The Broker s Voice Ray Kober

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Broker's Voice. I am excited today. I have Ray Kober joining me from Benefixa in Long Island, New York. Ray, welcome to the Broker's Voice.

Thank you so much for having me, Andy. And one slight correction. So I'm in Queens, which I know.

I mess up every time.

Don't forget New York City. Top of the food chain, baby.

Well, I was going to actually start this conversation with this question because I've said this to you offline.

The number of people I have, I follow, you know, that have gone on to have just massive success that were born and raised in either Queens or Long island is like extraordinarily high. Why do you think that is?

Yeah, so, you know, I didn't even realize that Queens was on Long island because for a long time, because I have family that lives in Nassau county and Suffolk county, and that's typically what Long Islanders refer to as Long Island. And even though I do live on Long island, you need to get a. Over a bridge or through a tunnel to get off of the place that I live, AKA surrounded on all sides by water, AKA I live on a bleeping island.

Most people, especially, you know, like my cousins who, oh, I'm never going to go to the city. I'm never going to drive in the city because out there it's really rural. There's a lot of farmland in certain spots. So it's.

The city is like almost like a completely other world for them. And it gives me a chuckle. But yeah, Brooklyn and Queens are part of Long island. And I don't know what it is, Andy, you know, I think.

You know, if I had to offer an educated guess, what makes this country great is that it's a melting pot and people come from all over the world to be in the US for all that we have to offer. And even though we're very divisive now and split between red and blue and that's all a bunch of, you know.

Horse cocky, nice way of putting it.

To keep the language light. I, I might let an F bomb slip out every once in a while. I am from New York, but I, I think what, what really makes the country great is the diversity. And Queens, I believe if I'm, I'm not a historian, but I think Queen Queens may be the most diverse county in the entire nation. So I, I think what you have with Long island are people that really, you know, are diverse, competitive, driven. And overall, you know, again, lots, lots of people have an opinion about New York that have Never been here. But I think that the, the real, the thing that makes me proud to be a New Yorker and keeps me here are the people.

Yeah. The word that comes to mind is grit. I think, like, if you live in new. Grew up in the New York City area, if you didn't get after it and attack life, it will punch you in the face.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched according to Mike Tyson.

So being, being the sports guy, am I going to go quickly, go through the list. All right, you live in Queens. So Yankees or Mets?

Mets until the postseason.

Okay.

Jets, Giants, 1000% J, E T S. Nice.

Okay. And you, you guys, you guys got our guy now, Aaron Rodgers. So you actually, I think you basically have half of the packers team now playing for the Jets.

And then, and then you got the Rangers or the Islanders. You're on Nassau County. Is it the Islanders?

No, believe it or not, I'm more of a Rangers fan.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So.

Well, you get. You got a lot to choose from. We, we don't, we don't have that gift over here in Wisconsin.

You forgot you've got basketball.

Well, basketball, you kind of got one. Are you Knicks fan next?

Yeah.

Okay. Now they're a team that you just, you. Every time they're about to make the playoffs, I feel like they shoot themselves in the foot.

They have had a great run, that's for sure.

Yeah. Well, let's, let's talk about this. Right? How did you, you know, when you think about our industry, most people did not get in it by design. How did you find yourself in the health insurance industry?

Oh, you know, so I used to do a lot of recruiting in my former position, and I used to tell a story. If we round up all of the preschoolers, we go to a local preschool and we get them all together and we do circle time and, and we ask the kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? I promise you not one hand will shoot up saying they want to be an insurance guy. Right. It just doesn't work that way. So it was no different than me. I was, I was kind of at a crossroads. And a buddy of mine originally worked for New York Life, and then he went to work with Aflac as an independent agent and he made some friends and we started just hanging out as friends, me with him and, and his circle of friends. And they were all young guys who were successful. And we would go out and play like a morning, you know, back nine of golf. And we did this for a few weeks. And you know, I. I think it was all by the. The regional coordinators. You know, it was all going according to plan, but eventually they said, hey, why don't you, why don't you come in? We think you'd be pretty good at this. And long story short, I. I spent, oh, 20 years at Aflac as an agent and then a manager. And I. I really had a wonderful experience because the thing. So I, I am a entrepreneur through and through. And I was thinking about this earlier.

So let me, let me put that into perspective for you. So when I was a kid growing up, I. I born in 1966. Do the math. I'm not a young guy anymore. But in the mid-70s, they were promoing and I was. I watched a lot of TV as a kid. I defy just about anyone to say they have watched more TV than I have. I love tv. So when I was a kid, they were promoing the Six Million Dollar Man. You know, it. It was. I was so hyped about this promo that this guy was out there who.