Episode 234: Consistently On Priority

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.

Greetings and welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. When contemplating how to best help you this week, I need to dig deep and find out what's going on inside the industry. And I had a very special, privileged and unique opportunity this week, I'll say over the last eight, nine days, to be in the trenches, listening to, helping and teaching independent insurance agents from across North America. And being in the trenches, helping them, learning with them, teaching them, alongside them. One subject seemed to be surfacing to the top all of the time. And so, as I digested how I can best help you this week, I really thought deeply and for a couple of days how I could position this subject to best help you. So get ready, we're gonna have at it right now. Get something to write with and something to write on so you can ink, don't think, everything that I've got for you in this episode of the Unstoppable Profit podcast. And by the way, if you get great value out of this podcast, please ink this as well. Unstoppable Profit podcast dot com. Share it with somebody else you care about. And we're out there on all the channels as well. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, stitcher, Amazon, our YouTube channel, and more. So let's get started on helping you. And it really starts with the number one reason that most people personally don't achieve what they set out to achieve. And the number one reason that most people in business don't achieve what they set out to achieve. It's really quite simple. Why does it happen? That's an ongoing quest for me to help people figure out. But it's lack of consistency. It's the C plus F plus D philosophy and it was developed right here in the Living Agency laboratory to help all of you. So the first of the three, the C, is consistency. So let's dig into that. How can you build consistency into your life, personally and professionally? Well, one of the things that in my particular mind is preeminently important is accountability. Accountability breeds responsibility. But bigger than that, it's about self accountability as well. I mean, how are you holding yourself accountable when there's nobody else around to hold you accountable. What tools can you use? Let me give you some thoughts from one of my own trainings that actually just happened this morning. I'm going to rip these off for you pretty quickly. So you may want to pay close attention or you may want to pause ink it. Pause ink it. Pause ink it and then rethink it. So this tip actually came or started in 1918? Yes, 1918. And when I got done with this training, I was so stinking proud that this tip is at the core of what we teach today. And in reflecting on that, you know what, there's nothing new under the sun. Everything else that we use, possibly with the exception of AI, is already been done. It's already been thought about, it's already been implemented. But back to the lack of consistency, people are just not doing it consistently. And I know that's not. You can. Congratulations. Keep it up. All right, so let's get back to consistency in this thought process. All right? The year was 1918, and Charles Schwab, who was in industry, major industry on the east coast, was looking for ways to improve his productivity. So he hired a consultant by the name of Ivy Lee. He brought in an Ivy Lee and said, ivy, I need you to help my leadership team. I need you to help them find a way to be more productive. I need to get our production up. Ivy Lee said, I will do it. In fact, you don't even need to pay me. I will consult with them for free. And after I get done, if I develop proven results for your leadership team, then you can determine what is the value of my consulting. So Ivy Lee went in and started teaching the team. He taught them the philosophy of prioritization.

He helped them understand the key to their work. To use simple rules to guide complex behavior. He helped them understand that being busy does not mean being better.

Let me repeat that one again. He helped them understand that being busy does not equal or does not mean you're becoming better. Just because you're busy doesn't mean that you're getting better. It might be a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. Right? So being busy doesn't mean you're getting better. Next. The biggest killer of tasks is not starting them.

And having fewer priorities leads you to better work and greater output. Let me repeat that one as well. Having fewer priorities leads you to better work and greater output. That also makes me think back to 1996 when Steve Jobs came back to Apple. You heard of Apple? They share these little devices that people are very in love with. All of the time. And they can't let go of their iPhones. Exactly. Jobs came back to Apple after being removed from his own board, kicked out of his own company. When he came back in 1996, he identified there were 350 projects going on with an Apple. He began to prune Apple back to just 10. And from those 10, they created the Apple that we know today. So less is more, right? And here's the other thing for you. You cannot be great at one task if you're constantly fractioning your attention in 10 different directions. So what happened to the leadership team that Ivy Lee consulted? They took it upon themselves to follow his advice. And his advice was, at the end of each workday, write down the six most important things that you need to accomplish tomorrow. Write down the six. At the end of each workday, write down the six most important things that you need to accomplish tomorrow. The next step in that, prioritize the the six. So the leadership team at Schwab's company did that. They did exactly that. And they continue to. Here's the key. Consistently execute that day in and day out. After a short period of time, the company continued to flourish and grow. The productivity under the leadership of these leaders that were consulted by Ivy continued to increase, and the company rose and continued to grow as planned. A few months later, Schwab invited Ivy Lee back to the. Back to the office, brought Ivy Lee and said, Ivy Lee, thank you so much. Whatever you did for my leadership team has worked. We have increased our productivity. Here's a check for $25,000. Now, in 1918, that was big money, an equivalent of $400,000 in today's world. So write down the six things.

At the end of each workday that you need to accomplish tomorrow. And that made me think of our planning your plan program. You're planning your plan sheet. This is something that we uniquely designed for within our unstoppable profit producer program. All of our members have access to it and the complete training on exactly how to use it. And what do we teach? We teach them to write down the six things that they want to accomplish in any given day, to circle the top three that are the priorities and start with those first. And the bigger encouragement is to start with the one, the one most difficult priority that they want to accomplish. Why? Because that's likely the one that is going to move the needle the furthest, the fastest, and it will be the most impactful to the business operation. So as I said earlier, there's nothing new under the sun. It's simply knowing your priorities. And so let me be clear on this as well. When should you write down these six? Well, like Ivy Lee recommended, at the end of your workday. And we strongly encourage people, in fact, if they say, mike, when do you want me to do this? I say, you must plan your day the night before. You must get super clear on everything that you need to be doing to plan your future. You know, if you think about it like this, if you think about a lifetime of a person, many, many people spend more time planning their vacation than they do the future of their business or their career, their income. The thing is, if you think about it like this, that income supports their vacations, does it not? So does it not make sense to plan for your future higher achievement? To plan for your success, to plan for your advancement. To plan how you're going to impact your team. To plan how you're going to impact your clients and your communities and everything around them. So have a plan or planning your plan sheet and everything else within our unstoppable profit producer program for independent insurance agents is built around your maximum productivity. So list the top six things that I must complete today. Do it the night before. The other advantage of planning your plan the night before is when you do that and you write it down the night before, something goes to work for you subconsciously and it works on itself subconsciously throughout the night. That way, when you get up in the morning and you're thinking, all right, what do I need to do today? You don't have to invest one second and thinking, oh, what am I going to do today? You already know. You have already planned your plan for the day. It's inked right there. So the only thing you need to do is take action. Take action. It's got a place for people I need to reach out to today. People I'm waiting on some notes for everything else and one of the most important encouragements that I can give you, be aware of your inbox. It's nothing but an organizing system for the agenda of others. Always keep the main thing, the main thing focused every single day. Speaking of focus, let's go back to the C plus F plus D philosophy. So we talked about consistency, right? How often should you fill out your planning plan sheet? Consistently, every single day. Consistently every single day, including the weekend days. Is your life, is the impact that you're going to make and the support of your family. Not important. You can use the Plan to youg Plan sheet for that time as well because we want to build a business that supports our life. We don't want to live our lives supporting our business. And we've talked a ton about that in the last week. Plus as well about building a business that gives us that freedom, that's growing, that is creating wealth so people can have more freedom. That is why we do what we do at up. But it's back to the consistency and the C plus F plus D. Okay, so we talked about the number one reason that people don't get what they want personally or they don't achieve what they want to achieve professionally. It's lack of consistency. Consistency. I'll say it again, consistency. And the agent who just left here said the theme of the day, consistency. What was the, the theme of the day yesterday? Just so you know, for the agent who was here yesterday, it was clarity. Another C word. But for the theme here, consistency. Consistency plus the F. And I learned in the book by Brian Tracy, the title of the book was Goals. I, I was reading the book by Brian Tracy and I got through the book and I got to the point in the book where Brian said there's no such thing as time management.

What do you think of when you hear that? There's no such thing as time management. I thought to myself when I read that, I, I thought everybody's always said to manage your time. Who said that? Everybody out there in the world. My great encouragement. Don't listen to the rest of the world. Much of it's noise. Brian said it's time choices and it's about the choices that you make as to what you do with your time. So we've got to make the right time choices. I 100 agree with that. In fact, I agree with it to the point that the section in the Vault, which is our protected member only area online where they have all of the resources of everything that we teach inside the unstoppable profit producer program. Inside the Vault is a training on time choices and the plan of your plan sheet. Okay? But the one thing that we must manage, not time, the one thing we must manage is our focus and that's the F. So consistency plus focus.

Plus the D. What is the D?

It was many years ago that our oldest son, who is a passionate high school football coach by passion, he's a high school principal by trade because he earns more money to support his family. But his first love is coaching high school football. In fact, he's written three books on the matter. He loves it that much to give back. Love that. Right? So anyway, he's a passionate high School football coach by passion. And he called me a number of years ago and he said, hey, have you heard of John Wooden? I said, heck yeah, I've heard of John Wooden. 12 college basketball championships, seven years in a row, 38 straight wins in NCAA championship play. I've heard of John wood. What do you got? He goes, well, you know, in the co, he was a high school football coach at the time. He said, we had an opportunity to go see John wood live, and I had two tickets, and the one of my coaches who's supposed to go with me bailed on me at the last minute. And I was wondering if you'd like the ticket. I said, to see John Wooden? He said, yeah. I said, give me the freaking address. I'll be there. So fortunately for me, it was about an hour and a half drive, so I was able to drive there and I got to see John Wooden live. He was 95 and a half at the time. One of the. It was a small room. There's probably maybe 40, 50 people in the room. What an iconic night. I got the John Wooden pyramid of success. I learned the story behind it. It's now a 6ft visual on a wall up to the office in which I sit right now. I learned so much from John Wooden that night. One of the biggest philosophies from John wood that I learned, among many, many other things, was the d. Consistency plus focus. We must manage our focus plus the d. John Wooden said, discipline yourself, so no one else needs to.

Consistency plus focus plus discipline. That is exactly the things that you need to be doing on a daily basis with your planning, your plan sheet. You must consistently complete your planning, your plan sheet. You must be focused on making sure that you've got the right priorities on your planning, your plan sheet. And you must be disciplined. You must discipline yourself to do it, whatever you need to do. Whether you put a reminder on your calendar, whether you put a note on your computer screen, whether you ask somebody that cares about you within your household to remind you 15 minutes before you go to bed every night, whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. How bad do you want it?

How bad do you want it? And more importantly, how important are the results that your product priorities are going to? How important are the results that your priorities going to produce in your life by creating your plan on a daily basis? Consistency plus focus plus discipline equals. When I first created that philosophy up here in my living agency laboratory, I was thinking, what does it equal? And my first thing, the first thing that came to my mind, the same thing that everybody might think when they hear that, right? Well, if I add consistency plus focus plus discipline, I'm going to get. You got it. Success, right? Isn't that the same answer? But what does success look like? Everybody has the same definition of success. In my mind it's probably overused. So I thought, nah, not success. I want something bigger and better than that. So what's going to take me up the ladder? What's going to produce the results for the big vision, the bhag, if you will, big hairy, audacious goal into the future. And I learned from the late, great Jim Rohn, he said, it's what we achieve and what we become through those achievements that make us who we are. And I thought, exactly.

Consistency plus focus plus discipline equals higher achievement. That's my answer. All of the agents that I've had here over time and I have not gone back and tabulating all their answers, but there's different answers all over the place. Probably the best answer, and I'll have to do that someday just for fun, right? But probably the best answer I got was when I was speaking in Minnesota last year to a large group of agents and in an after hour session they asked me to just hang out with the agents and we just got to know each other and built relationship. So I was telling that same story. Consistency plus focus plus discipline equals. And I said to the agent, so what do you think that equals? And she paused and she looked me right in the eye and she goes, it means I'm unstoppable. I said, that is the best answer that I've ever heard. So when you are consistent consistency and you're focused, you manage your focus and you're disciplined, disciplining yourself so no one else needs to, yes, that's what you become. You become unstoppable. But like we just talked about at our Be Unstoppable boot camp that ended last week, you must not know this if you're going to do something like this, like planning your plan, like Ivy Lee Talked about over 100 years ago, at the end of each workday, write down the six most important things that you need to accomplish tomorrow. If you're going to become disciplined in doing that or starting anything, I'm going to share with you the key.

If you don't do it within a certain time frame, it's never going to happen.

And I did this at the very end of the Be Unstoppable boot camp. And I'm going to share it with you right now. If you don't do Anything that you learn, including getting really good at writing down the top six things that you're going to do tomorrow, it's never going to happen. And what is that? You've only got 72 hours. That's what I said. You've only got 72 hours. You only have 72 hours to implement anything. And if you don't implement it within 72 hours, it's not going to happen. My question for you, how bad do you want it? How do. How bad do you want to create a business that supports the life of your dreams so you can invest more time with your family? Here's the good news. You can do anything you want to do. You got this. We believe in you. We're here to help you. My name is Mike Stromstone. If this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. I'm widely recognized as the leading author and speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can learn more about everything that we do atunstoppable profit producer.com and if you want to learn more about our online virtual training events, please go to upfast start.com again, that's upfast start.com all of our events and all of our trainings are designed to share with you some of our best money making strategies developed over 35 years as a proud 100% of the time independent insurance agent. And everything that we share with you is also designed to help you grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. That's all we want with you. That's why we exist. And if you got great value out of today's podcast, please not only leave your comments below, but please go To Unstoppable Profit podcast.com share that link with somebody else you care about. Share it with as many as you want, as many agents, as many people in other industries, so they too can reap great results from these strategies. And when you also go to unstoppable profit podcast.com please make sure you go up to the top and click subscribe so you won't miss one valuable episode every single week. Our goal is to bring you the best money making strategies out there and it's been developed through relationships and experience of all these years. And. And the good news, friends, it's just getting started. So remember this though, anything that you learned today, ink it, don't think it. And you only have 72 hours until the next episode. You got this. I believe in you only. Action.

I'll see you in the next episode.

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