This Trick Will Take You From BROKE to $30k/month in Insurance Sales

I want to run through a couple things as I'm trying to shove lunch in my mouth because I'm back to back to back today. So I apologize if I'm eating and drinking while we're, we're live here, but we gotta get it in. One of the things we talked about last time, and I talk about it consistently, um, it's certainly the discipline of the business, of anything in life really. You know, if, if y'all have— I know most of y'all have already read the book. If you haven't already, it'll at least help you understand who I am, how I've built what I've built with a lot of help. Um, and the things I teach you guys about are just lessons that I've learned along the way. Um, what up, Dan Carrington? How are you, bro?

Hey, John, I'm good. How are you?

Oh man, I'm doing good, brother.

Good to see you.

Hey, how's things been since we last talked?

Um, really good actually.

I'm not making that up. That was at Dave's office at that table, wasn't it? Wasn't that me and you?

Yes, it was.

How'd that go?

It, it went good. I've stayed consistent with my, my ad spend. I have not doubled my results, but I have seen increases in a lot of areas.

So it's, it's working fairly good.

It is. It is.

Right. Yeah. So are you doing anything to figure out how to see the better result? There's more to tweak, I bet.

Yes, definitely is. So the biggest thing when I reviewed my numbers, I have not increased— I've been increasing my leads and my appointments, but I haven't actually increased my dials. So I just got to— I got to— I got to discipline myself more.

Wait. All right. So you got more appointments.

I did.

And you got— you get more— is you paid? I am.

Yes.

Okay. So for me, what were you spending? Do you mind sharing some of the numbers early on? What were you spending the day we talked? And then to be clear, to give you credit, you changed this in, I don't know, 27 seconds after we talked, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah. Dude literally walked in the other room and changed it and came back and was like, here, I changed my lead flow. What were you spending before we talked? Yeah, um, roughly give me—

I was spending about $75 a day on my ad spend.

And would you, would you turn it to $150? I doubled it right there. Good for you.

I had told you that I was thinking about doing it, and you're like, what do you have to think about? It's a 30-second decision. I was like, you're right. Yeah, so I did it.

Cool. So for me, what I— my favorite part about that is time is money. Everyone knows that, but not everybody lives that. So at the very least, your money bought you more time. That's right, right? Because you're, you're, you're having similar result with less effort. So to me, I like to talk about that taking the cream off the top, right? Right. So you're booking easy appointments essentially. For me, I, I like, I like quote unquote overpaying for lead flow so I can get to the sales faster. I'd rather not arm wrestle with 47 people a day if I can only arm wrestle with 7, right? You know what I mean? So it's like, that's the first step for me, is getting— because you already have the consistency and work, you aren't afraid of that piece, you aren't necessarily afraid to spend money, it's just a new level of money to get where you want to get, to get where you want to go. But you had a certain amount of spend and a certain amount of money So it's like, it's really clear if you spend a little more, you're definitely going to make more. That was only— was that a couple months ago, whatever it was we had that conversation?

Yeah, um, April 3rd.

So two things. Are you mainly— I don't remember what product you're mainly selling. Are you more of an IUL guy, a mix, or what are you, vet guy? What do you—

yeah, I'm, I'm focused— I'm, I'm targeting teachers, and I, I am writing a lot of IUL, IUL leads, but as as a permanent life insurance, not really a special structured IUL.

Not the cash flow and all that, correct? Yeah, makes sense. Um, all telesales?

Yes.

Yeah. Okay, so for me, once I get the lead flow game down and I'm, I'm kind of cherry-picking my appointments, two things I do to get even more profitable. Are you building yet or no?

No.

Okay. Do you have, do you have interest or no?

I do. I'm just trying to get the big but there right now though. I know. Yeah, I'm trying to get this dialed in where I need to do it for cash flow.

Sure. So a couple of things. One, finding more premium during your week is one way, right? Couple different ways to do that. You, you've been around for a couple years, if I'm not mistaken, selling. You like, you're not new to this piece, right?

Right.

But it's like, how do we find more premium? Better financial inventory, right? So you can understand what people really have, what situation they're in. You can certainly, you like, meaning do you dive into if they have work insurance or not work insurance? Do they have, um, coverage on their house, not just their burial? Or do they have burial, not just their house? You mean like finding, putting, finding different buckets that you can protect, you know? So that, that's one way. Um, are you, are you, do you write any annuities?

No, I have not.

Way too fucking talented to not write annuities, bro. I'm like, you should stop doing that now. Like, stop, stop, stop not writing them. I mean, you're in the financial education space, you specifically, like, you're good at that piece. Yeah, right. So now I go, why are you not writing annuities? Well, you know the golden question, you're not asking it.

I'm not asking it, period.

Like, right, this isn't fucking rocket science, dude. You see too many people and you're too good at that piece. So the way I was trained is, if you think about— I don't know, let's pretend I dumped a bucket of $100 bills on the table. Right? I put it on top of a cloth tablecloth, a bunch of $100 bills, right? And under the tablecloth I have a bunch of dollar bills. You're taking the tablecloth and throwing it off the table and going, give me all the dollars, fuck the hundreds.

Yeah, that doesn't make sense.

It makes no sense, right? So it's like, there's— I like, I like easy. Mhm. But I don't like unintentional, right? So now your easy also needs to be intentional, right?

No, that's, that's true. Yeah.

How, how many, how many times you present in a week right now, roughly average?

Um, 20.

So to say you do 20 financial inventories a week Bro, you ain't going to convince me you don't find 15 people that don't have at least $50 grand saved. There's— you'll never convince me. But I go, you're telling me you can't find 2 a week that have some kind of money somewhere and they don't want to lose it? Couple a week, 8 to 10 a month. You, dude, you'll trip over one annuity.

Yeah, that's true.

You mean $5,000, $10,000 a month extra? That pays for how much? What's $150 in lead spend? What's that? What's that running you a month? I can't do the math that quick.

About $4,100, dude.

So $4,100 on an annuity, $3,500, you write a— you write a $50,000 annuity, bro, it covers your whole lead cost.

Yeah, that's a no-brainer.

I mean, and for me, I'd go— I like challenges. I go, dude, give me all of your sales. I'll have someone call all of them, and our script will be, yo, Dan took care of your insurance last month. Somehow he forgot to ask about your retirement protection. Hey, do you have any money you'd like to make sure you don't lose? And I would sell 5 annuities a month with that, you know. So just don't, just don't skip the next part of it, because the next part of it pays a lot more than the current part. Yeah, and you're just seeing too many people, you know. To not be able to write a million or two a year of annuity money is— dude, it's like child's play with as many people as you see, especially that demographic. And you know that demographic, you know how their money works and the teacher's retirement thing and all that shit. Like, that's easy, easy picking. Yeah, makes sense. The last thing I would add to you is if you aren't wanting to build What I was going to say is, if you are going to build those ones that aren't necessary, the cherry-pick cream, take the cream off the top appointments, all the other ones that are a little more difficult, they tell you to fuck off, they don't pick up, whatever, and you have enough leads coming in that you don't have enough time to properly work the shit out of leads, right? That's a good thing. I utilize other people who don't have the ability to work because they don't have the lead flow.

Yes.

And I'm not talking about the broke guy who doesn't work in this situation. I'm talking about the guy that's selling 8, 10, 15 a month that just, that just, God bless him, can't figure out the money management side to roll enough back into leads. If you find some of the guys, you know, even in the space, you've been around long enough, you know who's who. Yeah. And you go to someone and you work out a deal to call your old leads for a split. I mean, you can clean up another couple grand a month just by that.

Yeah.

No, that's great. I have a young— I have an agent under me, young guy, very talented. And he's kind of backed off because he got married in, uh, January. And I'm trying to— I have been dangling that over him, trying to get him re-engaged, saying, hey, you can use my leads, call my leads.

Again, hey, if you got to beg, bro, ain't your guy. Yeah, it's good to have just got married and you back off making money is weird as shit to me. Yeah, but to each their own. You know, so it's like, fine, you don't even have to find someone direct to you, bro. You got killers in your network.

That's true.

And you got people going through shit. People that are killers, they're just going through shit to give someone else an opportunity, you know what I mean? And you make 25% on it, you know what I mean? Like, again, imagine you hand a guy how many leads you got, take a little batch of them. You don't think you can find 10 grand in there? You get 25% on it. They write it in, you get a split, and they get— they're excited, and it gives them an opportunity to make the money for more. Now, you don't go, I give you leads forever. Hey, I'm gonna give you some leads. I'm trying to clean up, trying to be profitable. Hell, Wetmore told me to go watch the video. He told me to do this. Use that if you need to. Then go, I got 200, 300, 400 leads. Here's a shot. I'm gonna help you get out of a hole. You go make the money, reinvest back in leads. I make 25%. If you don't reinvest them back in leads, I can't keep giving you leads. So it's you giving someone an opportunity, right, to help themselves climb out of a hole. I like, I like being that guy versus the welfare line. So anybody in here that's like hit you up, they're like, I'll call them, dude, please ask how much they're making phone calls of now, because if they're not doing the work, tell them no, right? But if you know enough people already in the space, you can find a guy doing the work that's willing to call them. You know.

Um, it's good.

I have my 17-year-old dude calling people's leads right now because he can't— he can't get licensed till November. But Braden's calling and booking appointments for agents, and he's— he's charging them for it. He can't be a valid split, but he's getting a split, you know what I mean? Just charge him per— he's like, nah, I don't want money per hour, I'll just call— I'll book appointments. So he's booking appointments for some killers, and they're closing them, and he's getting— he's getting cut off. You know, it's like he's 17 and figure, hey, my 17-year-olds make more money than people in here that are licensed just by him calling people in my network. You know, I let him— and I, I don't do— I don't like— it isn't because Daddy did it. I just— I'm like, you get on the call, you ask them, you negotiate. I'm teaching him how to negotiate and have conversations. And hell, the first dial session I put on wasn't even in my group. I put him in someone else's group. I wanted him to be uncomfortable and be around other people. So it's like, you, you can— if, if Braden at 17 can book as many appointments he's booking with someone else's old leads that most people would consider dog shit, especially after they're being worked by a $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, $80,000 producer. I'm like, if you only knew, we kind of take the easy ones, so we don't really work our leads that hard. Just being real. I worked my leads hard when I was broke and had to work aged ones, but when I knew the game, dude, I didn't work leads that difficult. I didn't— didn't— I, I stopped triple dialing. To be clear, I stopped telling— having people say no on the phone and no in person. I stopped door knocking. I stopped calling. Oh, I got to stop all that because I don't like that version of the game. But I had to get through that part, you know. And you're, you're so close. Just a few more tweaks, dude.

Yeah.

And, uh, you'll be there. So next, next call like this, I don't know when it is. Amanda will post it in here somewhere. I want an update, that's for sure.

I'll have some positive changes.

I love it.

Cool.

What up, y'all? So YouTube memberships, we have one now. Right next to the subscribe button, there's a neon white join button. You can't miss it. Subscribe, whatever it says, click the link, get in there. I do a ton of coaching, teaching people how to dial corrections, working on their presentations, working on their mindset. I will coach on theory, but I like coaching real world stuff. And if you join the membership section, you're going to see live coaching where I'm not only helping people, but every once in a while I get in there and dial myself. There's some cool videos coming out, tons of content. All the training videos will be directly on my YouTube channel that's available to members only, super easy to find. So join now if you're interested, click below. See you in there. All right, so back to this discipline thing. Um, you know, again, the book for me, the DO MORE, if you don't know it yet, is just an acronym for me: Discipline, Ownership, Mistakes, Obsession, Resilience, Expectations. They mean things to me. I use this in everything in life. I use it right now. If you— if any of you following the little fitness journey I'm on— what up, Schmidt? Dude, you're looking good, bro. You're cutting weight.

Thanks, brother.

Holy shit.

Do more.

That's it. You're living of it. What are you down? You got it right there.

Ah, like 60, 55, 60.

Down 60 pounds?

Yeah.

Fuck yeah, bro. Where you going for it, Eric?

Like, like, yeah, like this, I'm good with this. I'm like, you know, you know, new clothes already, so, you know, like $240, you know, plus or minus, that'd be good.

Hell yeah. Oh yeah. Did you see Gavin?

Oh yeah.

Holy smokes, I love it, dude. Hey, us old folks are making a comeback.

Well, we got to keep up right now. Now we got— I got 14, 16, 20-year-old like, you know, you. I mean, you've got kids, you know, younger and older, but Gotta keep—

yeah, same. I just got off a call with Austin. Yeah, and you're a dude, they're a bunch of killers. You better keep up with them young cats. Yeah, much less your kids.

You were doing something with, uh, was it Logan or Royal?

Roy. I've talked to all of them recently. Yeah, yeah, good crew.

They're, they're, they're, they're, they're, uh, they're a great crew.

I like their hiring, the way they, the way they filter people out. Like, dude, they say this cat, I just Yeah, yeah. So at 20, he's— how old is he? He's mid-20s, I guess. I don't, I don't know how old he is exactly. I didn't ask him. But they're, um, they're listening in the sense that these cats won't hire someone if you don't have— they're looking for people who have at least $5,000 in the bank. And if you don't have it, their solution is go Uber and DoorDash to save it, move to Nashville if you want help.

You have Gary Vee, correct?

Yep. Go yard sale it, do whatever you got to do to make the money, and then move to Nashville and show up every day from this time to this time, or we don't want you. And people are like, that doesn't work. I'm like, they're doing $1 million a month with 30 people.

Yeah.

I was like, yeah, y'all, they should be screaming that shit from the rooftops because it's working.

And, you know, they're good on social. They got their LifePros social going.

And yeah, yeah, it's killer.

Yeah.

And they're just following all these concepts. Again, I didn't make up any of these concepts, to be clear. I didn't make up this. I just made the word— I just made it work for me, you know. And so I just— I think all of us, what we try to do is share the things that are working for us so y'all can, y'all can make it happen, happen quicker. Um, so I think right now it's, it's, it's by far the biggest problem that most people have is the discipline and the consistency. And most people say they would have it if they had the people to call. And breaking news, it's your job to find the people to call. It's your job. If you don't have someone to call right now, you're not doing good at your job. If you don't have the ability to make 6 or 8 presentations a day, you are not performing at the highest level of your job. It just— it, it is what it is. And some people figure out how to accept that and go, fuck it, I'll do whatever it takes. And some people go, nope, I'm going to look for a new phone script and hopefully that'll work instead. And I, I just, I know there's not a lot of people out there screaming the same message I'm, I'm screaming. I just, I refuse to lie to people and tell you that you go download this free phone script, it's going to do anything for you if you don't have the reps to go with it and the combined coaching to make tweaks to it along the way. So all of you trying to figure this thing out, the bet, the biggest thing I would figure out is how can you be consistent enough especially if you're in the life space. But I've never had anyone argue this with me in Medicare, ACA, or health, or any of the other P&C. If you can't present your product to at least a handful of people a day, I'm just going to say the business will suck for a really long time. I just don't— I just don't know anyone killing it that's presenting. I had someone hit me up this week, Eric, and they're like, dude, I really need help. I've presented so many times in the last 2 weeks and it's just not working. I mean, I did 6 presentations in the last 2 weeks and it just didn't work. I don't know how to do it any— I'm like, wait, you just said the word a lot before you said the number 6. Did you mean to do that? And she was like, what do you mean? I said, you just said you presented a lot in the last 2 weeks, and then you said you presented 6 times in 2 weeks. Yeah, I don't— I don't know how to say this without being mean. That's not a lot. That's— that should be done today. And that's the reality. Now again, if you're in a different spot and that's not possible and you want this to be just part-time income, cool. You know, the— I think the part I see is that so many people are quote unquote full-time in their space and they only define full-time as I don't have another job. Yeah, you know, and I'm not—

the other day about college, full-time college, and your daughter goes to class 11 to 2 and she sleeps the other, you know, 18 hours a day or something like that.

100%, dude. Gabby, bro, she manipulated the shit. Even my son, dude, Brayden, that fool. First of all, he's in Germany today, which is really cool. Like, dude, I'm at the house yesterday, and this is just for y'all to understand what can happen in the space, dude. You remember back, dude, early on starting this thing, Eric, all that feeling? And I know you've made money in the car thing before, but you know that feeling when you're broke as shit and you're like, I need this to work? And all the vision we had of the way we wanted our family to live and the way we wanted to provide for our kids and when they go to school, be able to do all these things we wanted. Dude, I packed this 17-year-old ass up yesterday. I didn't even pack him. I had to— we, you know, we, we made him pack, but he's going to Germany for 12 days at 17 with, with his school, and it's some kind of like entrepreneurial type trip in Germany.

That's awesome.

So he comes to the house yesterday, dude. A car service picks him up at the house, takes him to the airport, you know what I mean? He's just like at 7, and I'm sitting there in the driveway going, this is like fake. This, like, I remember fantasizing about this shit 10 years ago.

Yeah.

And my 17-year-old's getting picked up from a fucking car service dude and going to Germany. He's in Germany right now at 17, and this is his 4th time out of the country by himself.

Wow.

He's gone on a couple mission trips and, you know, I mean, and just the ability to go, like, he can go to a dope school, the nicest in the area, and be able to enjoy it to a point where others can't. Now we're looking at colleges, which obviously also aren't cheap, especially out of state. And then we're talking about study abroad stuff. Like, these crazy things I tell you guys to do provides that for my family today.

Well, when you, when you live a life where dollars won't dictate your decisions and nothing else will get in your way— and so my comment, your, or focus, the thing I wrote on the byline for Amanda to put put down was, you know, once you have momentum— can't remember exactly how I put it, John— but, you know, once you have momentum, you know, what do you— you know, what are the steps to make it non-negotiable that you don't lose it? Because that's the toughest thing, especially if your work ethic is a little bit questionable, with all due respect, right? Because if you catch it and it clicks, and you're like, okay, hey, I got this, and then you're like, hey, I'm going to take this week off from leads because I got 300 that I have like it just doesn't work, you know. So when, when dollars don't dictate your decisions, but, you know, it just doesn't happen. It's not this Instagram world where it just shows up, you know. It's— and, you know, with, you know, and when I did, you know, my first 2 years, I did, you know, all face to face, you know, behind the windshield, you know, you know, 14, 15 hours behind the windshield, you know. you know, to do that, you know, because, you know, here at this, you know, at FFL, we weren't doing, uh, in, uh, whatever, virtual or telesales at that time. Yeah. You know, I think, you know, I'm blessed that I got that lesson, right? Because that's what full-time was. And you were like Mike always told or taught us, you know, you're either dialing a client or you're dialing a recruit, and you're either reselling this opportunity to yourself because you need it.

That's true.

Or you're selling to somebody else, you know. Um, So yeah, so I appreciate you, and I shared, you know, there's a couple few people on here that I shared this with yesterday, so I appreciate these guys hopping on because, you know, there's really no one better in this industry, um, to listen to. And if you're not following John online, it's weird because I don't know if you make those things up or you get them from Amanda or you get them in a fortune cookie, but I love reading everything that you post, John, so I appreciate it.

My team does a really good job, um, I I, I wish I could sit down and write them all myself, but what we do is I re— I, I do what we do so frequently, Eric.

This—

I'm back to back to back today. Now I have a window, bro. I was running— I didn't— my workouts are not at 5 AM anymore.

Why?

I don't have to fucking work out at 5 AM anymore. I used to. I'm bougie, dude. I'm 7:30, 8 o'clock workout kind of guy now. I mean, I'll be running down my street doing a 5K at 9 AM. It just— I, I get to make some choices in life of, of a different level of freedom today. Um, but when I'm here, dude, I'm back to back. I don't— I'm like, why am I coming to the office if I'm not back to back to back? What's the fucking point?

Exactly.

You know, so I, I try to be super efficient and effective, and I live this do more concept. It's not me telling y'all what to do. This is me telling y'all what I do. For me. I live this shit, you know. I'm— dude, I'm trying to fucking do these crazy, uh, endurance events, dude. I run every day. I run every day. Right now I'm at a 5K a day. That's just the track. I have 5K every day plus my workout. 6 months ago, dude, I couldn't do a mile every day. I could barely do a mile once. Much less every day. You know, yesterday I go to the mountain, dude, it's 90-something degrees in Atlanta and we have this mountain. I, I, I hike up it, I put a weighted vest on, 20-pound weighted vest. I'm up and down the mountain for a couple hours yesterday just between shit. I'm like, I got to get in more time now. And I share all of it. I'm— I work my fucking face off. I say I want to be in better shape. Look at a picture I put yesterday. I was in— people been telling me I've been ripped for 3 years. I'm like, let me take my shirt off. I ain't that ripped.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I mean, just, I was big, you know what I mean? I had some muscle, but bro, I promise it was covered in padding. You know what I'm saying? I didn't like how it felt. I didn't like, I didn't, I wasn't feel, I, I wanted to get more advanced. What'd I do, dude? I did more of it. When I say my workout plan is I lift something heavy or sweat every day, that's my workout plan. And I've learned that works a lot better when you don't eat like shit and you stop drinking alcohol. That change in my body— I increased my workload for sure, but dude, I cut out everything that goes in my mouth that ain't good for me. I, I just don't. I, I, dude, I'm— I have a fucking 1 or 2 smoothies every day. Cottage cheese is like a fucking superpower. I don't eat anything that isn't healthy. I just— it makes me feel like shit. And when I feel like shit, I perform like shit. And I for years would talk about not feeling good and being tired. As you get— as you know, dude, you get older, bro. Get out of bed at— I don't know how old you— I'm— we're— I know we're the same birthday, but I don't think we're the same age.

Are we?

Yeah, dude, it hurts getting out of bed. Hey, work out every day, you'll be in good shape. Hey, I hurt every day still. It's just a different hurt. You know, but for me, dude, my, my health has changed so dramatically, physically and internally, you know, that I'm just like, this concept of like, just do a bunch of it, man. And I tweak it along the way, you know. I, I certainly now go like, oh, running shoes matter. Running shoes didn't matter when I didn't run at all. Stretching. Yeah, now, yeah, you know what I mean? It's like, and there, there are certain equipment you can have out there when— especially when they're doing— I do trail running, which is a whole different animal. And so this stuff that I'm talking about, I live by. And I— if you guys can implement that piece, is like, understand you have to have standards in your life. And if your standards aren't in check, the result you have in your life will reflect that. I know when you're out of shape, it doesn't feel good. I was out of shape. I know when you're fat, it sucks to bend over and tie your shoes if you can even see if they're untied. I know it sucks fucking ass, you know, rolling out of bed to get your stomach out of the way to get something. Like, that sucks, you know. This, like, dude, I don't like— I didn't like living that way, but no one was going to do anything about it. I had to, dude. I started this health journey December of 20— Amanda, help me out— was it 2020 or '19? I don't remember. I think it was 2020. I forget. It's been 5 or 6 years now, you know, and I still work my face off. Because if you stop, what happens? You get fat again. When you're on some fad diet, it don't work. Keto, this one, that stuff doesn't work long term. So you have to change your entire lifestyle for it to really work. Now, dude, I'm so in tune. If I eat something that's unhealthy for me, I'll be sick. I physically can't put anything in my body that, that, that doesn't— it just— I'm so used to— and I've— it's only been 6 months. I stopped end of December. Last drink I had was like day before Christmas. I had a sip of alcohol since. I haven't had any fried food and I haven't had any dessert. Other, other than if you count like cottage cheese and protein powder mixed in a blender and frozen, then you can call it ice cream. It's really cool. Um, and what does that all have to do with this? A lot of you guys are frustrated with where you're at in life financially and professionally, but you do the equivalent of eat fucking Oreos and ice cream all day in your business, you know. Again, think about— look back at this weekend and think about the things you did relative to the importance of the things you want in life. How many of you sat on your ass this weekend at some point? How many of you slept in this weekend? How many of you didn't make phone calls when you said you'd make them? How many didn't prep their week? How many didn't— you know what I mean? Like, what episodes of TV did you catch up on instead? Like, right? And that stuff, I promise you, is far and above more important than what I can teach you on a script. I will teach that stuff, but what I'm saying is it's the same equivalent as the fat dude who goes to the gym and still eats like shit. It doesn't really work that well, you know? And I used to be— I used to be that guy. I went to the gym for years, and sure, I could move some weight, but I still was unhealthy, and my cholesterol was still high, my blood pressure was still high, and all kinds of other stuff was still wrong. And so some of you are maybe doing a little bit of work, but you're not seeing a result, and it's because you're still doing most of it incorrectly. Just because you go lift some weights every once in a while and maybe get on the treadmill for 30 minutes twice a week, that is not going to lead you to abs. And if you just kind of get on the phone sometimes and just kind of call leads and sort of read the script and kind of say some of the things me or Eric or Dan say to say That's not the way to get rich. You have to be a psychopath with activity to get rich. You just have to be a fucking psychopath with activity. I don't know another way. I didn't— I didn't do it the easy way. I don't know a different way. I've never had someone teach me a different way. I've never had someone tell me a different way works. Everyone I know that got rich, Schmidt, worked their face off. You know, and if you do a full—

including—

yes, like too much. Fair to say, Eric, when you work your face off too much, it brings other problems in life.

Oh, yeah.

Yes, I can. I can tell them to you. Will you have relationship problems? Yes. Will it interfere with your marriage? Yes. But so does being broke.

You know, though, John, sometimes when people make that internal commitment that they're going to do it, you know, in order to verbalize it and put it out there. So when I told Carrie, you know, hey, the next, you know, when I was working 70 hours a week at the dealership and I was going to do this and I was going to get myself out of the dealership, I was making like $275,000 W-2, $275K a year. And it just wasn't the right fit any longer for us, not financially because we could have figured it out. But just overall, I said, hey, the next 90 days I'm either going to figure this out or I'm going to have to figure something else out, which I've been looking for for 20 years and it's not out there. Um, so, but when I, when I verbalize it and I told my kids who are obviously, you know, 4, 5, 6 years younger at that time, but like, and I worked my face off using your line, then it's just like, oh, like, like, then, then like you are like, if you don't, like, if you put it out there and you don't do it, then it's going to be like, Kara's like, I thought you were going to be like working a lot, like how are you at, you know, why are you picking up the kids from practice, or why you at the pool, or like, I thought you said you were doing this.

Yeah.

You know, but for people that say they're gonna do it but then don't tell anybody, you know, put it out there, tell the world, because then you can hold yourself accountable to it, right? You know, you can't put out a book that says, you know, do more now, get better later, and you're hanging out, you know, watching TV at Orange Theory. You're not doing the workouts, you know what I mean?

So can you imagine if I didn't keep putting in work, bro? At least what a fraud.

Yeah, and to be clear, that is—

it's also a lot of psychology. Like, you— I, I— we know that when we put something out there publicly that it's going to push us in a different way. So every time I've done 75 Hard, dude, I talk about it. I tell fucking people I'm doing it because when I want to quit doing it, I have to be like, yo, I have to— I said I would do it. And people look up to me, you know what I mean? Not only my family and friends at this point, it's like there's a bigger, bigger queue. So now in the health thing, I'm the same way. If I didn't post stuff, dude, when I don't post something about a workout some days, I get DMs that ask if I'm okay. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I just didn't find time to post it today. I'm sorry. That's why I would do better.

It's so weak. One of our text group is so weak, right?

Correct. It's no longer that group anymore, but you know, I feel so bad not answering in that group too, but it's such a fake workout group. I can't handle it.

It is. But like, but like, if you and I are, you know, in Dallas, right, and I know you're in the middle of a program And like, I'm like, well, where's John? Like, I know he wasn't here this morning, so why aren't we out walking tonight? Like, we went on that big walk. I don't know what, what state we were in. I think we were in Texas when we went on that crazy walk and ended up on the wrong side of town for a minute. Um, I'm like, but like, if you weren't there, I'd be like, well, I know he's doing 2 a day. Like, you know, and where, where the hell is he? Yeah, that's the same thing. Like, so with Zooms now, with this, right?

Yep.

Like, how else can you hold yourself accountable? Like, so like, if you're showing up to, you know, ABC Zoom dial every single day and then you don't show up, it's like, well, where was, where was John? You know, John hasn't been here for a few days. And then like, John's not posting on Discord, you know, what's up with John? And then, you know, so, so I think that that's like your— so when we were posting on Facebook every day what our sales were Like, that was the way that I held myself accountable to work. Correct. I didn't have a card to punch in. I didn't have— like, I wasn't at the dealership putting my name on the board. Like, so how else am I going to get some type of— this might be the weird or the wrong thing to say, and I don't even know why I'm talking out loud, but you've called my name, so now I've unmuted a little bit. But it's like, like, how am I going to get some self-gratification? Like, where am I going to, like, post my sale? Where am I gonna— where am I gonna show that I'm working? You know, because it's like, you know, no one has access to my bank accounts unless I post them, you know. So I think that stuff is important too, John, you know, to like be, you know, be visible, you know. Don't be expendable and absent at the same time, like our friend says, you know.

So yeah, buddy. Yeah, buddy. I think, um, you know, so y'all, y'all, y'all gotta really look at yourself in the mirror. And are you really doing what it takes to achieve the stuff that comes out of your mouth you say you want? You know, and don't hold back on yourself. I think far too many of you hold back on yourself. You're too easy on yourself. You let shit slide. You give yourself the okay to make excuses. You validate it with other bullshit examples or blaming someone else or the reason why you're in a spot you're in. Is some— like, if you catch yourself doing that stuff, that's more important to me than the script, you know? And it's like, have, have some confidence in yourself. The person who hired you wouldn't have hired you if they didn't have confidence in you. Hell, we have more confidence in y'all than you have in you, and mostly because we know what we've done. Isn't that earth-shattering? It's like, I don't— I, dude, I don't think we've done anything that fucking impressive, Eric. Have we compared to the average insurance agent who quits? I mean, I suppose if you mean working hard for your family every day for a handful of years, fine. But relative to the space or relative to successful people, if you put the most successful people in a room together right now, dude, me and Eric would be squeezing in the back door like fucking sardines hoping to be in there waiting for someone to cancel so I could get 100%. 100%. Like, we just haven't done that much in life. And it's funny, when you get to new levels, you ever feel like the person you're chasing is so far ahead of you, you don't know how you can get there? Y'all feel— y'all feel that? Like you just don't understand how to get to where Eric or I are? Dude, you know Eric and I get in another room and we feel the same way relative to where we are. Dude, we get in these rooms with these fucking guys who have built 9-figure, multi-9-figure— and I'm not talking 9-figure issue paid, I'm talking 9-figure in their fucking pocket. Empires. Like, we— like, Tracy, that's why I keep— I haven't done anything. I'm way closer to zero than I am 100 million. I know I got millions, I got it, but I don't have 99 of them, you know what I mean? And I just— dude, I'm, I'm scared shit to live the life I used to live. Y'all watch TV? You seen that? You— can you name someone that was rich that's now broke? I ain't stopping, you know. I, I just— I, I had so many people help me get here, and if, if all I got to do is provide insight to people to help them get somewhere else, and I'm not dumb enough to think that it— it— I know it will benefit me somehow, some way. Stuff like this, dude, I don't get paid on almost anybody, probably nobody in here. I probably don't make a penny from anyone in this group at this stage. That ain't what it's about. This is such a long-term game for me. You know what I see, Eric? Dude, you go to the— you know, we go to those meetings with Brian and them. Yeah, Adams, when they bring on these partners. Yeah, but the thing I noticed about all of them is they talk about the relationship they had 10, 15, 20 years ago with this person already. You know what I mean? I'm like, yo, who'd have fucking thought Andy and Sean would be partners 13 years ago? Who would have thought that? Who would have thought we'd be in the same— we'd be in the same room as Bet David? Like, we're on the same team now. Like, we'd have never seen that piece coming. But I'm smart enough to watch all these people that have built, like, what I consider empires to see— they get to look backwards and connect the dots too. And even the dudes who started Integrity, those cats from, uh, is it Premier? Whatever, whatever one they were from, the— those other— those 3 cats, Brian and the other 2. I don't think it— I don't know if it's Premier, whatever their company name was. Um, there ain't no way they thought it was going to come together that way.

No, then— now when they were doing it in a garage, you know, hell no.

But it's like They built relationships along the way with others that wanted to be successful, and they did it without an immediate plan in place. And eventually things came together, and they built the largest empire of life, health, and wealth in the, in the industry through relationships they had prior. You know what I mean? And they all helped each other in different ways along the ride. And so for me, this is just part of my journey. There are some people in here, 5, 10, 15 years from now, we're going to be doing some dope stuff together. There's a lot of people in here 5, 10, 15 years from now. Hell, some of y'all ain't gonna be here, period. And some of y'all are— meaning like, you ain't gonna be alive. That's going— some of us ain't gonna be here. It just is what it is. And some of us are still going to be in the business and still struggling. That I can guarantee. Think about how many people we know, Eric, that were really good when we started that are still here and still struggling. You know what I mean? And then some of y'all you're gonna be in some other business and frustrated. But also, there's a couple in here, a couple years from now you're gonna be on stage speaking somewhere and don't even know it. Someone in here is going to be sending their kid on a mission trip out of the country, you don't even know it. Someone's gonna have their kids or grandkids in the best private school in their town and don't even fucking know it right now. Some of y'all are going to be able to buy your kid a sports car just because he fucking asked, and you're like, why not? Some of y'all are going to be able to donate money to whatever church you want to donate to, take care of your— like, that— the path is happening. And so for me, I just understand, dude, we're all on this journey, and I'm like, big things are coming to those. And I just believe, dude, when you outwork people, good things happen. So although I'm here helping you all, I— part of me being here helping you all is also me outworking you all. Get effing paid.

Get effing paid.

Get effing paid.

Get effing paid.

What up, guys? If you guys are looking to get to a new level in your career, you may have seen that we've been running some workshops in my office in Atlanta. I have them every quarter now. Last one sold out fully. It was a massive success. A couple different levels you can attend. Just a general ticket, um, get you in the door, listen to 2 days of training, interactive workshop style. We really dive into what you got going on and how to get to new levels. If you're looking to be in a new crowd, higher level up, um, I have a private mastermind. Last one was at my house. It was insane. Um, all the value that everybody added to each other and we had a good time. And, uh, I heard it was way underpriced relative to what people got out of it. You can check out some of the testimonials here, I'm sure. But if you'd like to attend, click the link below. I do 'em every quarter. The date'll be around here somewhere. Look forward to seeing you there.

If you are in the insurance industry and you're looking to scale and grow your business, I highly encourage you to check John Wetmore out.

Honestly made the cost of the event back in like the first 2 hours of being here. John Wetmore is a beast. So much value in everything that I've learned here. It is worth the price of admission.

Make sure you get to the next meeting.

I am still doing it. I don't have to outwork you guys and I still do. Travis, how about that? I don't even have to fucking do it and I still do it. That internal drive, that's what does it. You think it's because I make X amount of money that I work? Like, dude, this is way bigger picture to me.

Hey John, what are 3 questions you can ask someone during an interview that can give you a chance to weed that out? Because you're going to get told whatever they want. People are going to say what they think they want someone to hear. Yeah, but how can you— one, maybe it's one question, you know? Yeah, maybe it's the tone in her voice, maybe it's the tone in your voice, but like, if you're having that conversation— and I'll— and I know Dan, I've known Dan, you know, Carrington, for years, you know? Like, what, what would you say to— like, what does that sound like, that question or question?

Yeah, so I'll do it with Dan. Fuck, I mean, we're talking about it, right? So for me Like, Dan, these things I've talked to you about, you already— you did the lead part, right? Next is the things we just talked about, those 3 things. Fair to say, you know, you should do those things?

Yes.

Okay. And for some reason, you're still not doing them.

Yeah.

Your job is to figure that out right now. You want more out of life. Okay, right. All I can do is give you advice on what to do. Do you know how many people a day, bro, tell me they want to change their financial situation? Do you know how many people in this fucking Zoom right now— y'all look at a camera, look at a camera. Dan, look at them in the camera. You know how many of these fuckers looking you dead in the eyes right now have told me they want it bad and they'll do whatever it takes and still don't— and still don't fucking do it, dude? Still won't fucking change. Do you know what percentage of people that tell me they want it actually do something about it? 2%. The number is basically zero.

Okay.

It's really fucking close to zero. It's closer to zero than 2%. Hmm. So with that said, dude, I want to— I want to believe in you that you're gonna make the changes. I really do. But I get myself in trouble if I stay up at night wondering if you're doing it, because I got 100 people a day tell me they're going to do it. So one, are you good updating me along the way so I know that you're tracking? And then two, if you don't do it, are you okay if I call you out?

Yes.

Boom. And not take it offensive. I just, I just want to point out that you said you want it and you aren't doing it. Is that okay?

Yes, that's okay, dude.

I ask every person that on every call, Eric, because like the words mean nothing to me anymore, bro. I just don't— I know you and everyone fucking wants it. That's the problem.

So I want one. Are you good at updating me? I'm not going to have to chase you for an update.

Yeah, it's your— the burden of communication is on you, not me. I can't— you can't go faster than me, Dan. You cannot go faster in this business. You will not go faster than me. So I'm gonna let you dictate pace. So if you feel like you need to know something before the next one, I need you to ask. However, if you aren't doing the things I asked you to do on the first one, I'm going to remind you to do those before I give you the next one. Is that fair?

That's fair, right?

And, and so for me, Eric, I do things like that, and I talk to people about being coachable. Doing the shit they say they're going to do and communicating if they can't, right? And then I ask permission. So if you don't do those things, if you're not coachable and you don't do the shit you say you're going to do and you don't communicate, are you okay if I just call you out? Because my natural instinct is for me to want to quit you. I don't want to fuck with you.

Why? I—

what do you mean why? Like you need me to explain? You don't understand why? You're saying I want it, you're asking me what to do, I take time out of my day, tell you what to do, and then you still don't do it. So then my question to that person would be, why do we talk? What's the point of the conversation if you never implement? I do this annuity training. Linda, you were on it, dude. Why do I keep doing the fucking annuity call? No one's asking the golden question. Why am I still fucking doing it? We sold $45 million last year without, without the call. I don't need the call to improve my business, you know what I mean? So for me, dude, I just— I've learned if I can articulate— I, dude, it might not be perfect, Eric. Yes, I'm not saying I'm like the most amazing, perfect, I know everything in every way. I'm just— all I can do is talk to you about the things that I've implemented. That's what all of my answers are, how I got out of the situation each person's in. And I'm genuinely mind-blown, baffled why someone doesn't listen and keeps calling me. I don't— I genuinely don't fucking understand it. So then when people— when people do— Eric, if you ever have someone ask you the same thing, right? You gave them the answer, they didn't do it, they ask again, maybe in a new way, but they're basically asking the same question over and over again. Early on, dude, I go, hey, Eric, can I ask you a question? And please, I know I don't want this to come across mean, so I apologize in advance if it does. Um, fair to say, you know, you already asked me that question, right? Dude, are you looking for a new answer? I ask that 10 times a week to people.

I have a lot of people— not a lot, I have a couple few people at least a week that'll resurface out of the hundreds and hundreds of people that have joined us.

Yeah.

And, um, and really my question, I'm like, well, what's, what's different now? Why now? Why are we talking again?

Yeah, you know, so for me, I make them tell me exactly, like, meaning you, you as a human, who you are in this business, how you teach, your beliefs, your core, like, you have core principles. Right? So your, your basic shit is your basic shit. You say the same stuff to the same people. It's just like in-home. You basically have a script, if you will, when you're hiring, getting people started, right? And I don't believe they didn't hear you. I believe they heard you. I believe you're really clear about what it takes to work with you. Fair?

Yes.

Like, I don't, I don't think you're confused on how to do this. You can help someone make half a million bucks all day long, for sure. Right? You know how to give them the steps. So I think for you, man, when they come back, instead of like having them sell you on what's changed— because they're gonna go like, my mom just got sick and this just happened, my wife said this, and just whatever— they're going to give you the story. I don't want the story. The story doesn't mean shit to me. I'm not— not to me. Like, I have as much empathy as I can given the situation, but I'm, I'm more confused on why it happened and you still aren't doing anything about it. That part confuses me. So when, when they come to me, dude, I'm like, all right, well, you've heard my training, bro. What are the 3 things you're going to implement today to change your situation that I don't have to beg you to do and explain to you all over again? And they're going to have to sell— they're going to I know I have to be on the dials at 7:00 AM or you're out. I know you'll quit me before I quit you. Like, they know my shit, dude. Fucking Preston quoted it. I'm so clear. And again, I go, I, I know I'm a little rough around the edges. I'm— I promise you, dude, come live with me. Have some sympathy for my wife and kids. I know I'm fucked up, but I believe you all are too. So I think we have an equal playing field. I think we're all fucked up. I'm just open to it. I just— I'm, I'm not trying to be mean to anybody, hurt anybody. I mean well for most people, you know. So I, I've just allowed myself to be me, dude, you know what I mean? And because again, all I'm— all we're doing, Eric, is talking to people about how we changed our situation. Yeah. And no different than if you stopped fucking working today, would Sean give a shit? Like, I know he kind of cares, but dude, if you just call it a wrap on your family and you're like, fuck it, dude, he ain't coming to get you out of bed tomorrow. Nope, he just doesn't give a shit. If you don't care about your family, he can't, because it doesn't do anything. And so, dude, I've learned from me, man, instead of trying to— and I do my best, like, with things like this, things like this, I know there's always a few people on here who are going to take it, take away kill it. But I'm not confused, dude, that the overwhelming majority of people that get on these free things I do are broke as shit looking for a shortcut, Eric. And they're not going to change anything. The last call I did, we did a— we did an inventory and we looked at how many new people were on the call. There was not one person new other than the last minute register registrations that happened like right before we went live. Anyone that pre-registered, there was not one person new on the call. So they had all heard it already, and not one of them had asked the annuity question since the last meeting. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? You know there's unlimited people for me to talk to, right? Unlimited. I have a guy begging the shit out of me to work here, dude, but he wants some obnoxious comp. And I'm like, dude, I don't give a fuck. He's like, but I can do this and I can do that and I can do this. I said, dude, have you seen my squad? Yeah, no one cares. Go do it, bro. If you could do it without me, you'd have already done it.

Mhm.

But I need this comp. I worked my whole life for that comp. I'm like, great, I worked my whole life for my comp and my spread. I've taught people how to make fucking millions. If you think that percentage comp is the thing stopping you from making millions It's weird you ain't making it where you got it.

Yeah, you taught me.

So yeah, I just— I'm good, dude. I can move on because I know there's no different than when the lead doesn't work out. There's unlimited people looking for insurance. If you are struggling with money and you have an insurance license, there's unlimited people that want life insurance today, right now. You have unlimited people You could go talk to 100 strangers today, half won't have any insurance. You have unlimited clientele at your fingertips. Just open your door, walk into the neighborhood, make phone calls, post on Facebook, ask at parties, ask at your friends. There's unlimited people for you to get to. And I just believe the same thing with recruiting, dude. No different than if I stopped doing shit, Brian Adams and Shawn Mike wouldn't slow down at all. They don't care. Because there's unlimited people willing to build something that they can buy. Yeah, you know, so for me, I've learned to have this mentality of I'm going to stop trying to teach people how to be motivated. I don't know how to fucking motivate people. I know how to—

I know how to get a question on interview, do I need to teach you how to be motivated? Correct. Probably not. I'm out.

I'm out. No, I'm out. I'm out 100%. Yeah, because I don't know how to— I don't Dude, when you won't get off your ass and work when you don't have the money— and be clear, I've been stuck there. No one got me out of it but me. People gave me opportunities, people gave me help along the way, but no one came to my house and got me off my ass when I was fat as shit. No one came and drug me to the gym. No one changed our grocery list. I had to do that stuff, you know. And, and I think, dude, far too many people expect us to motivate them, and far too many people building expect to be able to figure out how to motivate people. And even if you do, it's so temporary, dude. I can be— I can get people fired the fuck up. I can get people excited. But dude, by tomorrow afternoon, that shit wore off, you know what I mean? Like, we smoked a little doobie on the back porch, a couple hours, it wears off. It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't. I don't know how to make it linger other than me living my life and showing how well it works for me, and y'all can come along or not. I ain't fucking stopping. You know, and so for me, Eric, I'm trying to find people that want to prove it to me so bad because they know they're fighting. I'm just— I'm honest with them, dude. They're fighting for our time, dude. You only have so much time. This guy with the comp, I'm like, great, but you coming here means I now have to spend more time working. You're trying to make it not worth it for me. It's like going to the fucking Super Bowl winning team and going, I want $130 million contract. They're like, nah, bro, you didn't score enough touchdowns, we'll offer you 80. He's like, well, fuck you, I, I don't want that. Okay, wish you the best. Cheer for us on Sunday on TV, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, man, if, if you don't do what it takes to make the team and be on the field on game day, they're going to keep it moving, you know? And, and, and so for me, man, I'm, I'm more trying to find the personality type of someone that is, is like, yo, I'm all in. Meaning we're, we're gonna— I had a guy last week, we dial at 7 Eastern, he's in Central Time. I'm like, better not be late. He's like, that's 6. I'm like, I'm glad you can do math. Okay, dude, these kids in the NFL got drafted, yo, they had to be at camp fucking next day. Some of them got on planes the same night to move across the country, left their family behind to go play the sport, you know. And dude, I just— there's unlimited people willing to do whatever it takes, like me and you out there, bro.

Yeah.

And so I've learned to just stop trying to take the ones at the bottom that only want to do it if they can take advantage and do it with the least work and the least effort and the least hard stuff and the least problems. And I don't— I don't want that person. Because I don't know how to deliver this industry with no problems and no issues. I don't know how to do anything in life without fucking problems. And so I want, I want to find people, dude, that are willing to fight through hard things and walk the walk, dude, because the words mean nothing to me. I hear them, I'll listen to them, they sound great, but at the end of the day, bro, everyone you interview is going to tell you the shit you want to hear because they want your time.

Yeah.

And so instead of, instead of believing their words, I just tell people, dude, I'm, I'm— again, I'm not trying to be an asshole. Preston, I don't believe any of the words you tell me, dude. I don't believe you. I'm just going to watch if you do the things I tell you and test you, and I'm going to tell you I'm testing you, and I'm going to tell you if you don't pass the test, I'm going to keep moving on. But I promise, dude, I'll give you a high five at every event I see you at. I just won't answer the fucking basic questions anymore because you already know them. There's nothing different I can tell you than I was telling you 9 months ago, bro, when I tried to hand it to you. And I know life, and you know what I mean, like, I got it, but I'm broken just like y'all are broken. And the only thing I got, man, is time, dude. And I just— I let so many people steal my time because I was unwilling to be honest, you know what I mean? And I believed in potential too much. And I, I, I'd take a guy that sucks ass, dude, over a guy that's amazing. You give me like the smooth-talking sales guy, yeah, or the fucking dude that talks with a lisp and can't get two words out of his mouth but he works his face off, I'm like, yo, that's my guy, I like that guy, come over here, you know? Because I got that help, bro, when I was working my face off. All the people that poured into me back then, I was the fucking dipshit part-time accountant in khakis. In the back of every meeting room. But motherfucker, I was there every week and I always had questions and I always implemented stuff. And then I thanked the person who gave me the answers and asked them if they could give me more answers, and they just kept giving them to me. You know, it was like cheating in school. I was really good at that shit. People cheated off me in math because I could just roll out of bed and do math. Everything else, yo, science History. Yo, sit me next to the cute Greek chick, she's really good at that stuff. Let me sit over there and get the answers. And we get in trouble for cheating. Then I got introduced to this business and they were like, nah, cheat. Nah, don't study on your own, that's fucking retarded. Go cheat. I was like, I'm in. Hell, I've been doing that my whole life and getting yelled at. Now you're telling me it's okay, you know? So I just kept asking people for the answers, bro. When they told them to me, I wrote it down, went and did it, and came back for more. And it just keeps feeding my family to a different level, man. Um, and I just think far too many people— and here's the thing, man, every time I talk about stuff, ain't no one on here saying I'm lying. There ain't no person ever that's like out of shape that's like, you're right, I fucking— you're, you're right, I, you know, I eat perfect every day. None of them, none of them call me out. They're like, you're right, I know I eat fucking Oreos when I shouldn't. I don't work out when I say I should. I know I drink soda and coffee and fucking juice even though I know it's terrible for me. You know, like, we all do that, dude. I've done that, you've done that, we've been together doing that. I'm the Lemon Drop King, dude. I have 7 of them bitches at dinner. I know they weren't good for me, so I eventually had to get to a point where I'm like, dude, they don't service my life right now, you know what I mean? I drink, I act like an idiot, I stay up too late, I miss my workout in the morning, I fucking eat like shit. It's like, dude, it's not doing anything for me. And I'm telling you, I like drinking. I just, I just can't, you know. It slows down my goals. And so in this space, man, a lot of you guys say all— and girls say all the things you want, and you show up to all the calls, but are you implementing? You know, and we have this whole fucking— I apologize, Liz, if you're watching. I didn't really follow your, your draft here because I went off the deep end when I started talking to Schmidt, but My fault, I'll take full responsibility. No, dude, it's not your fault. It's definitely my fault because I get— again, it's like we did this thing of what all people want to learn about, right? And I appreciate y'all filling it out. You can't see that. There's a list of like however many people registered here, and we said, what do you want to learn about? And everyone put, uh, like leads, closing deals, building, leads, leads, leads, how to be consistent. I'm like, you're telling me you don't know how to be consistent? Do you think I actually believe that shit? You know, you know, working today and working tomorrow and then doing it again the next day and then doing it again the next day and then doing it again the next day— no one's confused that's what consistency is. How do you do it? I say no to other shit, period. I say no to other shit, lots of it. That, that's it, you know. Getting on the phones. I had a guy, I think he's on here today, I don't know if I mentioned this earlier. He wanted to understand how to change his phone script. He made 67 phone calls, had 10 pick up and booked none. He's like, I think I need a new phone script. I was like, bro, that ain't— phone script, that ain't the magic, dude. I was like, make 500 phone calls or get 50 objections 3 days in a row, and then I'll personally help you with phone script. Do I think he's going to do it? Probably not. He's here. I hope he does it, but am I booking the time on my calendar? Nah. Nah, you know. And so when, when people want the training, dude, which I have all of it, I can give it all, you know that, everyone knows that. I'm like, it, it doesn't help without the reps. No different than exercise science doesn't help if you don't go to the gym. The amount of protein you take in doesn't matter if you— most of it's through Oreos. It doesn't matter what brand, you know. You have some people like out of shape as shit and they're, they're comparing brands of protein to see if that helps next month. I'm like, I wish someone would tell you the truth. There's not— that's not the magic, you know. I've had far more gain. I cut out alcohol, fried food, dessert. Alcohol, fried food, dessert. That's it. Alcohol, fried food, dessert. I just cut those 3 things out of my life. Dropped 25 pounds since December. And like, I was at like 21% body fat like a month ago when I went to the doctor. I was at 14-something. Alcohol, fried food, dessert. That's it. So when I go out with all my friends and they all get a bottle of wine I have to say no. When my buddy's drinking a bourbon and this one's drinking a beer and they're going, you want your lemon drop? I'm like, nah, I'll take water. When Steph orders a cheesecake and then probably one to go at dinner, I just go, nah, I'm good. Maddox asked me to eat some fried every other fucking day. They fry everything for 13-year-olds. Go to the ball field. I spend all weekend at ball fields. Y'all know that food's no good, right? Ball field food, dude. I pack my own shit, or I find a smoothie place near the field. I'm not eating the burger from the hot dog stand. I just— why? What do you mean why? You know why. Stop pretending you don't know why. No different than when it comes time to pick up the phone and call leads. Me and you, Eric, we call leads, bro. All the other people try to find a different way to do it. I'm like, ah, I just— I don't know that way, you know what I mean? But can I tweak your phone script? Yes, better than anyone you probably fucking know, and I can do it in like 3 minutes. But it doesn't work if you haven't been told to fuck off hundreds of times. It just doesn't work. I can give you the whole psychology of it. If you haven't touched the phone, it doesn't work. It's the weirdest thing, you know. It's like, why putting regular gas in my lawnmower don't work? I don't know, it needs that other little oil thing in it for some reason. I don't fucking know why. I have no idea why that's the case. I just know I don't put regular gas in my lawnmower, it don't work. I don't have to understand the science behind it. I, I just know that giving away the steps to do this, dude, doesn't work when it isn't combined with the effort and the reps from the other end. And y'all's part is 20x harder than my part. For me to tell you what to say different, that's the easy part. That shit's so easy it's stupid. It's actually comical once you figure it out. Eric, ain't it ridiculous how easy it is once you figure it out?

Yes, sir.

You know, if you're in the insurance space and trying to build an agency, or you're trying to like break records in sales, just hit new levels, new heights, click the link below to apply to my consulting and coaching program that I have out there. I'm helping tons of people get to new levels, get to new income heights, help them build their teams, put systems in place, staffing stuff, recruiting processes, automations. I'm just teaching people how to get to a point where they're selling on their own pend $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a month. And if they're building a team, teaching how to have an effective structure to your insurance agency for the most profitability you can. There is an application process. I'm only looking to work with like high-end people who really want to make big things happen. Couple recent clients that we've had in the, in the coaching program. One dude as an individual went from selling like $8,000 a month, barely getting by, about to quit the industry, found the book, hit me up direct. Started a coaching program, went to $35K his first month, has issued like $150K in the last 90 days and has changed the trajectory of his career. Working with another agency builder, very first month went from doing like $800 grand a month to almost $1.1 million. We added like 10 or 15% production in 30 days and continue to work on things there. So if you're interested, click the link, apply, and if you're a fit, I'll reach out. It's no different. Hey, you— this is going to be a weird analogy, but I went to— I like going up— when I go to— when I travel, I like going to a hotel that has a spa in it. I like going to the spa, get a massage, do shit like that, sit in the steam room, hot tub, all that jazz. And when you go in, if you've ever been in one, you know they give you those lockers and you got to press C and your 4-digit code and then the key thing and it unlocks, and you can create your own code every time you go. Well, some of the fucking lockers are different and you gotta like move the knob the right way and push the button the right way in the right order, or the thing won't unlock. If you don't do it in just the right order, it won't unlock. You're like, I put in my code, it didn't open. Yeah, you didn't press the C first, bro. You have to press the C and then your code. You're like, why? That's stupid. I'm like, dude, I don't know. I didn't fucking create the locker, dude. I'm just telling you how it works. And this business is the same thing. All the shit you want to know before you get started, it don't work. Until you get started and do a lot of it, and then come back and go, hey, I keep getting this at this point. Oh yeah, no, that's easy. Say like this instead of that. That's it. Yeah, no, it's fucking stupid. It's actually stupid.

Someone says like, I always get stuck at the social.

Correct.

I asked to confirm the social. How do you ask? Yeah, well, I just say, what's your Social Security number? Well, that's why.

Yeah, or they go, you know, the way this thing works is the insurance companies have to make sure that it's not fraudulent, and they give this fucking dissertation on why they need the social. I'm like, if that didn't sound like a fucking scam, I don't know what did. Hey, how about just going, what's your social?

Yeah, confirm your social for me.

Yeah, I like it. You know, I mean, small tweak— confirm your social. Hey, how many people in here ask confirm your social instead of what's your social? You mean like you ask it a bunch to implement confirm instead of what? You change one word, changes the whole fucking dynamic of it. I've never said that, bro. That's one of the best things on this call. Why confirm? It makes it sound like you already got it.

So my son—

hey, where do they ask that? They ask that everywhere. Every time I get a call from the bank or whoever, they're like, confirm your social.

Yep, it's what people hear. Yeah, what people hear.

There you go, worth the price of admission right there, bro.

Zero.

Yeah, but now the, the reality is, dude, the people who don't make phone calls a lot will forget, especially if you gave them 10 things to implement. Oh yeah, no, they, they have no shot at doing it. Yeah, and I just, I understand that it puts them at a disadvantage. So a lot, a lot of the time, Eric, along the way, I have to ask if they're willing to trust me along the way, because they have to. They have to trust me, sure, but I also have to trust that you're going to put in the fucking work to implement the stuff I'm going to give you. Because I'm 100% sure I'm going to do my part. I keep showing up. So my question is, are you going to do your part? Because your part needs— includes working significantly harder at your career than I work at your career. And if I have to be the one working harder at your career than you, I'm out. Yeah, I'm just out now. Like this, I can do it in a group setting. There's always value in it. I have fun with it. Someone will take it and run with it and do some cool things. There's all— I always— I get messages after every one of these. Someone will take something, implement it, make some money, and DM me by tomorrow. Happens every fucking call, you know. The reality is, dude, most people won't make any change in life. That's why they're where they are in life. So if you're unhappy with where you're at in life Period. Please, for the love of God, will you just accept that it's you that caused it? The freedom that it gives you when you accept it's you, first trying to blame whatever else it is you're blaming— your best friend, your ex-wife, your ex-girlfriend, your baby mama— like, dude, it's you fucked up. Your upline, your company, the support, the carrier, the underwriter, the lead vendor. Like, it will never change if it's other people. Your life will never change if the problem is other people.

And that's a good thing to listen for when you're doing an interview, John, because they're like, where you working now? Oh, I'm in between jobs. Perfect. What was your last job? It was at ABC. Great. What happened? You know, or was it— and well, this person. Yeah, that's, that's not a one-off situation, you know. No, you know, now if he says, hey, you know what, I screwed up, I was always late, it wasn't that important to me, boom boom boom, okay, well, these, you know, there's some honesty, you know.

So yeah, even if, even in the case where agents are like, the leads, the vendor, the bad batch, I'm like All right, let's pretend for a minute that you're going to convince me that that's actually the reason it didn't work. Let's just pretend. I'll fucking submit. You win. It was the lead vendor. Can I ask you a question? How on earth did you put your life in a space where this one batch of leads fucked up your entire life? Is that the lead vendor's fault too? That one lead order didn't go perfect and you're fucked? That one lead didn't have the right number on it and someone else called before you, that it's so bad that that one thing is gonna bring down the whole house, you know what I mean? So for me, at the very least, how did you put yourself in the situation where— so to where it's so dire that this one thing is causing this much chaos in your life? You know what I mean?

And so I kind of told me that, uh, sorry John, I just need you to tell me how they kept on getting wrong numbers on leads. And I'm like, well, you do know people put on purpose, you know, incorrect dates of birth and incorrect telephone numbers on the lead order. They do that.

Mickey Mouse ain't never going away as a lead. Mickey Mouse will always be a lead.

Yeah, but then someone will change their phone number intentionally by one digit so they don't get the call. 100%. You can go to fastpeoplesearch.com and you can get the right phone number.

You can, you know, a little extra effort, you can show up to their house and find it out too.

Oh yeah, no doubt.

You mean there's, there's always a way.

People in my office today that close deals, they're like, that's, you know, it's like, the number you got. I'm like, did you look it up or did you just move on to the next one? Take 10 seconds and just go to another tab and just type in the person's name and state, and if it looks like one digit's missing, then and they closed deals on it, you know.

Yeah, it's that— that's that find a way mentality. Yeah, anything it takes, you know. And I, I just think, man, so many people see that. Amanda sent— Amanda did this post last night on social. I wish I could bring it up, or hell, you can share that picture if you want, Amanda. The squiggly fucking circle thing, the path. If you don't want— I'm talking about— she posted this thing last night. You ever seen those pictures, Schmidt, where it's like the way people think it works, and it's like a straight line from point A to point B, but then the actual is like this fucking up the hill, down the mountain, through the woods type journey. It's just fair to say, dude, think about all the ways we pictured things. I don't know how long we've been working together. It feels like a long time though. It's been a while. 2018. All right, so 7 years. Think about all the things we talked about then. What percentage of them worked out exactly the way we talked about?

Exactly less than zero.

Like, we know, I know, we know, we know it sucks. We know it, and we know, we know they were assholes. We know it didn't work. We know, we know, we know they canceled. We know they quit. We know they rolled up debt. We know they charge back. We know they hate you. We know, we know your admin did something stupid. We know. Trust me, we know all of it. We know. Keep fucking going. You know, it ain't going away. It is not going away. And so you, you learn— like, I've become someone who does hard things, Eric. That's who I am today. So if I don't, if I don't put myself in situations to where it's hard I can't be me anymore. Yeah, you know, and we've learned to understand that business has problems every day, bro. I got one going on right now, like right fucking now, that requires my attention, that my team is upstairs working on, that has a really big financial impact because someone fucking didn't do their job right today in my office. As much as I talk about this shit, I just— but we get paid to solve problems, so I fucking hate it, and I'm frustrated, and I want them to fix it. And I know Amanda's working, you know what I mean? They're doing their— they're doing what they can. We have this sign in Amanda's office. I wish she could share it. I don't even know if she's on anymore. She might got sick of hearing me talk, but it literally says, 'Always something, always something.' And I used to say in a negative tone and I didn't like how it felt. It felt like depressing, you know what I mean? And so for me, I, I now look at it as an opportunity, saying like, oh, always something, always something to get better at, always something to work on. So we have the always something, and right below it we put the do more sign.

That's like that, um, I don't think he— I don't think we— I don't think— I know I haven't seen him in person, but I've seen him on social and he's always like, good, you know, this happened, good. What's that guy's name? He's a military guy.

Is it— is this the runner? Got it.

Yeah, Jocko. He did speak at our thing.

Yeah.

And he's like, this happened. Good. You know, person canceled, person rolled up, person gave me the wrong bank account. You know, do you ever get a bank account number from someone, John, and you read it back to them different just to see if they confirm it?

See if—

hell yeah, dude.

See if they say it back to me wrong. I'm like, well, you said this before, so which one is it? 100%, you know. But yeah, they always say, good, um, Preston, that guy Jocko, good. Yeah, good. Another one didn't show up, good, you know.

I want y'all to go so hard it hurts. I want you to work so much you fall asleep on your couch with drool coming down your mouth, and not because you got stuck watching Netflix so long. You literally can't keep your eyes open creating your next fucking recruiting funnel. You can't keep your eyes open creating how you're going to follow up with your next clients, your lead plan for tomorrow, how many people you're going to call. Like, you should just be so tired you can't handle it. Not so tired out of misery. Literally, dude, you can't physically— you ever, you ever talk so much in a day? I don't know if y'all experience this. I experience all the time. I do this so frequently. First of all, they have to keep this little jar of shit for me to keep in my mouth next to my desk. By the end of some days, dude, I— there are many times— it doesn't happen every day, every week, but there are, there are times, especially when I'm traveling, doing the events and speaking on stuff, dude, end of day, I can't fucking talk. I spoke so much in a day, my voice gets raspy. You start to lose it because I've done so much talking and training and calling people and doing whatever I do. You know, and you go— some people go, that sounds like a shitty, unbalanced life.

Okay.

Or as Jaco says, good. What do you want me to do? Fuck, I don't know. I enjoy it, you know. I like being busy. I like working a lot. I like going back to back. I like eating my sandwich between calls, or my avocado toast, whatever the hell I had today. Hell, Amanda orders my lunch. I'm so busy I can't even fucking keep up with when I eat. So Amanda, my wife, do it, you know, and they make sure it's the stuff I want, you know, and need. Because if I, if I don't stay healthy, I'm, I'm hard to, I'm hard to put up with. I'm hard to put up with, period. But if I ain't taking care of myself and my body and working hard and accomplishing things, I'm definitely significantly worse. You know, and I, I enjoy being that. I'm starting to get people that recognize me working out at the mountain. They're like, dude, you're here a lot. I'm like, yeah, I am here a lot, trying to get in really good shape. Like I said, you know, hell, I'm almost 50, Eric. I'm trying to get fucking abs for the first time in my life, and not because I'm— I had them when I was like 14 and 108 pounds, I think, but I think they were ribs. I don't really remember.

You think you got to be under 10 to get there, John?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I can see like a little outline of them now. Yeah, but to like see them, like, I want them to look like I photoshopped them bitches in. Yeah, I want people to believe they're not real kind of abs. So I'll probably have to be at 10. I'm like 13 something now. I haven't done it in about a month, but I'm probably getting close to 13 right now. Um, but I'm gonna push. I'm gonna put— and what's crazy, dude, about all this doing hard, doing more stuff, it does get easier. It, it, it's not a forever plan. The, the— if you think about what I just told you to do to get out of your situation, please know that's not forever. Yeah, it's, it's not forever. And it feels really good when you don't have to and you do it anyway.

It—

dude, it's a, it's a different kind of high. I don't know how to even explain it. It's hard to fucking put into words, um, you know. But again, I don't have to work out near as hard to maintain my shape as I did the last 6 months to get it. Problem with most people is when they get to some point, you finish 75 Hard, you fall off the wagon. Dude, 2 out of the last 3 times I finished 75 Hard, I drank the next night. It obviously didn't fucking work, you know what I mean? And I'm like, I gotta get to a point in my life where I can live so consistently on my health that I don't need a program to do it. That's my goal, to live my life physically in a way that I don't need a program to stay consistent. And I've been doing that. I finished 75 Hard in March. I haven't swayed at all. I don't work out twice a day anymore, but I'm basically every day, you know what I mean? But I— on the diet and the water and the— all this, all the other things, dude, I, I'm on point. And you guys should want to get to a point where you don't rely on my ass motivating you. For you to get out of bed tomorrow. You know, I'm glad to be here for a minute, but the reality is if you don't figure out how to push yourself on your own and really want it and really be chasing something— I like to chase things, so I do endurance events to chase so my health gets better along the way, because I'm certainly not going to go to it and not be ready. And then in this space, I chase certain markers. So I chased 10K a week production. I at one point, and it was, all right, make sure I'm getting $40K a month consistently. I was chasing that. Then I was chasing certain markers to build the team, team size. I need this many agents, and I was chasing it. And if this were Amazing Race, the show you all watch, and at the end of the however many days they're out there doing their fucking thing, they can win whatever they win in Amazing Race. I don't even know what— how it works anymore. A million bucks, half a million bucks, $100 grand. I don't know what they win. But they run all over the fucking world like crazy people competing in all these competitions about other— with other people to climb the ladder the fastest and pop the balloons or fucking learn the dance or all whatever the weird shit they do on that competition. And then they finish and they start running. You see the panic when they're in the taxi cab, like, oh my God, we got to go, we got to get there, we got to get there. Meanwhile, we got 21 fucking days left of this competition. They're freaking the fuck out 30 seconds into the show to win relatively no money. It's a one-time payment that's going to be taxed at 50%. They win relatively no money in life. And think about if you were on that show, because you've probably been like, we should go on there, honey, and then you realize you'd fucking kill your spouse if you were on there. That's how me and Steph do it. We think about it and then we go, no, that wouldn't work at all. We'd be divorced for sure by the end. But if you think about the pace at which they go to achieve that little prize all over the world, 24/7, no sleep, obstacle courses, challenging things, mental things they go through for a game, and you sit on the couch cheering them on, all the things athletes go through to play on Sunday And not only do you cheer them on, you yell at them when they don't perform. But then do you live your life like that at all? My life, Eric, feels a lot like Amazing Race, dude. All the planes and the flights and the events and the speaking and the things and the obstacles we've been through, bro. And we just keep fucking moving, because the reality is there's always someone behind us that I know I'm going to beat. And this shit is like recurring lifetime income. This ain't just a one-time prize, dude. My kids get to live different because of what I did.

Mhm.

My children live different because when I was too afraid to go knock on doors because it was dark out, I did it anyway. Brandon's in fucking Germany. Because when I didn't want to dial, I did it anyway. And when the recruit quit on me, I found another one. And when my best manager thought I was a fucking idiot and stopped working with me, I found someone else to work with. And when people did things to me that I think were unfair and fucked with my money, I kept working and did it, kept going anyways. Shit comes. I'm telling you, Buck, if you can't handle what's here now, dude, I wish we could sit down, bro, and just tell some stories, but it might scare the shit out of them, you know.

I was watching that Glengarry Glen Ross movie, and, uh, Baldwin says, if you can't handle this, how are you going to handle what happens on a sit, you know?

Yeah, that's true. That's funny, I forgot about that. Yeah, it's true, man. Yeah, there's, uh, there's more to come. So if you become the person who can get through some hard shit and become the person who keeps working anyway and becomes the person who understands that, like, the negative things you hate aren't ever going away, you just get better at handling them and you continue to fight through it, and you eventually find some good people around you that'll coach you and guide you and challenge you and not be afraid to tell you the truth, you know, eventually you find some good people around you, man. And this thing, I get way more credit than I deserve, Eric. I'm good at my piece, but without guys like you and fucking people like my team and Amanda, Reese, all these other people in our agency, dude, I don't— I ain't— I don't get nothing accomplished. Now I'm just one piece of this pie, and I got a lot of people out there working their face off. I'm certainly not going to be at the bottom of the list of who's working the hardest. No, I got a gang of people out there killing it, you know, so Don't be complacent. And if you want something, you know you can just go get it, right? Like, y'all understand, if you want something, you can literally just fucking write it down on the piece of paper in front of you right now, and then you can just go get it. You just might not be able to have it today, but you can literally just go fucking get it. And all I do, Eric, is just keep going and getting mine because y'all ain't taking it. I may as well get it. And there's plenty for all of us, you know, because there's a whole pool of dipshits who are never going to work that hard. So there's always people at work, you know. So keep at it, keep studying your stuff. I'm going to send out— Liz, will you put this in the, um, if you're on the— I know I didn't— I went through some of your thing. I will share what we went through, but I like what we did better. Than what was on here, because none of this shit matters if you don't do the work part. So I'm going to share this with you guys, the little outline Liz made. Will you put it in the, um, in the Discord chat, the open chat? And then when we get a summary of this one, which we'll have in like 3 seconds, just put both in there, um, and let them share, let them print it out. They can study it, you do what you want. There's, there's some cool details on there, um, but if, uh, if you guys want to get to the next level, go out and make some shit happen in your life. And cut out the shit you know you don't need, or the people you know you don't need. Sometimes that's a big one. There are probably some people in your life you got to move on from, and, uh, it's a sticky situation sometimes, but it's part of it. Um, anything you want me to share with them, Amanda, that we need to— I know Reese just shared— oh, he showed the Discord link. I don't— what if you just go to our events page, johnwetmore.com/events? I'm sure you all know it by now. You can register for any of the upcoming shit I got going on. We got tons more of these things, the annuity stuff, the workshop coming up in October. I'll be at 8% next week if anybody's there.

And where's that at, John?

That's in Dallas, or I say Dallas, it's north of Dallas somewhere, Fresno or so. I don't, I don't know, somewhere in that Metro Dallas area. Plano. There you go. So I'll be there Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I get on a flight Wednesday afternoon to fly to Salt Lake City to do this crazy endurance thing. Um, so y'all, y'all will be able to follow along. And I'm either gonna make it or punk out. Someone gonna drag me out, drag me out of the fucking mountains.

Have good shoes.

So yeah, I got— I should, I should probably research what kind of shoes to get. Right now I'm just gonna bring fucking 3 pair and keep moving. Yeah, all right guys, if I can help at all, let me know. Appreciate y'all.