Unlocking The Mental Game Of Selling Insurance with Jamie Reid

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Broker's Voice. I am super excited today because when I get to meet somebody who is very much in alignment with the way I think and some of my beliefs around the mental game when it comes to business, I want to have this person on the pot. I call it the podcast. But the Broker's Voice is more a show. So I'm excited. I've got Jamie Reed, one of the founding partners of C3 Insurance in San Diego. Jamie, welcome aboard.

Thanks for having me, Andy. Excited to be here.

All right, Jamie. So we're going to get into some really interesting stuff in this pod. I keep saying podcast. I just recorded one of my other episodes in this show today because, man, you've had one heck of a journey in the last week, which we're going to talk about. But before we get there.

Most of us did not get in this industry by design. I'm curious to know, how did you find yourself in the insurance industry?

That's so funny when you talk about how similar we are because I say that all the time. That in sixth grade nobody wrote they want to be insurance anything, you know, on their what do they want to be when they grow up? Cards. And so I got in in a way that I got to be careful because I tend to make fun of myself in our industry. So I don't intend to do that. But I went to college for safety, like hard hats and safety glasses.

And I went there because in 1999 when I graduated, it was the quickest, easiest degree to get. First of all, I could go have fun at college and I wasn't doing computer science or political classes. It was just pretty easy to get a safety degree. And two, it paid the highest starting wages. So you could pay not a lot for your college. It was easy to get and it had a high comp right out of college. And I was fortunate enough to go work for a company that was really, really good in the construction industry and black and veh and burnt a Mac and we self insured programs and all my counterparts who were safety people, they went into the insurance industry. It's an easy job versus working directly for a big contractor. And they've been recruiting me over for years. And I finally just got to the place where I was like, all right, I don't want to be traveling, so seven days a week. You know, I want to have a family someday. And insurance, it was possible to do that. So I stepped into the insurance company side of things.

That's awesome. Yeah, I agree. I just. The Fact, you went to college for safety, though it was more on the construction side, puts you closer than most people who get into the insurance industry. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on today is just in our conversations we've had offline. I love your perspective on the mental game of business, of selling and what it takes up here to have success selling insurance. And, you know, one of those things is overcoming a lot of fear. We talk, you're going to talk about imposter syndrome and things like that, and some of the rituals and habits you deploy into your life to make sure you're having success on the field. But the thing I'd love for you to talk about, man, is just a week ago, we're recording this on Monday, June 5th, just a week ago, you were in Kiev, Ukraine, in the middle of a war meeting with delegates in this. In the national capital, where you were surrounded by bombs and missiles. Talk about that experience. I mean, just hearing it offline blew me away.

Well.

Was mind blowing. It was mind blowing for me. And sometimes I. I had imposter syndrome. Just being there, right? It's like, how or why do I even deserve an opportunity to be in the room with some of the people that were there, some of the brightest military and political minds, business minds on earth. And so just being there was surreal, but from a fear perspective.

And Jamie, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, set the stage. Why were you there in the first place? Let's talk about that. How did you end up getting the opportunity to go. Go over to Ukraine? I want to make sure the listeners hear that.

Okay. Yeah, so I've thought about that a lot. I'm involved with a group called Alder, and I, I think ultimately the reason I ended up in Ukraine is because I said yes, you know, and to. To a lot of things in life. You know, it's just saying yes. Getting out of a comfort zone created the opportunity then to eventually be in Ukraine. So I said yes to a group called Alderman. Alder is a group that's focused on creating generational leadership. Because at a fundamental level, we. We believe that the way political leaders develop and progress through their careers in the United States is, Is broken. Not, not picking aside, Just, you know, you, you almost have to become a career politician these days to, to rise through the rank and become someone of significance. And so Alder, at a premise, has this mission to influence the next generation of leaders who are committed to leaving the world a better place. So it's sort of YPO qualified people but it's not for doing business. It's people who genuinely want to do things for the world. And two of the members, one of them runs a company called Concentric Advisors. And Concentric Advisors is pretty much the company that moves, you know, any president of the United States, when they move around the world, they handle the logistics and safety of that. So he's a member in our organization. And then another gentleman runs a family practice and splits time living in Ukraine, has a Ukrainian wife. So when the war started, he moved there and just as a volunteer, was trying to figure out any way to help the Ukrainian people on whatever level it may be. The, the to. I'll, I'll try to answer your question because there ends up being an insurance reason I, I was there that I didn't know why I would even be there. But the, the one around fear was there really. I think there was fear about my wife and other people. I really didn't know what to expect when I got there. But there was really no fear because we, the very first day, we spent the whole day touring the country and interacting with people is like, no Ukrainian is afraid. Like, they are 100% like fearless and convicted to a cause. And I would say the word was like at peace. Like even though it's war, they were at peace with what they were there to do. So that like transitions into you. So to where I felt peaceful despite some of the chaos that was going on.

That's interesting because it made me think of, you know, you hear the stories back from World War II when like the Germans were bombing England and things like that and bombings were happening every single day and the English were just almost at peace. It was like they were just this tight community that, oh, there goes the sirens again. Let's go to the bomb shelter and just rinse and repeat. Right. And it's to put yourself in that situation when quite frankly, you don't have to. Right. You don't have to go over there. You know, we talk about putting yourself. Success requires you to put yourself in uncomfortable situations that would be near the top of uncomfortable situations right now in this, especially as the things unfold in this world. Talk about for a minute just what that experience was like. Because when you were talking or telling me offline, I mean, you were telling me how close bombs and missiles were going off. I mean, that had to be quite an eye opening experience.

Yeah. So what happened was or, or is happening is that now that the west is supporting Ukraine, they for the first time really have weaponry to do something. With, so they've been preparing and mounting a counter assault against Russia. So instead of just defending opposition, they're looking to take the fight to Russia. And Russia knows this. They, they understand that the west is bringing in artillery and whatnot. So up until the week that we got there, bombs and things I was told really aren't going off in Kiev anymore. You know, they had, they had a big battle there and, and the Ukrainians held them, held them out and turned them away. And then it had been fairly quiet. Then the week we get there, you know, Putin get some intel that this mounting effort is coming and he starts sending a combination of Iranian drones that are gravity fed bombs to the center of Kiev. And then at the same time he may be shooting hypersonic missiles coming in. And you and I talked about a story on the last night that I'd already gone to the bomb shelter a time or two and I'd average about two nights or two hours a night's sleep because of these raids and sirens and everything going off. I think it was just pure exhaustion. I didn't wake up for it. I didn't hear the sirens, I didn't hear my app go off. The first I heard of it was the bombs exploding outside of our hotel which were Patriot missiles launching. And when they launch everything shaking and rattles the hotel and stuff, and then they intercept a hypersonic missile that was close enough that the sound was loud and you could go, tomorrow I'll put it on my LinkedIn. I put it on my other social media. So tomorrow being Tuesday, 6, 6. I'll put it on LinkedIn. And it doesn't do it justice to hear it like on your cell phone or computer. But I was showing my daughter and my car, you know, a surround sound and everything, and you could feel the vibration of it in the car. It kind of reminded me of it, you know, when you're in the hotel.

Wow. What would you say? You know, I didn't intend to go here with today's show, but you telling me these stories, I'm like, people have to hear this. In your days you've spent there, coming back to the States here, what would you say has been one of your biggest takeaways from your time in the Ukraine?

I'll go to the thing I was going to reference earlier. I didn't know why I was there. I said yes, because of curiosity and wanting to gain perspective. I've heard in the news, CNN and Fox News, which, whichever you consume, they're really opinion networks, right? They, they're talking about the news, but they're casting an opinion on whatever the news is. And so I don't really consume that way, but I've heard propaganda on both sides and it's really hard to filter through what it was. So when our group put this opportunity together, I'm like, I just want to go. I want to see it, experience it, live it, and feel it from that perspective. Then we're sitting in a group of meetings called the Cipher Brief, which is intended to bring unfiltered to people. And so we're hearing from General Petraeus and different people of that level, different people in the Ukrainian, you know, heads of ministry and cabinet members that report to Zelensky or they're explaining things to us about what's happening. And at the same time, there was an economic part of it because, you know, Ukraine not only has to beat Russia, fend them off, but then they've got to stand up an economy that's been decimated because of the war. And that's a huge challenge. And so there are Ukrainian companies that are there trying to pitch bringing money into that country, yet there's a wartime exclusion on every insurance policy. So the private equity firms and those people that were there. It comes up, is there a way to solve this insurance problem? And I'm like, oh, maybe that's why I'm here. I'm like, I don't actually know how to solve that problem. But it feels similar, like a cousin to the terrorism coverage that was created out of 9 11. So I'm like, now I'm on a mission to try to figure out who created that, how it worked. Is there something that we could bring to Ukraine so that foreign investment can get to a level of comfort that they'll help the economy recover and provide a product to them? So that was kind of a takeaway for me. It was like, oh, even though I couldn't see it, like just intuition, I guess there was purpose.

You know, that's a good segue into talking about your perspectives on our industry. Because I'm a big believer that everything happens for a reason. And by you saying, yes, there was a reason you were there. And I think that's a classic example of what can happen when you think it, believe it and do it. And you said something else offline that I want to go into to use as a segue when you said that the Ukrainian people are at peace and they are on a mission to win their land back, to defend their land and use the phrase non negotiable, it's non negotiable. They're getting their land back. Yeah, I love that phrase because I see so many people in our industry, especially negotiating with their goals. You know, start the year with this big goal and then, you know, maybe I'm not gonna get there. And all of a sudden they're negotiating that goal down. What are your thoughts about that, Jamie? Because you've had a lot of success in the industry.

Growing C3 super fast. Like, what are your thoughts about how you're setting goals and the, the non negotiables that are in your life? Talk about that for a second.

Well, it's that word that we both use now. I. I've come to understand, you know, people will say that when you speak, there's a level of confidence. There's this or that. It's really peace. Like, I'm okay with any outcome, good or bad. There's something to salvage out of whatever the result is. Whether you win a deal, lose a deal, whatever it is, there's something there to garner. If you have that growth mindset, then you can be at peace with outcomes. And if you can be at peace with outcomes, then you don't have to compromise values, goals, objectives. You know, it's you, you just live with it, deal with it, and adjust to whatever the outcome is. And if you can get to that place where you genuinely 100% feel peaceful with whatever the outcome is, then you can be authentic to these things.

Yeah, I think that's a key phrase. Peace. Be at peace with the outcome. Because I know I'm guilty once in a while, chasing to some finish line that doesn't exist.

We all are.

And you're so, just so focused on trying to control the result. And that is the quickest path of frustration, stress, anxiety. And I find in those moments where I'm at peace with the result, no matter what happens, you just go about things with a calmness, a confidence that quite frankly, often leads to a successful result anyways. And so talk about that for a second. I know you have a lot of habits and rituals you deploy in your life. And I think this is where I see a lot of our peers struggle in this chase for revenue, for money, for growth. A lot of people are setting aside the other things that are going to make them healthy, happy, fulfilled. What are your beliefs like when you look at how you put together your days and weeks? What are some things you deploy in your everyday life to make sure you're operating on all cylinders?

Yeah, I. Well, first of all, at a very early Age, I had a boss who got to the office at 4:30. And I just always had a mentality of being the first one there. So that required me to be there at 4:15. And what I found in those early mornings, that gives me the space to create some peace because the things that I need to take care of partly, which is rejuvenating my own battery. And you know, I'm socially capable introvert, so I need that alone time as well. If I, if I don't have that early morning alone time, then I'm starting the day out with my battery already like half drained. But if I get that time in the morning fully charged, the way I can attack the day is so much more productive. So I just starting the mornings that early. And not every morning's 100% the same. You know, I'm not like, like a Tony Robbins or somebody who's just so committed to an exact regimen. But I am up, you know, usually by 4:30. And there is some space, whether it's 30 to 45 minutes to myself before I will either then take care of some work items that I always, every single day will have one, two or three things that come hell or high water getting done that day. And I'm really, really good at extremely prioritizing things and not allowing other things violate that. You know, it'd take like an act of war for me to not get those two or three things that I decide in the morning I'm gonna get done. And I think that's really important. But at least three or four times a day, I think you're weak. I think you're alluding to the fact that, you know, I'm a Wim Hof believer in the meditation that he does, which is a lot of forced air using high concentrations of oxygen and then combined with cold water therapy. And I've been doing Wim hof, like I would say cold showers, as cold as you can get a shower for probably 10 years or more. My kids do it. You know, we end all of our showers with maybe a minute or two minute we're doing some breath work. And in 2020, I remember I was just like feeling stressed, you know, like more stressed than like my workouts or whatever I was, you know, running and stuff was alleviated. I still felt a residual amount that I didn't feel resolved with. So I turned to Wim Hof and was like, I really want to buy a cold water tub and go to the next level. You know, in San Diego, you know, the cold water all by itself, the coldest gets probably 62 degrees or something. It's not that cold. And so. But a cold tub is 6 to 10 grand, you know, and I didn't want to just go invest six to ten grand and not use it. So what I did was I convicted to every day in December cold as San Diego water gets, I'd spend three minutes with a hose at 4:30 in the morning, just under the hose, doing the Wim Hof breathing. And I was like, if I do this for 30 days straight, then I'll give myself permission to buy a cold tub. And so I did that. And people, people just kind of, when you have a cold tub, it becomes something people talk about like we are right now. And that has just morphed. Literally. The all star baseball team I'm coaching, you know, the manager of that team was like, can we come do the cold water thing at your house? I'm like, hell yeah, we can. You know, I, I'll take a break there but. And then we can talk more.

Well, no, I like that. That's really what got me onto it with you. As I saw a post you had made when you were out, it was at your back deck.

Yeah.

You guys are, you're sitting with the team, the kids in a circle and I think you guys are probably doing some breath work. We were before or after the cold, the cold immersion. But I'll tell you man, that that has been a game changer for me. And I think, I think the thing about breath work and or cold therapy is unfortunately it's become a fad a little bit where I think a lot of people are doing it without knowing why they're doing it. Right. But I can tell you, you know, I start my day with a three minute cold shower and I don't have a cold plunge yet. And then I actually end the day. The last thing I do before I go to bed is I get back in and I take another cold shower. And that one might only be a minute, minute and a half, but I will tell you, I have never slept better since I started doing a cold shower right before bed.

I can't cite it like my friend did, but Nick Hardwick was the center and team captain of the Chargers for a long time. And one night he was telling me I got to go to my house, I take a hose cold shower before I go to bed. I'm like, what the hell are you talking about, dude? And he's like, yeah, I go home, I go out back, I strip naked and I put Cold water on my head for three minutes before I go to bed. I'm like, why are you doing that? And he went through a sophisticated explanation of physiology and all this stuff. But essentially it comes down to you go into, it's either deep or REM when your core temperature cools down. And so if you can start the process of cooling your external down before you get into bed, it seems counterintuitive because the cold water is, provides energy to some extent, but it really works to get you into that deep sleep state to where you're really, your mental recovery is stronger and all that. And so I mean, he's just explaining all this stuff to me and I'm like, you gotta be nuts. And I've talked about it with brokers on my own team, you know, who were having stress and trauma. I'm like, why don't you try introducing this and see if it'll help you get better sleep. And the results are a hundred percent of the time. Like what you said is the result everybody has. I've never heard otherwise.

Yeah, I'd be curious your thoughts. So you started doing this, what you said 2020?

Yeah.

You have, I assume now since gone on and got a cold plunge. A tub?

Yep, I got a legit plunge.

Which one? What kind of, what brand do you have? I'm curious.

I have renew therapy.

Okay.

R E N U therapy.

With the breath work and the cold plunge. Because I have a lot of advisors, I, I, I share these ideas with them. They go, oh, heck no, I'm not going to do it. What results have you seen since making this a consistent practice, both the breath work and the cold therapy?

Well, I'll be the first to admit I never did breath work before December of 2020. And you know, I'm not good at doing yoga and meditation. I'm really not good at any of that. And so what I liked about Wim Hof, if people are looking him up, Wim's just W, I m and then second word, hof. He's a Dutch guy and his free breathing class is online. That's all I do. And I do box breathing that the military teaches just for kind of stress management. And that's a big part of what I teach whoever comes to my house and we do it together. But Wim Hofs breathing, I don't even know what he calls it, I don't remember. But I call it forced air. You're taking big deep breaths and blowing out really fast and then you're doing breath holds and it's Crazy, because when I first started doing it, I could hold my breath about a minute and a half. He's always a strong swimmer and all that stuff. And I got to five minutes and probably a month or so, you know, and I can't do it all the time. It's, it's all over the board. Sometimes two minutes, sometimes it's four minutes. You know, it kind of depends on how deep of a state of relaxation you get into. But what I, what I've found that I think is powerful. There was a yoga class I was doing and this lady, she's kind of coaching you, right? She's like, hey, if your mind drifts off to these other things, it's okay, don't beat yourself up. Just recognize it when it goes over there and gently bring it back and give yourself permission for that to happen because it's natural. And that really helped me because when you're doing his forced air, 40 deep breaths takes about two and a half, three minutes. Then you're going into a breath hold that could be anywhere from two to five minutes. There's a lot of thoughts going on in your mind. So you do three cycles of that. The whole first cycle I'm unf in my mind, right? It's all over the place and I just like, I'm like a little 12 year old boy just running around spastically in my mind. By the second, the second round of it, somewhere in there you get that high on your own supply, you're putting so much oxygen, you feel a little bit high and you just kind of feel your body settle. And by the third time you go through it.

After you finish each breath hold at the very end, you take one last breath for 15 counts and then let it go. And after the third time of the breathing hold and then that 15 seconds, your body feels purified. I don't know another way to say it, you feel like whatever is negative in your body just got flushed out. That's the breathing side.

Yeah, I would agree. When I look at my morning routine, looking back, I've done it for probably about the same amount of time you have. And it's so consistent now, you probably don't see the results like you did at the beginning because it is part of your everyday, everyday life. But I, I do notice now, like, I don't freak out as much over stressful situations. I totally agree with your thought about once it's done, like you can wake up or you can start the, you know, the morning off on the bad foot. But by the Time that cold therapy, the. The breath work is done like you're locked in. One thing I started doing is actually incorporating or combining breath work with getting. Doing some sun gazing, where you're looking at that morning sun as it comes up. Because I was listening to. Do you know Dr. Huberman is.

I do not.

He's a scientist from Stanford. He's into the whole health and wellness. Andrew Huberman is his name. He's got one of the most well known podcasts around. But he talks about the importance of looking at the morning sun before it's at its zenith, where it hurts your eyes, where you can still look at it early because it actually kicks. What it does is it kicks off your circadian rhythm and it actually helps with sleep the next night. So I started doing the breath work with the sun gazing at the same time, and that's been a super big help.

Interesting.

And again, I look at it this way. This is why I wanted to talk to you. I look at myself still like an athlete and I'm like, I'm gonna do anything I can to give myself an advantage over the competition. These small little things off the field are what give you that advantage. Is there anything else you do, Jamie, outside of the breath work and the cold therapy to put your mind or your body in the right position to win the day?

You know.

I do.

Kind of a combination of prayer, meditation, maybe, you know, I'm not the most religious person, but I take a lot of space to be with my own mind. And the place I do it is in the shower. I don't know what it is about. Even if I do when I finish the cold tub, also go up and have that time in the shower. And there's something about the effect of the water raining on you that opens my mind. It's almost like, you know, when you have a couple glasses of wine and it opens your mind and you're thinking creative thought. It's similar to that, where something opens and different thoughts are able to come out that, that I don't in other settings. But I mean, I, you know, I work out and I coach my kids a lot. And I think that coaching is a really important case because it's just so easy, you know, like in our business, in any business out there, it doesn't have boundaries anymore. You know, technologies has made all our professional lives without boundaries. So I love coaching because it's a forced break. You know, it's sort of like surfing. And when you're in the water surfing, you're 100% consumed doing nothing but that, Thinking about nothing but surfing. And it's pure, it's like a drug in that way. Coaching is kind of like that too. You put your phone away and for two, three hours, you're 100% engaged there. So those little breaks like that in the day, even though it puts stress from a time perspective of how to get everything done, I think they're really healthy for your brain to stop thinking about insurance, you know, your trucking clients, your construction clients, whatever it is, and just have some free space for your mind to truly recover. And then I'll go back to it, you know, after I put the kids to bed.

Yeah, I like that. I. A buddy of mine runs these trips, he calls guys trips, where you spend a weekend with a small group of guys. We just did one in at the beginning of May where we went and helped a buddy who bought an old mill in North Carolina. He's restoring it and we spent a couple days or a day just helping him restore. And it was, it was a forced pause, forced break because I couldn't tell. I couldn't check my cell phone, I couldn't check email. I couldn't do anything but be present in the moment. And it's so helpful to force yourself to do that. Literally make it impossible to think about work.

Yep. Whatever that space is, I think it's important for people to be able to find on a fairly regular basis. Don't, don't wait until you're, you know, your postal to be like, oh, I need to get out of here, you know, well, chip it away at it.

Daily, you know, And I, and I bring that up because I was guilty. I have a lot of peers I know are guilty of this. We are in an industry that again, a lot of people are on the chase to financial success and they're putting too many of the other things on the side burner or back burner to chase that financial success.