Episode 300: Lead Your People to Greatness and More Money with Natty Lewis

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.

Greetings, everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit podcast. Hey, I got a question for you to kick us off today.

Have you ever been challenged in your independent insurance agency operations, business leadership, both, or anything else of that realm with your people?

Has it ever been to the point where it's caused you to lose a little bit of sleep, get up in the morning thinking about your people?

Me too. That's why today I am privileged and honored to have Natalie Lewis. Her friends call her Natty Nadie Lewis on the podcast today. Nadi, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Such a pleasure to be here. Amazing group of people you've gathered together. I can't wait to serve.

It's an honor and a privilege. I couldn't agree more. We are here to serve all, all of them. We're here to serve the industry, humanity and beyond. So let's dive in. Nadie Lewis is a true entrepreneur. She has started and sold seven companies. She is currently the visionary behind ascendeq, a company that dives into human emotions and how to use them to your advantage in business. She has 25 years of experience in marketing and sales. Her expertise extends far beyond traditional business strategy. She has delved deeply into understanding human behavior, particularly what drives people to initiate projects, but often prevents them from seeing them through success. Her resume is a lot longer than that, but I'm going to pause there because I know Nadi wants to give you as much gold mini gold nuggets as we can today. And I want the same thing. In addition to that, she's going to be speaking live at her upcoming UPP Grand Mastermind in Phoenix, Arizona, November 7th and 8th with a very special members only session the day before. So if you like what you hear Today, join us upmastermind.com let's get into it. Natty, we were speaking just a few minutes ago before we started about the agencies that you are working in and you have some scenarios that popped up this week. Tell us more.

Yeah, we. I get the opportunity to go in and work with agencies, their agents, their CSRs, their executive management teams, and working with their agents and CSRs and we see so many similarities and there. And they do have to do with the people. And, you know, there's a great quote out there that says, life is great and then there's people, right? And the idea is I was cruising by myself when I was my own agent and building my own portfolio and my own book of business. Everything was great and I could motivate myself. But now I've got these people to manage, manage. And I need them, and I need them, and I want them to succeed, and I need them to succeed. And I can't figure out how to get them to succeed because they're not the same as me. Why do they think differently? Why do they act differently? And as we engage with these, we come to find a couple of different things get involved. And one of them dominantly comes to do with dissonance. That happens between the identity they hold in a position and what you actually expect of them. We call it an expectations versus reality gap, meaning this is the reality of their performance, this is your expectation for their performance. There's a gap there, and we can't figure out what in the world is going on. And you're frustrated, and the employee is frustrated, and we're trying to figure that out. And fascinatingly enough, I can tell you that nine times out of ten, when I sit down and I will talk to a csr, for example, they will lay out for me their job. I'll say, hey, talk to me about your job description. In a perfect day, what does your day look like? What's your job description? The vast majority of them will lay out for me a task list. Boom, boom, boom. If I do this, this, this, this, this, this, that's a great day. I've done my job. It's interesting, though, is they lack the big picture almost 90% of the time. They never tell me the big picture. They never tell me that what their job is is to connect with their customer and to feel. To make sure customers go away feeling seen and heard and valued. They give me a task list of answer the question. But they don't say make a customer feel seen, heard, and valued. They give me the task list of try to solve their problem, but they don't give the bigger picture of have, have customers want to stay with us long term because they feel like they can trust us and we're always going to do the best for them. So now let me ask you a question. If you're engaging and you need your team to give your customers the experience that you want to have of Feeling like we're a trustworthy agency and we're going to do. We're going to work for you, and we want you to know that here you're seen and heard and valued. We don't want you to go to an online platform where you're one of a number and yet you can't talk to anybody. We want to be here for you. What does that look like? If that's your expectation, but their reality is tasks. What's the gap?

It's an interesting thing because a lot of it comes down to identity. They owned the label of I am a CSR or a customer service agent or a customer service representative. And that's what customer service representatives do. And they haven't yet taken on a personal identity that allows them to step into that space.

I think you just dropped a word that was going through my mind as I was listening to you. Great stuff, by the way. Thank you. Label.

Mm.

And there's power in labels. I was just studying with somebody else that we. You may or may not know. I've known for a long time, John Gordon, who talks about the power of labels that we place in our mind. But it's that power of communication within the agency. Right from. You talked about it managers, or I like to say leaders who are providing this leadership within the business. And it really depends on how they're providing that leadership and how they're labeling the whole situation. If you have a leader that's either listening to what listening to or watching this podcast, and they may need to improve their labeling or leadership or both of their team, what would you say to them?

I would say that one of the key things is allowing us to get. Allowing the opportunity to find what we call powerful words or power words that actually the emotion we're trying to create and not the. Not the task list. If I come into my job and like. Like yesterday, this literally happened yesterday in an agency that I was working with, they had a CSR who's just. She's really good at her job. She's very much a box ticker. Just.

And they really felt like she could step up and lead, but no one had. But she just never owned that, never claimed that. And as we talked about what really lit her up and what got it, what she got excited about, you know what she became excited about was the unstoppable giver of service.

That phrase for her, like, when she saw herself as this unstoppable giver of service, it was like, what does that mean to you? And she's like, well it means like no one can get, I can solve any problem. Like let me add it. Like get on the phone with me, talk me through it and I will give and give and give until I find an answer for you. And she's like, as I want every person gets on the phone with me to feel like I actually want to talk to them. And this picture she started, created, created this excitement. And I said, does it have to just be a customer calling in or could you get this excited by helping another service agent enjoy their job and be fulfilled in their job and do well at their job? And it was just this amazing thing to watch her just shift from I'm a CSR to I'm an unstoppable giver of service. It was like this opportunity to like step into the space where she could be powerful and successful regardless of job title. And I think sometimes we don't realize how powerfully limiting job titles can be and how much they're being defined not by us in our agency. I want you to think about CSR agent. These two words are out there across the entire insert insurance agency. Who defined them? Who decided what they do? Because if they come into your business and you aren't the one deciding who, who they are and what they do, who decided? Somebody else.

The industry.

The industry. And the problem with that is that are you trying to just be the industry or are you trying to be your unique agency bringing unique, unique service? And this is the thing, how does that then look if we don't communicate it? And I think we take for granted too often that people, well, I hired you to be a csr. You know what a CSR is, Go to work. But then what, what does that mean? I'm getting, I'm getting an industry based expectation and then when it doesn't hit I'm industry based reality, that's not hitting my expectation of what I want to grow. Whose job is that? As a leader we gotta clearly lay out expectations and create the bigger picture for our team so that they're not getting stuck in task mode, just checking boxes. When do they get to step in and have a space where it's like I'm not just answering the call. I'm, I'm a problem solver. I'm not just giving prices and quotes. I'm initiat, I'm serving this person who needs an insurance policy. They need what we offer.

I'm not just getting on a call with somebody, I'm talking to a human being who maybe I might be their Only adult interaction today because they got so many littles at home and I might be the only person who actually stops and listens to them today. What would that mean to the person on the other line? Like, where's. What do you want your CSRs to look like? What do you want that interaction with the customer to be like? And are you clearly laying that out and allowing your customer service reps and your agents to show up in that space? Or are we relying on an industry standard to define a label that they are owning right now and it's creating an expectations versus reality gap?

I mean, there's so much to unpack for what you just shared. Thank you so much for that. So, I mean, first thing that came to my mind is I'm looking at a sign that it keeps stays in my monitor. We have average players, good players, and great players. You just took an average or good player up to the great player level because now she is playing in her space, which is an unstoppable giver of service. So now she has been released to be herself in the agency world. Phenomenal stuff. So what happens from a results standpoint once somebody, you know identifies who they are and what they bring to the team, what they bring to the clients, what they bring to the communities, and everything else, what happens to the results based on the agencies that you're working with?

Yeah, we see an absolute numerical and statistical connection with retention and revenue increase. We see sales and. And policy rights are up and retention is up. We see it 100 of the time. And the reason why is because I just want you to recognize the difference. When you get on the phone with somebody and they. And you feel like this person wants to talk to me.

How different is that? When you get on the phone with somebody where, you know they are trying to get you off the phone as quickly as possible, they're answering the questions. They're polit. They're not doing anything wrong. And you know darn well they would have preferred you did not call.

Versus the person who go. The person who actually. You feel like they want to talk to you. I had to book a flight the other day. I get on the phone with the diamond lined over at Delta and I. I call the first person. She was incredibly polite and very professional. Thank you for calling. How. How can I assist you today? You would like this flight? Thank you. I will book that here. Thank you. You've got a receipt. Thank you. Do you need anything else, like. Nope. Great. Fine. It was fine. It was polite. I got the service that I needed. It was done. I needed to make a change to that flight. I called back into the line about two hours later, I got connected with somebody different. This woman answered the phone, and she said, oh, my goodness, it's Natalie Lewis. And I stopped, and I was like.

Excuse me. And she's like, I have been waiting for your phone call. And I said, you've been waiting for my phone call? And she goes, yeah. She goes, I love talking to our customers. What can I do for you today? How can I be here for you? And the entire. I mean, just think about this. How long did this take? This woman? Five seconds. She turned the entire course of the conversation. I felt like the coolest person in the whole wide world. And then I said, well, I just booked a flight, and now I need to make a change to this flight. And she was like, oh, girl, I got you. I'm like this. She might not have been as professional, but she was so personal. And I could realize one of these people was a customer service representative, and the other person was like, I will make your day great no matter what. Both of them did the same job, arguably were hired under the same job description, but one of them made Delta look good.

One of them made me want to fly Delta all the time. One of them made me very proud to be a diamond with Delta. Right. And the other one, she did her job. And so I want you to recognize, like, with your agency as you're building it, as you're running it, as you're owning it. What experience do you want the customer to have when they come there? And have you actually set up the expectation and the identity of your customer service agents to fulfill on that? Or have we simply given them a name, a title, and a job description, put them at a desk with a phone, and we are expecting the culture and the dynamic and the customer experience. But the reality is down here that the ability to close that gap might be as close as an identity shift. It might happen that fast.

That is a phenomenal story. And I was thinking as you were entering the story about my own travels and my own situations, I have a hotel brand and a rental car brand that I will pay more money for. I was just booking something last night, and they were more money, and I booked them. Why? Because I know what I'm going to get. So equate Natty's story with Delta or anything you deal with in life and translate it to transition it to your business. I mean, you know, there's so many agents out there, Natty, and I'M sure you know this, that are caught up on price, price, price, price, price, price. Price is not about the money all the time. Yes, it's going up. Yes, people are not happy about it. But what they are craving for more than anything else is that emotional intelligence relationship. And I failed out of the gate because I was so excited to have Natty on. That's her area of expertise. Ascend eq, Ascend emotional intelligence. She understands how to connect people in the right way in business, to drive growth, to drive revenue, to drive retention. Great job. So the other thing that I was thinking about, Maya Angelou said, and I'm sure you know the quote, people will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. And you're telling the story about Delta, and I've got lots of other stories myself. That feeling that we garner because of somebody who's identified who they are and brings it and is allowed to bring it, I think that's a key point from a leadership standpoint. You got something to add?

Yeah, I. I really want to add this point because in every agency I'm working with right now, this is a thing. And it might be a thing in yours, and it might not. And I want you to be aware this idea of the price point. In every agency I'm working with, the CSRs are feeling hamstrung. They're feeling, like, handcuffed. Well, I can't. Well, they call in there, but I can't save them because we can't match that price. And it's like they get dinged with that price enough times and they have enough losses of customers because somebody came in, they're now stuck here believing this is a limitation. And I, in that situation, would just remind you that there is so much power in empowering them with the identity that says you were never about a price in the first place. If I. If I believe that I am just an agent of insurance policies and I'm here to check boxes and make sure you have what you need, then price is one of my foundational elements of identity. If I believe I'm here to serve you, that I'm here to be the front line of defense, that I'm here to answer your calls, dig through the struggles and find responses together that I'm here for the big moments in life, the hard moments in life, and, you know, you need that friendly face. When I am that friendly face, I am not a price. And the identity we're seeing when the shift Happens with the identity. And they will lean into who they really are and what it's about to communicate with people and give them an experience of feeling seen and heard. And they stop fearing the price objection. And I think that this is just important awareness for all of us is that there's a. When you take enough knocks and hits, it starts to form a little piece of who I think I am. And if I am checking boxes and I don't have that price box to check because somebody's outbid me or they went online and did something, if that's who I am, then I just lost and I can't win.

If that's not who I am. If it was never about that. That's one element of my service. But this so much bigger picture. And when that's who I am, then price doesn't even matter half the time. And this is where we're finding. We're seeing a retention increase. We're seeing numerical and statistical improvement when they lean in to who they really are because they're servicing the customer from a place where the customer's like that. That a hundred bucks every six months is not worth me getting a AI robot that I'm talking to or 12 dial ups where I've pushed one 14,000 times and they keep reconfirming. Are you sure you want to talk to a live agent? I'm like, freaking, yes. Give. Put me on the phone with a human. Right. When they get to that point, they realize the value. And so please help your agents see that value in themselves. Be really intentional about the experience you want people to come and have there and we can beat the price game.

Phenomenal. Phenomenal. I hope everybody caught everything that Nadi just said. I had another thought. To help everybody out there, please go to unstoppable profit podcast.com, unstoppableprofitpodcast.com you can download the video portion of this podcast as well as well as the audio. Sit down with your team and watch this podcast so your team members remember, the law of familiarity is extremely powerful. They're hearing it from the outside, not from you. Okay. And listen, let your team take in what Natty just said. This is phenomenal stuff. Natty, thank you so much. So.

When you have an agency and things are going on in the agency, people have been labeled, they're a CSR or they're in sales. I mean, this applies to both sales and service, correct?

Absolutely. Both sides, 100%.

Yeah. So where you have sales and service and you need to spot Check from time to time, or I use the word audit, but do you. That's where you come in. You work with agencies to find out where they are right now. Okay. And how they can get up to the next level. So you do kind of a spot check, update audits per se. But what can leaders do to after you leave? Continue to elevate the team to their identity?

Yeah, Well, a couple of things that are really important is actually knowing your team, knowing what. What they want to look like, what motivates them, where they get excited and. And really letting your team have the same experience as the customer. One of the things that I think is challenging also is that we have this desire to have our customers feel a certain way. When's the last time you checked in to see if your team actually feels that? Because I can't go create a feeling that my team doesn't feel. And what happens is this is where the emotions come in. I want to just make a super, crystal clear statement. I work with so many agency owners that when we start, they're like, man, I didn't realize that emotions could be so powerfully beneficial if I understood them. Most people look at emotions. They look at emotional intelligence and they see the requirements of HR and. And you know, the d. DEI society that forces us to do all this stuff. And everybody now gets a mental health day, and I have no control over my agency. Guys, I promise you, if you will start to look at how powerful emotions are, I want you to think about this. Neural pathways are designed when a thought creates a picture. Pictures create emotions, and emotions drive behaviors. So if you understand that, that literally the human brain is designed to have a thought, and the thought creates a picture, and the picture creates an emotion, and the emotion drives a behavior, then if you are trying to drive behavior in your office, you had better become really good at driving emotion, understanding it, and influencing it and helping it. And when we don't take a look at our own side of the equation. I want my customers to feel seen. Do your employees feel seen? I want my customers to feel heard. Do your employees feel heard? Because I cannot go fake an emotion. I don't feel. You watch people in relationships where they don't feel loved and they're striving with everything they have to love their partner. How long does that last before they get worn out?

We need to be able to have our employees feel that too. So what does that look like? I encourage them to sit down and talk about that. I encourage them to sit down and remember who they are. When I talked to this young lady the other day yesterday, she was so funny with this unstoppable word. She goes, wow, I've never felt like this before. It's so energizing. I said, what does it make you want to do? And she's like, makes me want to get on the phone. And I was like, we love this for you. And she's like, but I don't want to sit down.

And her manager was sitting right next to me, and he said, would you like a standing desk? Because I'd be happy to get that for you. And just because she was sitting in a room where she expressed an emotion and he picked up on it, saw it, and then said, I would be happy to do that for you. She was like, really? And he was like, hey, if you want to get on the phone and you want that kind of energy and you feel like bringing that energy require is a standing desk, let me do that for you.

How seen did she feel? How served did she feel? It's super important that we recognize we, our agents and our customer service reps cannot and will not provide an emotion that they do not feel.

Hold on, hold on. Say that again.

Our agents and our customer service reps cannot and will not provide an emotion to your customers in their experience that they do not feel. They can't do it. They need to feel. The culture of the company is so important, because if I feel that way, guess how, guess what? I emulate.

It's super important. And we get into this, we. And we don't realize how much, again, that emotion plays a role because thoughts create pictures and pictures create emotions, and emotions drive motivation and behavior. What. What thoughts did they come into? Where are those emotions stemming from? We have this tendency to just put labels and tasks and job descriptions on things, and people aren't robots. They got a life going on. And the other real powerful part about emotional intelligence that we bring to the table, and I think if I could just bring a layer of awareness here as. As I try to just provide as much, as much as I can here that you can leverage.

We need to understand that what is happening in someone's life absolutely 100 of the time will impact their work. And that is not because they're a wuss or they're not good at work, life balance. It's because we are a spiritual, emotional being having a physical experience. And what that means is, unless you've got some other dual part of you running around out there that I don't know about, never seen that before. Something that happens to me physically, intangibly in this world or something that happens to me emotionally and spiritually in this world will impact the other. Which means I might show up to work more tired because I had an emotional experience at home. I might show up to work more agitated because I don't feel well physically. Right. You've seen these things happen. They connect. When we gain an awareness of that and actually teach and help our employees understand that and help them to come to the table and elevate and level up their capacity to be in control of that, we win. Most people feel like this is happening to them. Life is happening to me. I had a bad morning, therefore I will have a bad day. I don't feel well, therefore I don't. I can't tolerate anybody's impatience today. That is not true. It feels real to them because it's here. It's not true. If they. They can level that up with intention and emotional intelligence brings intentionality to that part of life. And so I just want to throw that out there as well. That if you can engage your employees in a level where they can start to understand their own emotions and engage with them and not use them as excuses or crutches for poor behavior. Oh, my gosh. What you're going to find is you've got a better team than, you know, you right now. You might think you got a good B plus team and you are sitting on an A plus team that just hasn't leveled up and it can with.

Your swing on little hinges. And sometimes it takes a little hinge like Natty Lewis in the environment that will change everything. And obviously you are hearing or seeing firsthand like I am again. And I've been privileged to spend time with Nadi live face to face. I remember when we met and then we got to enjoy a meal together. Game changing day. Thank you, Nadi. I've got so much to unpack. What Natty just said.

Real people operate emotionally one identity and intentionality too. But the other thing that I heard you say a couple minutes ago, neurons lead to pictures, which are labels in the mind.

Right? Yeah. Neuron neural pathways are developed as neurons fire together and wire together. Right. And that neural pathway is developed with a thought that actually creates a picture. Pictures are what drive those emotions, and those emotions are what drive our actions and behaviors. Right.

That's what I had. Neurons are neural pathways to pictures, to emotions, to behavior.

Yeah.

So, you know, from a leadership standpoint and. And Natty, we spent time together, but I repeat this a lot. Leadership and training. Leadership and training. Leadership and training are two things that need improvement consistently in business, including independent insurance agency businesses. But, you know, one of my greatest leadership thoughts is your team is watching everything you do and everything you don't do and listening to everything you say and everything you don't say. And it's leading to those neuropathic. Whatever it is you just said to the pictures, to the emotions, to the behavior. Do you know.

You know what else your team will take your lead on is everything you feel and everything you don't allow yourself to feel. And it's not. We had. We had an executive meeting where the two managers of the office. I had the opportunity to meet with them independent of the owner, and they both said, I'm not entirely sure what to do because I don't want to upset him.

If.

Did you end up speaking with the owner?

Oh, yeah, yeah. This is where we. I am a. Like, let's rip the band aids off and fix the person. Right. Like, let's do this. But I think the point of this is how many of your employees are responding to your emotions. Whether you say anything or not. When you walk through the office and somebody does something and then you've got the stormy McStormy look on your face and you're. And you're walking through the office with pace and a scowling. They feel your energy. How are they responding to that?

Oh.

How do they react to that? What happens to their confidence? What happens to their picture? What happens to their image? Just on your emotions? So what you feel or don't even allow yourself to feel, because you know what else they do? They also watch it when you should feel something and you pretend you don't, because good leaders don't do that. Like, wow, that's.

I mean, that's current society reality.

It. It is. And it's something that's so unhelpful.

Yeah.

Like, it. Why not be like, oh, my gosh, this guy. Yep. He really upset me. And do you know what I did about it? I went out in the parking lot, I took a walk, I took a deep breath, and I came back in because, yeah, that was upsetting. Oh, my God. Mike gets upset by those things, too. He feels the way. Okay, all right, well, I guess I'm okay. Like, I'm on. I guess I'm okay. And I watched Mike set an example of how he actually honors his emotions by actually letting them out and not shoving them down and pretending that, you know, sticks and stones can hurt my bones, but names will never hurt Me crap like, what is that? Yeah, we have to set.

It's what we were taught long ago.

It is what we were taught.

Current reality.

It's. It's unhelpful. It's unhelpful to just pretend that nothing feels and that we don't feel and that we've always got our crap together. We're calm as a summer's day.

Right. Be real. Right. Be authentic.

Yeah.

So let's. Let's help with one last big gold nugget. And I know you have the answer. So it is very common in today's society.

In independent insurance agents, any business for that fact, because of what's going on in society around us, that people are wound up, wrapped up. People are having bad days. They had a tough night with the kids. They had a tough morning with the kids. Something happened to one of their family members, and on and on. You know what I'm talking about? What is your greatest suggestion to leadership and to team members on how to deal with that when emotionally you're distraught, you're drained or whatever? How do you bring that to the office? Or shouldn't you?

Yeah, it is critically important to bring it to the office and you lead with understanding. The biggest mistake people make in this space is that they attack behavior. This person is not talking well because they've had a bad day and I'm going to go talk to them about. You have to speak nice to others even if you're having a bad day. I attack the behavior. What that is an upside down approach. Because what happens is behavior. Well, in that case is being driven by a belief and a lack of understanding. If I will actually attack understanding, first shift belief, behavior will change by itself. And so when I lean in with my employees and I actually first give them an understanding of why is it that you can have something happen over here and have it affect you so much over here? Why is it that your body starts. Why is it that your heart starts to beat so rapidly when you're talking on the phone with this guy? Why is it your throat gets all tight and congested when you're talking on the phone phone with this guy? Why is it that when you walked in the office and you saw that person in your office that's been rubbing you wrong for three days straight, your skin felt like it was going to crawl right off your body and you lost all capacity to think like a human being? Why did that happen? Because I'll tell you what, people, they beat the crap out of themselves for these things happening because they want to be more in control, they want to be more put together, they want to do their job well. People want to succeed.

But they. And so then when we don't help them understand what's going on and they don't have any tools to do anything about it, they get in these self destructive cycles of you know what? I'm just not good enough, I guess. I, I'm just not. I can't handle this. That's not true. It feels real to them right now and it's not true. They don't understand. And when we can just give them a basic level of understanding, the belief that shifts from fixes the behavior instead of us attacking the behavior. And in that space there's tiny little tools, guys, that you can use when you really do understand what's happening in the background of these emotions. It's little things too. You will be surprised. It's little things like putting in an ice maker in your office if you don't have one and making sure people always have something cold to hold on to in their hand. It's, it's little tiny things. It's having, it's having notebooks for people to write in that are outside of their privy of their actual job that they can write a word down if they need to. It's, it's the ability to have a space in the office that's safe for them to go to. It's the idea that their schedule gives them a 10 minute break every 90 minutes that lets them stand up and move their body and release the tension. Like the understanding can lead to belief. Belief can lead to shifts and behaviors. But what it also does is it empowers you to give yourself and your employees tools that are actually relevant to them. It lets you see them and, and then show up for them. And they will feel seen in a way that never felt seen because it's directly attached to how they feel. Truly, genuinely how they feel.

Absolute gold. I hope you were catching everything that Natty is sharing. Thank you Natty, for sharing these absolutely incredible insights into people. And if you're a leader, your number one job is your people. And Natty said something a couple minutes ago that I want to reiterate as well. You know, I used to feel for many, many years that the number one customer in our agency business, in any business, is the team. Because it is all about them. It's not about you. It is all about them. It's never about you. However, my mind was changed by Joey Coleman when I had him on the podcast A while ago and we were talking about this and he positioned me with that same question. Hey, Mike, who's your number one customer? I said, it's our team. He said, yeah, I used to think the same thing, but now I feel differently. I said, okay, I think I know what you're going to say. Who is it? He says, it's you.

And it's not intended to be a selfish, self serving statement, but what you bring to the table. And Addie just supported this. What you bring to the table for your team, the real you, leads to everything. Their neurons, their pictures, their emotions, their behavior. It is from you. So work on yourself in your mindset first. And if you've been on this podcast before, you know what I'm talking about, because I talk about this a lot. You've got to take care of yourself first because you can't help somebody else. It's, you know, the airline flight attendant analogy that I share all the time. Why do they teach you to put on your vest and learn to work your oxygen first? Because you can't help the person next to you unless you're prepared to do so. So, Natty, sorry, I just had to interject that.

So, hey.

Amen. We're just gonna.

Speaking of amen, I am amening every single day. As we get closer to mastermind, the UPP GrandMasterMind in Arizona, Natalie Lewis, Natty Lewis is going to be there live, expanding on sharing a lot more about the gold nuggets that she just dropped. And when you hear it live from Natty, it's even a better level. Not that today's level was a slack, don't get me wrong, that was phenomenal. So, Natty, if somebody is listening to everything that you're saying, the gold nuggets and the knowledge you're sharing, which, by the way, I got to add one other thing before I go there.

Well.

The other cool thing that you don't know about Natty Lewis and I want to share this because I admire her deeply for this is Natty takes this knowledge that she's gained over more than 25 years in EQ and helping people. And part of her heart service is in, shall we say, prison ministry. Natty, tell us just a little bit about that.

Yeah, so we take these same concepts and we. I get to go to the prisons once a week right Now I do six hours every Thursday. So three classes of 25 men at a time. And I teach them these same principles. We teach them the principles of what it feels like being emotional, being around people, how to be a person that you actually want to be and not just reacting to. To the environment around you or the. Or the person that you were told you were when you grew up and not allow labels and life and circumstances. I mean, you want to talk about the power of labels? Call somebody a number for 27 years and then see how they show up. And then wonder as a society why these guys don't re. Enter. Well, well, why we have such high recidivism rates. You want to talk about labels, call them an inmate 24 7. But nothing more than a number. And then hang a jacket or a list of their crimes on the door and then tell them that that's who they are.

This is we. We. This happens to us in society all the time, and it happens in the business world every day. We just don't see it because it's not as smacking us in the face as much as it is like a prison example.

Right, Right.

And it's a. It's a powerful thing. And I am so. I'm grateful every day for the opportunity that I get to do that, because it changes my life constantly that I am in constant state. I go there to teach, but I come away fed every time.

That's why you are in such great alignment with what we do, because our purpose is impacting people's lives personally and professionally. And you are doing that on a level that I've just continually admire that. Thank you for what you're doing there.

Thank you.

Natty, if somebody's hearing something that you said or did this morning and they want to learn more about Natal and Lois, how can they reach you?

Yeah, well, you're welcome to reach out to me on LinkedIn or on Instagram. It's Natty O. Lewis on Instagram.

Slow down. Say that one more time, please.

Addie O. Lewis on Instagram or on LinkedIn, you can reach me at Natalie Lewis. Natty Lewis is what you'll see in my profile. And one of the things that I would say is if you really want to reach out to me, come meet me. Personally, I. I'm so excited to be at the conference in Arizona in November. That's where I'd prefer to meet you, is face to face. And, and let's get some really good things going on. I. I am bringing the heat in November with my. With my favorite thing that I always saved till last. It's a course that I sell independently, and it's all on using emotions and human intelligence to understand how to be the most important, most predominantly Effective communicator in the hard spaces with your customers and with your agents and with your representatives. And it will serve you because it will teach you to communicate with your family, with your teenagers, with, with anything. So we're going to dig in and I'm super excited to bring that to the conference. Of all the things that I teach, it is the it. It is the number one thing when people review services at the end, they said that what that changed their life and their business. And I felt like it was in good alignment with what we do here in terms of wanting to change life and business. So that's the one I'm bringing to Arizona and I can't wait.

Well, it gets hot in Arizona sometimes, but the heat is definitely going up with Natty Lewis in the house. So come join us. Come experience good heat for your business, to grow your revenue, to increase your retention. That's why we are here to serve you. So again, up mastermind.com Lock your seat down. Up mastermind.com Natty Lewis, thank you. Thank you for joining us today. I can't wait to continue to work with you more and I will see you soon. If I could ever serve you in what you do in any way, you know how to get a hold of me.

I do. Thank you so much.

All right. Wow, ladies and gentlemen, was that incredible? So if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromso. I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency and industry. You can learn more about what we do@upplife.com upplife.com if you're interested in attending one of our live events, our next upcoming event is the live event uppmastermind.com by joining us, you'll learn how to grow your business, create wealth and have more freedom so you can live life on your own terms. We're going to pour into everything that we have Learned in our 35 plus years of growing multimillion dollar revenue independent insurance agencies. And we bring in incredible people to help fire the cause, so to speak, like Natty Lewis and many other agents who are going to be presenting at the event. Everything that we do is designed to share all of that wealth of experience. So join us, please. And if this is your first time on the podcast, please make sure that you go to Unstoppable Profit Podcast.

Go up to the top, click subscribe. And if you got great value out of this, and I recommend you do this, share unstoppable profit podcast.com unstoppable profit podcast.com with anybody that you know to help them and tell them to share this podcast with their team and have their team watch it like I talked about earlier. They will get great value and they will thank you again and again and again for bringing Natty to them. Amazing. Incredible. And the podcast also is. And make sure you click subscribe at the top. The podcast is available on all the podcast channels, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, our YouTube channel and more. We are grateful and thankful that you joined us today, Natty Lewis. Thank you again, my friend.

Thank you. Such a pleasure. Good luck to everybody out there. Go build.

Go build. Go help somebody else. Go help them emotionally. It will pay back. It will come back to you. I better said, it will come back to you in spades and beyond. And bigger than that, as you know, everybody knows a hundred other people that would either come to their wedding or come to their funeral. It will help them too. So go make a difference in this world like Natty is and so many other incredible people. And until the next episode, thank you again. We're here to serve you. Have a phenomenal one of a kind day and go make a difference in somebody's life today. We'll see in the next podcast.

Do you love the podcast but don't know where or how to get started? Visit www.upplife.com that's u p p l I f e.com to learn more about our coaching and mastermind programs and how you can join our community of growth oriented agency owners today.