You Are An Example To Others

We're going to call this one, you're an example to others, whether you like it or not. I tell this to Riley a lot since he's coaching. Always remember the good coaches and the bad coaches. He had be more like the good coaches. Don't be like the bad coaches. Look at the examples. They said, use those for good and bad. And what kind of made me decided to do this one was I had one of my reps come in yesterday. He's got to be a personal friend over 20 years. And he randomly said, hey, can I come by? And he knows I'm not normally in the office on Wednesdays, but I said, sure. He's a good rep and one of our bigger companies and a good friend. So we're sitting there talking, and he never talks much about insurance. It's always, we talk a lot about personal stuff. But he randomly said, hey, I wanted to tell you that you really influenced me and kind of helped change my life. And I was like, that's weird. We've known each other a long time. He's like, remember when you had us out to your house? They wanted to come see the alpacas. And we ran into them at Priors one Sunday night when the next day was like a holiday, I think, or something. And I said, hey, come back to the house. You can see our alpacas. And I took him upstairs and I showed him my library and, you know, showed him the balcony, and I was kind of telling him what I do. He started asking me questions about, you know, my day or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, get up. I read and pray and then get to work and do some stuff like that. Didn't think nothing of it. That's been a while ago. And he's like, that really changed my life. He said, I just thought I was addicted to chaos. And he said, I thrived on the fact that I never had a plan and never was organized. And he said, after that, I thought, well, I'll give that a try and, you know, get. Organize my day. So we started getting up earlier. He walks, he reads. And he said, it's changed his life and how everything goes. He said, you know, instead of being some unorganized person and just running through the day with no battle plan, he gets up every day, does the same thing, repetition. He said, I feel like a million dollars. He's. He's exercising more, reading more, learning more. He says, make him a better person. And that was just for me, reflecting on some things that I do. And it made me feel Good. You know, that's when someone says that. So always think about that. All three of you will be in a position to influence others through your actions, whether you like it or not. Sydney's a nurse. As you grow, you'll be influenced by older nurses and have some mentors, hopefully. But then as you grow in your position, you'll influence a whole generation of nurses and medical staff, including other people, not just nurses, but all the. There's so many staff. Always be nice to people and that's a tough one. But how you handle yourself and treat your people below you and protect the people below you from others will influence lots of people, Jack. Hopefully being self employed, but even I've already heard you talk about some influence you have over these young guys in your VO tech program who don't know their head from their ass. And you and Franklin have been doing this for a while, so you said sometimes you have to kind of show them what's going on. They look up to you whether you like it or not. So you need to be aware of that influence you have. And of course, Riley, as a teacher and then as a coach, tremendous influence. Coaches can change a kid's life by how they treat them or the opportunities they give them. So always be aware of that. Anything you do. You know, we've talked about how people view you when you show up in that first impression. But also, just as you work in your daily life and help people out, you just never know what kind of impact you're going to have on someone. So always try to make it a positive one, of course, and think about people and what they're doing in their own shoes. I mean, I did have another one. I had some buddies that I've kind of casually known for, you know, five, seven, eight years, asked me about helping them. They asked me to lunch. They wanted to talk about AI, which we've. I always chime in on, on these calls we're in. And they wanted to hire me. And I'm like, well, guys, I'm not for sale. Not at the way that Rachel wouldn't pay me. I said, but I'll be glad to help you out. You don't have to pay me to do this. And we've been talking and I was like, just tell me your problems. And they were talking about some stuff and they had this huge building that's mostly not used and they were asking about that. And I said, you want some hard truth? Sell that thing, but get rid of it. Go work from home or get an office space like I have, like, a smaller space. It's killing you. It's crushing your profit line. I said, so that's what. That's some hard advice from Mr. Russ. And about six weeks later, I got a call from one of the guys wanting to meet again. And I couldn't for a little bit. He said, hey, guess what? We took your advice. We sold the building. That was some hard advice and harsh advice that kind of stunned them. And apparently they took it to heart, went back, put that damn thing on the market and sold it quickly. And they're like, it's such a burden off of us. Huge payment. Having to try to rent parts of it out that weren't occupied by their insurance office and allowed their staff. They got a much smaller office, allowed their staff to work from home part time, and made everyone really happy. So you just never know with what you say and how it can influence people. So always try to be as positive as possible. I'm reading a book right now. It was written in the 40s about selling. But the guy pushes the Socratic method of questioning. So he always asks people, why. When you're talking to someone, instead of trying to correct them or hit them head on, just say, why? Why would you do that? Because they were telling me things, these insurance guys, about how their profit was being crushed. And I'm like, well, why staffing? Okay, you should use virtual assistants and lean into AI. You know, why? What else? And they're like, well, we have this huge building that's just killing us. I was like, simple, sell it next. And, you know, apparently they've taken a lot of the heart. We're going to meet again when I have about three or four hours. Our last lunch lasted three and a half hours. It was a little longer than I expected, but it was nice talking to them. So always be aware of what and how you can impact people. Try to make it a positive one. Everyone has bad days, but, you know, I've been married 28 years. There's been lots of bad days. There's lots of good days. You're not always nice to each other, but you've got to come back around. But just be aware of that all three of you in your positions are going to be such influences and hopefully being raised by us, taking it my advice to be better people than me, you will have these positive influences on people that you work with and make the world a better place.