Leadership, Grit, and Growth: Chris Paradiso on What It Really Takes to Succeed

Welcome to the Agent Leader Podcast. This is the podcast for independent insurance agency leaders to raise the status quo, to raise the bar on their level of thinking, and ultimately become their best version possible. My name is Brent Kelly. I am your host. I'm delighted to be here on this podcast episode and even more delighted to have a guest that You've probably heard of this guest that I'll be bringing on today. I had the pleasure today of interviewing Chris Paradiso. And Chris, I even wrote down from your LinkedIn profile, insurance agency owner. I know you're a speaker. You spoke at our events before. You're an influencer and the Aaron Lewis, Aaron Lewis of Insurance, which I love that on your LinkedIn title. So Chris, without further ado, welcome into the Agent Leader Podcast.

Well, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Well, looking forward to this discussion. And I was talking to Chris a little bit before we hopped on. I said, you know, I don't have a whole lot of prepared questions because you're pretty good at this, these things called conversations. So I'm looking forward to where this may go. I've got a lot of things on my mind that I want to ask Chris about. And I want to start with this, Chris. Let's give, again, I think most people at this point probably know you, but give me your 30-second, 1-minute, I don't know, go 90 seconds, whatever you need, go wild on just a little bit of your background, how you got to where you are. And I would just say this, here's my question to, to end that part. What are you most excited about right now?

Well, I'm going to make it 30 seconds, but I'm an insurance agency owner. I've been in this business for 20 plus years out of a very small town in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, which is a mill town, a working mill town area where I grew up, grew up in a, not only in a working town, but a working family. And, What I love about what we've done here at Paradiso is that we write in 44 states. So I had that vision that we're not going to be just the community outreach person, just the community agency. What we focused on with our brand guide is community and defining community, which is right there. It's America. So why I make that statement is, is because you'll see in any of our branding or anything that we're doing, whether it's Chris Paradiso or Paradiso Insurance, our community is the United States. We write in 44 states and we're not going to be limited like a lot of agencies. They, they, they don't have to be limited, but they choose to be limited. And that was something I've always dreamed of is building this ship and building it where we're all around the United States and we're writing risks in California and Florida and Texas and Alabama, the hard, hard places to write. And, um, that's just was a challenge of mine and It's come true and we're gonna keep, keep growing that. No fancy, fancy story. Just, you know, born and raised in a small town and, uh, you know, wanted to be really, uh, a social worker. And my dad says, you like to help people, do insurance. You can help people. You can be the social worker of insurance and make a really good income. And he was right.

Yeah. Well, Chris, I, I know you're a humble guy and you're out again across America and obviously we've done with the agency and again, you speak and teach and share so many things. So I think that idea of just the social worker and all this, it's like you happen to sell insurance, right? Or run an insurance agency amongst a big, a bigger purpose. And the last part I, I ask, which I know I asked you probably 3 questions in 1 there is what's exciting you the most right now? I mean, 'cause you've always got something going, which I find fascinating, but what's exciting you right now?

I truly love the intelligent agent. And I know AI is such an overused two letters, AI. And there's so much AI out there that they call AI and it's not even AI. It's just so much noise.

Mm-hmm.

And you know what excites me? The intelligent agent. It really excites me that part of AI because I see it helping people who despise technology. I have a lady that's been with me for 16 years. I consider her like my, my sister because she's been with us so long and she's like a part of the family. Stephanie hates technology. She says, you can take everything away from me. You just can't take the intelligent agent away from me. And I said, why? She says, because it makes my job easier. It allows me not only, you know, people like easy. I don't like that word, but people like easy, number one. People also like things that make them look better. And how she's utilizing this one tool is very different than how I have 30 or 40 other teammates using it. And it's fascinating to me because she was always the person, I don't, I don't want it. I don't want it. I hate technology. And she, when that thing is even being updated for 15 minutes, she loses her mind. And I love that because it assists her to be able to do a better job for our clients. And I found a piece of technology that she actually has put her arms around and she hugs it. She absolutely adores this and loves this tool, and it makes her better every day. And as she gets better, our agency gets better because we're better serving our clients. So, that really excites me because I think it's in its infancy. It's, there's just so much more this tool can do and we're utilizing it like this amount. It's fascinating. It really excites me. Yeah.

You're just, again, you're right. I mean, AI is AI, AI, it's all over. It surrounds us. It floods our minds. But now you mentioned the intelligent agent, it makes things easier. Again, I'm sure there's many people listening to this that, you know, some that go, okay, I've heard of that or something going on there. Maybe you already use it. I know we've got some of our partners that use it and love it. Others might go, what the heck is it? So again, just so people know, because you mentioned that and it's, it's, it's what excites you right now.

It does.

What makes it different? What's unique about it? What should people know?

Number one, what I absolutely love for me, I love to be able to take a policy, upload it. It's closed AI. So I, I will caution listeners, open AI, you're uploading anybody's policies of prospects. Mm-hmm. We, we, meaning I go into places that are public AI and we can pull people, other agents are actually uploading. You should never upload a policy on OpenAI ever because OpenAI means it's open to the public. Right. So, and it, within 20 seconds, it literally dissects that policy and tells me all of the areas and, and weaknesses of that policy. That to me is game-changing because I'm the hunter. I like to go out and hunt. It's, it's, it's also very good for the account managers who sometimes overlook things. We're human beings, we make mistakes, but it's amazing how accurate AI is. The tool is utilized only for insurance, so it's not an AI product where if you wanna put in who's the greatest basketball player of all time, it's not gonna answer it. It's, it's AI specifically for insurance. And, um, I love that aspect. I also love, as a guy who loves marketing, it does all of our blogs for us. We haven't written a blog. We haven't hired a blogger months upon months upon months because we've been on this piece of technology. It creates our CR— within our CRM tool, it's creating all our email templates. So our marketing people are no longer spending time creating email templates. It creates, we'll ask it and it will create 3 touchpoints when we just ask it for what we're looking for in about 45 seconds. The only thing we're doing is adding photos, which makes our marketing department more efficient. It writes better because we ask it to write it in an 8th grade level. 'Cause when we're marketing, we want to, we're not saying people are uneducated, but we want to dumb it down. Insurance, what we found is we insurance agents talk over people's heads and people are embarrassed to ask us to say, what does that mean? So dumb it down. And that, that's another fascinating tool for us that we absolutely love. Now I could tell you 10 other things, but those two things have been just instrumental. The policy, you know, what we'll do is once we take what we quote it, we'll upload that to the policy that they have. And do a comparison. And within 2 minutes, minute and a half, it gives us the comparison, what policy's better and why. It's just fascinating.

Yeah.

Allows us to do a much better job a lot quicker. All right.

I love, well, you said it makes it easier, but she didn't like that word, but it makes it easier.

I know. I don't like easy because easy usually means lazy. And our minds just want to go that road. Our minds want us to go the easy road. And I'm not a guy that likes the easy road because I was taught as a young kid by my parents that The easy road isn't worth taking. Everybody takes the easy road. Take the hard road. It leads to better destinations. And it's just something that's been drilled in me all my life.

Yeah, totally agree. And I want to, again, not to go much more deep in AI, but what, what it means, because again, there's a lot of different things we could go there. But one of the principles we talk about all the time in working with agencies is that, you know, technology isn't there to replace relationships. It's there to enhance relationships. Relationships. And I think from some of the stuff you're talking about, Chris, is like, wow, it takes some of that away so that we can be better humans and have more engaging conversations and foster relationships. And I know you're a relationship guy for all the things that you do within the agency, in the insurance space, and even outside of the insurance space.

Can you repeat that? Because there's a lot of carriers that think that I love technology and I just want to get rid of people, which is totally opposite of Yeah. You know, if you read my post today on LinkedIn, relationships matter. This is a people business.

Yeah.

You know, and people keep throwing this technology is, you know, technology will replace some people. Let's be honest. It already has.

Yes. Yes.

But I can assure you how our agency is using technology is not to replace people, is to enhance people's abilities to be able to be you said better humans. I would say better communicators.

Mm-hmm.

What we don't do well.

Love that.

Right? We always have to work on communication. Is there ever such thing? I always say there's no such thing as overcommunicating. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Yeah. My famous line on Twitter, it's really simple. Emails are for information. Phone calls and seeing people in person is for communication.

Yep. Yeah. I, I referenced all the time and I, my book's behind me there, Chris. My favorite's from John Maxwell. I love John Maxwell, but I know you do. One of his favorite books is Everyone Communicates, but Very Few Connect. And just that title alone says so much, right?

Like it all, right?

It's just, yeah, data this and so much of it is, well, I told them the thing. Well, they don't care about the thing. What does the thing mean? What's the emotion behind the thing? Why does it matter? How can you uplevel the thinking? How do you ask better questions? And I think setting that foundation technology allowed people to to do that at a much higher level. You agree?

Totally agree. Totally agree. I'm, I'm, I'm reading Nick Saban's book and I'm probably gone rereading it 3 times in the last 7 days. And he keeps talking about, you know, and, and in our L10, we're on EOS and, you know, the leadership team, I said, we're so focused on the result of winning, but you know, Nick Saban would tell you that isn't the result, the real winning is focus on the process. Because if you focus on the process and you're beat, you know what? You have a winning recipe. Mm-hmm. If you focus only on the result and the process goes wacky, at the end of the day, national championships will never be won. They're won by focusing on the process. Yeah. Because it's week after week after week. It's like sales call. Sales call, sales call, sales call. Focus on the process. Don't focus on the result. It's powerful.

Appreciate you, Chris. I love it. Yeah, I, I mean, it's, and in fact, I just had a conversation earlier and it's funny, I mentioned, you mentioned Nick Saban, which by the way, I gotta get that book. Now you've got me excited.

Fantastic. So many golden nuggets. Yeah.

What's the name of it?

I'm gonna tell you right now the name of it. It's Leadership Secrets of Nick Saban, written by John Talte, T-A-L-T-E. Fantastic. All right.

I love, love it. Obviously he had some success and I was, I was mentioning, I said, I'm a, I'm a Big Ten guy. I live in Big Ten territory, I guess, which I guess is coast to coast now. But, um, I said, you know, Kirk Signetti with Indiana who won this year, Nick Saban disciple guy, or at least he coached Nick Saban. And it just goes back to, I always say, you know, you may or may not hit your goals, going back to results, but you're always going to rise or fall to the level of your standards. Which comes back to the process. And that's when you hear things like, whether we're up 40 to 10 or it's 10 to 10, we play the play the same because it's who we are. It's our identity. It's our standard.

Wait, wait till he's— some, uh, an assistant coach is telling a story. They're up 45 to 3. And, you know, he, he, he, Nick Saban always says, we don't recruit backup quarterbacks. We only recruit the best. So there is no such thing as what they call a backup quarterback. Quarterback because he was always focused on recruiting the best, which is a mindset. And they're up 45 to 3 and he's screaming because somebody didn't do something right. And you know, you would think that he would crack a smile. He didn't crack a smile. He, like he said, you practice the way you're going to perform in the game. And if you don't practice hard, who was famous for that? Jordan. You, you know, you want hard-nosed people who practice. You're going to love the book. There's so many golden nuggets in there.

So let me ask you this, Chris. I'll just kind of transition a little bit. Fire away. I could talk leadership and this stuff forever because it's exciting and maybe it'll lead into this question a little bit. And you could take this anywhere. Where do you see, I mean, just from your vantage point, obviously in running an agency, but you're out there speaking with agencies as well. What do you see as the major friction points? Like why do, why do agencies get stuck?

Well, I think there's, so there's different phases and this is something that I, somebody asked, why don't, why aren't you on a lot of podcasts? Because I actually turn a lot of podcasts down because I think they're so, they're all like being mushed into the same conversations. Like I think if you ask me the first 5 years versus the second 5 years versus, you know, 20 to 25 years out, I would give you different phases. Like, you know, I help. I volunteer coach because I like to assist young hungry agents and one's out of Texas and I had a great conversation and he says to me, you know, I'm on year 6. I just hit $60,000 of new commission revenue this month. And I was like, how does it feel? He said, he says, it feels like I'm free. And I said, what did we focus on the last year? And he, you know what he said? Well, you had me focus on one thing, relationships. And the only thing we focused on is every single week, you're gonna find a center of influence. You're gonna take 'em to lunch one per week. Every quarter, you're gonna pull all these people together with some clients. Mm-hmm. And with some ideal prospects, they're gonna bring some referrals for you. And you're gonna put on, for example, like he's an ad guy. He brings on and he brings like basically a safety person that comes in and talks safety for ag people. And then I said, what was the biggest thing that you improved on? He says, finding the right client to speak at my quarterly event, because that client, when he speaks, he brings 5. He asked, you were sitting for me to bring 1, but can I bring 5 people? Because I really, I think they need to hear what I have to say. And he's like, every, almost every one of these clients of the speakers are becoming clients that are, that they're bringing in. And I said, so in the first 5, 6 years, I think you need to focus on relationships, not just relationships with prospects, but relationships with partners, carrier partnerships. And I, I would tell you that's one, what I would tell you if you said, hey, how does that 10-year person make that hump over that million-dollar revenue, which A lot of people will laugh at a million dollar revenue, but the average agency in the United States is under $600,000 with 3 to 4 people. That's the average independent insurance agent in the United States. And I would tell you it's leadership. They don't spend money on leadership. And there's two ways they do that. Number one, they don't spend it on themselves. Stop going to industry associations and events. And focus on leadership type conferences and/or coaching. Mm-hmm. Get out of the industry. Get into true leadership. Mm-hmm. Attend true leadership. Become a better leader. That is the number one reason when people say, Chris, how'd you cross $10 million of revenue? I invested a tremendous amount of money in me becoming a better leader. Mm-hmm. And then I hired better people. Who were leaders, and I invested in those leaders. Leadership is so underestimated. And as I was explaining to this agent yesterday, I said, this business is so fricking easy. It's easy. It's not a difficult business. And growing it now is not difficult. I'm investing in leaders, and those leaders are performing really well. But we're too cheap to invest in leadership. We don't invest in ourselves. He said to me, hey, what's the biggest change you made in the last 5 years that helped you get over the hump? And I said, that's a great question. This is coming from the agent I was talking to. I said, I invested in something that I probably thought was for the weak people, and it turned out it was probably the best investment I made in the last 10 or 15 years. And that's a life coach. And this life coach is so focused, he says, you can't run your business if you don't run your household.

Sure.

So if you run a really good household with your wife and your children, and they are hyper-focused because you're leading them, you can then go to work and be a good leader. But until you take care of the home, you can't take care of the business. And boy, he was so spot on. And first question he says is, hey, that is fantastic. And he, he says, I'm on the side of the road, I'm writing this down, but I gotta ask a follow-up question. I said, great. So what's the first thing that was super successful that he recommended to you? I said, number one, every single night, write down what your big win was for the day. But more importantly, before you go to bed, write down what you're going to win at tomorrow. Because if you can visualize it, it'll happen. And if you think it, you better ink it. And he kept saying that if you ain't, if you're thinking it and you ain't inking it, It ain't happening. And those were just, and then the second thing is meditation. It's played a huge role slowing things down so I can visually stay focused on how I see my agency moving in its future. And I know some people are going to shake their head and I shook my head and I will tell you writing that down, number one, but just as important has been meditation in my life. Yeah. For the growth of my business.

Yeah. Chris, that's so extremely powerful. And I just, just take a moment. I just want to echo what you said because about 2 years ago, I invested in personal coaching, not business coaching. And I found myself just kind of spinning all these things and all of a sudden you get a little more centered and clarity. And again, I want to get your perspective, but I was, as you were answering that question, what's the one thing or whatever that came out to me? It was 100% accountability. I started realizing that, yeah, I, I, there's certain things that happen in the world and in life, but like, I gotta own me. And when you start to do that, uh, it actually gives you power back. It's because, yeah, it's like, wait a second. Yeah, that kind of hurts, but also is really empowering.

Yeah.

Now I got some control back because I can own it, which hurts, but I can own it.

The more I hurt, the more I, the more I improve, the more I stay super focused and driven. And, you know, it, it's, it almost sounds arrogant. And my wife says, so what's next for you? I said, anything I put my mind to. And I said, I know unrealistically that people could say, well, I'm going to jump over to Empire State Building. Well, you can think it, you can train for it just as you're training to dunk. It's never going to happen because no human being could ever jump over to Empire State. I get it. But it's amazing on how disciplined you can become and how confident you can become to accomplish just about anything you visually see. And that's why I firmly believe that the difference between greatness 20 years and on, it's all about grit. And you know what grit is? Grit is the combination of being, uh, because motivation has an expiration date. Everybody's motivated at some time, but it expires. The next step to motivation is discipline. Very few people will kick in and have discipline, but the 1% of the 1%ers take it from motivation to discipline to grit. And grit is having motivation. Which then expires into discipline, but that discipline never expires. That grit is visually seeing that beautiful destination that you want to get to, that you're so infatuated with that no matter what gets in your way, waking up at 3:30 in the morning and not wanting to go outside because it's negative degrees, there is an ice storm, all these excuses, come into your head. But when you hit that grit level, because you are so massively in love with that destination, I'm getting to this destination, Brett. I'm going to get there. That's grit. And you know what gets in my way? Nothing. Because my mindset says, I'm getting to that island with or without you. That is grit. And very few people have that because They're not visually seeing themselves succeeding, whatever it might be, whether it's a marriage, because as much as it's personal, it's business. Whether it's growing to be a $100 million agency and saying, hey, I want to be in the top 50 in the United States. If you visually see it, that is so vitally important. Obviously you gotta put an action plan to get there. And then you, you know, that grit, you fall so in love with that visualization. Nothing gets in your way because no matter what you do, no matter how tired I am, I'm still going to be up. You are not going to get me to take a day off. You're not.

Yeah. And if you're not following Chris, you'll see him up running at, you know, 4:30 in the morning or whatever it is. And snow's coming down. There's even times I'm like, what's he doing? And it's like, but there's part of me going, what am I doing? And I think you sort of answered the question I was getting to is like, why do some people embrace that and others don't? And if I heard you right, it comes down to visualization.

It does.

Yeah.

You have to, that, that's where the grit is. And I think grit is defined a lot of ways, but I purely believe grit is when you passionately love, fall in love with that visualization of that destination.

Yeah.

Whatever it might be. I want to become a doctor. Is it amazing on how, how they sacrifice? How about Navy SEALs? David Goggins. He visually sees it and nobody gets in his way. Now, is he any different than anybody else? No. He's just madly in love with his visualization. He has grit above and beyond the average human being because he's willing to do what others aren't willing to do. Sacrifice, suffer.

Wow. So here's one thing I want to ask you too. I think we all take pieces of people and experiences through our lives. And one of the things, Chris, again, you do such a great job of sharing things and, you know, I love seeing stuff about your sister. Uh, I love seeing, of course, you know, my condolences to you still with your dad who passed away. Um, and maybe start with that because I know family's been so impactful. I see stuff for your kids. So you take pieces, you know, from our parents and our siblings and our kids and of course community. What are some of the most powerful lessons? And maybe I'll just start with just your family.

Yeah. So I'm, I'm writing a book. It's called The Civilized Savage. Gonna, where's the title come from? And, and, you know, there's a picture in back and some people will see it and some people won't. There's a lion and inside that lion is morphed as Jesus. And Jesus was a civilized savage. So my father was a, a, a man who firmly was put here on earth and he would tell you, I was put here to serve others just as you are put here. He believed that. And, um, He was a prosecutor and, uh, one of the most powerful stories, I mean, he was my everything. He was my mentor. He was, you know, I'm very opposite of my dad. My dad was very, very, very just, he moved at a very slow pace. I have ADHD at a massive level. If you see how many miles I do in a day, you would probably say you're not normal. And I hear it every day, trust me, from my teammates. Um, And my dad was opposite. He was a man of very few words when he spoke. He was like EF Hutton. When he spoke, you listen. But he passed away and one of the first people that stopped in to his office was a gentleman he put away for over 15 years. And he said, your dad was the prosecutor. And I was like, my dad prosecuted you? He's like, yeah, your dad taught me and took the time to to explain to me, I'm a good person. I made a terrible mistake in my life. He said, and I'll never forget this. He said, your dad believed in me before I believed in myself. And I sat in a cell and realized a stranger who prosecuted me believed in me more than I believed in myself. And the day I started believing in myself was the day I started thanking Joe Paradiso, the prosecutor who put me in jail for 15 years. And when he came, he was crying telling me that story. And he said, I now have kids. I'm now a good husband. I'm, I'm taking care of the community. I'm doing things that do better for this world. And it was your father that taught me. And I was like, that's remarkable that before my dad was buried, a guy he prosecuted came to me to tell me, my dad, your dad changed my life because he took the time to talk to me and treat me like a human being. But he also was tough on me. But I felt the love through the message. That to me is a human being who lived a successful life. He impacted people. My father always had a message. Volunteerism and doing right only feels at the highest extreme of happiness at the time you can help somebody who can never repay you. And that's why he was a special man.

Oh, that's an incredible story. And I mean, it just kind of shows again, I mean, the pieces of you, Chris, that come from your dad, even though your personalities might be wildly different, the principles.

Servant's heart, man. I know people say, oh, it's one of the core values in our EOS that we run on. Mm-hmm. Um, a servant's heart. And one of the big things we have here is We want you volunteering. We want you giving back because I don't care what anybody says, they're better teammates. People that are givers are better teammates. People that are volunteering and, and let me, and I, I'm not the guy that's gonna write the largest check to a foundation. I wanna be the guy that actually moves other people to get involved so we can move a foundation forward. Um, and I would always say your actions speak louder than your paycheck. You write that check is one thing. It's important, but more importantly than that, get involved and make an impact. Impact others. It's more important than, than writing the check.

I would just clip all that out and we've got 3 or 4 foundational principles of leadership. You know, incredible stuff, Chris. And I just, I just thinking too of just the idea. I mean, so many principles in the story of your dad as a prosecutor, but to see more in others than they often see in themselves.

Sure.

And also to care enough about people to tell them the truth.

Sure. That's love. That's love. I have an accountability coach and the number one thing we talk about when we do our annual review is how open and honest was I with you this week? So this is my seventh year with the same accountability coach who's also in the insurance space, but I love him and I can, I tell him I love him. I tell him sometimes, hey, I'm about to tell you something because I love you. And when you fall short, I'm going to tell you, not out of a place of jealousy, not out of a place of, I got you, out of a place out of love. I want to see you succeed. Have you thought of this? Hey, you've come week after week and this is where you fell short. I got to be open and honest with you, bud. You're not, you're just not, you're not taking action. You're talking the talk, but you're not walking the walk. He said he does the same thing to me. Yeah. And you know what? Everybody needs an accountability partner. And I say accountability partner because we don't pay, I don't pay for an accountability partner. I know some people say an accountability coach, you can hire an accountability coach. You're better off finding somebody at your level. Who's going to hold you accountable. And we show up every single week. If you call me at 9 o'clock on Friday Eastern Standard Time, you're not going to get me. 9 to 9:31, that is our time that we are going to hold each other accountable. And we work off of something that is $44. It's Darren Hardy, Living Your Best Year Ever. It is the best $44 you will ever invest in yourself. Ever. I stopped sending books to people because when I check back with people after I've given them a book, nope, I tried it for 3 or 4 weeks. Once again, motivation has an expiration date. Discipline needs to kick in and you better have grit if you want to get to that beautiful destination that you visually see.

But Chris, you ready for one last question?

Sure.

This is about you talking to you, and I ask this question on every single podcast that I have. So maybe you've heard it before, but let's just imagine for a second that the current version of you bumps into the younger Chris Paradiso, just kind of starting off in your career. And the younger version of you looks up at the current version and says, hey, I've only got a minute here. If you could tell me one thing that I should know now from your experience, what would it be? What advice would you give your younger self?

Number one, invest in you, believe in you, hire, hire a coach. Michael Jordan had a coach till the day he retired. And if Michael Jordan needed a coach, you need a coach because none of us will ever, we can dream about being as good as Michael Jordan in anything we ever do. And I, I, If I look, that would be number 1. Number 2 would be do not listen to naysayers. I had teachers who told me I would never be able to read and comprehend, and I'm not criticizing those teachers. I criticize myself. I look myself in the mirror and say, you know, don't let others change the way you think of yourself in the way they look at you. So they said I couldn't read and comprehend. At the age of 40, I ran into my, my dad pulled out a, um, a review. I was getting, trying to get into Loomis Chaffee, which is a prep school. So you prep a year, it's a 5th year high school. And he saved it and he, he, he pulled it out. He said, this always shocked me. This teacher said you would not only not read and comprehend, but you would never make it through college. I never showed that to you. I said, damn it. But I allowed these teachers to tell me something that I allowed them to convince myself I believe. So at the age of 40, I started reading and I say reading, I mean, I read a minimum of a book a week. I'm, I'm 53 next month. I have hundreds and hundreds and if not thousands of books. You want a good book, you let me know what you're looking for. I'm not into the fluffy stories, the romance. I'm into leadership, bettering myself. I'm very siloed, but don't let others dictate what you can and can't do. And, um, those are the two biggest messages. I think they really unite as one because it's believing in yourself, but it's the whole floor and ceiling thing is. Matthew McConaughey talks about in Greenlights. Nobody is gonna ever tell me what my ceiling is. Only I am.

Ooh, that's good. I love it. I, I, I knew this would be a great conversation, Chris, and maybe we'll continue to have more 'cause I have about 78 other questions I could ask you. But, uh, it does remind me, I, you've probably heard this quote before. My favorite comes from Charlie Tremendous Jones. I think I have one of his books back there. He was a life insurance guy that did well and did speaking. And he said, you know, in 5 years you'll be the exact same person you are today except for the books that you read, read and the people that you meet.

True. And so true.

Expansion.

Patrick Bet-David was also in insurance. Read his book. Probably my favorite book. Marcus Ogden, who's a good friend of mine, I know you know Marcus.

Yep.

And Marcus said, oh my God, Chris, that may be one of the best books I've ever read because it's something in my life. Choose Your Enemies Wisely is the name of the book by Patrick Bet-David. And when you get behind it, I think back from when I was 11, 12 playing basketball, I always had an enemy. God had an enemy. Superman has an enemy, right? You think about any superhero, they have enemies. Choose your enemies wisely. Not that you have to hate them, but you wake up every day saying, you ain't going to get me today, buddy.

That's right.

And just a great, great, great read. And, you know, books, there are no secrets out there. That aren't already written in a book. You just gotta go find 'em. The secret recipe is in a book. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's there. You just gotta go, you, you just gotta go get it. And I just, I have to laugh cuz I, you mentioned the dunking thing and I don't care about that so much other than I have a guy that always gives me a laugh emoji every time I post something. I'm like, all right, buddy.

Yeah. And you know what? And you know what? You don't want to hear this. Yeah. That person's probably betting against you. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah.

I'm sure.

How many people are betting against you? Because unfortunately, a lot of people, a lot of people don't want to see you win. And I'm going to tell you something. I was one of those people as a young— you want to talk about a major flaw in me? When I was 30 years ago, I didn't want to see other people win. It's crazy. When you root for other people, it's amazing on what it does for you. Internally. We need to root for others, even, even people I don't care for. You need to root for others, man. There's something internal about rooting for others. I love to see others win. I don't know why. I just love it. Now, if you're competing against me, I'm not going to root for you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm going to, you know, you want to compete against me. I'm, I'm, I'm good, but don't, don't, don't You know, I say this to my son all the time. Don't allow others to rent space in your head without you charging them. So root for others. Don't think of the negativity and rooting against people. All you're doing is you're really hurting yourself.

It's an abundance versus scarcity. Typically, and again, if you're competing against me, I hear you on that. But like, it's the idea too of there's a level of your own insecurity that comes out. Yeah.

You know what I love most about your whole competition is your discipline. And you're doing things that are very difficult. Like, people might look at your calf raises and say, ah, that's easy. They don't realize it. One of the hardest things that I work on is stretching every day. Stretching. You know why? Because I'm not a patient human being.

I know.

And it takes patience and You know, you want to go for a 100-mile run. Let's go. It's easier for me to do that than it is for me to stretch certain things. And I know I'm watching you do things with your knee bends and stuff on how slow you're going down and how you're stretching. The people don't realize how hard that is. And I know how hard that is. Um, and I, I got a smile and I showed my son, I said, This cat is going to do it. I believe in him. And I do.

Well, it's the journey. It's the challenge. It's fun. It's like, it's anything, right? You can take that on and what is that going to be? And I think it's so many lessons to take away, but obviously like visualizing that goal. I know it's easy, but like, what does that look like? That's pretty amazing. The enemies, right? Who's, who's betting against me? Okay.

All right.

Let's see.

Don't you love it? I love people betting against me. I do. I smile. I actually get giddy about it.

Well, Chris, again, thanks so much for being on here. I definitely want to talk with you further on here. You brought so much value. I know the audience is going to be like, man, that's nugget nugget. I got a bunch of notes just on leadership.

How much insurance did we actually talk about?

I believe about none, or maybe just a little.

A little bit, but it's amazing on how if we refocus of The foundation of what great, you know, comes down to leadership, great leaders. I don't care if it's selling insurance or running a Jersey Mike's, which we were talking about. Jersey Mike's was a nothing. Everything was Subway. To think now Subway is almost a nothing and Jersey Mike's is everywhere. It's just funny, right? It's, it's, it's, it's all on leadership and just really, it's different. It's love podcasts that are hyper-focused on becoming a better version and a better leader of who you are.

Yeah. Well, it's, I appreciate it. That's why I want to have you on here. Cause you talk that talk, you walk the walk around it.

And it's about, not everybody likes that though. And it's okay. Cause a lot of people don't want to look in the mirror of truth. And I, I remind people the mirror of truth sometimes hurts, but you know what? The mirror of truth really loves you because if you take it in the right form, it's only going to make your life better. Yeah.

If you're willing, if you're willing to take that on and, uh, it's something I share all the time, Chris, does your ego get in your way of excellence?

Ego edging God out is what my father used to say.

Keep going. Well, Chris, hey, thanks. I know you're everywhere just for the audience. Best place for people to find you, connect with you?

LinkedIn.

Okay.

Or Twitter, aka X. X. Love it. I'm there. Every day, either format. Somebody wants to email me, you know, cparadiso@paradisoinsurance.com. I'm happy to pick up the phone. I, I love to chit-chat with other agents and, um, I hope somebody reaches out and we can have a pretty neat conversation.

Yeah, he won't say this, but I will. You, you'd be silly. I was gonna say stupid, but you'd be silly if you didn't reach out, uh, and follow Chris and connect with him because he's someone who just said principal wants to give back.

And it's a great industry. That's, you know, remember one thing about this industry. It's the backbone of America. And you know why? Because there isn't a town that you can't go into that there's not an independent agent that's not sponsoring a soccer, a basketball, softball. I don't care what league it is. I don't care if it's church. We are sponsoring something. The independent agent is the backbone of America and we need independent agents to be strong, to support their communities, to keep America great.

I'm gonna end it there because that's awesome. Chris, thanks again so much. I wish you, the agent leader out there listening to this, wish you all the best and success. Reach out to Chris. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much.

Thanks, brother.

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/bookacall, 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.