Cultivating an Environment of Growth

Foreign. Hey, Brent Kelly here and welcome back to another episode of the Agent Leader Podcast. I'm honored, delighted that you're with me today and really excited to share today's content on this episode, which is all about creating and cultivating an environment of growth. An environment of growth for you and an environment of growth for your agency. And before I dive into the today's content, I'm going to, I'm going to share three steps, three keys to help you create and cultivate an environment of growth, both yourself and certainly transferring that to your agency. Before I do that, I want to share something that's really important. If you have not looked at our profit net event or registered for our profit net event, what are you waiting for? This is going to be an amazing event. April 9th, 10th and 11th, Cape Coral, Florida. Beautiful surroundings. We're going to have amazing agency leaders at this event. We're going to be bringing in some influencers, high level speakers that are going to share really important concepts for you and your agency. I think what makes this event so unique and so exciting is that not only are we bringing the best of the best, right, the best agency leaders into one room, but we're going to be having specific topics that are the most important things as agency leaders can discuss. And we're going to be sitting in roundtables and we're going to be doing network events and we're going to be doing high level mastermind and we're going to be able to take this information that comes from coaches and speakers but most importantly comes from the agent leaders. The best, the best. And to be able to apply that as you go back to your agency. So very practical. Not theory, not concept, but real life information that you can take back and learn. You know, one thing that I always share in every mastermind and everything that I do where there's groups of people and people, ah, I don't know if I should go to this. Let me ask you a quick question. What's the value of one great idea? I think of the best idea you've ever had. What's the value of that? And so, you know, again, I know there's a lot of great events out there. I know that time is limited, I get all that. But if you can make it, it is worth your time. And one of the guarantees that we have is that if you attend this event and you don't increase your agency's revenue by 500,000, increase your agency's revenue by 500,000 the next year, we'll give you your money back. That's how confident we are with the people we have at this event and what you're going to take away when you, when you leave. So that's my scoop on profit net. If you haven't yet registered or looked at it, go to sitkins.com profitnet sitkins.com profitnet now with that, I want to get into today's content, which really kind of parallels what I've just talked about when it comes to networking, and that is the environment. Now, I grew up in central Illinois, and central Illinois is known for maybe a few things, but when it comes to our geography or our topography or the climate, it's pretty boring, right? If you've driven through central Illinois, you go, yeah, it's flat and it's boring. And we're known for a couple things. Wind, right? It's very windy. We have a lot of wind turbines. And, and we're known for really great soil, which leads to really great crops, right? There's a reason why so many beans and corn is all around you from spring to fall in Illinois, because we have great soil, we have a great environment for growth. And the reason why I share that is if you take corn and soybeans, for instance, and you try to plant them in Colorado or Alaska or Hawaii, you may have some moderate success, but they will not succeed like they will here, right? Because this is the right environment for that growth. And as an agency leader, it's your job and your responsibility to plant your people and plant yourself as an agent leader in the right environment for growth to get the best possible results. And so that's the question throughout this podcast that I'm going to ask you is are you planning yourself in an environment of growth? And by planning yourself in an environment of growth, are you willing and able to transfer that to your agency team? Because that is one of the key things that you need to do is put yourself in that environment of growth. And when I say growth, here's something that's really important for you to understand that to grow, right? To grow, which means to get what? Better, bigger, faster, stronger, whatever you want to say. To grow, you have to be willing and able to change. You have to be willing and able to make changes. And change is hard. I say this all the time. You, you know, most people don't resist change itself, right? If I could say, hey, I'm going to give you a half million dollars, you go, that's a great change. I'll take that change. However, here are some things that you're Going to need to do behavior strategies, habits to make that happen. Ooh, I don't like that. See, to grow, you need to change. And Robin Sharma, one of my mentors, I love Robin Sharma, has some great stuff. He says it so well. He says change is really hard at first. It's really messy in the middle, but it's glorious. It's beautiful at the end. And that's where you need to be as an agent leader. Understand that for me to make some of these changes and some of the things I'm going to talk about today, it's going to be really hard at first. It's going to be really messy and goofy and not pretty in the middle. But it's going to be glorious. It'll be worth it at the end if you're willing to do it. So let me discuss three steps or three areas that you need to look at for your environment of growth. How to grow yourself and cultivate this environment of growth. Number one is simply you need to assess your environment. Just assess your environment. You know, I think one of the favorite things I love to share is that experience is not the best teacher. Evaluated. Experience is the best teacher. I learned that from John Maxwell, and it's so true. Right. Think about it. Is experience a good teacher? Yeah, it is. Right. When you go through life. Well, I've learned a lot, but the people that move the fastest, that really grows, they don't just go through life, they grow through life. And how do they grow through life? They grow through life by evaluating what's happened, what's working really well, why is it working well, what's not working well, and why is it not working well? See, as an agent leader, you have that opportunity, and I think you really have the responsibility to evaluate your situation both personally and for your agency as you go. So first thing is to assess your environment. Are you putting yourself and your people in the best position to win? Are you in a growth environment? I'm going to share something at the end of this podcast, give you some questions to think about as you move forward. But are you personally, are you surrounding yourself with the right people? Are you learning the right things? Are you putting yourself in a position to win? So number one is simply assess your current environment. Take some time. Take some time today, tomorrow, and go, let me just assess where I'm at. Am I learning the right things? Am I around the right people? Am I putting myself in a position to win? Number two, and this goes along with number one, you start to think about this is you need to change who you spend time with. Change who you spend time with. This is one of the hardest things to do. Now, I don't know where you're at. I don't know who you hang out with, but I can tell you it's one of the most important things you need to think about. Jim Rohn says it so well. He says you are the average of the five people you hang out with most. You are the average of the five people you hang out with most. And I don't mean necessarily. You know, if you've got a family internally, of course you're going to hang out with them. I'm talking about in particular as an agency leader. Who out there in the business community are you hanging out with? What other agency leaders are you hanging out with? What coaches and mentors and people that are ahead of you in different areas in all walks of life, Right? Not just even business, but in all walks of life are you surrounding yourself and you're spending time with. Because that is so critical. And by the way, this may require you to reduce or maybe even eliminate some current relationships. And that's a really hard thing, isn't it? I can tell you that, you know, I've had friends who maybe I've lost contact with, some of it unintentionally, but some of it intentionally. You know, have you ever been around someone and go, why are we having the same conversation we did five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago? Like, I want to get better, I want to improve. I don't want to be the same person in 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 years that I am today. I hope that's not you. I know the agencies we work with and the agent leaders we work with, they're always striving to become a better version and the best version of themself. And to do that, they may have to reduce or eliminate some of the relationships that aren't serving them well. So the first thing is, okay, change the time or change who you spend time with, right? And be honest with that. And on the flip of that, who are some people you would like to spend more time with that you're currently not? Because maybe you're too busy spending time with people that you shouldn't be. So the first thing to think or after assessing your environment, number one, number two, is change you spend time with. So I would just ask you to really just write down who are the people I spent a lot of time with. Again, outside of maybe your immediate family, but in the business world, the business Community. Who are you truly spending time with? Who are you learning from? Who do you need to spend more time with? And who are people you need to reduce your time with? It's really important because they are huge influencers in your life and certainly for your environment, for your own personal environment, which you set the tone for the environment of your agency. So, number one, assess your current environment. Number two is change who you spend your time with. The last one is change what you feed your mind. Change what you feed your mind. Now we do training and speaking and all different events. One of the first things I ask, and by the way, I'm guilty of this many times as well, I've gotten better at it because I'm more intentional with it. But we'll be speaking at groups and I'll say, how many of you. The very first thing you do when you wake up is check your smartphone. And I would say 80 to 90% of hands always go up in the room, right? It's there, it's easy. Now. I don't know what people are doing with it. Most people are, you know, maybe checking email or looking at Facebook, checking the news, whatever it is, you know, different things. But what it is, it's reactive stuff that's, you know, for lack of better term, they're putting crap in their mind. The first thing they do when they wake up in the morning. And I will add news to that now, people say, well, Brent, I've got to know what's going on in the news. You know what? You can find out what's going on in the News in about 10 seconds. And by the way, most of it, you can't change. We can complain about it, but specifically in our own lives, what we have control of day to day, the people that we really can focus on. It's amazing to me how often we get caught up in what's going on across the world. And by the way, I'm not saying it's not important. I'm not saying to not ever make a difference in the world. That's not what I'm saying. But we have people right in front of us. Our family, our friends, our agency team members, the people that are counting on us. And we're less focused on them because we're complaining about what's happening across the world or in politics or whatever else may be. So change what you feed your mind is number three. And this is so critical. So everybody's got a different philosophy. But I would challenge you to have some type of morning routine when you wake up that you wake up intentional. And one of the favorite things that I use, and again, everybody's got different theories on this. You gotta find what works for you, is, I wanna spend some time in quiet thinking and reflection. Now, maybe you call that prayer. Maybe it's meditation. I wanna spend some time learning from something or someone. Podcast, video book, actual learning to improve. And I wanna move my body every morning. That changes my spirit, that changes my attitude. That makes me a better version. That's my model. But for you, my challenge to you, specifically the agent leader, is find something positive to put in your mind. Going back to Jim Rohn, he has a great line. It says, bread for the head. What's your bread for the head? Another author, and I'm totally. Oh, Tim Sanders. Tim Sanders said, feed your mind the good stuff, because we are what we think about. And maybe you say that's cliche, but we are what we think about. And every negative thing you throw in your mind, whether it's from someone or something, will affect you whether we like it or not, because our subconscious is very powerful. So change what you feed your mind. What books are you reading? I know we do training sessions. One of the things that always. Maybe it doesn't surprise me anymore, but we'll talk about different books, and I mean some very popular books and books that have been out forever and who's read this and who's read that. And most people are like, haven't really read a book. So what do you feed in your mind? There are so many podcasts, and I hope this podcast is valuable to you, but there's so many great podcasts. I love listening to podcasts in the shower when I work out, when I'm traveling, because it's always an opportunity, as what Zig Ziglar said, Automobile University. So when you're traveling, many of you are on the road or on planes or whatever the case may be. You can listen and learn as you go. I said earlier about our profit net, what's the value of one great idea? Think about what you can just pick up from podcasts. So these are my challenges to you. Again, three steps to create and cultivate an environment of growth for you and your agency. Number one is assess where you're at. Like, be honest with yourself. All progress starts by telling the truth. Is your environment an environment of growth or is an environment of stagnation? And be honest with yourself, both personally and for your agency. Number two is change you spend time with. Who are people who are not serving you well and who are people you would like to follow, to be with, to spend time with, to learn from. You know, I did a recent webinar. I said, you know, in the last couple years, I've had a. I've been very fortunate in some aspects of having great mentors. But I also tell you this, as I think about this, I've also been very intentional. It's interesting to me how for a part of my life and my career, I didn't have that many mentors. And yet when I began to seek them out, I began to have more mentors. Right. There's something to that. But the last couple of years, two of the biggest mentors for me, John Maxwell, who many of you know John Maxwell and his hundred plus books and his great speaking is just a great leadership. And of course, Roger Sitkins, working at the Sitkins Group. I've spent time with Roger. One of the greatest reasons, there's a lot of reasons, but one of the greatest reasons that I left what I was doing specifically in trying to run my own business and I had my own, you know, struggles and things working and things not working. But one of the greatest reasons I joined Rogers Hitchens is because I wanted to learn from the best. It was an opportunity to learn from the best. And you should be seeking that out. Who are other agency leaders. And I think that's why a lot of times with our, with our network, why it's powerful, is that you get a chance to sit down in a room with people who have done things that you haven't done yet, experienced things that you haven't experienced yet. Because trial and error takes too long. You can do it, but why not learn from people? Say, you know, here's what I experienced. You may want to think about this. You may want to try this. Here's how I dealt with this situation. Here's what I did here to improve myself. Here's what I did here to improve the profitability of my agency. Great. Cool, right? And take what works for you. You can't implement it all, but take what works for you. Right? So for me it's, you know, John Maxwell and Roger Sitkins. But who are your mentors? Who are your coaches? Who are the people you lean on and go, I want to learn from you. I want to share things with you. You know, people that raise your spirit, people that make you a better version of yourself. Have you ever noticed there are people, there are some people that they walk into the room, it feels like all the lights get shut off, like, like it just goes dark. You're like, oh my gosh, energy suckers, right? Called energy vampires. I know John Gordon has a book on the energy vampires or there's some people that walk in the room, it's like, boom, energy comes up. And that's who I want you to spend time with, right? So change you spend time with. And lastly, change what you feed your mind. What is the information you're willing to put in your mind? What will you do to get positive reinforcement to learn new things versus just always listen to the news and social media and this is not good and you know, all that kind of stuff, whatever it may be. But just 10 minutes a day, just think about it, just 10 minutes a day of reading a book. Think about what that does in compounding over the course of a year. It's very, very powerful. And it's very, very powerful. One of my favorite quotes I'll wrap this up with comes from Charlie Tremendous Jones. You may have heard this quote before, been around for a long time, but Charlie Tremendous Jones, author, speaker, also a very successful life insurance agent for many years, said this. He goes, you will be the same person you are today as in five years. You will be the same person, exact same person you are today as you will be in five years, except for two things, the people you meet and the books that you read. And that's why this is so important, creating an environment of growth. And I mentioned at the beginning I was going to share something to leaders with four leaders. And this comes from John Maxwell's 15 invaluable laws of growth. But when talking about assessing your environment, here's some questions I want you to ask both for yourself and for your agency. Right? Just take it how you want. But as I go through these, and if you're listening in your car or wherever you at, feel, wherever you're at, feel free to pull over or take some time and just write is this true of me or false. Right? Is this true or false? And if you have more than probably three or four false answers, you may want to think, am I really in an environment of growth? Am I really setting up an environment of growth? So here are 10 questions that come from the law of environment and the 15 invaluable laws of growth. By the way, terrific book. Number one, are others ahead of you? What do I mean by this? Are others ahead of you? If you're the smartest person in the room, it's probably time to find a new room. Are you around people that are ahead of you that'll challenge you? That's question One, true or false? Number two, Are you continually challenged? The only way to grow is to get out of your comfort zone. So are you continually challenged? Next question. Is your focus forward? Are you focusing on what's to come? Are you focusing on what always happened yesterday? Now, it's good to learn from the past, but we don't want you to stay or dwell in the past. So is your focus forward? Number four, is the atmosphere that you're around affirming? True or false? The atmosphere is affirming. Number five is I am often out of my comfort zone? Are you out of your comfort zone? Again? Back to growth. You've got to get uncomfortable. Number six, do you wake up excited? True or false? Do you wake up excited about new things happening and where you're going? I hope so. Number seven, failure is not my enemy. True or false. Do you treat failure as your enemy that I cannot fail, or as failure your learning platform for growth? I think one of the greatest things I heard this from Dave Ramsey. He said, you know, you look at where I'm at and people go, oh, Dave, you're so successful. And he goes, and he has an image. He goes, you know, there's this big pile of poop, right, that I'm standing on top of. That's my success journey. I made all these messes and that's how I'm on top. So is failure not your enemy? True or false? Failure is not my enemy, true or false? Number eight, others are growing. So this is really important. Are people around you growing? Is your team growing? If you look at your team, are they getting better? Ask yourself, are they a better version of themselves today than they were yesterday? If not, why not? And what do you need to do as a leader to help them? Number nine, do your people around you desire change? Now, most agencies will say, ah, if we're changing one thing in the process, I'm going to throw a fit, right? But growth agencies, agencies that have an environment of growth, a culture of growth, they don't love every change, don't get me wrong. But they expect change because change is improvement and they want to improve. And last but not least, is growth modeled and expected? Is growth modeled and expected for you, true or false? See, one of the things that I can tell you, and you already know this, is that you can say lots of stuff like, I want you to go grow. I want you to get better, I want you to improve. I want you to do this. But if you don't lead the charge, if you don't model the way Your words are absolutely meaningless. As a leader, I certainly know this. As a parent, every day for my kids, I need to model growth and expect growth. Model what it looks like and expect and affirm them that they can grow. They should grow. Why? It's important, right? Have a purpose behind that. So again, those are the areas an environment of growth. I hope this was helpful for you. Love to hear back. I thank all of you for your kind comments. I've gotten some emails and feedback on itunes is on Stitcher Radio as well of this podcast. I'm trying to be more and more consistent with it. Also looking at some point here in the future adding some interviews. I'd like to share some experiences of people that we're working with. The bottom line is I want to make this podcast about you and your growth and your journey and your success. And I appreciate you being a listener. You can visit us our resources online at sitkins.coms I t k I n s.com again profit net. If you have not registered or you want to learn more, go to sitkins.com profitnet you want to be in the room, right? You really want to be in the room. So until next time, thank you so much again. All the best in your success. Talk soon.