Episode 240: Speaking Your Future Into Existence Through Accountability with Podcast Partner Joel McKinley

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, everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. And we are bringing to you a subject today that is asked about, thought about, talked about, and is in our UPB circles for some, but not for all. And so we want to make sure that we bring it out to the world for all to hear, for all to see. If you're watching this podcast. And and I welcome back my podcast partner, Mr. Joel McKinley. Hey, Joel.

Hey, what's going on, Mike?

And everybody else, hey, we are ready, are we not born? Part of Joel's position in up, in helping members reach that highest level. And I remember at boot camp, we were doing something, we were putting our hands in the air. We asked everybody to put their hands in the air. Remember that?

Right.

And once they put their hands as high as they could in the air, what did we ask them to do? Reach a little bit further, reach a little bit higher. Because they all can reach a little bit higher. Everybody out there, if you're listening or watching this podcast, you can reach a little bit higher. You've got more within you. It is our position to help you reach as high as you possibly can. So we're going to talk about in this podcast how you can and what is a large part, if not the main ingredient for the secret sauce to reach a little bit higher. So shall we let them have it?

Let's get them stretching outside of their comfort zone.

I like that. So to get started today, Joel's position is in UPP and helping agents across North America. He is the director of afy, which is accountability for you. And that's a subject that we want to talk with you about today. Accountability. So how important is accountability in your opinion, Joel?

Mike, accountability within an agency or within any leadership position or team member position is absolutely critical.

I mean, it's why it's gonna get you there.

Why?

If you set your goals for yourself of what you want to achieve, and you don't have accountability built in, what's going to hold you to accomplishing what you said you wanted to do?

So accountability breeds responsibility in a sense. But are you really trying to say and this has never been present in my life. I know in the words of our kids, when they're growing up, psych. Right, right. You know, left on my own, to my own devices, on my own island, without anybody else present, I might sway off course.

Right, Absolutely. You're going to, it's going to happen. Chaos happens, things happen. And it's in that chaos what's pulling you back towards your focus? I mean, when you're looking at a map, I mean, that's the way a compass works. It pulls toward the North Pole with that magnetic pole. What is, as you drift off, what's going to pull you back in line to exactly where you want to go?

So when we think about accountability, what is, what are some of the critical factors of having an accountability partner or somebody that shares and levies accountability with you in your life? What, what are some of the key components, the most important things? Like is trust important?

Well, and absolutely. And through the accountability process, you continue to build trust both in each other, both in fulfilling what you wanted to accomplish and seeing those results as you move forward and sharing with that person that is helping you to get there. And it's likewise to your accountability partner, you know, you fulfilling what you said you wanted to accomplish. They can trust and believe in you as well, that you're going to do what you said you would.

Aha. So it's a self fulfilling process, prophecy.

To an extent, Law of reciprocity.

By working within a program, a planned, intentional, dedicated accountability program, you both win.

Absolutely.

A win, win situation. I know on an article that I wrote on accountability and the title of the article is Accountability Breeds Responsibility. Because I've had so many people ask me about my own accountability sessions over the last 11, 12 years, you know, what does it look like, how do you do it, why do you do it, et cetera, et cetera. And I got, so I got to ask that question so many times I just decided to ink it and not just think it or talk about it. And so I've got that article, accountability Breeds Responsibility. And by the way, as an offer for anybody listening to or watching this podcast, if you would like a copy of that article, I'll be happy to share it with you. Just send me an email. Email me at mike@upplife.com mike@upplife.com and put in the subject line accountability and I will send you the article. Joel, in that, I'm looking at that article and it says it's team accountability, it's organizational accountability, and it's individual and personal accountability. So I know that you created a document solely directed towards personal accountability. So why does it sometimes start with personal accountability before it can ever lead into team accountability and ultimately accountability for a business?

So, Mike, I actually read that article preparing for this podcast because you told me last week what you wanted to record it on. And I actually have. You have your favorite quote, all time favorite quotes document, and I robbed and deployed that from you. I have mine as well. And one of the quotes that I have on there is, you can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself by Gene Mock. And that's where accountability starts. If you want to perpetuate through your organization, down through your team and, you know, through your family, you can't lead anyone else further than you've gone yourself. You can't expect your team members to be held accountable to the scorecard that we hope you have installed within your agency. You can't ask them to meet those numbers and meet their goals if you're not willing to be held accountable for reaching your goals. And that's where you create that vision that your team can see you fulfilling and, and, and setting out for them, and they can follow you and complete their goals as well.

So if there's a leader out there who is either listening or watching this podcast, you're suggesting that they have to participate in accountability themselves. They have to continually reach higher themselves because they can't expect anybody else in their organization to go higher and further than they have already pursued to achieve.

They're watching everything you do and everything you don't do, everything you say and everything you don't say.

That's a lot of pressure.

Pressure makes diamonds. And when you're mining your acre of diamonds. Diamonds find diamonds.

Exactly. Exactly. So for anybody watching this podcast, you see in front of you everything you'd ever want, everything you'd ever need that you can pursue, starting right now, starting here, starting today. Everything you ever need is right beneath you in your own acre of diamonds. Fantastic. 100% agree. So accountability is critical. And so many people have asked me about the accountability aspect because I am super, super grateful that I'm ending, I believe, my 11th year with an accountability partner. And it has been absolutely critical to my personal achievement and my progress within my own personal life and business life. So I'm super, super grateful for that. And a lot of people say, well, tell us more about that. And so I did. And so the members of Unstoppable Nation are highly esteemed up members heard me talk about that enough and they said, well, can you build accountability into our program? And I said, I don't know what that looks like. And so the interesting thing is always the intentionality of a statement. And I, I have been singing this from the rooftops. I don't know if I've told you about this, Joel McKinley. So if I haven't, the present is a gift, right?

Open it.

Yeah, let's go. So anyway, I was participating in an agency growth session with a future high achieving agent who's already doing great stuff, who was interested in becoming a member of our program. And what we do in these agency growth sessions, we talk about some of the key items that they would like us to help them achieve. And I asked them to list them and they did. And I'm looking at the list and probably eight or nine items on the list. And then I asked them another question. I say, what's been helping you or what's been preventing you from, from getting those items and having them become reality in your world? And they list all the things that's been preventing that. And then lastly I say, what do you already have? What Tools, resources and other things that you do, you already have that we can work together with to get you to that place? And they list those as well. And I'm looking at all that. So. And then I do a follow up and I remind them every then we talked in the, in the conversation and this particular agent wrote me back and said, you would be astonished.

What I've accomplished since we last spoke. I landed a massive account, almost 300,000 in premium.

Nice.

I also have an in office interview today. And here's the key. And you may want to write this down, everyone.

I can't believe how speaking things into existence can change the course of one's life. I can't believe how speaking things into existence can change the course of one's life. And I 100 believe that that is a huge part of accountability.

Right.

Would you agree? Right.

And Mike, so can you tell me what does your accountability session look like? I know you do yours weekly and you know, for our members, we meet with them monthly. They can also have their, you know, internal, you know, another member that they can meet with week, weekly. But what is your accountability session look like with your accountability partner?

You know, I'm going to be happy to jump into that just a minute, but let me circle and close the door on what I was just sharing the story of how the director of AFY, Joel McKinley and accountability became part of our program. So enough people said that in the intentionality of speaking something into existence, I said, let me see what I can do. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know who's going to be in the lead in that chair in the whole nine yards. And then you and I had a conversation, right? Because we spoke it into existence. I spoke it into existence by saying, let me see what I can do. See if I can find somebody who's the right fit, et cetera, et cetera. And boom, there you are. So thank you for jumping in almost four years ago, right. As the director of afy and you have a history, just give everybody a quick history in case they don't know anything about Joel McKinley. Why is accountability part of your DNA and who you are?

Well, I mean, I had just retired from the army when we had long. So after 20 years and I just retired and I was figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up, you know, stop playing army men. And it was just a perfect fit. And when you brought up, you know, accountability and helping people to achieve their goals, you know, we had the conversation. I was like, mike, that's exactly what I've done for the past 20 years with, you know, soldiers underneath me is I'm trying to teach them and train them to take my job. And in order to do that, I know the things that I need them to learn or that they need to learn so that I can elevate. And in order for that to happen, I have to elevate the people beneath me. And it was, go ahead.

No, no, go ahead.

And it was, you know, and every leader needs to understand that within their organization is you will never be able to elevate you or your agency until you elevate the people beneath you to do the things that you're doing. Now.

What I heard you say, and I want to repeat for everybody just to make sure that they got it, you said to train them and teach them to take your job.

Absolutely.

Think about that from the entrepreneurial standpoint. That's what every leader should be doing. You should be training everybody around you to take your position. You need to build up leaders around you to take your position within the organization because that's how you scale and grow.

I mean, Mike, you did that. You set the example for that in your integrator position as you were able to elevate out of the in office day to day operations. And you had an integrator to work those things so you could work the next level of leadership because you trained a leader Beneath you.

I got fired from taking emails on 24. 7 calls by the integration. She goes, you don't need to be participating that anymore. I'm gonna. I'm gonna take you off the string. I said, oh, darn. I don't get. I don't get to monitor the emails.

And for our listeners. How many of you want that within your agency?

Right, Exactly. Exactly. It was. It was awesome. So, Anyway, so Joe McKinley jumped in after 20 years, a servant of our freedom and our country. Thank you for your service to our country and to our freedom. An Army Ranger, a drill sergeant within the Army. And I know that in the beginning because you told me, you know, part of your position in your role in the army with the recruits was to strip them down from everything they knew and building up. Build them up in one way.

The. The army way.

The army way. And you were trying to do that when you started as the director of AFY with all the members. And I said, joel, these are professional insurance agents who are business owners. We can't completely strip them down. We need to work with them and levy the accountability. So it took us a couple of months on our weekly coaching sessions to, you know, work through some things, but you have really come so far and are doing a phenomenal job, in the words of our members and others, and now team members and others who you're working with to help them with their accountability, to keep them moving, ultimately, to train them.

Okay. So somebody else can take their position and so they can elevate. That's fantastic. So anyway, you had a question for me about my own accountability, so that.

You actually just led me right to that question with, you know, originally may have been a little harsh on some people because I care about them getting what they want and because I. And, you know, I've heard you say, you know, I just want it so bad for you. I want you to achieve everything you've ever wanted. And that's absolutely the case. And blunt force trauma is what worked for me.

So that's where I was looking at. What does your accountability session look like? Because I know my sessions with each member, they are so incredibly different for every member. So what does yours look like?

You mean people's personalities are different?

Who would have thought this human species, race, tribe.

Right.

So, you know, I'm looking at one of my favorite quotes from Doc Rivers to begin with as we lead into that. If you're an average player, you want to be left alone because you just want to be able to slide by. We don't Believe for one second that anybody in any of our programs or anybody that we communicate with is average. So we'll put them aside. If you're a good player, you want to be coached. Okay? If you're a great player, you want the coach to tell you the truth every day. And so the great players and the great agents that we are privileged to work with want to be told the truth every day. And I positionally ask them that question, do you want to be told the truth? Yes, I want to be told the truth directly. And that opens the door for what you help them with.

Right?

I had that same desire, you know, 11 now, almost going on 12 years ago. My accountability sessions are every week. They're at the same time, same day, same bat channel, if you will. Currently, they're via Zoom. Back in the day it was via phone, but we had a free conference calling phone number that we met at. It wasn't, do I call you on your home phone, on your cell phone, on your business line? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Same place, same time.

Every time. Okay. So nowadays we meet on Zoom it. Our personal accountability sessions are 6am Pacific every Friday morning. Yes, they're from time to time they get shifted because of travel and various other things in the way, but we always reschedule and we do not miss. In fact, I was telling somebody yesterday that 51 out of 52 weeks last year we were on, and I don't think we've missed one this year yet. And here we are 11 months into the year, we haven't missed one yet. So anyway, we show up now, it's 30 minutes, 30 minutes, only 15 minutes each way. And so we have a specific progress that we follow. We follow the living your best year ever program by Darren Hardy. And it's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure, because it is hard and it's intentionally hard because we want to be challenged. We want to be self challenged to begin with that personal discipline and accountability, which. Which sucks. But it's so necessary for anybody that wants to achieve at the highest level in today's world. So primarily speaking, we review our three top wins for the week, our three top losses for the week, our top three lessons for the week, the things, aha, those aha moments. And then the fixes, the top three fixes for the week. What are those fixes? The fixes have to do with the losses. So the loss happened, but what are we going to do to fix that loss? You know, something went wrong. What did we learn from it and what are we going to do? Install and train and engage somebody else to fix on. Or the fix might be part of a lesson as well. We review the things we're grateful for this week. We rate ourselves based on the entire week as a whole. We do a number rating from 0 to 10 on how our week was overall. And then we rate our weekly rhythm register, and we list behaviors and actions throughout the week that we want to stay consistent with, that we want to build into habits as part of our lives. And so, you know, I'm looking at mine personally, blocking my time, making sure I make the right time choices, eating healthy, you know, limiting consumption of, you know, bad things for my health as part of it, you know, taking care of my health, exercising, working my priorities for the week, and various other things. Those are my consistent weekly rhythm. And, you know, if you want to know something interesting, Joel, please. When we rate ourselves every week, you know, people might be thinking, well, I wonder what they rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best. It's a rare day that we get over a seven.

Interesting.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's rare that, you know, we're higher than a seven because we are so hard on ourselves, for lack of a better term. But that's just who we are. I mean, my accountability partner and I are never satisfied, ever. We always want more. We always believe that we can put more on the table, but that's just who we are. So everybody's different, like you said. But that's just a little bit about mine. And we have used all of that when we started talking about accountability for our members in our program. And we feel very, very strongly no other coaching program in North America that has accountability built into it to the level that we do. And thank you, Joel McKinley, for leading that.

Well, I mean, it was because of your vision, Mike. And guess what? There's something that you and I do often on our weekly calls is you and I will role play a different scenario and we record it. And I don't know if you know this or not, but I go back and watch those recordings because who is going to be Joel McKinley's biggest critic?

Ah.

So I watch that recording and I often see where you talk me into a circle or where you, you know, wordplay, wordsmith me, sell me on something I'm, I'm trying to work through rejections on, and I don't catch him in the moment. But when I go back and critique myself, I say, if I would have paused longer there and really thought about what Mike said, he wouldn't have been able to do that. And that's something that we recommend to members as well to do is if they record their calls, let the team member go back and critique themselves to get off topic. But if they're working as a CSR and they're working on the cross sale, let them go back and listen where they may have missed an opportunity because they didn't pause and listen to the client. So we sidetracked into a side gold nugget for, for, for listeners.

100%. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. But, you know, I can't get this out of my head. I can't believe how speaking things into existence can change the course of one's life. So that's another example of speaking things into existence, right? And that's the power of our programs. And we have so many members, whether it be our group coaching sessions, our one on one coaching sessions, our live private one on one coaching sessions, or our live masterminds and everything else that we do in our accountability sessions, we speak things into existence, right? We speak the future of what they want to achieve personally or professionally. Right. Into existence. And simply you show up to remind people of the things that they spoke into existence, right?

And Mike, with, you know, with, with sessions with members, I was looking at that and this is something I was really thinking about over the last week since we, you know, decided we were going to talk about this was, you know, I, I asked myself, I said, you know, what does my sessions with every member look like? And Mike, they are so incredibly different. Some people do like that blunt force Travis, strip me down, ask me did I do this? If not, no excuses. Some people absolutely like that. It works for them. We're on the, we're on the call for 10 minutes or less, right? And some people like to be asked, you know, hey, where are we at with this? And then learning from you, you know, in our weekly sessions is the better the question, the better the result is asking them the question and leading them. And ultimately that's where they get, they receive the value. Because I've asked members over the last week, you know, what value do you receive? What results do you get from showing up to these sess? And a lot of them said, you know, just talking through this with you and where I'm at in the agency right now, it helps me to clarify and reassess where I am so that I can pivot if need be, so that I can, you know, readdress things that need be so that I can, you know, look back and say, that's not as much of a fire as I thought it was. And they can stay moving forward and it's just talking through it. They're all smarter than I am. They are way more, you know, savvy and everything else than I am. I just asked them a few questions to help them discover for themselves exactly what it is they want to be doing.

Yeah. And I'm thinking back to a session where I was super privileged to huddle with agents in a VIP session after an event earlier this year. And I was sitting with a gal from the Midwest, an agent and super high achieving in her own right. And she sent me a follow up email after that session because she got great value out of it and she said, thank you, thank you, thank you for helping me see the forest through the trees. And exactly what you were just talking about, that's what you're doing.

Right?

Because when we're removed from the emotions and the goings on and being in the middle of a situation, we're from the outside somebody who cares, somebody who's got great experience and knowledge about the situation. And that's why we built the foundation that we built in upp and then we land the outside perspective. We can help people see the forest through the trees sometimes. Right, right.

And the benefit for the members that show up for their accountability call and that want it is I take quite often, I take, you know, really copious notes, I've noticed.

And you know, I date those notes and then I put them in their folder. And you review those notes before your calls with them?

I do, yeah.

You're even more dialed into what they have going on in that exact moment. So by showing up and keeping their focus on what they wanted to achieve in their accountability sessions, when they're showing up for their coaching sessions with you, I can only imagine how much value they're getting in their sessions with you because they're more narrow, focused, they put their blinders on and they're focused on getting what they wanted done.

I had this happen as recently as yesterday and we'll share a little insider secret from the trenches. So an agent showed up. Kudos to them because that's 86% of all success according to Woody Allen and many others. So they showed up and they said, I, I don't really have anything. You know, fires keep popping up within the business, these carriers keep changing things. The marketplace get it, I get it, I get it. And I said, well, I have a Few things that I'd like to cover, if you don't mind. And so that's part of the huge privilege we have in working with them and keeping notes on the things we've been talking about. So I'll circle back to whether it be their VO or the notes or whatever, whatever, and I'll bring things to the table, I'll said, tell me about this and then go, oh, that's right, I forgot about that.

Right.

And normally that is one of the, is one of the one, two or three things that will move the needle the fastest, AKA priorities that they lost sight of because of the fact that they've been, you know, pulled into it.

Right.

Whether it be a carrier situation, a client situation, a team situation, or whatever. So that's the beauty of keeping them on track and moving them down the line, which is a huge benefit of accountability. Would you not agree?

I 100% agree. It's like having, you know, if you've ever driven in the fog and you have fog lights on your vehicle, I mean, turning on your fog lights is a game changer versus just your regular headlights. I would say that with the marketplace the way that it is now, it's pretty foggy outside and they very far forward because everything keeps changing for them. So being able to have that accountability session to stay focused on what they want allows them to turn on the fog lights, to keep moving forward on the road that they're on and not get distracted by all of the chaos around them. Just keep driving forward and you will get through the fog as the daylight breaks.

Yeah. And on the west coast we have these things. I don't know if you have these on the East Coast. I've never really paid attention. Do you have the white lines on the side of the road?

Right?

Yeah, we're the white line in the fog.

Right.

Or the fog lights in the fog. Same thing. I mean, we help direct you and keep you in line, if you will, through accountability to keep you on the right path so you can get to the destination that you want to get to, regardless of what that is. And that is the beauty of the one on one accountability that comes from our programs as well, because we sit here in the trenches, you know, for six hours working on your business, and we come up with a destination. And I will not forget the look in the eyes of the agent who was here just a couple days ago when we set the three year forecast and beyond. And I just paused and looked at her and I could see the, the burning and the fire and the, the excitement in her eyes that once she gets there, how awesome it's going to be. Right?

Right.

And one of our very favorite scenarios that we, we set the bar, if you will, so. And then we build in the accountability so they can get there. And this is. Since we got the end of the year coming up, we might as well share this with him, don't you think?

Today only, Mike.

Okay. Today only. Remember, the president's a gift. Right. Imagine. Imagine it's December 31st of 2026. We'll just take a year in the future. Right. Imagine it's December 31, 2026, and we are getting ready to celebrate the greatest one, two or three year runs in the history of the agency. We are going to celebrate like nobody else's business. Because you know what? This run that we just had was phenomenal. We are in a place that we can't even imagine that we could get to, but we got there.

We. And we're going to celebrate. So the question is, what happened during that run? Whether it be one year, two year or three years, as an example, and bigger than that, what does the business look like now that we've reached that destination? And so the beauty of all of this is design what you want it to look like. You know, get clear on the metrics, whether it be sales, service, marketing, leadership, all of it. How much personal time, the, the endeavors and the charitable organizations you want to participate in and give back to whatever that looks like. Right. So set that description. And then we help you reverse engineer it and work towards it and get there. And that's a huge part of what the accountability brings to the table. Right?

Right, Absolutely. And it's, you know, holding you accountable, number one, for creating that vision. It's very, very easy in the agency business and business in general to get absolutely overwhelmed and busy. And you can work very, very hard being busy, but creating that vision, three year, that 10 year, three year in one year, and then outlining exactly what you need to do in order to make that happen. That's how you work. Right. Instead of just working, busy.

Yeah, 100% agree. And I've got a last question as begin to wrap this up, but I just wanted to seed it as well with this thought.

We talked about this in the beginning. It's team accountability, it's organizational accountability, it's individual and personal accountability that gets you to where you're going. So to an extent, we also help people create a culture of accountability in their business. Correct?

Right.

And it's that culture of accountability that really makes all the difference when everybody wants to be held accountable, when things don't go right or it could have been done better. And they are thinking, hey, I just want to get better every day. I want to continue to improve every single day. And if there's something I could be doing better or a way I could tweak it to get better so that we can all ultimately reach that highest level that we're all in pursuit of, please tell me. And when you've got that kind of culture of accountability, it gets really, really good. And based on your working with agents, Joel McKinley, what kind of results are they seeing when they embrace that culture of accountability within their organization? Whether it be personal accountability, which contributes to the overall organizational accountability? I mean, what are just a couple of things that have come from the trenches and you're working with agencies.

So, Mike, in what you just said, it's very easy to set annual goals, to say we want to, you know, write a million dollars new business, we want to have retention at 90%. And, you know, we want to get this many Google testimonials.

When you write specific goals or when you take those big lofty goals and then you start to break them down into specific results that you can measure, and that's where the showing up for your accountability and getting those results is, you start to outline, yes, we are working towards it and we are meeting those month by month or we are off track. We are not going to reach that annual goal unless we do something different. And allows you, as a small business relative, you've told me before that that's the advantage that entrepreneurs have over large corporations is the ability to pivot immediately.

Agility.

And.

For your team, when you're working through those goals, what you told me before, what makes people happy, and then you let me sit in uncomfortable silence for quite a long time, as you tend to do, and you said it's the evidence of progress. So when you instill goals and accountability in with your organization, you're able to share that evidence of progress with your team. And as that grows in the culture, that evidence of progress, and they can see the results of what they are doing, it motivates them and it inspires them to keep doing and keep following you because you're leading him in the direction that gets the results.

And Mike, for one last story, you put up on your Facebook a picture of Mount Soledad, which is a nice, just a nice gentle ride. I, I, I'm pretty sure you could just do it on any given day and you Said, I would love to get back there, I would love to do this ride again. And you put at the end of your Facebook post, hold me accountable. Well, the accountability for you director saw that and when I called you out on it, what happened, Mike?

Well, first of all, I was committed because I put that out in the public eye, if you will. And that was probably about 10 years ago. When I was younger, I was riding multiple century rides per year, which is 100 miles in, in one ride and probably in, in better riding shape for longer distance. So I said, I need to get back to that. And so I, that's why I put it out there because I.

I think I was looking for somebody to hold me accountable. But anyway, because I, I knew that accountability would do it would get me to my destination. And so I put it out there and you saw it and you in one of our sessions said, all right, I, I saw your post. Let's get a date on the calendar. And I'm like, okay. So I did that and it was about almost two months ago from this recording and I did it and I set out to do it. And, and I don't know if I've shared this publicly, but I also engaged one of my longtime writing buddies to go on that with me in hopes that it'd be a lot easier if I had somebody by my side. Right, right. Two days before the ride, because he's had some health challenges in the last couple years, called me up and said, hey, I went to the doctor. Doctor said I can't do that. And I'm like, okay, well, I hope everything's okay. And so I just said, I'll take care, I'll do it myself. No big deal. I've done it before. And so I mapped the ride the night before, and there's a lesson here. And so I set out to do the ride and I got down.

Is, is about a 74 mile ride round trip. So about halfway down, a little over 30 miles, I got to the base of the mountain to go up to Mount Soledad. And I said, oh crap, I have the wrong route because there's two ways to get up to that mountain. There's a shorter, not shorter, there's the more gentle, gentle sloping right up. You know, you go up flat, go up flat and get up there. And then there's the one that's butt face up the side of the mountain. Well, my map, because it's shorter, led me to that butt face up the side of the mountain, which was approximately a 12 to 20% gradient for almost a mile. So frankly, that sucked. And. But, you know, part of the reason that I pursued and I was, you know.

Going back and forth, side by side, you know, doing the.

Zigzag mountain versus straight up, because it was my legs were just on fire, was because it was in my head, I, I'm accountable to doing this. And so I got it done is the bottom line. And it was the accountability that really pushed me up the mountain that day. And not only that, on the way back, because my legs were on fire about the last 10 miles because I hadn't been riding that distance consistently enough. Lesson. And the other lesson is I should have called my buddy and said, hey, make sure I have the right route here for that gentle right up the mountain, not the butt face up. So anyway, it is what it is. But the accountability really pushed me up the mountain that day. So thank you.

Well, no problem, Mike. In with that, you set a date to achieve that goal. And as you saw that goal approaching, I remember you saying, hey, I need to go out and get a, you know, a ride in because I have this coming up. I have my no fail date because I called you that morning was like, hey, you getting ready to go for a ride? But you set that, you set that date on your calendar and it allowed you to hit those benchmarks in order to reach that, that long term goal. And it was a super, I mean, simple thing. I'm going to, I'm going to ride to this destination. But everything that went into achieving that is where the accountability comes in. Knowing that you have this, that you want to get to.

Right, Right. Accountability breeds responsibility.

Joel McKinley, thank you. This has been an awesome conversation and I hope everybody out there, it's helped you greatly.

Thank you.

Thank you for all you do for every member of unstoppable nation, Joel McKinley.

Absolutely. It is my pleasure. It is an honor. It is a privilege to get to, you know, ride along the journey, you know, but face grades or up the, you know, the swooping back and forth, whatever works best for them. It is an honor and a privilege to be able to take that journey with our members because they all reach their summit when they say what they want.

Exactly. Regardless of the gradient. We're ready for the hill, right?

Absolutely.

Fantastic. Well, great job. Thank you so much. Can't wait to see what we can help agents achieve into the future. And again, if you enjoyed this podcast and this is your first time with us, welcome. My name is Mike Stromstone. I'm widely recognized as a leading author 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're interested in becoming more right away, there's two quick options for you. Just go to upfaststart.com which is our virtual training portal, and you can find about our next virtual training upfaststart.com or you can schedule an agency growth session. Just call 8007-7099-8480-0770-9984 or email VIP@uplife.com we'll get you set up for an agency grow session just like that agent did and had. I can't believe how, I can't believe how speaking things into existence can change the course of one's life. That's what happened when he showed up for the agency growth session and we're going to change the course of his life. Super, super excited for that. But everything that we do is designed to share with you our greatest money making strategies developed over 35 years of experience as a proud independent insurance agent, 100% of the time. And we give it all to you. We share it all with you to help you grow your agency, create wealth so you two can have more freedom to live life on your own terms and go ride the face of mountains if that's what you want to do. And if you've gotten great value out of this podcast, please go to unstoppable profit podcast.com not only make sure you go up to the top and subscribe, but share that link with somebody else to help them as well. That's Unstoppable Profitpodcast.com just go ahead and share that link with them. Encourage them also to subscribe. And if it's easier for you, we're out there on all the channels. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon podcast, our YouTube channel, and more. Just look for Unstoppable Profit podcast.com We hope this has helped you. We hope this will help you continue to grow personally and professionally. Because Joel McKinley, our purpose in UPP.

Is to impact people's lives personally and professionally.

Exactly. And that's one of the many, many reasons we have built in accountability into our programs and into our lives. And we encourage you to do the same thing. Joel McKinley, thank you, thank you Mike.

And thank you. All of the people listening and watching. Go out there and do something awesome because you can. And then hold your team accountable for the same.

I second or I agree. Remember, you got this. We believe in you. We'll see you in the next episode.

You love the podcast but don't know where or how to get started? Come join our next virtual training while seats are still available. Register now@uppfaststart.com that's upfaststart.com.