Episode 207: Making YOU Your Best Version

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromsol.

Foreign.

Welcome to another episode of the Unstoppable Profit podcast. And today we are going to share with you a tool that was created by my podcast partner, Mr. Joel McKinley. Joel, how you doing?

I'm doing great, Mike. Ready for this one?

Yeah, I. I'm so ready, and I'm so proud of you in this tool that you created on your own. Actually, it happened as you were preparing to make sure that this year is like no other year in the history of your life. And so you took it upon yourself to just create the tool and not only did you do it, you've used it. And I'm going to share in just a couple minutes how I've used it so far. And I'll just tell you, it was a bit of a lesson, but I'm going to share it with you here. But you've also shared it with some of our members.

And you've gotten great feedback from them.

Yep, I have.

What have they shared?

So our, our serial implementer agreed to be a beta test report along with me and using it. And there was a couple of words that he used that I. That I pulled out of one of our accountability sessions was clarity. And then a wow. Because it's something you have to take a close look at. And a lot of times it reveals that mirror truth. And you know, what you see, gratefully you get to address.

Right, Right. And so everybody, if you're wondering what we're talking about here, let me give you a little insight. And then we're going to take a. A bit of a dive into the document itself and the tool. And we're going to give you an opportunity before we wrap up today to get your own copy so that you can use it in your own world as it applies to you. So if you've been to our boot camps, if you've been involved in our coaching or you've had exposure to us anyway, there's a very strong chance that you have seen or experienced the Mirror of Truth. And if you're on our YouTube channel watching this podcast, I'm holding up a Mirror of Truth, which basically says there's one person that stands between you and success, and it's affectionately you. And this is kind of a dirty mirror, but it's because I use it every single day. Because the only person that stands between me, that stands between Joel or anybody else out there, including all of you, between everything that you want.

Is you. And so that's where this personal, what we call a personal vo, is so powerful. So let me share with you a couple of thoughts, and then I'm going to ask Joel McKinley to kind of walk us through what he was thinking when he created the personal VO and how people can use it in their own lives. And it's simple. It's super simple. So I'm going to share with you a couple of thoughts on preparation, because.

The power of using the personal VO is preparing yourself, preparing yourself for everything you're going to face on any particular given day. Because if you don't propel yourself first. And Joel McKinley is one of our heroes. I didn't know this until recently when I asked him. He's been through five tours in the military as one of our heroes, defending our country over in the unsafe zone, if you will. So you know part of what you did, you and your comrades, right, you prepared yourselves first.

It's all about training. When everything is up against the wall or hits the fan, or however you want to call it, you will always revert back to your training.

Training, preparation, training and preparation. So what the personal VO does, it trains you and prepares you for the battles that you're going to face every day. And what I recently learned in my own personal training development about preparation is this.

We play at the level of our preparation. We play at the level of our preparation. How you spend your time preparing.

Is more important than how much time you spend preparing. So you've got to prepare yourself. It's so vitally important that you prepare yourself for anything that you're going to endeavor into in this world. So you've got to know, feel, and live everything in your preparation. So the great thing about this vo, super, super proud of Joel McKinley and creating it. It does all of that. So ready to take a dive in?

Let's go.

All right, fantastic. So let me switch this up here. I've got the entire personal VO printed out in front of me. It's about.

Five pages. Okay. And so share with us your thoughts as I kind of take you through this on what you were thinking when you created this. Sound good?

Yeah. Let's go.

And I'm going to transparently and completely share with all of you I just rated myself on page one and page one. It's an update for people. Right. It. It tells them you. You can't achieve anything without knowing where you stand right now. Correct.

When you. When you want to play on Google Maps, you always have to enter your starting location.

Aha. So this is the starting location for somebody and their personal vision of their lives going forward, right?

Exactly.

Fantastic. So he's got three categories here. Relationships.

One second is mind or mindset, and third is body. So your relationships, including, you know, your family and your friends and your communities, and then your mindset and then your body. I love that. Those three categories. The power of three. So in relationships, spouse, there's five categories there. Spouse, family, kids, friends, and community. What was your thinking on those five categories? Why those, Mike?

So I did a lot of research looking into this, which is why I created the document. It's confusing. There is so many programs that you can invest in that are free and resources, and you could be a free pole, a cheaple, or a pre pool. There's. There's just so much out there. And a lot of the programs that I saw that were good required you to learn an absolute ton in order to implement the program. So I was thinking about that for myself and I said, do I want to invest in learning this entire program if I don't even know it's going to work? People want something that they can. They can pull out, they can make their assessment, they can fill it out and they can start doing the same day. So I wanted this to be very simple, very easy to use, because if it's easy, they will use it and it will make their life better. So looking at relationships is. Not all of them are going to apply to every member.

Correct.

Not everybody has kids. Not everybody, you know, invests a lot of the time with. With community or. Not everybody has a spouse. So I wanted to make sure that there was. Every part is covered and if it's not applicable, something in there will apply to you.

Fantastic. So I went through and rated myself, by the way. Just know that I'm extremely critical on myself always. I have been critical on myself in a big, big way. Most as far back as I can remember, and nothing's changed. So for me, I. It's. By the way, it's based on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. Right?

Right.

Okay. So I don't have any fives. I got one that kind of leans towards a 5, but I have no fives because I'm never done. And there's always room for growth. That's just me. So spouse, I got a four. Family, I got a three. Kids, I got a two. Friends, I got a three. And community, I got a two. And you got here, you have here down the bottom. It says any roles with the score of one or two need to be addressed on your personal void, and you have a place to do that.

Right.

And then roles with a score of 3 or higher can and should be addressed if you have the personal capacity right now to make a commitment to implementing the plan you set for yourself.

Right.

So I've got work to do, and now I have a plan, you know, and everything happens for a reason. So this is not a coincidence. The fact that one of my big three goals for this entire year has to do with mmfl, which is marriage, mindset, family, and lifestyle.

Right. Perfect. You showed up right at the right time. Thank you, Joel McKinley.

I'm here when you need it, Mike.

I appreciate it. So anyway, next. So that was category number one, relationship. It was all those. Category number two is mind or mindset. And in here you've got looks like 7 items. 1 is spiritual, 2 is hobby slash self time. 3 is leisure, 4 is recreation, 5 is mental, 6 is emotional, and 7 is mindset slash personal growth. Right. Thoughts on all those?

So that one, there was a lot that I pulled from on this, and it was the way that certain people will take some of those words. Like I could consider I do woodworking. It's my all, it's my hobbies, Spiritual, self time, leisure, recreation. It can fill all of those categories. And I wanted to make sure that, you know, everyone could assess what it means to them specifically, because there are some people that it can be recreational to sit and do quoting or. Or work or, I mean, planning for their agency or whatever they're doing. That's pleasure time for some people. They love doing it.

So I want to make sure that all those could be addressed as well.

Yeah, fantastic. And again, you put the tools behind the.

Sheet, which, you know, knows your. Your starting point, because knowing your destination is all you need to get there. And so those are the sheets to give your destination. But this is the starting point, the current location point.

Right.

So here's what I came up with. Spiritual, I've got between a 4 and a 5, because it's never good enough. I'm good there. Hobby, self time is a two. Leisure is a two. Recreation is between a three and a four. Three and a half mental is a four. Emotional is a four. And mindset, personal Growth is a four. So I'm in pretty good shape there. I've got work to do in some areas. So thank you for the update.

Awesome. Now, Mike, with. With the, the. The roles needing to be adjusted in the scores is the reason A1 and 2 needs to be addressed is because that's your own acknowledgment. You want to. To put more time there.

Right.

And with the three or higher, I said it can and should be if you have the capacity is. In my studies, I discovered why people, so many people fail New Year's resolutions is because they write their New Year's resolution and they're like, I'm gonna, you know, be in perfect shape and I'm going to do this and I'm gonna have all these things done. And they take on too much that they don't have the capacity for right in that moment. And in two to three weeks, they fail because they take. They try to change everything all at once. And you can't. No work on the things that you have the capacity for in the moment.

That's why we love the power of three. I mean, three things, it's enough. It's not overwhelming. It's not too much focus on just three things. And, you know, in our 12, 31 philosophy that we also teach, you know, if you got 12 items on a list, great. Whittle it down to the top three that are going to make the biggest impact immediately. Or fep. Fast, easy and profitable. And then out of those three, select just the one and attack that one and get that one done. Because a series of small yeses leads up to one big yes.

Right?

Fantastic stuff. Great. So relationships and mind or mindset is the second, and the third one is body. So under body, you've got four roles or categories, and they are health, fitness, diet, slash eating habits, and sleep, rest, recovery. Right. And I'm my own biggest critic.

I'm considered to be pretty healthy, but based on everything I've got going on sitting here today, and I'm going through some challenges right now. Nothing serious, everybody. Everything's good. It's just as we get older. Health, I got a 2. Fitness, I got a 2 because of the health challenges that I'm facing. Diet, eating habits, I've got a two and a half between two and three and sleep, rest, recovery, strong four. So I'm good there. I get my rest. That's where I get my energy from. But those things and those are just today. If I filled this out, you know, two weeks ago or two months ago, Better said, I probably would have been a strong four in all of those, but because of the things I faced recently and again, to clear, everything's fine. It's just little bumps in the road, right? So anyway, it is what it is. But now I have awareness of the things I need to be thinking about and what I need to attack. So super excited. Great job. Any thoughts on this last first page?

Thank you so much for sharing that. Two weeks ago you would have scored yourself differently because as I continue to teach this to our coaching members, etc. There might be a need to conduct a quarterly check in to make sure that you have not let things that were fours or fives slip down to a one trying to make this happen.

Right.

So. Oh, wait a minute, never mind. I put accountability on the next page.

Let's go there. So the next three pages of the personal VO.

Involve everything on page one, which is relationships. I see how you've got this lined up. Okay. You have relationships on page two, mind on page three, and then body on page four. Just like the quadrants on the first page of the personal vo. Great job. And then on each of the succeeding documents, you've got a vision destination, which says paint a picture. So we're not going to go into detail on every one of them, but just to give you a flavor of what this looks like the vision destination for each of the items. Paint a picture. What I see in my mind, the next level of higher achievement. When I accomplish everything I want in this specific role in the next three to five years, what is. What's it going to look like? Okay. Right. And then it's got a box for the big three. It's got annual goals and it's got daily slash weekly routines and actions, and it's got a place for up to three items on the big three goals. My top three things I want to achieve in the next three to five years related to this, these should directly create my vision destination. And then under the annual goals, my goals for this year, to serve as my annual checkpoint to reach my big three, and then the daily weekly routine. What am I willing to do consistently daily and weekly to reach my annual goals? So fantastic stuff this is. It's gonna be a fair amount of preparation. But why is that important?

Well, you perform at the level of your preparation.

Huh?

You know, in trying to build your agency and grow your agency, you broke down the three eights. You have eight hours of work, eight hours at home, and eight hours of sleep. Now, granted, it's probably more than eight Hours of work, and a lot of people have less than eight hours of sleep. But what are you doing to keep that balance? Because if you're consumed by things that are going not as well as you want them personally, are you really showing up, number one for your agency? Are you also showing up for your team, which is your number one client? And how are you showing up for yourself?

So that's the reason for investing the time. And you're not. You don't have to fill out every single one of those categories. It's only the ones and twos. That's it. Put something on there. And you and I had a conversation during one of our coaching calls of creating the vision of who you want to be in 10 years. And most people don't have the ability to see who they want to become in 10 years because people tend to see themselves now as their finished product. But if you ask them, well, who were you 10 years ago? Oh, I was completely different. Okay, what about 10 years before that? Oh, my goodness, I was. I was completely different. So then why are you a finished product now? You became who you are today, large part by accident.

Right?

So imagine who you could be in 10 years if you did it on purpose.

Intentional, purposeful, meaningful actions towards something. Right. Which is the goal. That is fantastic.

So that's all this is. Just create. What does the picture look like? Vision, destination. So the. The first one is your spouse. What does the next level of relationship with your spouse look like? What are the top three goals that you want to achieve in the next three to five years that create that perfect next level of relationship? What are you going to do this year? And then what can you do daily? Or like you said, what do you do daily? Or almost daily? None of us are perfect. To keep your. And in this case, to keep your spouse skills sharp, your parenting skills sharp, your health skills sharp.

Awesome. And I just learned something from you. Start with the ones and the twos first in creating the, you know, the vision, destination, the big three, and the annual goals and the weekly daily tasks. So I'm going to use that myself as I begin to fulfill my weekly rhythm register and my big three, especially my mmfl. I love that. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Awesome.

The good news is, stay tuned. In just a minute, we're gonna give you some information so you can get your hands on this to use and most more importantly, implement in your own life. And so again, it goes through all three sections with all the roles, relationships, mind and body, and so you can get clear on exactly the things that you need to work on the last page. There's five pages total at the bottom.

Of every one of those pages. Mike is. And this is. I hope I don't want anybody to miss this.

Good.

As the accountability for you director, it's my favorite thing. At the bottom of the page it says accountability. Who can I recruit to help me stay accountable? How will they help me? How often and what other ways can I use to help me accomplish what I want?

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. Thank you. Absolutely. And that, that's vitally important. Accountability breeds responsibility and it keeps us responsible for getting the things done that we said we wanted to do.

Right.

So for. Yeah, absolutely. Fantastic. Thank you. And thank you for being our incredible director of AFY accountability for you in our UPP circles. And do our members always like the accountability?

Sometimes it's rough.

Right.

But just a reminder, this is what you said you wanted. How can we help you get what you want?

Right. 100%. So lastly, and this is possibly a very key page to the whole document. What connections and resources do I need to achieve the results I desire? It's got three columns on the documents. Got who, slash what. So it might be a person or a book or a video or some kind of a training. As an example, the type of investment, it's a, it's an abundance mindset. It's. It's an entrepreneurial mindset. Right. We don't spend, we invest. So what type of investment is it? Time, monetary, etc. And then third column is desired outcome, slash results. Everybody's got a desired outcome in anything that they do. So I love that. And you know, this is kind of the action item sheet, if you will. I would hope that at the top of this form for everybody would be an accountability partner of some kind. Right. Or an accountability group or whatever that is. I mean our human nature is to be part of a tribe of some kind of like minded people that are, have the same kind of desired outcome.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

People that are rowing in the same direction.

A hundred percent. One hundred percent. I, I can't love this form enough. Thank you. Thank you for creating it. Thank you for investing time to create it. Thank you for sharing it within our UP circles with all of our members. And we want to make a very special offer to anybody that either listening or watching this podcast, you have out of your generosity, agreed to send it to anybody who wants to get a hold of it.

Absolutely.

So what do they need to do if they want to get a hold of this document, by the way, it's a five tab Excel document, right? There's five tabs at the bottom of the document. Super simple. It's not complex. It's just you got to be willing to take the action. How can they get a hold of it, Joel?

They can email me at joel@upplife.com that's j o e l@upplife.com just email me and label the put in the subject line personal achievement.

Got it.

Personal achievement. And I will send that out to you and.

As an ask if you would send feedback how you have implemented and what impact it has on you and your personal achievement. I would really appreciate your feedback and what you were able to accomplish. I would love for you to share your experience, tell your story, how it impacted your life, that would be awesome. I would really be appreciative. You know, if it reaches out and touches your heart and touch your family and everything else, I would really appreciate that.

I can't encourage everybody enough to do what Joel just asked. By the way, it's J O e l@upp life l I f e.com Joel, thank you for your generosity there. And I can't encourage you enough to give Joel feedback once you get into this and actually start using it because we got a card yesterday. I haven't even had a chance to tell you about this from a first year member, brand new coaching member. And it, it made my heart so happy to read it. And she said thank you so much. They came to their private one on one coaching session here at the house, showed up prepared, ready to go. We got so much done and this agent is a massive implementer, is taking massive action action and sent me a note that basically said thank you so much for all that you bring to the table. It's the missing piece that we've been looking for. Wow.

Yeah.

I mean, so the feedback everybody helps us get better to help everybody else out there in the world in a bigger way. That's where the feedback is a benefit. So if you can just take a couple minutes and let Joel know your feedback, good or bad, I mean, absolutely. Too much. Does it work for you? Doesn't work for you? And what if, most importantly, what outcomes have you achieved by taking action with this? Joel McKinley. Awesome stuff. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

All right. And by the way, I learned from my original mentors, the late great Jim Rohn, he said you attract exactly what you are and who you have become. And that's another reason that I absolutely love the personal vo because it helps you become more. Because if you want to have more, you've got to become more. The, the more you become, the more you grow, the more you're going to attract and the more you're going to elevate out there and be able to help even more people. That is absolutely fantastic. And that's all we want for everybody. We want, in the worst way, everybody out there to be able to have and become more. Right, Joel?

Right. Absolutely.

I mean, our core purpose here at UPP is to impact people's lives personally and professionally. And the personal VO is personal impact that leads to professional impact.

Right?

So perfect fit. Perfect fit. Thank you everybody for joining us on this episode. And if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Strom, so I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. And my podcast partner, Joel McKinley is our director of AFY accountability for you. And in UPP. You can learn more about our program @unstoppable profit producer.com if you're interested in one of our virtual training events, you can find that@uppfaststart.com or you can learn more about our live events@Be Unstoppable Boot Camp.com all of our events are designed to share with you our best money making strategies developed over 35 plus years of experience as a proud independent insurance agent, or 100% of the time. All designed to help you grow your business, create wealth, so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. And if you got great value out of this podcast, please share your comments somewhere around this video on what you got out of the podcast. And most importantly, just share our podcast with somebody that you care about. It's simple. Just go to unstoppable profit podcast.com and send them the link. And make sure you subscribe at the top and make sure they subscribe as well. We've got hundreds of subscribers, so you don't miss one valuable episode. Because our goal is to continually share information that helps you and will impact your live lives personally and professionally. And please spread the wealth out there. And of course, the podcast is on all the channels out there, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, our YouTube channel, Amazon, and so much more. So we just want to bring value to you every week. We hope this has helped you in some way. Thank you for joining us, Joel McKinley. Great job.

Hey, thanks, Mike. Thanks, UVP Nation.

All right, great job, guys. Now, there's only one thing that's going to get you to the next level. And that's action. You got this. We believe in you. We'll see you on the next episode.

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