Episode 290: Power of Three Book Unleashed

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 Stromso.

Hey, everyone. I'm going to start off today with a story before we dive into our topic today. And it's a story that I've told publicly maybe twice. I remember the first time that it happened in 2015 at one of our early be Unstoppable boot camps. And I was in a teaching moment, and it was heading towards high noon. At high noon, one of our speakers, Mr. Joe Theisman, was going to be on. But I started entering into the beginning of the story, and I looked at the clock and I said, oops, I'm gonna have to finish this story after lunch because we have Joe. I saw him out of the corner of my eye. Joe always speaks with a microphone, by the way. He doesn't use a lavalier. He wants an actual microphone. So I saw him just over by the stairs ready to come up on stage. And I said, I'm going to bring up Joe and I'll get back to the story after lunch. And Joe put the microphone to his mouth and said, mike, tell the story. I will never forget that moment.

Because I never told the story publicly. And I stopped. And all of a sudden, I felt a rush of emotion come over me like I had never felt on stage before. And I didn't know what to do. The only thing I could think of was, Mike, stay calm. Stand up tall. Close your eyes. That's what I did. I stood up tall, closed my eyes, and I started honestly praying. I said, keep it together, Mike. Lord, help me keep it together. And I did. And I did. As Joe instructed me, I told the story. And the story is what drives me. And I'm going to be telling this more often because I think it's super important for people to know what truly drives them. And our topic today is going to really be about something that I hope will drive every single person on the globe who takes in its information.

So the story that Joe prompted me to tell was a story about my dad.

And that story happened about 2003. My dad was my hero, one of my best friends. And like most people who lost. Have lost a parent or both their parents, we all wish we could just have One more day. What I would give to have one more day. So the encouragement for everybody. Love your loved ones while you have the chance. And so the story happened about 2003. I lost my dad on December 3, 2000, to cancer at 64. Way too young.

Tragic, but I will never Forget. So about 2003. My dad was a techie. He was one of the early adapters of technology. He loved technology. He had buddies all over the country that he would play tech games with and study technology with. One of his very close friends was Bob. Now, Bob had been out to our house. He lived in Texas. Bob lived in Texas, but Bob had been out to our house and met with our, you know, hung with our family in California, knew our kids and everything else. So Bob called me in 2003, one day out of the blue, and he said, mike, I woke up this morning and I got something I have to tell you. I thought about it this morning and I needed to make sure you heard this before something happened to either of us. I said, what do you got, Bob? He goes, I wanted to share something that your dad told me before he passed away.

I said, what did he say, Bob? Bob said, Mac, your dad said he saw something in you. And he couldn't really describe it, but he saw a drive in you that he hadn't seen before. And he knew that you were going to do great things with anything you put your hands on, put your mind to, and put your heart into. And he just knew that you were going to do big things. He couldn't tell me what those big things were, but he knew that you were going to do big things.

And so Bob told me that that day.

And that phone call, I still remember it like it was yesterday.

It consumes me almost every day because I can't forget about the fact that I now have a bar that's been set.

By the man who was my hero. And my dad and I don't feel that, you know, it's something that consumes my actions. That's not it. But, you know, when we set our purpose at UPP.

For people to live the UPP life, our purpose is to impact people's lives personally and professionally. And I think that's what it's all about. I recently found one of my dad's plaques. He was the president of the Optimist Club in Fremont, California. My dad gave back. There's a foundational.

Endowment in the local Boys and Girls Club that is in my dad's name. My dad loved kids and he loved people and wanted to give back. And I think that's what it's all about. And I think that it's giving back. And that's why I get out of bed every day now, to impact people's lives personally and professionally. And so what I want to share with you today during this very special podcast session, by the way, we're going to get back to our technology theme for the year, because we're diving into technology in a big, big way this year. It's so vitally important because I've identified, working with independent insurance agents across the country, that we're way behind on adapting and embracing technology. And for anybody who's watching this or listening to this, if you're not adapting and embracing technology right now, you will be left behind. And actually, there's something in the book that I'm going to introduce you to in just a moment. I talk about that in this book, and that's our topic for today. So on the next coming podcast, we're going to dive back into technology, automation, AI, because that's our theme for the year, because I want everybody that I have the privilege of connecting with to embrace and adapt AI. And if you're not, do it, please. You will get left behind. In the words of Will Rogers, if you just sit there, you're going to get run over. And don't let that happen to you. I don't want that to happen to anybody that I'm connected with. So what I want to talk about today in this very special session is my upcoming book. I now have a copy of the book in my hand. And I want to encourage everybody, because in about two weeks from now, from the time that you're listening or watching this podcast, will be the launch date of this book, the Power of Three. It's my latest book, it's my eighth book, and it's all about discovering and unleashing your unique superpowers for maximum profits. And it's been on my head and on my heart for a lot of years. And I just believe it's part of that big mission that I'm on because of what my dad told Bob that day in roughly 2003. So I want to get information out there to people to help people, to help them grow, to help them flourish. And probably two words that, you know, are in my vocabulary a lot nowadays, and this is for you as well. Full potential, full potential. I want everybody to reach their full potential, whatever that is, personally or professionally. I mean, I'm looking at my goals right over here. I've got a big goal sheet. I've got two big major life dream goals, one personal, one professional. But the personal one is Leave a generational legacy through leadership example. Leave a generational legacy through leadership example. I want to leave an example and that's part of the reason that I do this. I'm almost finished with my grandfather's journal for the cousins affectionately. And there's by the way, in this book I'm going to go through a couple things that are just highlights of the book. Hopefully it will inspire you and prompt you to want to grab a copy of the book on launch date, which again is May 1st of 2025. And we're going to be sharing a link on launch date May 1st of 2025. By the way, the URL to get on the waiting list and be kept up to date on the launch PowerOf3Book.com PowerOf3Book.com Powerof3Book.com so anyway, I want to walk you through. I'm going to give you just a couple of words about why I wrote the book. Because in my entrepreneurial journey, which started Last century in 1998, on my own, from scratch in 1999, I invested in myself. I went to an insurance conference. I started learning, learning personal development, investing in myself through personal development. And somewhere early in that journey, I learned about the fact that everybody has three. Everybody has three personal talents, gifts or superpowers in them. And so it became my mission to learn what mine were. And that mission and that journey, it was not like overnight. It was not in a one week period or a one month period. It was a succession and progression over years really. And it just keeps getting better. And it just keeps getting better. And I tell the story in the book of that eureka moment in my journey. My power of three, my three personal talents, gifts or superpowers are sales, marketing, and coaching. And I tell the story about how that third one, coaching, became the singular word that thanks to the person who actually wrote the forward in the book, Andrea Wyatt, who is our program director at UPP. I've worked with Andrea for more than 15 years and I'm privileged and honored that she was kind enough to invest time to write the forward for the books. So check that out. And I just also want to share the dedication of the book. This book is dedicated to the unstoppable nation of independent insurance agency leaders and teams who are committed to becoming unstoppable every day. Your wisdom, your grit, your determination, your selflessness, and your inner desire to reach your full potential. There it is Again, to reach your full potential is the ultimate professional fulfillment. Make a difference, Be unstoppable. Leave no regrets. And that may be an upcoming book, by the way. Just those three tags Make a difference. Be unstoppable, Leave no regrets. Because that's a whole nother story. So that's the beginning and that's why I wrote the book and I share with everybody in the book my journey, how I came up with it, with the desired outcome that you too, start searching and identifying your top three personal talents, gifts or superpowers, and there are no accidents. I believe that with 100% of my being there are no accidents. I picked up that term from a book called Three Feet from Gold by Greg S. Reed. And that means just basically everything happens for a reason. So just this week, two days ago, I was working with one of our UPB member teams and it came crystal clear when I was speaking with this agency leader that that agency team has not come full circle yet, but has at least come more than halfway around. The circle is in the second half of their UPB journey, if you will, because they're making great, great progress. But now it's a husband and wife team. This husband and wife team has positioned each of them the wife and the husband in the right seats on the bus, and they are operating within their top three personal talents, gifts and superpowers. Because she is now the CEO, he is now in charge of commercial insurance sales and service, and they are thriving, thriving right now. So I am so happy for them. And I told them that, hey, you guys are now operating your power of three. And they haven't even dived into the book yet. So that's the kind of stuff that makes me so personally or professionally fulfilled and personally fulfilled. So I hope the same for you and that's what I want for you in going through the book. So what I'd like to do in this session today is just inspire you with a couple of the highlights from the book I just told you shared with you. I should say what the dedication is. Andrea Wyatt wrote the forward. Thanks to Andrea, there's a couple of agents who I've known for a long, long time and one short time, actually, who were kind enough to go through the first two chapters. Thanks to Mariah Davis from Oakview Insurance Services in Yuba City, Mr. Chris Raiders from Ted Ham Insurance, Paso Robles and Arizona, and then Patricia Kenter.

Leb Sonayani, forgive me, pko. She also took a look at it. So I'm super grateful for their comments in the Beginning and in the book we've got a total of nine chapters and then the conclusion. So make sure you take a look at all the way through the end of the conclusion. I wrote a very personal note in the book as well. I'd like you to take a look at that. It is just my personal note but hopefully that inspires somebody and maybe connects us at a deeper level. So chapter one, it's just the journey and it begins by unearthing your unique talents, my unconventional path, what I first learned and I give you a complete list of superpowers in the book for you to choose from. Maybe you can choose 1, 2, 3, maybe 5 or more just to get started to learn about yours. Chapter two is all about embracing the process of self discovery. Growth is a process, not a destination. Jim Rohn said it's who you become in pursuit of your goals that makes you who you are. It's that growth process. Oh, I love this one. You're going to love this in chapter two, the power of a get to mindset. You may have heard me say I don't have to do anything. I get to do everything. The full story of that get to moment and well, I started that before but one of our members where I said you get to, you don't have to and the things that happened in his personal life with his daughter after he learned that I share that get to story in there, that's awesome. Circle of five mentality. You, you've got to be crystal clear on that, please. And I, I tell my, my grandkids that nowadays the cousins and everybody who else will listen. Protect your circle of five. Around you, the people that are closest to you. Protect your circle of five. The five people are closest to you. They are greatly influencing you, period. Okay? The 8020 role in your top three, how those two combine to effect, that's in chapter two. Chapter three.

Developing the infrastructure to succeed through your power of three. I talk quite a bit about my daily routine and how I plan my day. I give you that because I get a lot of questions about that. So that's in there. I talk a lot about my living your best year ever plan. 13th year in my living your best year ever public shout out to Darren Hardy and his team. But how that's been such a huge influence in my life. I chronicle that because it is directly in alignment with identifying my power of three, my accountability partner. I talk about that. Many of you have heard me talk about it and ask me questions about it. So I give you a good dose. There Personal goals and how to put things into act, shun, act, capital act, should, action. And then part two in chapter four and is unleashing your power of three. There's information on leadership, being a boss versus a leader. The seven generational challenge yes, we are operating within seven generations of people right now, ladies and gentlemen. And I'm looking at the visual in the book and on my screen from the greatest generation which was people born 1901 to 1927, 1928 to 1945 was a silent or the builders or the traditionalist generation. Baby boomers born 46 to 19641946 to 1964 generation X born 1965 to 1980 millennials or generation Y born 1981 to 1994 generation Z born 1995 to 2009 and generation Alpha, the newest generation born 2010 or after. But think about that for a minute. We're operating within seven generations of people. Is there a reason maybe sometimes we all can't get along because we're all so different? And that was one of the greatest leadership studies that I've ever been through in my career. It happened about four years ago. It was a full one year program and that's how they started the program. We've got to identify how to communicate, understand.

Everything with all generations. Changed my world forever. I was interviewing people from each generation that I could find. I didn't get anybody from the greatest or even the traditionalist due to age. Maybe I did get somebody from traditionalists or the silent generation, but not the prior one. And I even interviewed some of our grandkids so I could get the full take. Mind blowing. So you have to know that that's I give you information of that in the book so check that out for sure. How to create organizational plan the five things that a players require that will help you not only personally but it'll help you professionally. More leadership on your team. They're watching everything you do and everything you don't do. Then on to chapter five, Empowering others. The key to operating within your top three. Once you identify your top three personal talents, gifts or superpowers. How to empower other people to do the things. Because as a leader, after you've identified your top three, you should only be doing the things that only you can do and then.

Empower somebody else to do the rest. Inspect what you expect a little bit on that then. Kevin's story. Kevin's story changed my life forever. Kevin was the founder, entrepreneur, our largest insurance agency client of my career. We had them for 24 years as a client, they went from 0 to 1.3 plus billion dollar revenue company. Phenomenal, phenomenal journey. Read their financial statements every year. That's where I get the ideas and the knowledge that I share with agency entrepreneurs nationally. I remember a conversation with the CFO at the table in Vegas on one of my trips over there, and I said, who are these companies? On your financial statement this year? He says, oh, it's our credit facilities. I turned about $150 million in debt at any one time. That's how we grow the company. But what I learned through all of that, there's good debt, bad debt, and I'll just kind of leave it at that right now. But it's reality. I mean, if you ever studied the men and women who made America as an example, that is partly how they did it. They used opm. And I learned that through my own real estate investing days, et cetera, et cetera, opm, other people's money. So take all this in and start using these strategies in your independent insurance agency business. That's part of what we bring to the table in helping agents. So I share that in the book chapter six, we get on to continuous improvement and mastery. Once you again get on your journey, identifying your top three personal talents, gifts or super powers, making it reality in your own world, empowering it to everybody else, then you get on, start getting on to the point of mastery. You might want to write this one down if you're taking notes at all. Once you get to a point of mastery. Mastery requires constant and consistent remastery. In other words, the school's never out for the pros. The day you stop learning is the day you stop growing. And I've got a piece on all of that in here as well. Okay. And then I build in some more accountability on the back end because that's how you continue to remaster through the accountability Chapter seven, part three, profit from your top three. I want to, you know, convert this whole thing to a point where you can start giving back. And when I talk about profit in part three, chapter seven and beyond, I'm not talking about money all the time. I've got stories of real agents who have grown their businesses to incredible, incredible levels, who have freedom and are now.

You know, giving back globally because of what they've achieved. So I call it the ripple effect. I profile five agents. I mean, I could have profiled 100 agents, but it would have been a lot of R D. So the five I chose, I chose because I know, well, I've known her for a long time, and I. I know their story intimately. That's the only reason I didn't pick for any other reason, just because of that. Okay, so Mr. Bill Butler, Mr. Russ Castle, Mrs. Claudia McLean, Mr. Chris Paradiso, and Ms. Patty Lares are the five that are in there. And all of their stories are phenomenal. All of them are incredible. And it's all about how they have identified their top three and done something magnificent in the world with it. So I'm excited for you to pick that up in the book. You know, I got some information in there on my own power of three, how I use them. Actually, the story that starts the book out, very personal story, not the one I told at the beginning of this podcast. I'll let you read it in the book, but it was a tragic.

Night.

In 1992. It was the beginning of the book. I'll just let that brick sit in your lap for a minute. So chapter nine is on to legacy, the legacy of excellence and sustaining through your power of three. Super, super excited about that. And for the first time ever, I give you a chronological idea of exactly how I'm executing cousins camp for our grandkids. And I've never done that before. A lot of people have heard me talk about cousins camp, which basically what I'm doing, I'm teaching entrepreneurship to my grandchildren. We have 13 of them. I'm privileged and blessed with that. But when we started this adventure in 2020, I was talking to them about it and their summation between the majority of them who knew enough to be able to give an opinion. They said, we don't want the younger ones in it. I said, all right, if we don't want the younger ones in it, what kind of age limit should we choose? And our ultimate answer was 12. And so the cousins who are under age 12 are not in cousin's camp, though. All of them that are 12 and over are in cousin's camp. And so today we have six, I think, in cousin's camp that I mentor on a weekly, monthly, annual basis, traveling in the whole nine yards. So my only goal is to teach them entrepreneurship. We have digitized and systematized teaching entrepreneurship in the independent insurance agency business, but bottom line is it transitioned to most any industry. So I want to leave that for them. So whatever it is they want to accomplish in the world, I want them to do that, and I want them to know they have absolutely no limits in achieving anything that they want in today's world. So I chronicle that and then I get into the conclusion and I let you know that the power is in your hands and a little bit more about my journey. So I just wanted to give everybody a heads up because I've been getting a lot of questions. There's a lot of people that are on the launch team for the book coming up on May 1, 2025. I will leave you with this. If you would like to be if you're listening to this or watching this on our YouTube channel and you would like to be on the launch team, and I haven't had a chance to reach out to you yet, please shoot me an email. I'm going to give you my direct email address. It's VIP@upplife.com that's VIP, Very Important Person@upplife.com and if you're watching this visually, you see it on the shirt on the screen. So VIP life.com shoot me an email and in the subject line, put P O3. Yes, that's. That means P. Power of PO. Put PO3. Power of 3. The number 3, by the way. PO the number of 3. Yes. And the subject line. And I'll see that and I'll get you on the launch team. I'll send you a communication and we'll go from there. So thank you for that. We've got a really I'm excited about our launch team for the May 1 launch. And again, if you want to learn more information and get on our waiting list so we can keep you up to date on the launch, go to Power of Three. That's three spelled out all the way, by the way. Powerof3t h r e ebook.com Powerof3book.com that is the launch page for our Power of Three books. It is going to be available on Kindle paperback, hardcover and will be available on Audible in the future. So look for that. I can't wait for that. I'm super, super excited to get the information out there in the world. Most importantly, so everybody out there in the world globally can identify their top three personal talents, gifts or superpowers. Thank you for allowing me to share today about the upcoming launch of the book and again next week on the next podcast. We're going to get back to on our next podcast, we're going to get back to talking about automation, AI and everything that's happening in this world. Technology that is changing the world. And again, I wrote in this book.

When I learned from Peter Diamandis a couple of years ago, he said two years ago, 10 years from now, there's going to be two kinds of companies out there. The companies that have embraced and are using the advanced technology and AI. And there's going to be the companies that are out of business. Don't let the second one be you. Embrace it. Go with the. Go with the change. Learn about it. Invest in yourself to learn how to use it properly. That's one of the things that we want to bring to you as a resource and here on the UPP podcast. And by the way, speaking of the podcast, if this is your first time on the podcast, thank you. My name is Mike Strom, so I'm widely recognized as the leader, author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can find our podcast out there on all the channels from Spotify to Apple to Stitcher, our YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube and search Unstoppable Profit Producer and then go to the videos. You'll find it there and out there on so much more. In addition to that, it has its own URL, unstoppableprofitpodcast.com make sure you go up to the if you go to that page, make sure you go up to the top and hit subscribe on the YouTube channel or on Unstoppable Profit podcast so you don't miss one valuable episode. We aim to bring it. We've been bringing it for almost 300 episodes now. Super, super honored to be able to do that. And if you want to learn more about what we do, just Simply go to upplife.com upplife.com and it'll tell you all about our UPP program, our coaching and Mastermind program. Everything that we do, everything that we teach is all designed to help independent insurance agents grow their business, create wealth, and have more freedom. We implement everything that I've learned. August 22nd of this year will be my 40th anniversary with a license. It's my license renewal date and I've learned a ton and I'm out there sharing a ton, teaching a ton. I just want to teach everybody everything that I know. We've got it systematized and that's what we do. So if you have any more questions about that, go to upblife.com, set up an agency growth session and we'll jump on you and me personally and I will help you with that. In addition to that, if you got great value out of this podcast and you like what you heard, go to Unstoppable Profit Podcast and share that with somebody you care about. Just share the URL, the link with them and tell them to go there and they'll find this episode and all of our episodes, almost 300 of them. And they will be able to learn to their heart's content like they never have before. Thank you for joining us today. I can't wait. I'm privileged and honored to launch The Power of Three Book on May 1, 2025. Make sure you look out for it. Can't wait to I'm honored. If you have any questions or if you're watching this and you have your own podcast or you'd like to connect with me and interview me as an example, I'll be happy to tell you everything that I've learned. We'll go through the book. Whatever you want. I'm happy to help. I'm happy to share. Honored to share the journey with you. Until next time, get out there, make a difference, be unstoppable and leave no regrets. Ha. The Power of Three. See you soon.

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