Sales Tips, Strategy, & Training! - Mastermind Event: Apr 17, 2024

What's up everybody, hope y'all are good. I am, uh, excited to be back at another mastermind with you guys. My goal is to teach you efforts how to make a bunch of money in insurance. So we're going to chat a little bit today. I might open it up for a couple questions, um, down the road if you'd like. And those that are hiding, you can definitely come on video. It helps me to not stare at a blank screen. Because I get bored talking to myself. And I appreciate you, y'all that are. And then we'll let all your friends come in late, but we'll start without them. I was watching a TV show last night my wife had on. I was watching and they were teaching their, like, I don't know, 16-year-old that got their first job the whole concept of on time is late. So I appreciate y'all that were early, and we're going to leave behind those that are not. Uh-oh, what is that shit? Y'all hear that? Hold on, that's my little— I don't know if you can hear that, my little timer. Hold please. All right, they sent me a little YouTube timer over here and it's screaming at me. I don't know if y'all hear it or it's just me. Anyway, um, I'm gonna go through some stuff today, just some things been on my mind, and, um, certainly if you guys have questions, I'll leave a little bit of window to, um go through something, if anybody needs some help, be thinking of it now and don't be shy. If you have questions, you can certainly ask. And if you want to type something in that way, I can kind of be thinking about it while I chat. Feel free to, but I don't mind having maybe one, maybe two, depending on timing. I have someone come on if there's anything I can help you with specifically. I don't have a— I did— I sent Amanda some notes on what I was going to talk about today. And last time she made a really pretty PowerPoint. And this time I had 3 words and she's like, I'm not putting 3 words on a PowerPoint. I'm like, well, that's all I needed to like jog my memory. So you're gonna have to write down the words yourself. Cause I didn't, I didn't, uh, we didn't prepare anything pretty for you, but you know, talking to as many agents and managers and podcasts and Zooms as I do, I started thinking about this thing a lot. And, um, you know, I, I was like, my first word I have on my notes is like, decide, like make a decision. Right. And, and what I always find funny is that, you know, I assume if everybody's in here is licensed, um, and if you're not, you're probably attempting to be. Well, my, my guess would be everybody is. Um, there was a very, there was a day when you decided to go get your license and you went out and did it. It wasn't that big a deal. And you just did what it took to get your license. You studied enough. Maybe you failed 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 or 12 times, like a guy I know. But eventually you got your license, you know. And then from that point, it's like, why did you get your license? You know, whatever it was. Most of us, it's because we needed damn money. Um, we saw the opportunity. It probably wasn't wrapped around what life insurance does for people and how it helps and all these things, you know. And, and what's weird is like, when you made that decision, you had faith in yourself that you could accomplish things in this business. You wouldn't have taken those steps to get licensed. And go through that process. And then I see, like, people get started and they stop making decisions and they start hoping this shit's gonna work one day, you know? And I'm like, if, if y'all would sit down and make a decision on what you want to accomplish with this business and then make it— don't overcomplicate it, you know? I, I think one of the things I did really well when I, when I chose to was to keep this business at its simplest form and, and not let all the noise get in my way. You know, like, this thing is as easy as contacting a shitload of people so you hopefully get the opportunity to present to some, and then you get to close some portion of those. And this isn't that deep. The smaller the top number is, the smaller the bottom number is gonna be. So if you're unsatisfied with your number, stop looking at all the other stuff, the noise, meaning the leads, the IMO, the upline, the product, the underwrite, like, don't look here and go, is my, is my level of input sufficient enough to funnel down to the number I want at the bottom, which is the living you wanna make. Right now, the bigger that number is at the bottom— you got a little baby number, cool. You got a big-ass number like I do at the top, not only is going to have to include a lot of activity, it's going to have to include a lot of sacrifice. And what's crazy is a lot of you guys want a big number at the bottom and you want a little number at the top, and that shit don't work, you know. Um, And it's funny, it's like there's a lot of inconsistencies in, in sales, in people, in any decisions we make. You know, a lot of people make New Year's resolution decisions, and I'd be willing to bet 100% of people have already failed there in decisions you make. You know what I mean? So it's like, did you really decide it, or did you hope like hell you got in better shape this year? Did you hope like hell you stopped drinking? Did you hope like hell you gave more to church and started praying more? Whatever the things you, you chose, you know, was it really a decision or was it like this hope, you know? And I, I think far too many people put hope out there and hope that someone just walks into your life one day and drags you to the things you want to achieve in life, you know? And I, for me, what I did, I, I made it really simple. I decided I needed to make this much money to live the lifestyle I wanted to live, whatever that number was. At the time when I really made the decision to change. Yeah, I want to make $250 grand. Just being really transparent. That's what the number went from, like, I want to get by to, you know, I need to make $250. And then I had to look at it and go, all right, what do I got to do to make the $250? Right. Well, I was doing this much to make the $60 grand I made the first year. It wasn't that deep for me to figure out if I wanted to go from $60 to $250. That's 4x. I probably had to do 4x the work where I think many people are trying to get 4x better at closing, 4x better at overcoming objections, 4x better at some smooth sales script that closes everybody. And I didn't take that path and I've never taught that path. You know, now if that happens to be your path, Amen. Ain't mad at you. You know what I mean? But like, if you take the concept of the bell curve, that's not gonna be in the— and everything I teach in this business is for that middle chunk, whatever it is. Someone probably smart on here knows. I think it's like 68% or some— there's some number in the middle. And everything that's— I read this book once called Outliers. It's like outliers is like, it's not the norm. You know, some of us call it a unicorn. Like, I don't train on a unicorn. And what I've learned is a lot of agents want to be a unicorn. They want to be the top producer just with the current level of thought process and activity and lead purchases and client acquisition and referrals. And you know what I mean? Like hard work. So I think it's like, all right, let's make the decision on where we want to be. Again, you can do some really basic math and figure out what it would take you to get there. Based on your current skill set? And I was okay with that being the answer. I, I tried so hard for so long to get so good at so many pieces, and it didn't move my income the way I wanted to move my income, you know? So it's like, trying to think, how can I explain this? If my children needed to raise money for school, and they go out and sell those chocolate bars around the neighborhood. And he wanted to sell $100 worth of chocolate bars to earn some stupid toy that he gets for selling it, but it's really to raise money for the school. And he sells $25 worth of chocolate bars, and he was outside for an hour, and he came to me and he's like, yo, how do I sell $100? I'm like, well, Bro, I love you. You sold $25 in an hour. This ain't that deep. What if you walk around the neighborhood for 3 more hours? Wouldn't you hit $100? I'm not gonna go, all right, here, here's how you sell people chocolate bars, son. When you get to the door, make eye contact, shake their hand hard, and then here's the script to use. And make sure you memorize the script before you get started. And then there's a training on Tuesday on how to sell chocolate bars. Make sure you get that. And then download the PDF on the 5 coolest ways to sell chocolate bars. I ain't doing none of that shit. I'm like, yo, get your ass back out in the neighborhood and sell, you know? And, and not a lot of people like that path. I assume y'all are here because you knew you were going to get some version of that, or you don't know me. But it's like, dude, keeping it that simple, what that's allowed me to do is help people who don't have belief in themselves. Like, I don't know if y'all believe you can make a million dollars. I have no idea. Hell, some of you might not believe you can make $100 grand, which I would say to you, that's the thing you need to work on first. No phone script is going to overcome your lack of belief in yourself. If you don't believe you're worthy of $100 grand, I can tell you anything and it's not going to do shit. Right? So it's like, can we work on that? Do you have that? I don't know. I was given that. I was given like, yo, what you can accomplish, I can accomplish. I just need you to tell me the cheat code. And one day I was thankful enough that I had a dude tell me the cheat code was work harder than everybody else. And I'm like, well, shit, I've been doing that my whole life, but everything I worked hard in only paid $6 an hour or $8 an hour or $10, whatever the number was, you know? And I've been working, I don't know, 70 hours a week since before I graduated high school, because I had a kid in high school. So I was working 70 hours a week at a pizza joint and pizza joints. I'm sure some of y'all have heard restaurant business. Anybody been in restaurants? For a career. Those hours suck ass. I was off Monday morning. Other than that, it was open to close every day, 10 AM to 10 PM, 11 PM on the weekends, you know. And you have no life. And I bring home $412. And here I can make $412 in 26 minutes by closing one tiny little insurance deal. But I don't ever want to put in the activity. I'm looking for some magic script, some magic CRM, the newest little AI bot, the widget that's going to do it, the automated version of every— you know what I mean? Like all these things. And I'm like, man, if we could just believe that we could do it, make a decision to go out and do it, and then just go damn do it, you know? And, and, and the part that people get caught up with is like, that sounds good. What about when it gets hard? I don't know, you tell me. What are you gonna do when it gets hard? If you made the decision, what does hard have to do with anything? I thought we decided we were doing it. So if the hard stuff gets in the way, you didn't really make a decision. Now you're hoping like hell, you know? So I'm like, isn't life hard? I mean, it is, but it ain't damn near as hard as being dead. So I think that's pretty freaking easy if you look at it in perspective. You know what I'm saying? I'd rather have, I'd rather have the hard stuff in life than have the alternative. You know, so when, when I'm, when I go out with people, I always tell people I'm having a great day. I'm like, dude, be amazing. All is good. Couldn't be better. And most people when I ask, they're like, eh, it's all right. My answer 100% of the time is, beats the alternative, don't it? Dude, it messes people up. You know, and wherever you are in business or in your career, I assume you're unsatisfied or trying to get more. And what I've learned is whatever you, wherever you're at now, the things you've done have got you where you're at. You know, and if, and if you don't think you're gonna have to change stuff, you know, I, I think you're just missing, missing the boat. And for me, it was like, do I need to change who I am as a person? Meaning I wasn't a sales guy. I don't have sales background. I've never sold nothing in my life other than like when I was a kid, I'd like sell crap around. Like I had this, I lived in this apartment complex. Some of y'all may have heard the story. Um, but when I was a kid, we went to, I'm like a, I'm like a, I steal stuff. Like, not like I go to Walmart and steal stuff. I did when I was a kid, but I don't anymore. Right. But like I steal ideas. So if someone has a good idea, I just steal the shit and put it in my world. Right? So when I was, uh, and I tried to make money on it, like, it's really simple. And what I was telling someone earlier is like, anything in insurance, there's nothing new any of y'all gonna invent. No one's gonna come with anything new with regard to psychology, sales, phone script, question asking, leading, assumptive closes, product. You're not gonna create anything. Everything you do is gonna be stealing it from someone who's already done it and applying it to your world. Right? And I've done that my whole life. When I was a kid, I think I was in like maybe I was in elementary school for sure, like I don't know, 4th, 5th, 6th grade, something like that. And we made these little Christmas trees out of coat hangers and garland. Like literally, I have— there's a picture on my social somewhere, but you literally take 4 coat hangers, tape them together, they make a Christmas tree shape. You wrap it in garland, put a little tape at the top, little tape at the bottom, wrap a small thing of lights around it, you plug it in, you got a little mini Christmas tree. Made out of coat hangers. And we made it in school in like art class or something one day. And I'm like, I took it home and like my mom and my grandma, they thought it was the coolest thing ever. And I'm like, yo, I could sell these. So I made my mom, I got some coat hangers out of her closet and she went to a little dollar version of Dollar General at the time and bought some little garland and coat hangers. And I ran around, we, we lived in like a 12-story building where I grew up. And it was like the projects. And so it was a lot of single moms and grandmas raising kids and a lot of punk-ass kids that didn't have like dads around and had daddy issues. We were all pain in the ass. So I'd run up and down the hallways knocking on doors and I'd sell Christmas trees as a kid and I just stole the idea from school and I put a price tag on it, you know? And this to me was the same thing. I was just like, dude, insurance already exists, leads already exist. And people were always like, what's the best lead? I'm like, dude, they all suck. Can you just call through them? I mean, there's no, it's just, there's not gonna be your version of magic. And if I gave you the best lead, let's pretend I have it. I'm like, I got the best lead. And I tell you, is it gonna be the best lead anymore tomorrow when all you use it? Of course not. Right? So we have to have this dynamic ability to adapt to change in our, in our, in our industry, you know, and that behind a lead though is a person. And the person behind the lead gives a shit about their family, and they want to make sure when they die they leave their family in a good situation, just like y'all do, you know. But we tend to look at a lead as just this piece of paper that we paid for versus what it really is. And when you understand, like, the burden— I was, um, I think I was talking to, uh, I think it was Dude K Rev a minute ago on your call. I think me and you were talking about this. Have any of y'all ever called a lead and by the time you got a hold of them they were dead? Has that ever happened? What would have happened if you called them more aggressively in advance? Like, you had the lead when they were alive and then they were dead. Like, I don't know, dude, in some kind of way, don't you feel like bad about that? I did. I'm like, yo, I can't let that happen. You know, if that drives you, maybe it's the money, maybe it's that, I don't know. You know, but I always looked at it and I'm like, I had this fear of calling people or the lead is bad. I'm like, imagine, I assume y'all have requested something from some company somewhere at some time in your life, an online form, a little, those little things in the mall that you fill out to win a free car or get curtains or I mean, some Facebook ad, or hey, like I did, we're buying— I'm building a house and we did this, um, I'm putting in like a golf simulator. And so I went online to this company and I filled out my name and phone number and email, and 3 minutes later he started calling me. I'm a fucking lead now, and this fool keeps calling me, but I wanted him to call, but I didn't answer right away, you know what I mean? And I'm like, you know, some people on the back end would have been like, this lead sucks, he don't answer, and quit calling me. You know what I mean? And I almost wanted to play and see like how many times you would call me to like play the game. It was just like shit curiosity, but I'm like, I really just want the damn thing. So I called them back. I'm like, yo, I need ABC. Can you help me? Like I knew exactly what I wanted, you know? And I think timing is a funny thing. So it's like when you're looking at these leads, are you calling it a shitty lead? And again, if imagine if when you filled something out, if you think about maybe the last thing you requested. And were you like insanely responsive to the salesperson that reached out or the email they sent with instructions or, hey, go to the website and buy it here. You know what I mean? Like, think about something you weren't immediately responsive of that you, that you inquired about. And then imagine on the other end, them going, that effing lead sucks. And I'm like, do you really suck or were you just busy? You know what I mean? Or did something come up? Or life hit you and you didn't have time for it today, or you just weren't in the mood today, or whatever, you know. And it's like, when you're going at clients, maybe something else was up, but we tend to go, they were busy, they didn't want it, they didn't need it, they said they couldn't afford it, they said they didn't fill it out, and you believe them. Like, yo, y'all still believe that shit? That's on page 1 of How Leads Lie to You. They're gonna tell you they didn't fill it out. Why? Because you hang up and call your lead guy and yell at them. And my thought process is on when people go, leads suck. I'm like, they— the lead company is in business. Someone's got to keep buying them if they're in business. They sure as shit couldn't be in business if they were that bad, you know what I mean? I would say the masses would eventually quit them. So I eventually had to go like, all right, this— there must be something I'm doing, you know what I mean? Maybe my approach is incorrect. And I just started looking at it and went like, man, they are— it is a mom or dad or grandma or grandpa, whatever, and they, they, they probably give a shit about their family, right? So my approach became different. And then when I started thinking about the potential for someone to pass away on my watch, my approach became even more different. And then I start thinking, you're like, what if they get mad? I get that a lot. What if they get mad because I called? Like, I had a rule, you had to tell me no on the phone and in person. Y'all ever watch, um, what's that show? I think I mentioned this last time, Million Dollar Listing. The dude from New York, uh, uh, Ryan. Is it Ryan? I think someone will know. If someone knows the name, tell me. Um, if anybody watches, that's really cool show. Anyway, he's— his, his version, he goes, I posted it. Anybody know that show Million Dollar Listing? They sell real estate in New York. It's really cool. A couple of y'all seen it. This one dude's pretty popular on social and he sells like an obnoxious billion dollars worth a year worth of real estate, like a really big number. And his, his thought process on leads is I will follow up weekly till they die. Pretty successful dude. I'm like, that's a good one. And he has a lot of stories where he's like, yo, I followed up with this guy for 7 straight years before he bought a house. Right? One of the things I always ask people is like, think about if we had the top 10 sales books on the planet right now and we opened it up and we found the page that says, what is the average number of times it takes to contact a potential lead to close a deal? What is that number? Someone can type, y'all can type it, you can think it, I don't care. But the average number of attempts it takes to contact a potential client to close a deal. I see big numbers. Now, Compare that with the average number of times you attempt to call your leads. I've never seen them match. They're, they're talking contacts. I'm saying y'all probably don't even call them. Y'all probably don't even attempt what the books are saying the average number of contacts is. You know, because we get in our feelings and we go, what if they're mad? What if they're this? What if— I'm like, yo, what if they die? What if you sell them? What if they answer and thank you after? You know what I mean? And we, we project this made-up negative stuff when we haven't made a real decision, and that's our way to validate not putting in the work. What if they're mad? What if they're at work? What if I call too early? What if I call too late? What if I call lunch? What if I call when they're on break? What if I call when they're at the grocery store? What if I call when they're at church? I'm like, yeah, I've woke people up at 4 in the afternoon hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times calling leads. I've made people mad at 4 in the afternoon. You know what I mean? Like, who cares? So I'm like, if you're gonna project stuff that hasn't yet happened and you're gonna make it up, let's make up good stuff. You know what I mean? Like you're making a shit up anyway, so let's make up good stuff from now on. Anytime you go, what if, and words come outta your mouth or your thoughts, stop them from being negative. It'll change your whole world, you know? And again, you can go deep down psychologically, there's some lack of belief you have in yourself to achieve a lot. So then we start making these negative excuses as to why we can't approach people or go after people. So we meet the thing we really think about ourselves and we limit the activity and the process due to these things. We try to validate it, but at the end of it, you just don't have enough belief in yourself or think that you deserve to achieve a lot in life, you know. So it's like, why don't we look at ourselves a little bit differently and believe that we were put here for a reason? And shit, if I can do it, why can't you? Why the hell not? You know, you know how many people there are out there that have had massive success in this industry? There's too many to count, you know? And it's like, do you really not believe? I don't believe that you don't believe you could do it or you wouldn't be licensed. You wouldn't be on here. But where you lack the belief is in the moments where it gets hard. You know, there's this— I don't know why this is coming to mind, but like, I'm picturing I saw something somewhere. I don't know if it was like on a— it was at the beach. I was somewhere where like the waves are crazy and they have those like undercurrents where if you mess around, that shit'll take you out to the sea and you'll be gone. And one of the, one of the signs was talking about one of the worst things people do is try to swim back. And fight the current, you know? And they're like, the best way to do it is kind of remain calm and let the current kind of take you over here and just slowly kind of guide you. Because eventually that undercurrent, it doesn't go forever. It's just, there's a period of time and most people drown there because they get so tired trying to like frantically fight the rough time, you know? And it's like, when y'all going through rough times, are you losing your shit? Mentally, maybe sometimes verbally. Hell, some of y'all physically. I know plenty of dudes be punching some stuff when they get mad, you know. It's like, or can we remain calm in those situations and understand this is part of the ocean? It's all good. Let's remain calm and make it through that, that wave, you know what I'm saying? But we have to make those decisions that that's who we want to be in life. I don't know how to make those things go away. Because they ain't. I don't know how to make people hanging up on you. I don't know how to make buyers or liars go away. I don't know how to make objections go away. I don't know how to make missed sales go away. People telling you to fuck off, not liking you, not trust— I don't know how to make any of that go away, but I know how to kind of swim through it. It's part of the process, you know. So it's, it's, it's making a decision on that thing, I, I believe, is the, the first step. And then I think the second, the second note I had was ego. Um, there's a lot to this, and ego can go in a couple ways. Some people can overdo it and think they're God's gift to whatever, but I think there's also something to be said about having an ego and not being willing to, to take ownership for the reasons you're failing. I think that's, that's a, that's a part of having an ego. You don't think it's your fault. You think you're too damn good to have made a mistake to put yourself in the situation you're in. You got to put it on someone else. That's kind of messed up. You know, some people's ego can get in the way of them asking for help. Some, some people's ego can get in the way of telling their spouse, their whoever, their family, whoever it is in your world that loves you and cares for you, that you've not made it yet because of decisions you've made in the past and you have to change. That can be a hard conversation. Maybe your ego's getting in the way of that conversation because you're too proud to say you haven't done what it takes. I've been there. I'll never forget that. I had to go home and tell Steph like, yo, I figured out the damn problem. She's like, what? I'm like, it's me. It's me. She's like, now what? I gotta fix it, you know? And that was one of the most freeing days of my life because prior to that, I always had blame for everything. And the day I took on the ownership of it was the same day that I was then able to also become the solution to all my problems. Where you're looking at another lead vendor, another IMO, me, you know what I mean? Like, I ain't fucking solution. I might kick you in the face a little bit during these, you know what I mean? Give you some advice. But at the end of the day, without you making the choices, I don't mean anything in your world. You know? And so for me, I had to, I had to own it. That I, I was 30. I was 30, almost 30. I was a month from my 38th birthday. Been in the business, been licensed for almost 5 years. Had to go home and be like, all right, fam, I done messed up. I got work to do. And we sat down as a family and talked about what we wanted to accomplish. And then we talked about what I had to do and what my schedule looked like, and I was going to be gone for a minute. And I'd be home certain days, but there were some days, like, my— our world, our environment, our relationship as a family was going to change. I remember like it was yesterday, Steph and I used to, every night— she worked, she would go into work at 10 AM, which meant she would wake me up at 9:30 right before she left to go to work. So 2012, '13, '14, after I left the accounting job and got into insurance, so 20, really 2013 and '14, I'd sleep in till 9:30 for sure. And then I'd watch SportsCenter while she went to work and I'd eat Cocoa Puffs and whatever in bed and watch ESPN and on repeat. And, uh, then she'd get home at 6 and we would 100% of nights lay on the couch and watch TV. Till 11. Big Brother, Real World, Road Rules Challenge, Survivor. What's the one where they travel around the world? Shit. They do all those competitions and stuff. And we used to watch that one. And we're just sitting there and watch junk TV. I used to watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with her back in the day. Now I want to dig my eyeballs out with spoons when that stuff's on my TV, but I could still tell you the name of all the chicks in it from back then, you know. And that had to change. So now it was going to be like, no, I'm not going to be here, I gotta go. These days you get a window, right? Now she had to be okay with it. She wanted more too, so her sacrifice was she had to deal with all the shit at home while I was gone. My sacrifice was I had to be gone and miss all the shit, right? So there's equal sacrifice on both sides, and then we're going to meet up here in the middle, and we'd have our moments in between, you know. But that was a family decision. A lot of y'all are afraid to have those conversations, I think, because of ego. It's a hard conversation, you know. Now, it turned out to be easier than I thought, but I, I didn't want to have it. You know, and I took way too long to get it. Um, and then there's the last, the last thing that I'll talk about, and I'll open it up after this one. Um, I have down— it's a funny dynamic— I have down patience and urgency in the same, in the same thing. And there's this— it's like I'm telling y'all to go get it, but at the same time I'm like, yo, you have to be patient, you can't have it tomorrow. But you have to go at it like you're gonna have it tomorrow, but you can't have it tomorrow. You know what I mean? Like, there has to be this weird little balance of like patience for the crops to produce, but I'm impatient to plant the shit out of them and take care of them and water them and feed them and nourish them. And you know what I mean? Like, do all that stuff. So there's this insane balance of, yo, I need it now, let's go. But like, settle the F down, it takes a minute, you know. Now I get the beauty, we all get the beauty in some light to look backwards on something. Maybe you've been successful on something in life, pick whatever that thing is— gymnastics when you're a kid, baseball in high school, your last career, I was an artist, whatever it is. Think like something you were successful at, right? And then roll back to the beginning stage of that thing you became successful at. And if you look at it backwards, it like flew by. You know, I know people that were stud baseball players, made major leagues. And to them now, looking back, it was like 5 lifetimes ago. It's like they barely remember it being their real life. But then if they slow down and they visualize what it took to get there and the work they had to put in, And they remember the grind. It was like walking through 6 miles of mud that's knee-deep some days, you know what I mean? So day to day, when you kind of look at it, like, if you expect something major to change today, dude, it's gonna be a long day. But if you understand, if you put in the work it takes to have the change, and in a year or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 it'll be different as long as you keep chucking through the mud. It makes the days easier in a weird, wacky way. Like, again, the stuff don't go away, but mentally it's easier to carry when you expect it. And I, and I think somehow y'all expect you're gonna get on this call and tomorrow all the hard stuff's gonna go away. You expect to get on the next training call, the next Cody Askins call, the Zoom call, watch this guy with this or some magical I Am, like you expect you're gonna go here and one day it's just gonna go away. And for me, it— and I know a lot of millionaires in this space, like a fairly good shit ton of them, and the stuff never went away for any of them. In fact, Amanda, I'd argue we have more shit now than we ever did. Fair? And like, we got stuff, and it's hard stuff and expensive stuff. But hey, do you have the sign right there? Yeah, show them. We got this today. It's so cool. We have this saying in my office, because I promise you, the stuff ain't going nowhere. So it's like, mentally, how do you deal with it? So I made Amanda buy this sign. Today. Can y'all, can y'all read that? Oh, that's bright.

It's very bright.

Can you read it? It's the windows, man. Stand in front of the window, like block the window a little bit. There you go. Y'all see it? Always something. Always, always something. It's mother effing always something. Something always goes wrong. Someone always pisses us off. Someone always does something stupid. Someone always forgets something. Someone always misses something. So every mother effing day, something in our office drives us crazy. 100% of days. So I'm like, yo, we're buying a sign now. What are we gonna do? What'd I say we gotta do next, Amanda, with the sign? Add something after it. Yes. Why do we gotta add something after it? Because some people can take that as a negative. Always something. Boo-hoo. I'm like, you know what I see? Always something gives us the opportunity to grow. Always something gives us income and revenue opportunities. Always something gives us the ability to scale our company more. Solving these always something problems lets us grow. So we're gonna come up, I don't know what it's gonna be yet, but that we're gonna add to that sign and go, thank goodness there's always something because without the somethings, I can't grow. You know what I'm saying? So we're grateful as much as we get pissed, because I promise we do. And she has to calm me down more often than she should. Still, I'm teaching it, and I'm telling you it's a struggle still for me. Okay, now what's the difference? I expect it. I, I— the window is short in which I stay mad, and then I move the F on and I solve it. Because the solutions is what pays us really well, right? And so now when I come in every day, I just, I'm like, all right, what's up today? What are we dealing with today, girl? You know, and it becomes easier and easier to deal with, but it doesn't remove my emotion. My natural inclination as a person is to be pretty negative by default. I roll out of bed in a negative way, meaning you cut me off in the interstate, I think you did it on purpose to piss me off. Where my wife thinks it's an old lady who just didn't see her and did it by mistake. Does that make sense? I'm not that person. I'm like, yo, I want to motherfucking kill you. I want to tailgate you. I want to get around you, cut you off, put on my brakes. Like, that's my— I want— and I don't do that because I've learned to be a different person than who my nature is. It takes control, you know. Now, I'm not perfect, so some days I still do get mad and Some days I make Amanda mad because I like, she told me yesterday, it's not what you said, it's how you said it. I'm like, got it. I'm trying my best. You know? So it's like, my point of this is it's never going to be perfect. So you're going to have to have a lot of patience, not only with the process and the business, but with yourself. You know, you're going to have to have grace with yourself and understand that if you're, if you're like me, which is broken as fuck in a lot of ways. It's gonna take forever and you're still not gonna figure it out, but you're gonna get further ahead in life if you practice and work on it every day. You know, no different than if I go to the gym every day and I move a little bit of weight and I sweat every day and I eat fairly good, I'll probably be in fairly good shape for the rest of my life, but I'm never gonna have 0% body fat. And I'm— I don't suspect at my age now that I'm ever gonna get to a point where something's not sore. I— every day something hurts. I had an MRI on my shoulder today. My left hip hurts, my back. It's always something, literally. But I still go to the gym every day. Maybe I don't lift as hard today as I did yesterday, but I go, you know, because I'm trying to— trying to— I have goals I want to achieve in, in my personal world and my physical world and all that stuff too. And for me, these, these, these 3, maybe 4 things, you know, um, have kind of been the core of who I've had to become to become who y'all see or what y'all think, you know, and you're missing all you see is like a glance or the shit I put on social. I almost put, I really want to post that picture from this morning, Amanda, the one for that I sent you. I feel like, why not? You know what I mean? Like, let them see the, I had, they put me in this goofy costume to get the MRI. So I sent her the— I took, you know, like a— I was thinking those videos they do on like get ready with me videos where they show their outfits. And I had to wear this like blue paper hospital gown thing. Like they gave me a vest that buttoned and these goofy shorts and I put them on. I sent, I sent the picture to some people. I'm like, that's like actually real, you know? And I don't know, just know there's more behind the scenes and, and, and this took more work than. Mental work than anything else. Um, just being honest, the call leads, talk to them about insurance, identify problems, provide a solution, take an app, get their banking and routing and shit like that, and hit submit and get approved— like, that shit's easy. Ain't nothing complicated about that. You want to make a bunch of money, do it more. You know what I mean? Average apps, $1,000, $500, but call whatever your average is, call it $1,000 for easy math. You wanna make $10 grand, go write 10 apps. You know what I mean? You need new tires, go write 2 apps. You wanna go vacation, go write 5 apps. You want a half a million dollar house, go write 500 apps. This is not deep. You know, you wanna build something crazy, you wanna get bigger than that, you're gonna have to teach people how to do this. You know, the reason we can live the way we live is because I taught a lot of people at this very simple core. Y'all ain't gonna catch me teaching phone script stuff. I don't give a shit about it, you know. Um, it has its level of importance, but it ain't top 10 on my list, you know. I just think if you be who you are, help people get what they look— what they're looking for, which is to take care of their family, which ain't that deep. It's not like you got to identify a massive problem. We're all effing dying. There's no confusion there. Everyone has family. There's no confusion there. They all want to take care of their family. There's no confusion there. So you have something to sell for the rest of time. The question is, will you put in the work and can you get people to like and trust you and buy from you instead of me? That's it. And can you do it enough times to change your lifestyle? You know, and if you want to, if you want to get to, I don't know, you can get to half a million bucks. You can get to quarter million bucks easy as shit. Uh, you can get to half a million bucks, not too much harder. I mean, a little more work. Million bucks gonna take some motherfucking work on your own pen, but you can get that. I got plenty of people doing it, but it's gonna take some work. Now you're gonna be, you're gonna be selling a lot, but you can get there. But to get past that, you're gonna have to help some people make some money, you know. And that's the only, only way I was able to get to the level income we got, is like, let's, let's help a bunch of people make a bunch of money and keep it simple. And I like keeping it simple because I think for me, I want everybody to be like, well damn, I can do that, I thought it was more complicated. Now they've been lying so they can sell you a course. It ain't that deep. You know, it's like, let's go out and put in the work. Think about it right in your approach with leads. When you're approaching someone's house, or virtual, or Zoom, or whatever y'all do today, when you're approaching that sales situation, do you understand how simple this is at its core? Do your words speak in a way that you understand how simple this is? Do you assume they need it? Are you actually trying to figure out if they have interest in insurance when you're talking If you're attempting to figure out if there's interest, you've completely missed the point of how this works. And if you 100% know that someone needs it versus wonder if they might be interested in what you have to pitch, your words, your actions, your body language, your tonality, it's gonna be worlds different. So I don't even need to teach you phone script. Or how to present. If your belief level's off, I could give you every word I say, but if you don't believe it, it ain't gonna work. You have no shot. It will not work. You know, they'll hear it in your, in your voice. Like, I always say this, think about if we all went to another country, we didn't speak the same language. Would you be able to tell if someone was nervous? You ain't got to say a word. Would you be able to tell if someone had fear? If they were sad? Frustrated? And y'all somehow don't think that affects the interaction with your clients who speak the same mother-effing language as you? And we're like, yo, we can pick up on it in a foreign country, we don't even speak the same language. You know, so when you're going at these situations, are you paying attention to that? Are you going into your phone calls paying attention to the way your, your body language is and your words are? Last night, my, my kid, Matt Maddox, they got their ass kicked in baseball this weekend. And, uh, from the first inning, body language was off. Kids with shoulders down, frustrated. You see it right off the rip. And, uh, they got, they got smoked and had literally no shot because they didn't believe they could win from the rip. They had no belief. So they're, they're like, they struck out more than ever. They pitched like the best pitcher, like threw so many balls in the dirt. It was, it was a, it was a mess. And, uh, we go to their, we go to their, um, practice last night and that's all they talked about was the body language and the belief in the kids, right? What I most appreciated about the coach was he said, I looked back on the experience of the day and I remember my body language in the first inning was bad. And I know y'all fed off that. And the coach apologized to the kids. For the way he behaved as a leader, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, damn, I like that ownership. So meaning when you miss a sale, what are we thinking there? Is it really the client, you know what I mean? Or did you mess something up there? Did you show your lack of belief in them wanting to help their family? With a recruit, did you show your lack of belief in that person? Hell, you're trying to lead people and you don't even believe you can do it. You're trying to get others to believe they can do it, you know what I mean? It's like, you can— that energy is how we can pick up on stuff. And so it's like, are you, are you, are you putting out the right energy every day? When you're attempting to succeed in this industry. One of the best things I've ever learned from, from my mentor, Mike, he always taught me, if you want to get paid like a professional, you better act like a professional. You know, so when you're in your career, is showing this wide range of negative emotions really professional? Meaning if you were on stage As imagine they put this professional industry on TV, you know what I mean? It's the next big show on Netflix, is following you around. I mean, is that energy going to be there to be worthy of being worth a shit? Are you going to be a pro? Are you going to be on? Are you going to be a professional in that moment? You know what I mean? Are you gonna let them see how weak you are in the moment and see all the negative and see you bumming around feeling sorry for yourself when things aren't perfect? Whatever it is y'all do that you're unhappy with, you know what I mean? That's causing like all that— y'all know the real deal. Y'all know what's happening out there, you know what I mean? Feeling sorry for yourself, blameful, sulking, wishing, all this stuff. Imagine if that shit was recorded. And all the people you sulk and whine to, they could show it on Netflix, like, here's what it really looks like. Different story, you know what I mean? So it's learning to hold yourself accountable to that same, that same thing. And it's hard, I promise you, it's hard. Hey, that camera follows me around. I'm gonna deal with the same thing, just not, not near as often as some of y'all. You know what I mean? But it's there. So what I've learned is when I— we're all smart enough to know we're that way when we're that way. What I've learned to do is to catch it and own it and just tell myself to stop being an idiot and move on, you know what I mean? And give myself grace at the same time, be like, all right, stop it. Like, I call my— maybe not a good thing or healthy thing, but I call myself— I'm like, stop being a dipshit. You know what I mean? Like, cut it out, let's go. But that works for me, you know what I'm saying? If you call yourself dipshit, you might dig yourself deeper. I don't know, you know what I mean? But for me, I know how to motivate myself. So you might, you might have to find your— you might have to talk sweet to yourself. Come on, baby, you can do it. Do some of that. I don't care, just talk to yourself in the way that it needs you to get out of the moment, you know? Um, so anything I can help with, any questions, anything you want me to dig deeper on, any clarity I got a little bit more than happy to run through this and see if there's any questions in here. Oh, hey, Amanda, will you— so a couple of things we got coming up. Let me think. The next one is in person, right, Amanda? Is that the next thing? In my office, I'm just doing a day just for fun. Like, why not have people in? You can't stay after the hours. You can't come before and you can't come back the next day till our next one. We love you all, but we're having a little window. Come in then, and then you got to go. Uh, but it's May 2nd, right? What day is that? Is that— what day of the week is that? Thursday. Thursday. Thursday, May 2nd. What time are we doing? 9 to what? 2? 9 to 3? Something like that. 9 to 3. Some of y'all know it better than me. Thursday, May 2nd, 9 to 3. They can register probably at the link Amanda puts, or I'm sure on the website, I would guess. Yep. Again, free, come in, learn some shit, ask questions, see what we do. I don't know, you'll probably come across some shit that we had to deal with for the day. Who knows? We got our staff here. They might contribute some stuff. We can do a lot of, although I say some of the stuff sucks and you shouldn't make it first. We do use a lot of tech and automations and systems and things like that. And, you know, maybe for the right people it applies. So we got that. And then the next one of these online Zoom is, it keeps moving on me, May, what's that say? May 15th. What day is that? A Wednesday? Yes. When you're going on vacation? Yes. You'll be fine. I love, but I hate. So May 15th, Wednesday, 2 PM. You can register for, for that as well. There's— my managers put links on. Again, I assume they're on the website, and if you're on our email list, you'll get them naturally. If you're not, JohnWetmore.com, you can register, you get all the emails. Uh, read them if you like, or like the 6 people today, you can unsubscribe as well if you'd like. We're good either way, and we're just going to keep helping a bunch of people. And, um, trying to think if there's anything else I'm supposed to remind them. What else we got? Nothing. You good? We're coming out with a new Netflix series. We're going to send cameramen to all y'all's houses. It's going to be better than Cody's. We're going to have live cameras following you around. No, I'm kidding. We're not doing that. That's not me. Um, trying to think.

Yeah.

Anything else? If, if you've got a takeaway from, here's what I want y'all to do. And again, if you have questions, I'll shut up in a second. I promise. What I would say, action items, right? Write down a goal. My personal preference was income goals. You write down whatever the hell you want. Um, what I would do second is write down what specifically you have to do activity-wise something very specific activity-wise. I need to prospect more. I need to get more referrals. I need to run more appointments. I need some, some specific thing that you need to do more to help you hit that goal. Okay. Then you're gonna look at it. You print out like a, what I did, I printed out a calendar. You can Google it, month calendar, and I've mapped out an exact schedule of when I was going to do those activities that I just said you had to put down. Right? So I need to do 5 more whatevers a week. Cool. When are you going to do— literally write down when you do them. The way I did my schedule is I first wrote down on the calendar the things I absolutely cannot move or prefer not to. In my case, when I got my kids every other, every week for dinner, I preferred not to move it. I preferred to pick them up from school and take them to dinner because they didn't all live with me. So we had like one night a week and every other weekend thing. So I put those on my calendar. I prefer to not do anything on this window Thursdays. Then I said every other weekend when I have my kids, I prefer to not do anything. So every other Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I prefer to do nothing related to the business best I can, especially on the sales side. Right. And then that left basically all the other days of the week that are left. And then every other weekend I was open. And I chose on one of those weekends, I was just gonna hang out with Steph and Maddox, who obviously are the ones that I currently live with. And so I, that left me Sundays, I was just off every week cuz I, I wanted to be right. So that left me Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, every other Friday, one Saturday a month is how it left my schedule open. And that's when I put in all my activity and I said, cool, I need to run 120 appointments a month. Here's where I do 10, here's where I do 12, here's where I do 5 here. And I mapped it out. And then all I had to do was go do it, do the damn thing. Right? And then the most important thing you have to do, if you're gonna add stuff to your calendar, you 100% have to put down in writing the things you're going to remove that you're currently doing. Meaning if we watch Netflix on Monday night, we gotta remove that to add calling on Monday night. If you don't do the exercise of removing something, you will go back to doing the same shit you're already doing. I'm 100% sure of it. And so for me, when I committed to it, if I found myself, like I removed, I was playing flag football, I was sleeping in and I was watching an obnoxious amount of football on TV from Thursday all the way to Monday night. I'd watched every one and then I watched every episode of SportsCenter to give me the highlights of the shit I just watched. It was obnoxious. So I decided to cut it out. Right? So then what I did is I said, as long as I hit my numbers and my goal, all the other stuff that I prefer not to move won't move. However, the consequence of not doing it in the times that were open were I then had to move my kids' dinner. I then had to move the kids every other weekend. I would've then had to work on Sundays. I was willing to move that shit. I just preferred not to. Right? So me, I had a really big consequence. So if I found myself watching football on a Saturday that I was supposed to be working, I felt like shit because it meant I couldn't accomplish the goals I wanted to accomplish for my kids. And I had very specific goals, one being send my kids to private school together, all of them, even the ones that don't live with me. I wanted them all in the same private school together so they all go to school together. That was a big goal of mine. I wanted to be able to build a house for my wife, like a dream house, which will be done in August. This shit, we bought one that I thought was a dream house. Now we have like a, we have like a kind of fuck you house now. It's really nice. And, uh, and we, to donate a certain amount of money to church and different things we want to give money to. And so I knew if I, if I, if I sat around watching football on a Saturday when I said I wouldn't, my kids weren't going to be able to go to private school together. That was a no-brainer for me to work. I'm like, football, who gives a shit? I want my kids going to school together, you know what I mean? Because again, they live in different households, so I'm like, nah, that ain't, that ain't okay for me, you know? So I was able to do that. But Amanda, like, man, it's been a minute. I bet, I bet, shit, 5 years ago now, 6 years ago, 5 or 6 years ago now, they've all been in, in school together. Um, which is cool, you know, on top of all the other shit I, I'm obligated to pay for because the world and courts and all that says you have to. I'm like, no, I'm gonna pay for this too. And I've— every one of my kids— no, everyone— my two older kids, they're 30 and 25-ish. They only knew the broke version of our family. But, uh, my oldest graduates high school this week. Her prom's like this weekend, and then she graduates next month. Uh, when she turned 16, bought her a car cash. My next son just turned, when he turned in, uh, November, bought him a car cash. Maddox is next and he's already, he's 12. He's already talking about what car he's gonna get. You know, those are just things I wanted to be able to do for my kids. And that was, that was the result of this exercise. I'm telling y'all, I literally did this exercise 9 years ago now, you know? And it's worked for me and every agent we've ever trained that follows it. Um, and it's really simple and it don't have shit to do with leads or scripts or nothing. And now the question is, will y'all do it? Now, if you want to get extra credit and really stand out just for fun, I would love for y'all to put that out there to the world. Let people know what you're going to have to do, whether you want to type it, text it, video it. I don't care. Tag me. I love seeing it. And if we have to hold your ass accountable by you posting it out to the world, do it. Couple of y'all will have the nuts to do it. Most of y'all won't, but it's all good. I would love to see it. And, uh, any questions though? 12-Week Year, I've heard of that. I've not read that book yet, but I've heard it's really good. I know the concept, but I've not, I've not read it yet. It's like the, uh, Mylett talks about, like, I think it's Mylett, like 3, 3 days in 1 day. I think it's kind of same concept. Um, cool. Anybody have any questions? You can literally just unmute and ask. I think you're allowed to unmute. Pretty sure. Yeah, right. They can just unmute Amanda, can't they?

All right, John. John, this is Kera. How you doing, man?

What's up, dude? What's up? I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised at this one.

Listen, I'm glad to be here. Um, I got a quick question. I know you probably answered this question probably several times over in the conversation, but, um, as I told you before, you don't have to lead in like that.

It's all good.

I'm excited, man. You know, I told you that before. Uh, so what, you know, just from your perspective and from all of your accomplishments and things that you've done, um, what would— what do you think, you know, it takes for a person to have the staying power to see the accomplishment through? Like, if I want to get this $125,000 or $200,000 within the next 12 months, what is it going to take for me to stay here, you know, and keep that mentality strong uh, and anchor to see that through, man.

Yeah, dude, you know, I wish I could take that and put it in this fucking bottle and get y'all to drink it. I'd be a multi-trillionaire, you know, man. One of my mentors taught me really simple: if you can't stick with it, your dreams and goals aren't big enough. I just took it as simple as that, dude. And so every time someone would be inconsistent and And they'd bitch about, how do I get more consistent? He'd just be like, yo, your goals and dreams must not be big enough. You must not really want it. I mean, so stop bitching. If you want it, you'd go do it. You know, so I don't, I've never really overthought it any deeper than that, bro. You know, I don't, I don't know how to give that to people. I wish I did. Right. Shit. Well, first of all, if that were possible, someone definitely would have figured that shit out before me. I ain't banking on that one ever happening. Um, but I really never tried to keep it any, any deeper. And I can say that's true for me because before that, I'll be honest, man, my goals were to be home before dark and sit around and watch TV. I mean, just have a normal job because I've worked night jobs and overnight shifts and restaurants. And she— you know what I mean? Like, I didn't know any better, bro. So my goal was to have normal hours and be home by dinner and sit around and like Al Bundy, bro. Watch TV with my hand in my pants, I guess. Some of y'all don't even know who that is, but a few of y'all were on the same page, you know. The rest of y'all Google it. Um, but yeah, dude, it's— and I can see the same for me. And when I really wrote down very specific goals— I should share them one time. I have most of them written still, like I keep them. I have goals back to 2012. And I, I handwrite them, right? And I, I haven't done the best job the last few years because I keep them mentally, which I don't know that that's a good thing. But I wrote them this year, um, because I got mad at myself for not writing them every year. But 2012, '13, '14, '15, '16, maybe up to— I think we have Amanda, like, up to '18 or something, for sure, '18 or '19. I literally have, like, a couple typed, most of them handwritten. And I'd write out very specific goals. I want to make this much money. I want to get this kind of car. I want to pass these people in business. I would like, yo, they, I had names on the paper, dollar amounts, like I had specifics. And my favorite part of it was the exercise of checking them off as I hit them. And I don't, I don't have other than current goals, which are obnoxious to be clear. They're like, they kind of sound selfish in some ways, but they're obnoxious. Other than the current ones, I, I've never written down a goal I ain't hit. There's not, not zero have I not hit. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Because it, again, it's not like someone else hadn't already accomplished them. I wanna make a million bucks. You know how many fucking people do that? That's gonna be an asshole. You know how many people in the world make a million bucks? Wow. Now watch this. Do you know how many people would be miserable if they only made a million bucks because they make significantly more. There's a fuck ton of those people in the world that couldn't survive on a million bucks a year. They could— you get what I'm— you get my point.

Absolutely.

Does that make sense? Like, they would be like, what did I mess up? You know, so it's like, I just— you want to make $100 grand, dude? Really? Like, that's almost minimum wage now. Like, stop it. You don't believe you can make $100 grand? Cut it out. Quarter million bucks? Like, what? Bradley's like, yo, you ain't make a quarter million bucks, you can't even live, you know? And I— you can do some cool stuff. But you start making it, you know what I mean? Like, again, quarter million. Yeah, my kids all in the same private school. Hey, what's our bill, Amanda, every month? You probably know it. I think it's like $7,500 a month or something. I got 3 of them now, you know what I mean? Just from— just for them to attend, much less the, the books, the sports, all the other shit they do, field trips. One's going to Disney, one went to Dominican Republic, one's going overseas. Like part of their— part of their schooling, you know what I'm saying? It's like, you're $250,000 after taxes, you make $182,000— shit, I ain't $182,000, probably $128,000, know what I mean? $150,000, whatever the number is. Like, yo, tuition alone's $100,000. Get you a nice Escalade that you want, $150,000. Buy your wife the, you know, C-Class Mercedes, another $90,000, you know what I'm saying? Get you a nice 5,000-square-foot house, $600,000, $700,000 G's. You know, quarter million bucks ain't cutting it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, quarter million bucks don't go that far when you want to live big boy lifestyle, does it? You know, now we were very blessed in that we didn't change our lifestyle very soon, dude. I waited. I learned this thing from, uh, oh fuck, what's his name? I think Waka Flocka said it, I think. And he was like, don't buy one until you could afford 10.

Good advice.

So I went— I shared this yesterday— when I was in the field selling, I had a Kia, like a little Kia Optima. The next vehicle I bought cash was a Bentley because I waited till I could afford 10 of them. I'm like, I ain't buying one, but I want one, but I ain't buying one. I ain't— it's on my board, but I ain't buying. I ain't doing it. I ain't doing it. I ain't doing it. I ain't doing it. And when I did it, it was like— it was like buying a Kia, to be honest, just being real, you know what I'm saying? Because we had— we had waited to change our lifestyle. And so many people change their lifestyle so soon, they can't ever— they can't ever reinvest. They can't— dude, you— you get in that rat wheel forever, right? You know what I'm saying? If your lifestyle always goes up with your income, you always feel the same, and it gets exhausting. And you feel like you're never making it anywhere, you know. So I was like, yo, I'm broke as shit. I can live like this a couple more years. Who cares? Like, we lived okay. I mean, it wasn't— I wasn't on food stamps no more. It was better than it had been. Love it, man. You know what I mean?

Love it, man.

Love it. And then, you know, we've even continued to do that best we can. It's like, yo, let's, let's rely— I can technically do more than we do, but no, I don't, I don't, I don't— I like the peace of owning my stuff and You know what I mean? I don't— I had— I've learned I had my house taken away before. You know why they took away my house? Was that because it wasn't my house? It was the bank's. They took their house back and kicked me out.

Got you.

Got you.

Got you.

I ain't doing that shit again.

Gotcha.

So I don't know, man. I think put down some goals and dreams and You know what I mean? Maybe you don't need— maybe stuff isn't part of it. But yeah, I grew up in the hood, stuff's part of it a little bit. So I got a little bit. I don't have a lot of stuff. Like, I ain't wearing nothing. I got no jewelry. I got nothing. I'm not that guy. I might have a watch on every once in a while.

Gotcha.

And I wear like a $4 rubber wedding ring.

I love it.

Yeah. Yeah. But I do have a nice car and a nice house.

That's cool. But I think you kind of answered the question for me, man. I'm just in a place where that, as I told— talked to you before, I am more intentional this year, and I really want to make the goals. And I thank the universe and, you know, God is just opening up the door so I can connect with people like you to do this. So, uh, you'll see more of me. But that was my question, man. If I have anything else, man, you know, you hear from me.

You got, you got immediate family, wife, kids, any of that?

No kids, not married yet, you know, but I'm saturating the, uh, the ground for that. So when they do come along, they don't have to really worry about any, any problems.

I was gonna say, whoever's in your world consider who you might need to include in that conversation. Because I do see a lot of people that have goals and dreams and they're different than the people around them.

That's—

they don't mesh. Yeah. I mean, so make sure there's some unity with whoever in, in those conversations. Or I won't say the or, you might just be with the wrong person. Not you, just hopefully, right? I don't know.

No, you're good, man.

No, you're good, man.

But no, no one yet. I'm just saying. Saturating the field when they come along. There's no issues, man. So I appreciate it, man. Thanks.

Love it. Cool. What else y'all got? Anything? I got time for one more if y'all got.

What's your, your best recourse for mindset to keep you as possible in one direction, right? Um, yeah, not that there's any magic pill, but like, nah, like the cookie jar, I guess, you know, like you, how do you reflect in a, in a shitty moment to keep it going in the direction you need it to go?

Yeah. Like when you're in a shitty moment, you know it, right?

100%. I feel like that will affect— my thing is you have a shitty moment and you don't want it to affect the next conversation you have, and then I need to procrastinate.

Yeah. So you don't want to be in the shitty moment. Fair? Right.

100%.

You, you, you see how it affects you because you then have to procrastinate, which causes you costs you a shitload of money. Fair, right? You know, you're— all you're doing is delaying the— you're delaying the inevitable. You're eventually going to get out of it, right? Like, you're not in a shitty mood this second.

100%. It's not permanent at all, correct?

So you're delaying the inevitable, you know what I mean? It's like, it's funny. It's like, this is funny. I was explaining kind of this out to someone last— actually, it was Amanda, funny enough. I'm not— she was doing it, but we were talking about taxes. And you ever see like when you had a job, you can like, I want to make more money, so I'm going to change my deduction, my— what do you call it? The deductions, right? What do they call that? There's a word I'm looking for. The what? You can change what you file. I can make it a 1 instead of a 2 instead of a 4, whatever that stupid thing, right? And they're like, I'm making more. I'm like, yo, you know, you're just going to owe more at the end of the year. It doesn't change what you owe in taxes. It just changes the withholding temporarily and you're just delaying. And people who— I got my big refund. Yo, they just gave you the money you overpaid back. It's not that deep unless maybe like I got earned income credit because I was so broke they literally gave us extra money. But for the most part, people like big refund. I'm like, yeah, they just held your fucking money all year. You know, I mean, at the end of the— at the end of the year, your taxes are this, right? So by tweaking it paycheck to paycheck, all you're doing is delaying what's actually the truth that's going to happen. April 15th. Well, shit, 2 days ago. Unless you file extensions like we do and pay in October, or file in October. You know what's crazy? This side note, when you— when you— I don't know if any of y'all like do extensions. You know, you know that that's only extension in like the paperwork. You still got fucking pay. You don't get to like not pay. So I still had to pay. I still had to write a check and then we just do the paperwork later. I'm like, damn it. I like the other way anyway. So like, you know, you're, you know, you're gonna get there, dude, right? So it's like that gap, and you're smart enough to know you're in that moment. You're smart enough to know you don't want to be in that moment, and you're smart enough to know you're eventually going to be out of that moment. So it's like, can you— your brain is really fucking powerful, dude. It's like dumb enough to let yourself in that moment, but smart enough to acknowledge you're in it. It's really fucking weird. It's like the, the devil and the whatever, the angel and devil thing in cartoons and TV, you know what I mean? Like we're all kind of bipolar in some way and have two fucking personalities, right? And so for me, the thing that, the thing that I do, two things. One, I, I, I, I feed myself very positive information all the time. I listen to a lot of podcasts, um, in the gym. A ton. I, I, I, I read as much as I can. If I'm not physically reading, I tend to listen to like a book on tape. And it's really hard to be, have successful professional people speaking to you all the time and stay in a negative state. I mean, so I've trained myself so much to hear positive things. So if someone's negative, oh, you move. Oh, there you are. The screen moves a little bit. I've trained myself to hate Nate. Like, if someone posts— if I'm— if I follow every one of y'all on Facebook, I'd be willing to bet within 30 days I'd not follow 80% of you because of what you post. The second it's something emotional, political, religious, opinionated, unfollow. The second I spend— weird, I almost like deleted it the other day, but I have to go on and respond to people because I swear to God, I spend more— people, there's a little button. I won't unfriend you. There's a little button. You hit the little button and you hit unfollow. I spend more time when I scroll hitting unfollow than I do reading stuff. And then after like 8 or 9 unfollows, I'm like, why am I even on Facebook? Let me fucking close the thing. I can't stand negativity. It dries. And coming from a negative person, admittedly, right? So I pay attention to what I feed myself visually, audibly, I think is the way you say it, right? I pay attention to both. And what I learned, dude, the really— the kicker for me is you said you acknowledge all those things. So if you can't get past it on your own, dude, you're losing to yourself. And that sounds really fucking stupid to me, to lose to me. Like, I'm good if I lose to you. Like, I don't like it, but I'm like, all right, better sales guy, works harder, smoother, more articulate, kicked my ass, whatever. All right, but losing to me, I'm like, ah, dude, I have a problem with that one. You know what I mean? And that's what, that's what's really made it stick for me. So when I, when I, when I do it, it's acknowledge it, catch it, get rid of it as fast as possible. It's an exercise. I acknowledge it, catch it, get rid of it. I'm like, yo, get, stop it. Get rid of it, dude. 100% of days I do this exercise, dude. There's not a day that, that goes by that I don't think something negative. Something about my past, something I regretted, something that frustrates me, someone who pisses me off. This is 100% of days I do this exercise. Yo, cut it out. Losing to yourself. Stop. Go. So I give myself the grace to be human, but I don't allow myself to lose to myself best I can. You know, and some days it lingers a little longer, but a long one for me, you know what I mean? Like, Really bad day, 30 minutes, hour. If it went a couple hours, it'd be a long one. Like, I'd die. Like, that don't happen almost ever, you know what I mean? A long one's like, you know, 30 minutes. I'm, I'm moving. Like, that's a long one. Most times, under a minute, done. Under a minute, done. Under a minute, done. You know what I mean? And for me, taking a break don't do it. I gotta attack it like I'm punching back, you know? So that helped.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, recently I've been encouraged to increase lead spend, um, so basically putting more on my plate where it's like, well, how could this even possibly matter? We have so much other things to actually take care of.

Um, so just— are you, are you making any money on your current lead spend?

Uh, well, I just jumped from 1,000 a week to 2,000 a week, so yeah, last month I had my highest month at 41 IP.

Um, what did I make on the 41?

Like, how much did I bring home?

Deposit? Yeah, yeah, how much went in your bank?

I have not tracked that. I'm sure over closer to $15,000, probably a little bit more.

Um, way more than $15,000 or something really fucking wrong.

I had a lot of—

you still have stuff pending?

Um, some. I have a lot of like $5,500 IULs and stuff with AmeriCoast pending.

Got it, makes sense. Cool.

Um, I haven't really—

what was your biggest month before that?

$20K in February, and then, okay, and that was $16K in January.

So who do you work with?

Uh, Diligence, Caitlin Blackburn.

Oh, dope.

Cool.

So cool. So don't fall into going from $41K to $20K. You know why?

Oh, it's— I feel like I don't know how to word it, but yeah, I mean, if I understand your question correctly. Just because I went from 20 to 40 doesn't mean I'm going to go from 40 to 60, per se.

No, no, I'm saying if you go from— let's, let's do this. What rough, rough number, ballpark, what number percentage-wise is going to fall off the books?

They say about 25 to 30.

Okay, call it 30, right? So if 30% of 40 falls off, what's that? 40. Yep, you did $41K, 30% falls off. What's that coming off?

Well, you have— you're left with $10K if 30% falls off.

Or if— so you did $41K, 30% of that's $12K. Yeah, does that make sense? So that you could, you could realistically expect— maybe you're better, maybe you're not, who knows— but like, if you aren't at least thinking about it, you'd be nuts. Okay, so let's say $12K falls off. And you only issued 20, right? And 30% of the 20s falling off, that's 6, plus you got the 12 falling off from the 41. You ain't making no fucking money if you only issue 20. You mean you're gonna end up in the hamster wheel again, right? The downside of issuing a lot is more cancel, right? It's not a downside, but you have to understand how it works. So if you come back down here you're going to get whacked with the chargebacks from here, and it's going to hurt more than if you do 40/40.

100%.

Then who gives a shit? You know what I'm saying? You do 40, 12 falls off, you do 40 again, who cares? Does that make sense? But you do 40 and you drop down to 20, dude, that thing's gonna smack you. Same concept. If y'all are out there going, those are big numbers, do 10 and then do 3. Buckle the fuck up, you're gonna get smacked. Does that make sense?

I went from February was 20 and then March was 40. $41.

No, I know, which I'm saying, April, don't fuck around. Yeah, does it make sense? Don't, don't go backwards.

I will say I have— I've only had one chargeback for the month of February.

Yeah, fucking amen. So my point is, if you're, if you're better, it's better. But the concept, it's like, just be careful, right, to make sure that you don't pretend that cancels don't happen. 100%, you know what I'm saying? And, and that's, that's where people get hurt, and they feel like they do $40 and then $20, and they're like, well, fuck, the $40 didn't do anything, I got no money. Like, yeah, because you didn't do shit the next month. You know what I mean? So you gotta keep some kind of consistency. So if you're doing 40 on 1,000, you're probably really good at working your leads. You know what I mean? So it's like, even if you did 1,000, you were, call it 12 weeks into the year, you spent 12 G's and you did 40, 60, 80 grand, dude, you're up 60 G's off of 12. Yeah. So now if you, if you're up $60 on $12, what if you had spent $24? What would you be up?

Yeah, that's, that's why I went from $1,000 a week to $2,000 a week.

Correct. You'd be up $120 G's. You'd have $60 more G's in your account today. Had you done it in the first quarter. Does that make sense? 100%. The only reason I'm asking more detail is some people, the answer is that when they don't really work their leads, but I can just based on your numbers, you're obviously doing, doing a deep bet. You're doing a better job than you did in January, February. 100% because there is more than 20 G's in, in a thousand a week in leads. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? I'd even challenge you for fun, spend it. But you want to have— you want to get to 60, spend your 2, right? You got— go to 2, whatever you'll get. I, I bet we can get you at 100, bro. If a thousand got you 40, you do 2, 80. Maybe you don't do as good and it gets you to 50 or 60. I'd be willing to bet you money, bro, if you went back and took your last 3 months leads and worked them like I had a gun in your mouth, I bet you find another 50.

That's what I'm doing. I'm going back to—

I bet you money if you go out and you work them, you know what I'm saying, like you mean it. Meaning if you get— if you send me your leads from the last 3 months, I'll go make 50 G's. I promise you. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, do both. It doesn't have to be this or that. It can be and, you know what I'm saying? Like, remember, they are still people, they are still families, they still do want to take care of it. There is still money in there, you know? So it's like, maybe depending on your timing, your schedule, and all that shit, you want to have fun. I don't know your situation at all, but you look young, and I'm guessing you got a bunch of time on your hands, you know what I mean? Like, you probably got the ability to go print some money. And just for fun, see the exercise. It'll give you this boost of confidence you've never seen before, dude.

100%. Yeah, that's where it came from. I mean, I got a lot of whys. I know your thing was like you would always try and call to find Maddox. I have 2 kids. Coincidentally, my son's name is Marcus, so similar. That's right, trying to tell me.

Yeah, yeah, find them.

You got 2 kids, find them, and then if you're done working today, you can be done, but at least you have 2 policies under your belt.

Correct. Yeah, it just got that— that helped with the mental. You know what I mean? Because again, at that point, although I'm, I'm, I'm antsy and urgent to get to it because I'm, I'm, I'm, I have that mentality. I don't have time to be fucking frustrated about life. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, yo, let's go. I gotta find this. You know what I mean? Like I got a gun to your mouth. Yo, you ain't got time to be sad. Let's go. You know what I'm saying? And that's just mental tricks for me, dude. I'm jacked up. So you gotta find what works for you. I can go like, dude, someone kidnapped Maddox. I won't sleep for 4 days and I'll call everyone under the sun. I don't give a shit. That self-motivates me. You know what I'm saying? Some people hear me say it and they're like, you're psycho. I'm like, I started with that. I'm aware. You know what I mean? But it works. It gives me this internal, I can like artificially fuel myself through this trickery. Like our brain is fucking, I don't know. Again, it's smart and it's stupid. I'm smart enough to know that I can trick my own brain into urgency by making shit up. Like, that's powerful to me, you know? I just have to keep lighting that flame in different ways. Yeah, makes sense. Oh, 100%.

I appreciate it.

Cool. All right, y'all need anything, let me know. Hit me up on social if you need. Otherwise, we'll see you somewhere in the next one.

Thanks, John. Appreciate it, man.

Later.