The Secret Handshake with John Wetmore & Perry Lunsford

What's up, dude?

What up, bro?

You ran 2 and a half hours yesterday.

I ran 2 and a half effing hours yesterday without stopping.

That is incredible. I have two emotions about that. The first is envy that you have 2 and a half hours to spend running, and the second is I would never do that. That sounds miserable. There's no way I can cut— that's the last thing on the list I would ever want to do. But I'm so proud of you. It's incredible. Good for you, man.

I did not want to do it. No, I, uh, of course not. But I was really dumb. I like doing hard things, so I one day on a whim was like, I should do a damn marathon. And I'm like, all right, it's not whatever. And now it's getting really close and I'm learning that the training for this thing is a bitch.

Yeah.

So like in October is when I really first started like kind of deciding like, I should probably learn how to— I should probably run. Like more. I don't know why, because I hate running and I'm like, I should figure it out. So in October, I couldn't do 3 miles without like wanting to die, right? Um, and yeah, yesterday was—

I—

so I get my— I get a— I hired a guy. So like maybe a month ago, I hired a guy that was referred to me to like give me specific things to do every day to get ready instead of me just winging it. Because I was prepping, but I was— it was zero intention. So I hired the guy. So now every day I wake up and I have a little app and he tells me exactly what to do. So 2 days ago, I see, uh, a 1-hour run one day, and then I— he put 2 days in. So then he put the 1-hour run, I was like, all right, pretty normal day. And then the next day said 2 and a half hours. I was like, oh, this just got real. So I had, I had like 36 hours to mentally prep for not stopping. That was my only goal. Just, I, dude, I didn't try to go fast. I didn't try to beat any— I just wanted to not stop, right? Um, and it was cold, and I couldn't wrap my head around doing it on a treadmill. I just can't. I couldn't imagine.

That's not running, though. No, that's not running.

So I went and it was like Maddox— funny enough, I was trying to prep the day and, uh, I'm like, in the morning I had to, um, trying to think, I had to pick Maddox up from a sleepover. And then that was— I was supposed to pick him up at like 12, and then he had baseball at 2, which takes us to like 4. And I'm like, dude, I'm gonna be running until like 7, 7, 8. It's gonna be dark. So I picked Maddox up. I'm stressed out about when to get it done. I pick him up from his buddy's house, and the second he gets in the car, a switch flips, and he like starts fake being sick because he doesn't want to go to baseball. And I'm like, I want to lose my mind because it drives me nuts when he— I'm like, dude, every time you have baseball, you're sick with something. Like, this is getting annoying, right?

Right.

He's like, yeah, but So in my head I'm like, well, if I let him be sick, then I can get the run done early. So I'm like, talk to your mom. I don't have— I don't have the energy today with you being sick. So I, I went at like—

maybe it's a very sickly child. 1 o'clock, 1:30, every, every Tuesday night or whatever the hell it is.

Oh man. So yeah, man, 2 and a half hours and then I was done. I did 11 miles. Which I wasn't highly impressed with the mileage necessarily. It's the longest I've ever run. But yeah, so I'm gonna try it again in like a week.

I used to run a lot, a lot, a lot in the early 2000s. I ran a lot, like, I, um, probably— but my issue was one day it occurred to me, that's why I can't— when I run like that, my muscle just falls off my body.

Got it. Interesting.

Yeah, I don't know, my body, my metabolism just eats my muscle. And so that's why I quit doing it.

You quit? My plan is not to keep running. I don't really have a long-term running plan. I do. I am kind of effing impressed with how quick my stamina is going up. Like, I'm shocked. I didn't think I could get to 11 miles as quick.

Um, but you're an incredible athlete.

I don't, I don't know what's next. I'm glad I have the hike thing next because that's different, like prepping for that will be different.

Well, I think that's great that you're going straight from this into the hike. That should make that hike a lot better.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it's like 6 months after or something like that, but yeah.

But when, when I stopped running, that was the day that I started being able to build muscle, and I'm like, I prefer the muscle. Gets me further when I walk in a room. That's true. So, so last week, I was interviewing CFOs. That was difficult. The most, the most talented guy who walked in the room, who I was most impressed with, had an accent so hard, I couldn't understand him. Really? Yeah. It's actually, it's actually, he's actually Spanish. He's, he's, he's native Mexican. But, and I, it was an Ivy League school that he graduated from. His kids are all going to Stanford. He's a genius. But I'm, but I, and I don't hear well, right? Right? And I'm not gonna wear hearing aids, but I don't hear well 'cause, you know, 10 years standing next to jet engines makes it hard to hear. And so used to accents didn't bother me, but now it's just so hard for me to understand what he was saying. So there's him, I really, really like him. That's certainly not a no, we're just, we would have to spend a lot of time saying, "I don't understand what you're saying. Clearly you understand me, but I'm not understanding you." Yeah, you know, even Adelaide is British and I have a hard time understanding her, my social media manager. And brilliant, absolutely. Not in the— not brilliant in the British way because they use that word because something tastes good or anything.

Yeah, they do.

Oh, that flower is brilliant. But like in the American sense, like she's absolutely brilliant. But I'm constantly saying, I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. So there's that guy. There was another dude Um, he was older guy and he was charming and cool. Um, already been down the path that I'm— I need to go down. Um, absolutely, like, I was kind of infatuated with him. I had two issues with him though. The first was he did no research on us before he came. I don't know why, but that bothered me.

That bothers me too.

Yeah. And then the other was he was just so cool and just handsome, like 6'5", buff, but older. And I said, hey man, do you mind if I ask? I go, you act like you're 37 years old. You might have asked how old you are. And his answer was, older than 37. And I thought that was a great answer, uh, for a salesperson, but for my CFO And also, listen, he doesn't have to answer that at all, but it just made me like, I'm like, we have, we have to have— this is something that you and I have to be best friends because we're going to become intimately involved, especially him intimately involved in me. Like, and it's an interview, so it's not like that means anything. Um, but it just— those were the two things that made me nervous. Had a younger guy, wasn't qualified at all, but man, did I love his personality. Not gonna do it. Because, you know, the things I need to get done are too big. Um, but so that's what we did last week. So I, I think I'm down to those two guys. I might interview a couple more people. And then now I'm hiring a full-time front-end, back-end website developer, and I'm spending only like $20 a day on Indeed, but I'm getting 120 interview or resumes a day. So luckily most of them are from out of state. So gone, gone, gone.

Yeah, right.

And then the other thing is like, you know, how do you sort through these? So, you know, on Indeed they've got the, the skill set test.

Yep.

So when I go through the 150 that I've gotten so far, and I put it in yesterday morning and eliminate all of them that aren't local because I want local, I want someone in my office looking at me in the eyes going, this is what I want to do, and then they do it, or them going, no, you need to do this. This, right? Because the websites that I have in my head are very complicated and very detailed, but very simple for the user, right? And then, so first get rid of those and then go, okay, well, I'm only going to do the ones who made expert on that. And so many people don't even do it.

So yeah, do you get rid of the ones that don't even fill it out? That don't even take the— I wipe— I don't even read those if they don't even attempt it.

Yeah, and I put in there, if you don't do this, we're not— yeah, we're not considering.

I do the same thing.

So yeah, but right, so that narrowed me down to just, um, like 20. So right now I'm sitting at 2. From 120, I'm down to 2. So at first I was reaching out to Addie Adelaide saying, hey, I'm gonna need help on this, uh, because I, I don't know what I'm looking at on these. And that's it, that's the real problem, right? I don't know what I'm looking at. Where with the CFO, I'm like, listen, I don't know what you gotta do, but here's where I gotta get and here's the things I need to get there. And then I need you to have already done that 2 or 3 times so that you know how to make it happen.

Yeah.

So, but on, so on this one, I'm down to 1 person so far. Sick. We'll let it ride for a week. I like it. Get it up to them. It's good. Yeah, it's exciting. That's exciting.

We got mine starting next week. Kind of a, like techie helper kind of guy. And we're still, we're still going. I had two people interview for the, like, media type position. Yeah, one came and one we did, we just, it just wasn't a fit right off the rip.

Right.

And one we had come to the event. And oh, yeah.

Yeah, the one that came to the event.

Is that the one?

I want to come shoot for you.

Yeah, no, that's the one that didn't make it. And the other guy I reached out to only because he walked up to— so about a year and a half ago, he applied on Indeed, and then I must have researched stuff and then saw me in the gym and walked up to me and was like, hey, are you John Wetmore? I'm like, yeah. That normally doesn't happen in the gym. That happens like in the insurance world, you know what I mean? Like, I don't get that. So I was like, yeah, like, what, you know what I mean?

Like, what's up?

And, uh, he's like, yeah, I saw you were looking for video. And at the time, the person who was doing the interview, I don't know what happened, it just, I don't know, it didn't work out. And I thought of the guy, so I randomly was like, hey, are you still looking? And, uh, just because he's local. And so, yeah, so we brought him in. My team liked him. Um, but we'll see how he— how his work did. He was, he was not bad to be around for the day, you know, filming. We're not 100% sure, but we're gonna wait and kind of see his work, which I'm— I'll be honest, I'm weird, dude. He filmed Thursday night and Friday and I haven't seen one clip yet, and I'm like, well, am I— should I be patient? Like, am I—

no, patient. If he's doing a good job, he shouldn't be done yet. Okay, if he's doing a good job, it shouldn't be done yet. And, um, I mean, the editing work— so last Monday— was that last Monday? No, I guess it was the Thursday before that, probably. So the Thursday before that, we, uh, Brent, my in-house videographer, came and shot testimonials from my team all day.

Got it.

I mean, I just got the last one yesterday and he's grinding on it, right? Okay. It takes— if you're doing multi— especially you're doing multiple camera shoots. Yeah. And, and you're doing the editing right, it's— and you want it to look good, it's going to take time. Now if all you're wanting is, I don't know, um, the Alex Hormozy style or probably even the stuff that you have now.

No, I took your line. Clip of talking. Yeah, no, I took your line and I was like, I want you to be you and you're creative, but I still want to be me. So I literally verbatim, right, set him up like you advised a couple weeks ago. And dude, that put a smile on his face like I had never seen. Because the artist, first he was trying to— he was trying to appease me. He was like, what do you want? What do you— I'm like, My answers come from a non-artistic space, to be clear, right? And I'm wired to— I will, if someone in the room doesn't know, I will, I will give an answer. I'll come up with something. I'll, I'll, I'll come up with— I'll make something up if I have to. That, right, it beats nothing.

Somebody's got to leave.

I explain. Yeah, so when, when, when I explained what I really want in the ideal world— now I also was like, if it sucks, I'll tell you, but I would like you to be you. Um, yeah, so he was fired up. So I'm— I'll be patient. I'll be patient. I can do it. Hey, I read a thing. I'm gonna give one. I got one note. All right, it's 3 letters. And you know, normally we don't do this. I don't do this with notes. I know you usually have some. I have normally zero. And it just says PBD. Who I know you're a fan of.

And yeah, are you going?

So I don't know on that yet. I am going to his other thing. Yeah, I'm going to his other thing. Uh, I'll have to see when that one is. I forget the one I'm already signed up to. April? Yeah, I feel like— I feel like 22nd, the kids break or something. No, I'm going to a different one first. I already paid 15 grand for one that is probably in— I think it's in like August.

Okay, something like that.

This is a renewal from last year. Um, okay, and it's the same CEO level, etc.

Right.

But I was listening to this interview he did. A buddy Mark sent to me. Um, I almost want to find it. I'm gonna find it now. Um, yeah, buddy Mark sent it to me to listen to, and he said something on it that has got me fucking in my head for 3 straight days, dude.

And he said the same story about a video from him. Go ahead.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

So it— have you heard of the School of Greatness podcast? This guy Lewis Howes, I think is how you say it.

I've never heard of him.

He was really good. And just from the interview, it was implied that him and PB have done this a few times. It's called School of Greatness. And I don't know, it was really— anyway, he had him on there and he says during one part of it, I don't even know the context, but the statement he said, you're not good enough yet to get to the next level. And then he goes into about like, you got to recreate yourself to get to where you want to get to. And dude, I've had this fucking 'you're not good enough to get to the next level' ringing in my head for 3 straight days.

And I'm like, huh, you don't think you're good enough to get to the next level? Or do you think—

I mean, I don't know how to do what's next yet, that's for sure, because I've never done it.

No, you know what I mean?

It's got me in my head a little bit. I'm like, man, in one way I feel confident enough that I can, but in the same sentence I feel like I understand what he's saying.

Sure. I know I'm not good enough to get to the level that I'm going to. But I also know that I have enough friends and people who respect me to get it done. And to, and to get that knowledge. And the people who respect me have the people I need in front of me on speed dial and can get that done. Um, I mean, I'm like, let's see, I, I'm, I'm in, I'm in, uh, Scottsdale right now for Barrett-Jackson, my 2, 3 favorite days of the year. Um, and then I'm in Austin on Monday. I'm with you on like Wednesday, Thursday, whatever day we can get that done. Um, I'm on Vegas that weekend for the social media podcast hour, whatever that is, at the MGM. And then the week after that, I have a really big meeting. And then the weekend after that, I'm flying somewhere to spend the weekend with a brilliant friend of mine to draw, to get everything on a whiteboard and then onto paper. Um, man, we got a— but, and so it's like, no, I'm not that smart, I'm not good enough. But I am good enough. I'm— let's— I'm as good as I— as it's possible. And I think you're the same way. You're as good as it's possible to be at this particular moment. I think the real problem is you— we, we haven't been— our, our brain was too small, our house is too small.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's, it's like the rest of the— it's like every aspect of the universe, right? It, it's like Einstein, everything's relative. So when you're looking at things and you're like, wow, that's really big. Okay, well then, but if you pan back, you know, this, this hotel room I'm in is pretty big. Okay, but not compared to the size of the hotel, but not compared to the size of Arizona, but not compared to the size of the United States, but not compared to the size of North Texas or North America, but not compared to— and then you just keep panning back, back and back, and you're like, why don't we just— let's go there, right? Yeah, you know, should we go to the moon? Fuck the moon. Let's Let's go where no man has gone before. And once you wrap your head around that, I don't think that it's that you're not good enough. I think there's, you know, at 22 years old, you're not good enough to be where you wanna be yet. But at our age and with our experience, I don't think it's a, you're not good enough. You know, it might be that you're contractually obligated to certain things that you don't know how to get out of. Or that it's not financially responsible to get out of, or that there's lawsuits involved if you get out of. Or it might be, uh, that you don't give a shit about that and that now I'm going to play Captain Kirk. And so I'm in my head a lot about it this week, about not being good enough, or no, about like, you're not where you want to be.

What? I'm 100% sure I'm not where I want to be. I'm— I have 100% confidence in that. What I'm kind of—

once you realize that, it will drive you freaking crazy.

Yeah. So I'm a little bit frustrated and mad that I don't— which is, is normal. If I look back, I've never had the exact path to where I ended up, as I'm sure you know what I mean. Like, I'm not that good where I'm like, this is exactly— I execute on a lot of things, but there's a lot that has happened that was like, damn, I didn't see that coming. I didn't see that relationship. Oh, I didn't see that coming together.

And that, you know, I mean, it's just in that sense, I'm not there anymore, man. I'm at—

I know, I see everything. I know, which is— I've been there, which is frustrating even more because we talk so often. I'm like, right, fuck, I need a clearer picture right now. And I have to spend— so I'm, I'm, I'm meeting with my team. I got to spend some really good time thinking about some of this stuff in the last week. I've talked to some cool people, and I'm like, I gotta— I got an awesome lunch meeting tomorrow with the guys, a fucking boss. And I'm like, man, I am, uh, I'm on a mission to put pen to paper on some stuff. And it's, man, so that— but it hit me, dude. And I'm like, there's things— you know what, I'm like, I'm not good enough at managing a team big enough yet to get me where I'm going. I'm I'm working on it. I'm not good enough to identify every piece.

I think—

no, I don't.

I—

what do you mean?

I think you're thinking— so this is where— so like, if you were to— honestly, I feel bad for people. I mean, I'm happy for them, so I'm probably not using the words right. So, you know, I have friends— well, I have a friend right here who has, you know, 1,400 writing agents a week, or whatever it is you got. I don't know. Um, I'm not counting. Like, that's, that's incredible. Yeah, I think there's ways to do, to accomplish the same thing leveraging other brilliant people and giving and building something that has so many moving pieces. You're like, listen, all these people that I made these relationships with that I was able to help and they were able to help me, let's take care of them, right? And let's help them grow. And then all these people over here that help me develop these relationships, and all right, let's develop that and develop this and develop over here and develop over here and develop over here. And then you just see this one thing up here, and you can just— I think if you think about it differently and you utilize those relationships that John Wetmore, the incredible man, has formulated, you know, and the mistakes that you've made over the years with the relationships that you've lost, and you go, okay, well I learned my lesson there, right? And then you just utilize all these, these things, plus all the boss that you're having lunch with tomorrow, his relationships, and the fact that he respects you and believes in you, and the fact— and my relationships and the fact that I respect you and believe you, and then, and, and vice versa. I don't think you need to build a traditional Patrick Bet-David style, whatever it is. You can build it in a different way that, that functions, functions differently but creates the same outcome, right? So like with me and what I'm wanting to build, you know, one of the hardest things to learn for the— in entrepreneurship, that was for me, and I've seen it to happen to a lot of other people, I've had this conversation with other people who brought it up to me, is the Field of Dreams myth. If I build it, they will come. Yeah, yeah. And that's bullshit, right? I mean, how many times have you tried to build— I mean, you build a— you, you build an agency and you, and you put agents in there and go, okay, we built it, now the clients will come. No. So my belief is, after having done this entrepreneur thing for 30 years, uh, plus what I— plus what I learned from when I was a child is that if you flip that on its head and say, why don't I make them come and it will build? As long as, you know, as long as you, you know how to lead people, as long as you've got the infrastructure in place. And that's what I'm doing with the Healthy Insurance Dude. I will just make them come, we'll have the infrastructure in place, and it will build. And I think that's a better model And it's the same thing, but you're just, you're flipping everything on its head. And instead of trying to force water up, up a tube, it just rains and the tide comes up.

That's like the 'if you build it, they will come.' As you start saying that, reminds me of like the people that get ready to get ready and never do anything. It feels the same.

That's true. You know what I mean?

Like, I've never looked at it in that light, but I, I feel what you're saying fully. I'm much more what you're saying, where I'm like, fuck it, let's go, let's, let's do— and we'll kind of plug pieces as we go.

The first company I ever built was a lawn care company, right? And so, and we've probably talked about it before, but basically it's the DSL days, flash websites, and I had an idea that if people went online and they would put their credit card in and you just show up and mow their yard. And now that's how everything's done, but at the time, to my knowledge, no one had done it before. So I built that and no one came. And so I said, well, let's try Google AdWords. And this is before you literally needed a PhD in astrophysics to run Google AdWords, because you need a PhD in astrophysics to run Google AdWords now. But back then it was simple. These are the keywords I want. They're only coming if people type these keywords, spend $50, $150 a day, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah.

So that was way more important than the infrastructure I built. I could— if I would have built that first, then the infrastructure could have found itself. As we were growing, we'll go, oh, we'll fix this, oh, we'll fix this, oh, we'll fix this, oh, we'll fix this. Now all of a sudden you have a well-oiled machine. But everybody tries to build this well-oiled machine.

True.

And then goes, now they'll come. Nobody's coming.

No, that ain't—

that's not real. But I've got this advertising agency, I've got $11 million or something invested into the creation of and the marketing of the healthy insurance dude. It's got thousands of 5-star reviews. The clients are always right, or the— all are, are always priority. Um, you know, in insurance they don't always get to be right, uh, but the client's needs, right, whatever it is, whether it means I make money on it or not, they're gonna get taken care of. And so that's what— that's it. Flip all of your thoughts upside down and go, okay, well, yeah, I I'm not the smartest guy in the world at this. That's okay, we'll go find that guy. What am I the smartest guy in the world at? Let's perfect the shit out of that. Now I'll tell you my Patrick Bet-David thing that, okay, that I watched a video on that's been haunting me all week. And not haunting me, but like, I've been— so you know my 5 things, right? It takes 5 things to build a company. Product, leadership, sales. Yep, there you go. Marketing and analytics. And I'm like, okay, well, I know I'm one of the greatest leaders I've ever met. You know, I haven't always been. It was a lifelong thing. It was a journey that was my parent— my mother taught me needed to be my biggest priority in life. And so I know that for a fact. Uh, have I always been? No. Have I made mistakes? Of course. Are there people out there who are disappointed in me? Absolutely. But where I am at 49 years old, I know you're gonna have a hard time finding a better leader than me. Like, we're Lincoln level here, right? But what does that mean? Like, how do you define that? Like, how do I write down in a book what leadership is? And I watched this Patrick Bet-David video, and it was just him monologuing, and he was talking about love. And he wasn't talking about leadership, but he was talking about love. And he was talking about, you know, There's two types of love you— that you might have for your wife, or your wife might have for you. You love her, you would never leave her, but do you admire her? Now that's a different type of love. Yeah, right. Your wife, you know, in the beginning, you know, you were doing amazing things and you're building this family, you're building your company, you're doing whatever it is, and she admires you. But over time You know, maybe you throttle back on all the things you're doing and she still loves you and she ain't gonna leave you, but does she admire you? And I was like, you know what, that's what a leader is. That's the difference between leadership and management— admiration. You know that Napoleon movie? I hated it. I hate— it was a great movie, but it just belittled who Napoleon was. You know, Napoleon killed more people than most people except Genghis Khan, but the guy was a leader, you know. I mean, that guy was locked away on an island and decided he was tired of being locked away on that island. There was a boat out there, a battleship whose only job was to make sure he didn't escape. So he gets in a rowboat, goes out to the, out to the boat, climbs up the side, goes inside, and basically says, listen, You guys can come with me or I'm gonna kill every one of you, which obviously he can't kill every one of them. And they admired him so much, they were like, we've been waiting, come on, right? And then they take that boat back to France, and, and, and, and, uh, and Paris sends 100,000 troops to stop him and kill him. And he walks right up to these troops and goes, I missed you guys. And they go, we missed you too. And they all turned around and start turning against their own country. What? And the only reason he didn't take back over because Russia and, um, and, and England were like, no, no, no, no. So they sent half a million people to go stop his ass, and they did. But that is leadership. That's not management, that's leadership. And leadership is admiration, right? Sure, there's— yeah, I love what Pat did. I love it. He was absolutely right. There's those— I think that's why Jamie and I are so close, because not only do we love each other, but we admire the shit out of each other. The only thing I will ever say negative about my wife is that she is a horrible driver when there's deer around. Other than that, you cannot come up with anything that I will say negative about my wife because I admire her so freaking much. Yeah. But if you apply that to leadership, and like, that's just like, that's what's been haunting me, not in a negative haunting way, but just like always in there, like, oh my gosh, you know, back to Matthew 7:7, seek and ye shall find. When you're looking for something, you'll find it, but you got to go actively looking. And, you know, I had a phone call with Patrick, PBD's people this week. And I was like, well, I mean, before I get on this phone call, me watch a couple of PVD videos. I haven't watched one in a couple of weeks. And, and that's what popped up. And man, I was like, bam, I seeked and I found. So guess what?

So now are you— is that— are you gonna try to be that, that, like, are you gonna— how do you approach that in your leadership style now? Like, you like— well, I don't try to make people admire you, you know what I mean?

Like, I don't, I don't try to make people admire me. I— that's what they— I already do that. I'm in the trenches with you. Yeah. Right? I mean, listen, does everyone who's ever come by admire me? I'm— I'm— listen, that's impossible. I'm not worried about that. Yeah. But do the people that work with me admire me? I believe with all my heart they do because I admire them, right? Because I believe in them until they learn to believe in themselves.

Yeah.

But that, that's what leadership is. Do the people you manage admire you? And if they admire you, And then, I don't know why it keeps doing that shit.

Dude, what's weird is like you did, you got the little thumb, you got the little thumbs up bubble over there.

Now I'm getting that.

Now you got the balloons.

Anyway. What is happening? So how does that affect how I do anything? It doesn't, because that's already what I do. That's already what I do. And honestly, you know, there's upsides and downsides to everything. Your greatest strengths are your greatest weaknesses, right? The things that make people love John are the things that make people hate John. And the things that make people love John might be the things that make people hate John later. And I'll tell you that the people that are out there that have worked with me that left and then now despise me, well, it's because they admired me and I said, well, man, I love you, but you, you know, you stole from me. You're out of my life now. And so whenever you're kicked out of somebody's life that you admire, that's very hurtful. And so, but anyways, yeah, it doesn't change the way I do anything. It just changes the way I define it. Because up until this week, when I'm talking to people and I'm talking to them about leadership, I don't— I've never had a good answer. It's like, I've read all these books and I like, I've never heard a definition that I'm completely in love with. Do they admire you?

I like that. I am— it's interesting. I want to read— have you ever read The Five Levels of Leadership?

I spent a long time, but yes.

Yeah, me too. I'm curious how he defines that top level. It's called like pinnacle, but now I wonder— it makes me want to kind of read it and see that more. Like, I just always try to get better at that, you know what I mean? I feel like I'm always in the trenches and doing stuff, obviously at different levels. I mean, I'm not and they're making phone calls like I once did, necessarily. But right, it is an interesting dynamic. Yeah, correct. It is an interesting dynamic, dude, to watch people who go from disliking because you challenge them to liking you because you challenge them and it worked when they implemented things, to then disliking you because you challenge them more. And I, dude, I have a lot—

they usually send an email I got it. Actually, I got an email yesterday.

I have some emails, bro, I promise you.

Yeah, I got an email from yesterday, a young lady who left 6 months ago and left with a, with a storm. And that email was just like, thank you, I, I was in a bad head place, I took it out on you, and you were right, and my life is better because of the time that we spent there. And that was my reply. That's what it's about. But at our, at our level, right, it's not— it's, it's, it's our level. Your job is to make the upper management feel— admire you, right? Not the bottom level agent. Yeah, you're— you got too many, too many of those. But if you make that upper level agent admire you, or that upper level management admire you, that trickles down. That trickles down really quickly, like a tsunami or like a, like a, like a, like a hurricane. So when the— whenever they're talking about you, they, you know, they don't ever have to meet you.

They—

if they, if, if they admire you, that'll trickle down to the bottom level agent quickly.

Yeah, that was a, that was a neat concept to learn. That I learned that from that. Book also, funny enough, and how well you—

from the Five Levels of Leadership.

Yeah, because it's all about people's perception of you. It has nothing to do with who you are. It's, it's all someone else's perception of you. And some people look at me as this type of leader, and some people are like, dude, you may as well be the fucking janitor, you know what I mean? Like, it's why—

well, that is who you are. Yeah, I mean, that is who you are. It is an accumulation of people's perception of Because if there was no one else on this planet, who would you be?

Correct.

A hunter and gatherer.

Wild to think about.

Yeah.

Yeah, wild.

You would be nobody. You would just be an animal trying to survive.

Yeah.

Right. Good. Like, who is my— who is my cat? Cats? Nobody, man.

Correct.

Yeah. You can pet it, shits in the house. Sometimes they're a little bit mean, but it's not— it's a nobody. That's who we are, that accumulated perception. So you got the bad—

it's interesting to see some people that want to be leaders and then can't handle that different perception from different people and those that think negative, you know what I mean? Like that kind of— I don't know if it's a people pleaser type is more like that, or— but there's some people who can't handle others viewing.

Most people can't. Yeah.

I see a lot of, I see a lot of managers, quote unquote managers fall off because they want to appease every single person who has any kind of perspective of them or, you know, Jamie and I were talking about stress yesterday.

I saw this real where somebody was talking about Elon Musk's ex-wife. And basically she was saying entrepreneurship is learning to live at a level of stress all the time that other people can't handle. And I thought, so I was like, let me do some like real thought experiments or examination into this and see where I come up with. Let me, let's see. Most people can't handle stress. I thrive on it. Once you get used to it, it's addictive. It's like a drug. Without it, you get bored, you get antsy, you get frustrated. Stress isn't the cause of depression. It's not the cause of illness. It's not the cause of heart attacks or unhappiness. Those are caused by not knowing how to deal with that stress. Too many of our parents teach— too many of our parents teach us that your feelings are important. Most of those feelings aren't, and they're not important in any way. Like, that's what you and I have failed as parents, meaning you and I's generation has failed teaching these new kids, because we validate every emotion they have. And the truth is, very few emotions should be validated. Like, it's fine, that's your emotion, but So get over it. We got a problem. Yeah. Now when you learn how to focus, when you learn how to control your thoughts, and when you learn how to meditate in the moment, that's when the definition of stress changes from a liability to an asset. Boom.

That's deep right there.

Yeah. 'Cause I don't have stress. Like, if I was like, okay, well, 'cause I have a lot of stress. So I go, well, let me look up the definition of stress. And so then it was like, all right, well, the definition of stress is these negative things that are happening because of the things that are happening. Okay, well, I think stress based off of that, stress is the lack of knowing how to handle the inputs that are coming into your life.

Yeah, the things aren't the stress.

No, but to me, those things and handling those things is my heroin, right?

Agreed.

That's why I don't, I don't drink. I like things.

Yeah, put that shit in a needle and let me shoot it. I'm, I'm the same. Yeah.

And once you get to this place where you like thrive on the things and handling the things and enjoying the things, then it's not stress, it's who you are. And then it goes down to like, what would I do if I retired? Well, I, I wouldn't retire. I would stop having these things and go find new things.

Yeah, dude, that's why most people fail. Is because they let the things be the stress, right?

They don't know how to handle it. So instead of learning how to handle it, instead of reading a book on how to handling it, instead of finding a mentor on how to handling it— our parents, listen, you know, growing up in, and, and, and I don't mean this in a negative way towards my parents, but it was a pretty abusive home. I learned that when when things come in, if you just chill, well then, you know, what I used that for back then was, okay, well, if you can be— if you're a 38-year-old man and you can be this big of an asshole and I chill because you're not emotionally immature, I could be this big of an asshole. Like, I could get way bigger of an asshole than you can just by chilling. And then the years of growing up realizing that's not healthy, but it's the same skill set of all these things and negativity and all this other stuff are coming in. Meditate in the moment.

I like that.

Are you— are you— what was— what's the words, Jamie? Are you reacting or reacting or responding? Right, so you learn to respond instead of react.

Interesting. I never heard that.

React. I didn't make it up.

So responding is more intentional.

Responding is intentional. Reacting is like that. You say, what'd you say about my mama?

Yeah, yeah.

What'd you say about my son? They don't know your son. What do you care? They don't know your mom. I remember getting in a fight when I was in middle school because somebody said something about my mom. Yeah, they didn't know my mom. Yeah.

Hey, so when you get something that's stressful, like, right, to the average person, is your instinct— I'm gonna— I kind of want to ask it, but I'm going to tell mine too. Is your instinct like— because you said meditate in the moment, to me that implies that you, you don't necessarily take those things easily right off the rip, that you have to get there. Because like when something negative happens for me, my natural instinct is to like, I'll kind of flip my shit a little bit inside, maybe sometimes verbally, you know what I mean? Like, but then I gotta go like, all right, how do we fix this?

Like, it takes me a minute. As I get older, that happens less and less. Um, you know, if Enterprise Rental Cars involved, I might do that. No, not really anymore, but used to, you know, it started with reacting and then it went to, all right, I'm angry. So like, I'll tell when I'm really, really angry, I'll tell everyone, I'll go, okay, just so everybody's on the same page right now. This is me throwing a giant temper tantrum inside.

Yeah.

See that?

A few episodes back. Yeah, yeah, hell yeah.

Yeah, like this is me throwing a giant temper tantrum inside, and Samara will go, "You're purple!" And I'm like, "I'm not purple. It's like a beige, maybe like a lilac color." And so it's not that I don't lose my shit on the inside. You remember the movie True Lies? I think about this a lot. Maybe True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Mm-hmm.

Okay, I remember it. I couldn't tell you details, but I remember the movie.

There's one scene that's important to me in this movie. So Arnold Schwarzenegger is a CIA agent, right? But his wife thinks he's a businessman, and his wife is not, uh, doesn't, um, uh, what's the word we were using with leadership a second ago? I just had a brain fart. Um, admire him because she thinks he's just this boring business. She loves him, but she doesn't admire him, and she doesn't know he's actually a CIA agent. So she goes to a bar or something like that and meets this used car salesman who says he's a CIA agent. And so she starts kind of having like this emotional affair with it, with what she thinks is a CIA agent, but he's just a used car salesman. And so Arnold Schwarzenegger's character finds out about it, and then he— so he thinks that there's like some spy spying on him through his wife. And then he goes and he finds out he's just a used car salesman. So he's test driving this 1959 red Corvette, and Bill Paxton is the guy who's messing around with his wife. And he's driving this Corvette, Bill Paxton is sitting in the passenger seat, and Bill Paxton doesn't know that the girl he's messing around with is Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife. So he's bragging about it, he's like, yeah, I get this hot piece of ass, and She's, uh, she thinks I'm a CIA agent and she's just giving it up to me, man. She's got these nice boobs, you know, all this, right? And then Arnold Schwarzenegger takes and punches him like that, and Bill Paxton's entire face explodes and he dies in the passenger seat of this Corvette. And then just— and the, the, the scene just like pans in on him, on his exploded face, and he's dead. And then boom, he's talking about his wife again. And all of that happened in Arnold Schwarzenegger's head. Yeah, it was just his imagination that he killed him. That happens to me a lot.

Dude, that was the best explanation of how I feel on a daily basis ever. Right? I have to go watch. I'm gonna have to go find that clip. I remember the movie, but I don't— I'm so bad at that.

You don't need to watch the whole movie. But that clip that happens to me, I think about that 3 times a week. I'm like, in my head, I— this guy's face just exploded in the passenger seat of a '59 Corvette, and then whoosh, back into reality where Arnold Schwarzenegger goes, okay, we're not gonna kill him, let me figure out how to ruin this guy's life, or whatever the hell is going on. So teach him a lesson.

That's fucking funny, dude. I love it.

Yeah, yeah, good shit. One of my favorite scenes that I relive in my head all the time.

So I'll never think about an angry moment the same again.

And the funny thing is, you know, I'm surrounded by, you know, these 20 and 30-year-old kids all day, and, um, and sometimes I'll try to explain that scene to them And they don't even know who Arnold Schwarzenegger is, much less Bill Paxton or Jamie Lee Curtis.

So maybe that should be— maybe that should be our new intro.

Good times, man. Same. Hey, we're getting better at this. And next week you're in town next week, right?

I'm with you in your town next in Dallas.

Yeah, in my town next week. So we're gonna hook up, we're gonna get some shots so we can get the front end of this stupid thing fixed. Where can I send people to watch our podcasts other than all the random places? What's the best place for people to say, oh my gosh, you got to watch The Secret Handshake with Mr. John Wetmore and the Healthy Insurance Dude? Where's the best place to do that? Where do I send them at, Johnny?

We should, um, so they can get it at like all the all the podcast joints. Like, you can get it on Apple Podcasts and things like that. But you know what we probably could do? Because it goes to Apple Podcasts, um, Spotify, iHeartRadio, all that stuff.

Upload the old ones into that.

Yeah, so we're— we probably— let me— I'll tell you how many we have uploaded right now. We have— we have 17 uploaded right now, so we're almost— we're almost real time. Like, after this week, I'm gonna— I'll get— I don't know how many we have, 20-ish, 21, I don't remember the exact number, but in the next week we'll be real-time releasing them every Thursday. Right now we're doing them every day or every other day just to get them out. Uh, okay. But I, I wonder if we could just get like a domain and be like, go here, and it links to it, you know, because right now they just go to Apple Podcasts or your podcast app and literally type in The Secret Handshake, it comes right up.

Okay.

Yeah, but maybe when you get your website guy, we could make a real website.

Oh, we will. Yeah, I'm gonna make this guy— I'm gonna make this guy the busiest son of a bitch on the planet. I'm gonna make the coolest stuff, man. I'm gonna make the coolest stuff ever.

Do people say go to like www.whatever to go to my podcast, or they just say go to podcast and fucking hit search? Like, what's normal?

Well, I think what we've got here, my friend, is we built it and they ain't— we got it. We're not—

we did what we said earlier.

Yeah, we're literally doing that.

Yes, 100%.

Again, you know, the original intention of this was for you and I to spend time together. And then, you know, in the beginning, you and I didn't know each other that well. And then now we're getting to know each other remarkably well. And we're getting comfortable on this camera and we're understand— we're starting to feel the direction that we want the podcast to go. Yeah. And we're really pushing each other in our business harder than either of us I think ever would've thought we would.

Yeah.

And, uh, now we have something that I would want to point people to where in the beginning I was like, I would do the, I would do the show and then I'd walk outta my office and then, and and my sister and my wife would go, hey, how'd it go?

And I'm like, fuck off.

I would go, I'm not happy with it. John did well, I sucked. Um, and now I, I go, I can't wait to watch it myself. Yeah, but also I need to make sure I didn't say anything stupid that was gonna piss off my clients, so I'm gonna watch it.

We do pretty good there. Yeah, I think we do.

I think, yeah. As well.

Um, so yeah, maybe we'll—

because this goes on to everything HID.

So yeah, so yeah, it's shared. We share this live in like, I think it's in like 8, 8 or 10 places simultaneously as well. Uh, so it's, it's getting out there and we're getting like some comments now. Like, forget the live comments, like after, you mean there's— I can see how many people like subscribe, how many people comment on an old one. It's pretty neat. So something's happening, bro. It's working.

Wish— there's a lot happening.

Yeah, there is. Well, let's keep at it, brother. I will, um, I'll see you next week for sure.

I appreciate it. As always, I appreciate your mentorship and your friendship. Same, brother. I'll see you next week.

Yes, sir.

Wish me luck at the event. Getting the car.

So nice, dude. Go get— send me some pictures. I want to know what you get. Shoot me, shoot me a text later.

My videographer is on his way right now, so we're gonna do a lot of video and build some content out here. So, all right, man, have a good day.