to go up because she wants to do something good for employees. The fact I could put all that in there and say send and have it write that email or create that social media post, it's unbelievable.

Yeah.

And so it eliminated, in my opinion, if anybody tells me they don't have time to create content, ChatGPT eliminated that argument.

So let me ask you this then. You know, looking at your career in insurance and looking at, you know, the breadth of time you spent on it, what would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned? That you wish you could get a new agent to pick up?

You gotta grab more attention. Don't be afraid of what people are gonna say. Don't be afraid of what people are gonna do. Just lean into sharing your message far, fast and wide. And here's what I realized, Jeremy. This, and I share this at the end of my keynote talks. It was my own epiphany when I built my own brand. I didn't know if anybody was listening. There were times I didn't know if anybody was Watching or care. There were times I was asking myself, why the hell am I doing this? And I had a lot of people tell me I was selfish. What I've come to learn is building a brand is actually selfless. Here's why. Yes, it grows your business, but it also impacts others. Your content impacts others. And you don't know what day, what time it hits somebody. At the right time, yes, that could be your prospect who ends up hiring you. But I'll share a real quick story to drive this point home. Two years ago, I got on a call with a friend, a peer of mine in the industry. This was right after Covid. He had gone through a bad divorce right before the pandemic, and he basically jumped on. It was jump wanting to jump on a zoom call because he wanted to let me know that he had a very rough two year patch to the point where he had moments of saying, is this even worth moving on? Wow. And he said, andy, I got to tell you, man, your content kept me going.

Wow.

And I just wanted to thank you for keeping me here.

That's incredible. Because I realize it's selfish to not do it, you know?

And that's when it hit me. As I said, this isn't a selfish act. It's selfish to build a brand. Because the greater impact you have on others, the greater impact you will have on your business.

Yes.

It's almost at that moment I said, it's an obligation to build a brand.

Yes.

And I want more people to understand that.

And I think that's what it comes down to. Because I think so often people are stuck on. They're stuck on the webinar model.

Right.

Like this many people attended. This many people opted in. This many people bought my product. When they're not looking at how many people did I help? How many people did those people help? Because you're gonna find that people you didn't even directly work with find out about you from people that you have helped and inspired. That's what it's all about, man.

I agree. And I think the formula I use is patience plus persistency equals profit. If you're willing to be patient. Cause building a brand does not create overnight success. And you're persistent with it, consistent with it, it's gonna lead to profit. And that's what I want. I'm trying to encourage more people to do. And I'll tell you those, our clients that are doing it, not only are they having fun building brand recognition, not only is it creating business opportunities they didn't have anymore. We just had. I want to share this, Jeremy. We just had a broker last two weeks ago, now win $1 million commission account.

Wow.

Because he's putting himself out there every day on LinkedIn. It changes lives.

Yes.

And there's not one person that's doing this, that we work with that has not seen a change, not only in their business, a change in their life.

But, you know, the thing I want to point out that is important is just how you're communicating, that for every person out there listening, you have to have that type of conviction in what you're selling. Do you get what I'm saying? Like, you believe so much in what you're doing for people that it's an ethical responsibility for you. And if you don't have that, you're not going to do what you have to do to sell your product. Am I right?

Well, it actually comes back to the question you just asked about, what's the one thing you want you would tell younger advisors? Not almost. Very, very few people. Almost nobody got in the insurance industry by design, Jeremy. Right. You were probably told, you should go sell life insurance. It's a great way to make money.

Well, here's what happened to me. They're like, oh, you're a former athlete. Go for it. Former athletes are good at selling insurance.

There's a ton of athletes in this industry. Right. None of us got into pipe design. Yeah. We were sold. The lifestyle, we were sold. Hey, you stick around long enough, you're gonna make good money. You can play golf three days a week. Well, that lends to people putting paycheck over purpose.

Yes.

You want to have fun with this thing, find your purpose. And honestly, if it's not selling insurance, get out. It's okay. But the people, the ones that have that passion for impacting others, there is nothing that will change your business and your life more than building that brand recognition, I promise you.

Yes, and I think something to think about that, too, is when you build brand, you know, whether it's, you know, you're selling insurance now or whether you're writing a book later on, you can put your brand behind that next project you do, if there is a next project. And that's what legacy looks like. And I think that's the thing to really consider. Creating a brand is building legacy.

Yes. It's the only reason Complete Game Consulting exists. Jeremy. It took me 41 years to become an entrepreneur, but I would not have been able to build this company if I had not established brand recognition already.

Yes. Amazing. Well, Andy, I'VE really enjoyed this conversation, man. We want to, we want a lot, a lot of cool directions for people listening. If they want to connect with you, find out more about you, or maybe they're interested in working with you, how are they going to connect with you, man?

Number one, hit me up on LinkedIn. That's this platform where I'm hanging out the most to check out our website, completegameconsulting.com and three, if they want, I can guide them to we if they go to completegameplaybook.com they can grab. I've got a nice pre recorded webinar of our entire complete game marketing playbook. If they want to get a copy of that, that's completegameplaybook.com they can download it.

Very cool. Andy Neary, thank you so much for hanging out with me.

You bet. Thanks, Jerem.