Be the One: The Leadership Mindset That Changes Everything | Karl Sherrill

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for insurance agency leaders to raise the bar, to improve your standards, and to aspire to become a best version possible leader leading a best version possible agency. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host. Delighted today to have a fantastic guest, and we're going to dive into the nuggets of leadership. And, you know, we'll see where this goes. I know it's someone that I highly respect in the industry. His name is Carl Sherrill. He's the Chief Development Officer of High Street Partners. I know he's in the great state of North Carolina today. So first of all, Carl, welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast.

Thank you, Brent. Equally looking forward to this as well. So excited to spend some time with you today and talk a little bit about one of my favorite topics.

Yeah, it's, I'm sitting here today and like, this is all a podcast on leadership and I'm bringing in a leadership guy, and I was looking at your background all the way back to Eagle Scouts, right? And just leadership, leadership, leadership. So we'll probably go all over the place, but you've got great experience in the industry. Before I dive in and pique my curiosity by asking you questions, Carl, give the audience just a little background on who you are and how you got to where you are today.

Well, thanks, Brent. I've spent probably 20 years of my professional working career in leadership and various different roles and being led and also leading, which gave me some great insights. First in the manufacturing world, which is what I grew up in. I, I live and, uh, was raised in Hickory, North Carolina, right at the foothill of the mountains in North Carolina. And in that area, uh, my family business, we were in the textile and furniture business. My whole family worked in that space. And so I grew up in it. I worked in it. I went to school at NC State and, uh, have a degree from the College of Textiles there, both a master's and undergrad in leadership and management of textiles, and was gonna be leading operations and leading mills and Did that for a while, actually, uh, right outta school. Was fortunate enough to work for Burlington Industries and really started out as a, a supervisor on a night shift. And boy, I, I can go down a lot of, a lot of rabbit trails about all the leadership lessons that were learned as a 21-year-old fresh outta college, trying to lead a department of 75 mountain guys from Northern Virginia and thinking I knew everything and learning quickly that I didn't know anything. And the lessons that I learned from those days at night to And, uh, so anyway, that, that's where I started. And then that path eventually led me to the opportunity to join a, a private insurance agency in Greensboro, North Carolina known as Sindun Insurance. And the, the path to insurance is, as many people's path is often winding. There's a few people that go to school in an RMI program and land there, but many of us land there eventually. And my winding path included, uh, going back to school, was working on my MBA at Elon and the CFO of Sindun at the time. Also was in that same program. She and I became really good friends. And for 3 years, which is how long the program went, she invited me into the business. And for 2 years and 3 quarters of a year, I turned her down. And, you know, kind of said, I don't, I appreciate it, but I don't know anything about insurance. Candidly, my perception of insurance people is not great anyway. And so to her credit, she continued to push and eventually I took her up on the opportunity to meet the team. And realized what many of us realize. And for me, I wish I had learned it much earlier when she first invited me, that it was nothing that I thought it was going to be. And what it was, was an opportunity to help people just in a different way. So that was my introduction into the business. Started as a commercial P&C producer at that agency. Also had the opportunity to put together the idea behind and lead the practice group there. Eventually that agency joined the Marsh McLennan Agency Group. I stayed on with them. Timing was fortunate for me. They had not started their national practice groups yet. And so they asked me and a good friend of mine still to this day, a counterpart with the legacy Barney and Barney Group on the West Coast, if the two of us would build and lead a national manufacturing practice. So did that for MMA and continuing that entire time to be a producer. So I was still with production responsibility and having to go out and sell insurance and service my clients and manage the leadership side of that. And then eventually through MMA, I was able to work with young producers. I was, got to be involved in the rebuild of the sales training program there, which was a really, real educational time for me. And then met the team at High Street and really fell in love with the story of what Scott Wick, our founder, was building, his idea behind how we could be a community agency of choice. And we didn't have to be small, we could be big, but we could still be in our local communities and operate. And so that led me to where I sit today, which is leading our producer development efforts, a part of our enterprise growth team and leading new partnerships, working with new prospective agencies that, that are You know, deciding who, what their next step is and would that step include high street and, and leading teams still today. And so, that's a lot. But, that's a pretty quick story of how a guy that grew up in a manufacturing world in Hickory, North Carolina.

Yeah.

Uh, now lives in High Point, North Carolina and, and travels around the country getting to lead teams and meet prospective new agencies.

No, it's incredible, uh, Carl, and it's a great story. I was kind of chuckling to myself like you probably had this all figured out right at the end of mind from day one. Right?

Right.

Yeah.

I, I've drawn the, I've drawn the path on a board before when I talk to people. And it's like, you know, for people that get discouraged when their path doesn't go from A to B like they planned it, man, my path has got so many twists and turns and backwards and forwards and yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's cliché. You never know, right? Where that path leads and the deposits, the learning, the skills, the experience, the people along the way. You never know.

You never know.

Yeah. You never know. And I think there's so much there for me to, I want to dive into. And I was kidding Carl before we started recording. I said, yeah, we'll be here 3 or 4 hours. And I was joking. Now I'm like, well, maybe we should be. No, we, We won't do that. But regardless of what hit me, Carl, regardless of your background in different industries, right? And kind of coming from one side into the insurance industry, the thing that hits me is the bottom line is it's people, right? I mean, you know, leadership is about people. And in fact, and I don't know if you agree with this or not, I think it's more than just this, but I, I've always believed that leadership's number one goal or responsibility is to grow and develop your number one asset, which is your people. And there's a lot of different methods and ways and all that kind of stuff. And so I guess This is a very high-level question, but start here. What does leadership mean to you, Carl? When you think of leadership, what jumps out at you?

It's changed, obviously, as my life experience has impacted the way that I view the world.

Yeah.

I think the consistency, if I think about it over time, for me was always, um, I, I, I just truly believe that in general, people's default is to do a good job and to make the world a better place. And so for me, when someone is not operating in a way that is, that is consistent with that thought process, there's something going on. And so as a leader, I want to provide an environment where their most natural self, which I do believe for most people is to do a good job and to be happy and contribute to the team in a positive way. If that's not happening, I want to try to, I want to be able to take a step back and think, am I providing the right environment as a leader for them to be in that good natural state that they want to be in? And there's a lot of books you can read about this, and I've read a lot of them, but at the end of the day, when people are operating in their space, Then they just do better. Their life is better personally. They contribute better. They're a better team member. There's a book by Ken Robinson called The Element, and Ken's a very, he's done a lot in the education space, but he basically is talking about when you put people in their element, they thrive. And so, listen, as a leader, sometimes that means also recognizing that someone is in a place that they're not thriving. And that might mean, and a lot of times, especially in the sales world, You know, not everybody can be a successful salesperson, but a lot of people want to be. And so sometimes we will let them tread water and try for a really long time when, when I think sometimes as leaders, we have to be honest to say, this isn't their element. They'd be happier if we could get them into their element and let me help them get there. The unfortunate part of that as a leader is that oftentimes means they're not going to be able to be a part of your team anymore. They may not be able to be a part of your organization. You may not have that place where they can thrive. And so those are hard decisions. I firmly believe though that we owe it to people to not let them tread water, like put them somewhere where they could swim and enjoy swimming. And like, that's, you know, if you tread water for more than about 10 minutes in a pool, it's not a lot of fun actually. So I think for me, leadership is trying to find a way to get people into a space where they can thrive.

I love that. I was just on a coaching call this week with a different group and they were talking a lot about their environment, right? And I mean, it's basic as it is, but yeah, your treading water analogy is great. It's just like you put a fish in there, they do well. You put some animals in there just trying to hang on, but it's like, well, I can do it. I can do it. So I want to ask, uh, this podcast is for agency leader and leadership teams and Carl, you've, you know, you've been in it. And so I want to get a little more tangible or tactical on this question. I think you said something really profound. And I think in the insurance world, we see this a lot. I know you see this. I see it where I want to be that producer because it's cool. It's got good status. There's money, but quite frankly, I'm not in my, I got to read that book, My Element. How do you approach those conversations? I know it varies. It depends, but like, what have you found, Carl, to be able to have, again, candid? I love what you said. We owe it to them. Like, what are some things that you've done to have quality conversations with people to meet them where they are and to be honest and truthful and to help them find their element, their environment?

I think. Um, there's a couple components to it. I, I, I believe in profile testing. I don't care how you do it and I don't care which one you do. I think they all have value, but I think you should consistently use the same one and be able to, be, be able to overlay, um, some profile testing around the kind of profile that is successful in the opportunity, right?

Mm-hmm.

And, and, and every agency's gonna be different because my profile for a salesperson in our agency is very different than the profile of an agency like MMA where I came from. Like, it's, It's a little different. So like you have to get it consistent. I think it starts at the very beginning of the conversation of being very clear about what the expectations are, being transparent about what the job is going to be. And that's the good, the bad, and the ugly of what this job is as a producer specifically.

Mm-hmm.

And then I think coaching along the way to make sure that we're paying attention to speed bumps, obstacles, slowdowns, places where we see trouble with the producer. early on, those don't normally go away. It's usually a behavioral thing that is causing the issue. And if we don't track it and hold accountable and coach to it, that issue doesn't go away unless we help them change their behavior. So for example, if we're not adding prospects to the pipeline on a regular basis, it's not because they don't know they should do that typically. So it's not me telling them to do it. And that's, I mean, that's not the problem usually. The problem is behaviorally, there's something happening that's preventing them from doing something they know they should be doing. So how do we dig in with them to decide whether or not that's an issue that we can help coach and train to move past? Or is there something in there that's deeper than that, that I'm not gonna be able to move you past? And if so, we should start talking about that really early, what that expectation is so that you can help me understand why you're not meeting that expectation so that 3 months in, we can say, I don't think this is gonna work.

Mm-hmm.

Versus the, the kind of what I'll call the traditional insurance agency. model in the past where, well, we're gonna pay you 100% commission. We're gonna give you a phone book and hope you can make it. And we'll check back with you and no skin off our back if you don't, because we're, you know, if you can live on no money, we don't care and doesn't cost us anything. Right. So, um, I think to me, I think that's part of the way we, we wanna approach it. I wanna approach it. Um, look, I, and I'm a recovering producer. Like that's what, that's how I did it. And so I, I remember the nights where I went to bed worried about, am I gonna make enough money tomorrow to take care of what I need to take care of for my family? Did I do enough work today? Why didn't I do the work? And I, I just, I have compassion for that, but I wish too that people had come along earlier for me and held me really accountable to the behavior, not just the thing. Because if you, if you just said to me, you gotta add 10 prospects a week and that's our expectation, I probably would've accomplished that. But there still might've been a behavioral issue underneath that where it wasn't quality and it wasn't moving the needle. And so, uh, that's, that's how I kind of view it.

It's, it's great. Uh, no, I, I, I'm chuckling too, Carl, because I say that too. I'm a recovering producer and there's so many things from that side of things, right? Like, okay, I had some success, but what would have been possible knowing what I know now?

Yes.

Um, if I would've had the right guidance or course correction or again, behavior focused. And, you know, maybe this is a bad analogy, but I was thinking as you're saying that in my car, if I get in the head somewhere, my GPS, it doesn't like wait till you're 100 miles off course and says, hey dummy, you're in the wrong spot. Right. I mean, it's constantly, hey, you're off course, get back on. And I, I kept hearing in what you're saying, it's just the, it's the consistency in the coaching.

Yes.

Around that.

And, and I think too, Brent, I had a, I was fortunate in my early career with the agency that I started at. Um, they had a really great sales culture, great sales leadership. Like it was a really, it was a good environment to start out in. Um, but, and having that camaraderie of other people around me that were going through that same struggle was a, was a real big piece of helping me do the hard things. Um, but, but it still took me a long time to really get good at those hard things. And, um, the hard things for me are not the same for other people. Some people don't mind calling people cold. That's hard for me. Um, like that's something I had to really work at. So, um, anyway.

Yeah, no, I love it. Um, you've got something, and again, if I get this wrong, tell me. Um, you talk a lot and you were kind of getting to it about execution, right? Like there's knowledge and there's execution. Um, so, um, what for you is that kind of that bridge between knowing And then executing the thing that you are looking to actually accomplish.

Yeah, it's funny. I was telling somebody the other day, I sat through a presentation recently, um, and it was at a conference. I'm involved in the Big I across the country and North Carolina. And there was a presentation that was given and there normally, this is one of the topics at all the conferences, which is how to take producers from good to great, how to make them elite, how to move them forward. And, and it struck me as I was watching the presentation. That is the exact same 15 slides that I have seen since I joined the industry in 2008. The, the, the knowing, the knowledge of what to do to make producers successful and be great. Those slides haven't changed in the 16 years I've been in the business. They haven't. So, but, but the room was full of people feverishly taking notes on the slides. And so I just was this dynamic that struck me. I was like, it's not a knowledge problem. It's an execution problem. And, and so the way that I think about that is, all right, let's make sure we acknowledge the things that we agree are the things that will make you successful. And that's for every team is probably a little different, but there's also some commonality there. But then the execution piece is we gotta hold each other accountable to executing. And, and whether that's leadership and whether that's a sales leader, a coach, an agency leader, individual sales team members together with each other. Like, unless somebody holds me accountable to executing regularly, I, I don't, I'm, I'm probably not gonna do it. And then number 2, the other piece is I think execution for me is, and my team, we talk about this, you, you wanna be a little better every day. And so sometimes we pick this big goal and we're at the end of the road is the goal, the destination, and the, the path to get there seems so impossible that our normal default in our head is to just not do it. Or our brain starts to work against us because we're like, well, that seems impossible. So these little things, I don't get it. So we try to back up to say, all right, let's back into what's the very first thing you have to do? What's the second thing? What's number 3 on the list? I don't care if there's 20 steps, let's just do number 1 first and let's do it successfully. Let's do it consistently and let's make it a part of our routine. Then we'll focus on number 2. And, and just, if you think, when I, for me, when I think about small steps over time, It's less of a, uh, my mind doesn't get as defensive about it. Um, 'cause I think, you know what, I can get up 10 minutes earlier every morning. Um, now getting up an hour and a half earlier every morning seems like a big deal. Um, what's ironic is, um, when I made a decision to get up 10 minutes earlier every morning, um, it turned into, um, getting up at 4:30 or 5 every morning, right? Like it, you see the benefit, it builds on itself, behavior begins to change. And so, um, that, that to me is a little piece of that from an execution perspective. As leaders, Brent, we have to have, it's back to the environment too. I also have to be aware, am I putting them in an environment that will give them the best chance of being successful? Yeah.

Well, I've got so many thoughts and follow-ups to that because it's so good, Carl. But, um, the word I wrote down on top of my page and love to get your thought, like those are again, small wins that build confidence too. Right. And I think of the, you know, the insurance world, especially if you're, you know, doing larger commercial or larger EB books, like it's a long sales cycle. Right. As, as one example. So I love that, like, you know, to be better every day and, and getting those wins. And just one more comment too. I had a chuckle as you were saying about, you know, accountability as part of that. Comparatively, I'm in pretty decent shape for my age, right? And where I'm at, but I hired a fitness coach last week. And, and it's because I know there's more and I want to perform better. And, uh, the coach I was talking to, he's like, Brent, you don't need to do more stuff and you know exactly what to You know every training program, you know all this. He goes, it's execution. So we're going to start by like, let's just get your protein right every day. That's it. And I've done it for 4 or 5 days and I'm like, I've done pretty good. And it like leads to the next, the next, the next.

Yes.

But I think what you said there is so important. Of course, the thing I wrote down, we don't have a knowledge problem. We have an execution problem.

Yep. I'll give proper credit to the person that kind of changed my philosophy on this idea, which is a guy named Jake Thompson. He's got podcasts and he's got his business. The company's called Compete Every Day. He's a good friend and been a good partner of mine. We developed our relationship online originally, just following him and appreciating what he put out. But that's his whole mantra, and it helped change me. I'm a routine person. Most people that know me know that routines matter.

Mm-hmm.

And that is because what I learned about myself is that if I do not have a routine and I leave it up to chance or myself, it's going to kind of be a hodgepodge, and there'll be a, sometimes I'll hit it right and And sometimes I will miss miserably and everything in between where, where these routines help me. It's, it's amazing what you learn about yourself and how better you are from doing a routine. It just, it makes a difference. And so that's where that, how do I get better every day? By, for me, it is, I'm going to do my routine and I'm going to be willing to modify my routine, but I'm going to do a routine every day. And all of a sudden what happened, Brent, is I would stop Forgetting to follow up with a prospect that was a good one that wanted me to call them back a year later because of the sales cycle in our business. But oops, I missed the window and now I have to go a whole nother year before it's a real prospect again. And, and I, and more than I want to admit that happened in my early producing career. Well, that was a function of, I didn't have a good follow-up plan. I didn't have a routine where I checked calendars every morning, like just basic stuff that seems crazy and easy. But it made a really, it had huge impacts, those little steps.

Yeah. It's, you know, and obviously you're a recovering producer. So am I, right? I think of leaders, entrepreneurs, producers in particular. I mean, they're going to create enough chaos and distractions in their own life, right? It's just, there's always ideas of what about this? And that's what makes them really good. But at the same time, to say I've got routines and processes, which my guess is you may not be like a process, like it's not like your, your DNA, but you realize it's what supports everything else that Yeah.

And I think recognizing that I'm easily distracted, and you can call that whatever you want, right? But I'm recognizing that I'm easily distracted, recognizing that I'm pretty emotional as a leader. So emotion can drive me to places that aren't necessarily the right priority sometimes that I had to. And again, candidly, life experience personally over time. Like eventually I tell people, early on in life, it's you and the wife and you don't have kids. And so there's a whole different experience around how you view the world versus you have children, then your children go through things, and then You go through things as you get older and people around you go through things. And so you begin to be different. And that difference for me became, I know this about me now. So therefore, in order to keep me in the right direction, I do need a routine of some kind. I do need certain guardrails around my behavior so that I can show up the best for whoever needs me that day.

Yeah. Yeah. It's obviously there's time experience and you know what I'm getting out of some of this conversation I wasn't expecting, but There's an authenticity, right? Like authenticity of having real conversations with people and being honest to who they are and where they are. Being really honest with yourself. You know, I got lots of ideas. I'm scattered. That's kind of who I am. I think this is how I'm wired. Now I got to create systems around it versus trying to pretend I'm something I'm not. Going back to your element environment, I think those are so important.

Yeah. And I can specifically There's specific moments in time I remember in my professional and personal life, but professionally too, in the agencies where if someone would come along to me and shut the door and sit down and say, hey, just want to make you aware, just so you, eyes wide open on this. You were doing this or you were doing that, and here's the way I viewed that. And maybe my view's not right, but I just want you to be aware. And I can remember those leaders in those exact moments when they came in and said that to me and how that put me on a different path. And they probably didn't, it was inconsequential at the time. They were just being really nice. Like they probably don't even remember that, but I do remember it. It was something that I clung to that was like, oh, you know what? I'm so glad they said that to me. Now, in the moment, I may not have appreciated it like I do with hindsight, right? Like in the moment, I, in fact, I know at times I was defensive about it or I had a good excuse for why they were wrong, but time helped me see. Yeah, but I do appreciate that. That makes a lot of sense now that I am leading other people and now that I see it in myself. So yeah.

That's great. I also had a thought that came to my mind, Carl. It's like when you're about being honest with yourself, looking at yourself in the mirror every day, right? That's one thing. But I'm thinking a lot of times coaches and leaders, they give you different angles of the mirror. Like, oh, I didn't see it that way. I thought that was looking pretty good.

And now that I see it over here, You got a point, you know?

So it's different perspectives, different angles to look at things. I want to make sure we get into this because you, you put a lot of time into this concept of be the one. Yeah. Tell the audience about that. Where did that come from? What does it mean? And, and just give some overview on that concept of be the one.

So thanks for the opportunity to share that, Brent. I, I, uh, I shared a little bit about how personal experience has shaped me. And so as I look at it, I have, uh, one of my, I have 3 kids, 3 great kiddos. 25, 23, and 20 years old. They truly are the story of my life. And so for them, I had one of my children, my son, who has chronic health issues and has struggles and has had to deal with that. And so as a dad, that showed up in middle school with him. There's no playbook for people, just as there isn't for being a leader in the business. Sometimes leading at home also is a little gray because the playbook that you see presented to you by the world is a pretty easy, straightforward playbook that doesn't include any bumps in the road.

Hmm.

Right? Like, and so when bumps in the road show up, we don't talk about it. We don't have the book for it. We don't, that's not the thing we share about. Like it's this whole kind of mentality of, I'm, I don't know what's happening. And so as we went through that together as a family, what I noticed throughout that period for him was there were people that came along that, that had positive impact on him in very small, minor ways. But they made huge impact to him. And there were also equally people who came along during that time in our lives that did things that had negative impact. And, and, and this is not to, to put anybody out. I, I don't, I believe they weren't aware of the negative impact. I think many times we do stuff sometimes that we don't just think about the impact it could have on somebody. And there's a lot we could go into with that, but, but seeing how that impacted him moved me to a place of. Seeing the world differently, prioritizing things differently, and also recognizing that I, I want to be some of those people who showed up in his life and had a really incredible impact by just being kind, by just giving him the benefit of the doubt, by just showing a little bit of grace when he needed it, right? Those were the people I wanted to be. And when I looked at who I was every day, again, I go back to, I'm distracted, I'm emotional. Like, so if I, if I get up every day and just allow the world to dictate how I'm going to respond. I'm going to react. I don't know how I'm going to react, but I think some of the time it won't be a good reaction. And so that's where I kind of thought about, I want to be the one that makes a difference in people's lives. I want to be the one that has an impact in a positive way, no matter what they're going through. And so how do I do that? Well, it's a lot of what we talked about. I got to have routines. I got to tee myself up. I got to be ready to show up the best available version of myself every day. So there's lots of things I do to do that. And then I kind of came up with this philosophy of, and in insurance we like to keep it easy and we like to use acronyms. So I was like, all right, let's, if I want to be the one, what can I do with that? And I just realized for the one is own yourself. So the O is for own yourself. You got to get control of who you are. You got to own yourself. You got to be, you got to get that under control so that you can then nurture others, which is what the N is, right? So if I'm showing up and owning myself, I can be my best best version, I'm ready now to nurture others. And so I want to help others be that best version of themselves. I want to help them by being a positive impact in their life. And then if I'm doing those things really well, I'm going to be able to and want to expand my influence. How can I expand my influence in a way that will help others also be positive impacts to people? We, everybody you interact with, you just think about during the day, every interaction you have every day, just, and I'm just talking about like, just you, you lock eyes with somebody and you, you, you You either nod at 'em or you don't, right? But you think about every interaction as an opportunity to have an impact. And you can be a positive impact, you can be a negative impact. You can also be a neutral impact. Um, and, and where you just, you just don't have an impact. Um, and, and so, um, I just want to be set up to be positive. Um, and I walk through airports, I'm in airports every week. I fly all the time with my job. Um, and I look through and it is all heads down in our phones, the entire population in that airport. Um, and, and it's just all these missed opportunities to interact with people. But if I don't own myself, I'll do that too. I get off the airplane and I'm checking my phone and I'm doing this and I'm thinking so, but because I'm thinking about this topic now more than ever and talking to people about it, now when I get off the airplane, I put it in my pocket. And it seems weird and simple. It's also extremely hard to do. Putting your phone away is one of the most difficult tasks I have every day. It's terrible. And there's a lot of science to this that's, I think, almost criminal to what they did to us with social media and with their phones. But But anyway, so that's how I thought about this was own yourself so that you can nurture others in a really good way and you can expand your influence in a way that allows us to, let's just, it's, for example, with my son, there were days where he wasn't going to turn in a middle school homework assignment. And that's okay. It's in the scheme of things, it's okay if he didn't do it that day. He's having a horribly tough day. Like that's the bottom of the list, right? So that same person that wasn't my son in those moments, and still to this day, to some degree, is still that person. Those are all the people we're leading in our teams. Same struggles, same issues, different varying levels of severity. But I, you know, it's, I just know that I can sometimes prob— I believe in my heart that I can walk through an airport, somebody looks at me and I could smile at them, and that might be enough for them to believe there's enough reason to keep going for the rest of that day.

Wow.

So there's be the one.

No, I will tell you, Carl, I mean, first of all, absolutely, absolutely love it. Um, kind of felt, I mean, there's vulnerability, there's a lot of raw, real emotion. I'm feeling that with that. And, uh, yeah, I think about you go through life and different experiences and yeah, this is a professional leadership podcast, but let's face it, we're leading people in our families and, you know, down the street and who knows, right? At airports every single day. And the one, I mean, all that love, own yourself, nurture others, expand. my influence, that own yourself. And you've mentioned a couple of times, it's, it's so true. It's a lesson more than anything I've learned the last 2 years, Carl, is that like, if I don't, and I'll use my regulate or own myself or get myself in the right state of mind, I simply can't. I'm too busy reacting to things, right? And my own, well, this or whatever. And I mean, I mean, I could think at home, you know, that the mornings where I haven't owned myself and then every little thing that my kids do is a problem.

Right.

Right. And I'm not present. I'm reactionary.

That's right.

And if you're not right, it's just easy to get reactive. And you think about that with your team every day and what they're going through.

So it's, again, we lead real people, right? So the human condition is who we're leading. So to pretend that that human condition is not the same as the thing that we're dealing with, with our families, inside of our families, inside of our friendship groups like that, Everybody is facing similar things. I don't know what their struggle is sometimes, but I, I, but I, I know that I can be positive about something. I know there's a way that I can impact that. And, um, the more that I share the story, the more I'm vulnerable about it, the more people step up and raise their hand to me and say, you know what, I'm going through that with my son right now. And I had no idea that other people have to deal with that. I didn't, I didn't appreciate that. I didn't. And, and, and I, you know, sometimes they just need to hear that, hey, if, if, if your kid's late to school, in the 5th grade, it's okay. Like at the end of the day, like there's a balance, obviously, like they can't be just for no reason, but like sometimes there's a legitimate thing going on that is more important in life than them making it to school at 8 o'clock in the morning. Like, yeah. And I struggle with that as it, I mean, that, that would cause a lot of animosity in our house sometimes in the morning. Cause I'm like, why aren't you in the car and what's happening and where are your shoes? And that whole story of that. But I, I want to, I want to lead at home really well. Because I believe I can be a much better leader at work if I do that.

Yeah. I just, and again, I'm sure, you know, the audience has different experiences, but you're right. I mean, so true with your team. But again, I just, I think of my family and all of a sudden I'm sitting here going, oh my gosh, you know, like the moments when, for example, maybe my, you know, my daughter's in a bad mood or whatever and not moving, like, let's go, whatever. And, you know, she got some mean texts from a friend and whatever, and she's going through whatever in her own mind. You know, now I jump on top of it versus just like, hey, you know, but if I don't own myself, that's not going to happen.

Yeah. And listen, and I, and I tell everybody that I talk to, I have a long, long, my story has a long, long history of failures in there, right? Like it's a product of many failures. And I'm at a point in my life where I want to get it right is more than I, more than wrong. Right. And so I've not always lived that way, but I am living that way today. And I'm hopeful that I can, I can that my team will want to do that too.

Yeah. Well, Carl, this has been incredible conversation. I have one more question for you. I want to respect your time, but I just, and kind of summarize it in my brain. I mean, again, there's so many words I could use, but this idea of awareness, I hope, you know, the agency leaders, again, we're talking about, you know, some personal and professional stuff, but like just to have a different level of awareness on those things. And Carl, I think you said it really well too, is that, you know, whether you've been leading yourself, your team, or you've been leading yourself your whole life, right? In different ways, but your team, your family, however many years it is, Whatever mistakes you made, those are opportunities to learn and grow. It doesn't define who you are. And I think that's for me personally, like, well, you know, I did that 15, that's okay. Like that's in the bank of knowledge and learning. Now, what are you going to do with that?

Right.

Right. We can change that trajectory of where we're at regardless of what stage we're in life or stage of leadership. So I just, that really rang true with me today, uh, Carl, as you shared that. So, here's a question I ask anyone who comes on this podcast. This is going to sound weird. Imagine that after this interview is over, right? You step out of your office or I don't know, heck, maybe the next trip to the airport that you go on, uh, you run face to face with the younger version of Carl. And, uh, that younger version of you looks at you and goes, hey, I only got about 30 seconds here before I gotta go. If you give me one piece of advice as I start off my career, my, my journey, what piece of advice would you give the younger version of yourself, Carl?

I think the thing that I've would tell myself, um, and I've heard it in different, presented different ways by different people, but, um, be really successful in the moment you're in. Um, be winning in that moment. Because I think early in my career, early in a lot of people's young careers, hmm, we're always thinking about where I'm going next. Like I was a, I was a night shift supervisor in a plant. I didn't enjoy that very much. So all I was thinking about was how do I get to day shift? And then when I got on day shift, I was thinking about getting to a different location and I was thinking about this and this and this. And the reality was at some moments in there, I was not excelling where I was. I was not being the best version of myself. I was not being successful, as successful as I could be. So just being the best you can possibly be at the job you're in today is the quickest path actually to all that other stuff. And so to me, that's what I would do. I would say to myself, hey, progress beats pride every time.

Hmm.

Just try to be really great at the job you've been asked to do right now. And then when you get another opportunity, go be great at that thing too.

Yeah. That's really good. Yeah. Powerful stuff. Um, I'm thinking about how many times, yeah, I was like, you know, whether it's in, in business or parenting or you name it, like, what's next? What's next? You know, what's the next vacation? What's the next promotion? What's the next sale? What's the next whatever? And then you miss it. Yeah. Right. You miss it. So, whew.

Yeah.

Uh, very good.

The present moment is just such a fleeting, valuable gift that we have, and we just have to take it for what it is. And so, yeah, that's my younger self could have benefited from that for sure.

Well, I just say, I, on behalf of the audience, I'll speak for myself here though, but I just, I thoroughly enjoyed this present moment, this conversation with you, Carl. You know, again, I know you're busy doing lots of stuff. If people want to reach out to you, connect with you, obviously I love your, you know, Be the One and that mission around it. Where can people find you and connect with you?

Yeah, probably the best way to keep connected with me is LinkedIn. That's my primary social media platform. And so that's a good way to connect there. My contact information is there. And so you're welcome to reach out by email as well. But that's probably a really great spot to start and then just kind of see where our relationship develops from there. But I appreciate the opportunity, Brent. I've been looking forward to this as well. So glad to have a chance to share with you some of our thoughts.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much, Carl. Yeah, connect with Carl. Just, I mean, obviously Someone who cares, who's passionate, and certainly a great leader. So it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Just a side note for all the agency leaders, if you are interested in learning more about how to become that best version possible agency, we have a lot of different talking points and things that are coming out here in the future. Just go to sitkins.com/bookacall, sitkins.com/bookacall. If you wanna have a conversation and learn more about us, we learn more about you and see if there's an opportunity for us to help you take that next level in your agency growth and development. So again, from my point, from Carl, thank you so much for being on here. We appreciate it. Wish you all the best in your success. Thanks for listening.

Thanks, everybody.

Hey there, agent leader. Brent Kelly here. Want to take just a few seconds to remind you that now is the time to create your true best version possible agency. If you go to sitkins.com/bookacallsitkins, Sitkins.com/bookacall. We'll get to know more about your agency, conduct an agency assessment, and provide your agency with a customized plan to help you avoid some of the pitfalls, frustrations, challenges, and roadblocks to get your agency to true ultimate freedom and become its best version possible. It all starts by going to sitkins.com/bookacall.