Is Practicing Wasting Your Time or Preparing You for the Next Big Opportunity?

As former NBA superstar Allen Iverson would say, I'm talking about practice, man. Practice. On today's Agent Leader podcast, we are going to talk about practice. And if you're an insurance professional and you're trying to prepare for a team meeting or a sales appointment, I think you'll find great value in today's episode. And the question I want to ask you is, is practice actually making you worse? Because, man, we're talking about practice. Practice. Every episode of the Agent Leader podcast is brought to you by Agents of Growth. You can find them@agentsofgrowth.net they provide purposeful and inspiring business growth for insurance professionals. Well, hello there, everyone. This is Brent Kelly with another edition of the Agent Leader Podcast. I am super excited that you are with me here today. And as I said on the opening tease, the question I ask is, is practice making you worse? And I'll get to the point of what that question is about here in a second. But first I want to share a little bit about my old high school glory days. Who doesn't want to talk about that? And I promise I won't spend much time here. But I was thinking, back in high school, I was a pretty good basketball player. At least for a small town, I was a good basketball player. Outside of that, maybe not so much. But for small town, I was a pretty good basketball player. And one of the best attributes I had was I was able to shoot the basketball. I could shoot the ball pretty well. In fact, after my junior year, the summer after my junior year, I was invited to a well respected basketball shooting camp in Indiana. And you know, I remember, I'm thinking, man, as a guy who likes to shoot the basketball, what could be better than to go to a camp where the entire focus was on improving your shooting and you know, and on those kind of things. So I got, I got to go there and work on what I did best. And we arrived there and it was a lot more than just shooting, by the way. But there was a lot of drills and practices and scrimmages. It was a long first day. It was hot, you know, the summer. And I remember after eating dinner, we were invited to go back to the gym just to do some kind of our own shooting on our own time. And the camp coach, you know, it's been a long day, we were tired. But the camp coach kind of came over to my group and said, hey guys, feel free to head back, but before you head back to the dorm and call it a night, I want you to go and shoot 150 jump shots before you head back. And like I said, we, you know, we were tired. I thought, I, I can throw up 150 more shots, right? I mean, we had a rebounder, and I'm like, I, I, I can put up some shots. That's not a big deal. And I started shooting pretty quickly. I was just kind of pumping up some shots there. And, you know, I got done for 150 shots, you know, in a, in a pretty fast pace. And I went over to the camp coach and I said, hey, coach, I, I, I'm done. I got, I got my shots up. I appreciate it. I'm gonna, I'm gon. And he just kind of looked at me and said, oh, okay. I was kind of walking around here. And he goes, I just have a question for you. Did you shoot 150 practice shots or 150 game shots? And I paused for a moment just to kind of analyze his question. And I began to realize what he was saying without him even saying anything as of yet. Because my 150 shots, I mean, I shot 150 shots, but they were lazy in the sense that I was just kind of going through the motions. They were, they were shots, but they weren't the type of shots that I would be taking in a game. They weren't the kind of shots that I would need to take when it really mattered, when it counted. And my coach taught me a very valuable lesson that day, something I take with me, looking out, you know, well past 20 years later. And this is what he said to me. There's a monumental difference between practice and deliberate practice. And he said, you know, deliberate practice builds and instills good habits and prepares you for your next big opportunity, where basic practice, average practice, usually reinforces bad habits and wastes your valuable time. So why do I share this story with you? Why do I believe that deliberate practice is so important? Because I teach a lot on leadership and communication for insurance professionals, and I believe it's 100% the same thing. You know, most of us never really fully prepare for our next game, right? We just kind of hope that we can show up and be ready again, whether that's a team meeting, whether it's a sales appointment, whether it's a phone call, prospecting phone call, are we preparing? So just ask yourself the question, how are you preparing for the next meeting, the next sales appointment, the next conversation? Because if you're like most people, you may just be going through the motions. And instead of preparing for our next opportunity, like it's the real thing, we just show up hoping that we say and that we do the right thing. The ability to build and develop relationships. And this all comes back to leadership is one of the most important skills you will ever develop. Yet I can tell you from my own experience, until I learned some of this, and in working with agents and organizations across the country, most people try to wing it. They try to wing it. I'll ask, when's the last time you've recorded yourself in a team meeting? When's the last time you've recorded yourself in a sales presentation? When's the last time that you worked with someone, maybe in your office or someone that could be a peer partner to you, actually role play? You actually challenge yourself like it's the real thing? Because I'm often amazed at the lack of preparation when it comes to any of these type of things. See, leadership and communication skills don't just improve automatically. Some people say, well, you know, I'm getting better because I had an appointment yesterday, and now I have one today and I have one tomorrow. So by the end of the week, I'll be better. Now, don't get me wrong, you do get better by going out and trying things. But what if you're saying the wrong things and you continue to repeat those bad habits because you've never actually focused on deliberate practice? You know, I know people who tell me, hey, Brent, I've got 10 years of experience doing this. I'm good. And then when you find out maybe what some of the things that they're saying or doing, you realize, well, do you have 10 years of experience, or do you have one year of experience doing the same thing for 10 years? Right. We haven't learned anything. We haven't gotten better. And so that's why I challenge you on this podcast as an insurance professional, you've got to take your experience and turn it into insight and then figure out how to prepare yourself effectively for that next big opportunity. What if the client of your dreams were to come and show up tomorrow? Are you prepared for what you would say and how you would act and what you could present to them? Most people know. And I can tell you just a real quick personal story. About six months ago, I was challenged right now, as my role as a speaker and a trainer and a coach, I was challenged by a mentor of mine who said, hey, Brent, if you have an opportunity to go speak tomorrow to a large group, and they're gonna write you a $25,000 check, but by the way, it's gotta be really Good. Can you give me a run through right now so that I can tell him how good you are? Are you ready now? And my answer was no. Give me a couple days or a week and I'll be ready. But I'm not ready. And he said, there's a mindset to that. Just because it's not in front of you right at this second doesn't mean you don't need to be prepared for when it happens. You know, oftentimes people come to me and go, well, you know, successful people, they just kind of get lucky. It just, it happened, right? The opportunity was in front of them and you know what? Good for them, they took it. Well, the only way you can take that opportunity is if you're prepared. And again, that comes from deliberate practice. Every interaction is an opportunity. Every interaction is an opportunity. Don't waste your time and be prepared. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Agent Leader podcast again. My name is Brent Kelly and I am super excited you join me on today's show. If this podcast is bringing you some value and helping your business, a couple things you could do for me. First of all, please share it. Share the word that there's a new podcast out there trying to help insurance professionals grow their leadership and communication skills. And secondly, go to itunes or stitcher radio wherever you listen to this podcast. And if you could leave me a kind review, that would be much appreciated until the next episode of the Agent Leader podcast. Hey, remember, every single one of you are leaders. And our job as leaders are to add value to ourselves and to go add value to others. Make it a great one.