Russ Lowry uses Yoda's 'there is no try, do or do not' to argue for total commitment over half measures. He left Farmers Insurance to burn the boats on his own ventures, and says the same applies to careers, business, and relationships.
Another quote I saw that I really liked said, whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, in most instances, you'll be right. So we'll call today's talk since I know you guys are such Star wars fans, what Yoda said, because to relate this to, you know, especially Riley, whenever Yoda told Luke, Luke said, I'll try to do this. And he said, there is no try. There's do or do not. That's what so many people in life do. They say, I'll give this a try. So what you're doing when you say, I'll give this a try is you're telling yourself, I've given myself all the excuses if I fail, and I don't want to put it out there that I'm going to succeed in case I don't. So you're really almost setting yourself up for failure. So I tell that to young ages who say, hey, I might give insurance a shot. Don't worry about it. I don't want guys are going to give it a shot. I want guys who say, I'm going to walk in and I want to knock this thing out of the park. You have to have confidence in yourself. I know it's hard, but say you're going into your career, maybe you choose a certain path and you're like, well, I think I'll. I'll do this niche in my field. I'll give it a shot. I might go to class. I might do some training. You're already setting yourself up for failure, so change your attitude and say, I think I'm going to do this, or I know I'm going to do this. I'm going to take all the classes. I'm going to ace the test and I'll be xyz. And that can go for anything. You know, Jack's got a lot of testing in his business. I haven't heard him say, I hope I pass. I might end up having to go back and do something else. He's like, I'm going to study and pass my test, and then I'm going to pass my next test. He's all in. At least so far, many of you have done this. You talked about your career fields and you need just the whole purpose of this talk to that quote hit me. It's just because, like I said, everybody gives themselves excuses. Don't give yourself excuses to fail. Give yourself reasons to win. Go into any situation saying, I'm gonna do this. This would especially be true in marriages. I'm not a big Fan of prenuptial agreements. I'm like, so basically you're saying I'm probably going to fail. I'm gonna hedge my bets so I feel good about myself. If I it didn't work out, I can just leave her and no harm, no foul. We all, you know, we have it all set in stone about how we're gonna leave while in business. I do talk about honeymoon phases and agreeing to stuff in personal life. I don't believe in that. To me, that's setting yourself up for failure or going in thinking it's going to fail. So always just whenever you do something, go all in, a hundred percent, don't give yourself excuses like so many people do today. I've seen so many folks going into business doing something and they have a whole list of excuses why it might not work in a bag on their shoulder ready to pour out and when it doesn't, versus a whole list of, here's how I'm going to accomplish this goal, here's how I'm going to do this. I rarely see that with people. I just talked to a client yesterday. He's starting a new venture on top of his current business and it was like, well, I hope this works out. I was like, holy cow, you've got a successful business now. He had no business plan, no idea how this thing was going to go, except that he was going to give it the old college try. But he had his business to fall back on. He said, it's bound for failure, doomed for failure. I almost don't want to write the insurance, but he's a good client so I'll do him the favor of doing that. But don't go through life giving yourself excuses. Do it or don't, don't just half ass. It basically would be what I would say. So hopefully this helps you. You think about going in to do something, watch this video again and hopefully it makes up your mind to be all in. Lastly, one thing I say because I've done this. When I left Farmers Insurance, I wrote my resignation letter and it's what I call burning the boats. I didn't give, you know, my independent agency was getting set up, I had my contracts, I knew what I wanted to do and I burned the fucking boats. I didn't give myself a chance to go back to Farmers. I wasn't mean about it, but I wrote a resignation letter and said, I'm done, I'm moving on. Goodbye. Thanks for the memories. I have a new business and it was shocking to my district manager but some people would have tried to live in both worlds for a while or not quite. Burn the boats. My famous saying is my buddy always mentions this. Burn the boats. Don't give yourself a choice. Go forward. All in.
