Moving Your Agency From Comfort to Growth

Hey there and welcome. This is Brent Kelly, the host of the Agent Leader podcast. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I hope wherever you are, whoever you're with, whatever you're doing, that things are going well for you in your life and in your. In your insurance agency business. You know, the purpose of this podcast is to help agencies, to help agency leaders really become their best version possible. And I'm really excited to jump into today's content because of all the things that we talk about specifically at Sitkins. I'm a vice president of the Sitkins Group, and we work with our private clients and do coaching programs and training programs. This concept that I'm going to share with you today on this podcast really is the foundation. It's also really one of the main reasons why I think many agencies don't get the results that they really want, that they really deserve in their business. They don't get the results that they really want in their life as well. And that is moving from a comfort zone to a growth zone. You know, I think all of these podcasts should be in some way or another about your agency's growth. You as an agency leader, personally trying to grow. You as an agency trying to grow. But this podcast in particular is about you going to the growth zone, but starting from your comfort zone. Now, I have done a couple videos on this I put on social media. It'll probably be launched on YouTube. We're putting up a new YouTube channel for the Sitkins Group, which I'm excited about. So I've done some different variations of this, but I wanted to add to the podcast. I know a lot of podcast listeners out there. I know I'm a big podcast listener. I just love to. Whether I'm working out or getting ready for the day or certainly in my commute, I like to be able to list some things that are new ideas and thoughts that I can input in my brain and use at some point down the road. And this is a big one. Again, moving from your agency comfort zone to a growth zone. And on the videos, I've got four circles that kind of all line up and they move outward. So kind of left to right. The left is the comfort zone. The very right is the growth zone. But let's just first talk about the comfort zone. Now, you, as an agency leader may have certain areas of your life and certainly in your agency business where you're doing things really, really well, and maybe you're getting the results that you're wanting. There's probably Some areas that you're not. That's pretty typical of most agency leaders. And what we typically find is those things that we are not, at least not getting the results we like to get is often because we find ourselves in this comfort zone, this place of safe and security, that even though we know there are potentially bigger, better, brighter things out there for us, we don't take action. And before I get into why we don't do that, I think it's important first to take a step back and share something with you that we share with our attendees of our different Sitkins events. Whether it's our leadership event or producer event doesn't matter. We typically have the attendees somewhere at the beginning of the event, sit back in their chairs, just take a deep breath and just imagine their best version possible. You know, them playing at the absolute highest level, thinking about what they're doing at work, at home, the relationships, their energy, you know, everything you can think about that playing at the highest level. And I want you right now as a listener just to think about that. Now if you're driving your car, don't close your eyes, but, but just take a minute if you're able to, and close your eyes and just take a deep breath and just imagine yourself playing and performing at your absolute highest level, your best version. And just think about your productivity, think about your agency's performance, think about the relationships that you have both in and out of the office. Think about the capacity that you now have, think about the freedoms that you have which gives you opportunities. So whatever it is for you, just think about yourself performing and playing at the absolute highest level. Now if you follow along and you had your eyes closed, I didn't give you a lot of time, now is the time you can open them back up. If you had your eyes open, well, hey, you know, I know there's some of you out there, I get it, we see that, but, but hopefully you had some vision or some idea of what it looks like and feels like to play at the highest level. When we do this with attendees of our programs, we then ask them to open their eyes and then I will challenge them and say, well, what's preventing you from achieving that? Now I don't want to get all philosophical in some of the books that are out there, but you think about the most foundational book and the best selling productivity performance book, self development book, whatever you want to call it of all time is Think and Grow Rich. And the first word of that is think. And I can tell you that if you can Think if you can imagine, if you can visualize yourself playing and performing at the highest level, that that opportunity is there for you. You cannot imagine, you cannot create in your subconscious what you could not achieve. I truly believe that. Now, it doesn't mean you're going to be there today or tomorrow, but there's a reason why you can visualize it. And when attendees, or if you open your eyes and you go, okay, well, now why can't you achieve that? Well, I think what I'm going to share with you right now is typically the reason why, because most of us live in a comfort zone that even on a scale of 1 to 10, you know, 1 being terrible and 10 being amazing, that if you're playing at a 4 or 5 in a certain area, and again, you have different areas of life and business, but in a certain area, you are playing at a 4 or 5, but you're extremely comfortable with that 4 or 5, it's very unlikely that you're going to change. It's very unlikely. Because even though you can imagine and visualize a 7, 8, a 9, or even a 10 that's waiting for you, we don't know what it is. It's uncomfortable. And it's been said many times that all progress starts by the outer edge of your comfort zone. I know agency leaders, industry professionals who have been in the business a very long time. And this is not to nitpick on them or to say anything negative about them. It's just more. More of what I'm reporting. What I see is that they've been doing the same thing for 20, 25, 30 years, some cases, and maybe they know there's a higher level. In fact, many do. But things are okay. Things are pretty comfortable. And by the way, in this industry, in this business of insurance, if you're an independent insurance agency, hey, life's pretty good for the most part, right? Because even if you're an average insurance agency or even below average, you're probably renewing 85 to 90% of your account. So if you build a book of business, life's okay. But my desire for you, our desire at Sitkins when we coach, is that why would you ever settle for that? Why would you ever accept complacency? Not because there's just greed for money or greed for whatever. It's because you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your clients, you owe it to your team to play at the highest level. So this comfort zone is a very safe and secure place. And the reason why most of us don't step out of it is because the next zone outside of the comfort zone is. Is our fear zone. It's what we fear. I can tell you in doing a number of speaking events that you look at, why aren't you doing some of these things? The number one answer is fear. Now, I love acronyms. We use a lot of acronyms at Sitkins. One of the greatest acronyms of fear is false evidence Appearing Real. That even though that maybe these things aren't real, these are real fears. In our life, we take them as real fears. We sense them as real fears. We react as they're real fears. When we try to go from our comfort zone to step out and we walk into the fear zone, one of the first things that I see is that most of us have excuses. There's an evil doctor that we often talk about in our programs called Dr. Yabut, the Evil Dr. Yabut, where people say, yeah, but I know I could do this. Yeah, but I know I should do this. Yeah, but I'm not smart enough. I don't know. I'm not prepared, whatever. I don't have the right relationships. I don't have the right connections. I don't have the right experience. Excuse after excuse after excuse. And when we have these excuses, we increase our doubt of what we can actually accomplish. We become more confused. And fear, doubt and confusion are ultimately what hold most people back if you really examine it. So I want you to think for a minute. Where are you truly comfortable? Where have you tried to step out of that to maybe grow, expand, do something more than what you've done in the past and you've ran into the fear zone. Great author and speaker, Rory Vaden. He's written several books. I heard one of his presentations, so I'll share it here. He talks about the difference between cows and buffalo. And Rory grew up in Colorado, and he says, you know, in Colorado, it's one of the few places where you have cows in buffalo that both exist in the same habitat. And he said, what's interesting is that when storms come and storms come, right, both for cows and buffalo and for us as human beings is that cows will turn away from the storm and cow walk, cow waddle, cow run, whatever cows do to get away from the storm. And of course, they never escape the storm. They just end up walking with it. Buffalo, on the other hand, turn directly into the storm. They face it and they charge into it. Now, here's the thing I'm sure you already get this, is that both the cow and the buffalo both face the storm. They both deal with the storm, but cows go along with it. Buffalo face it quicker and get through it sooner. And the takeaway from that, that I get is that you can either face your fear or it will become your traveling companion. Face your fear, or it will become your traveling companion. And that's what happens with many of us in the fear zone. That maybe we've had things that we've been fearing to do. Maybe it's fear of success, as much of it is as fear of failure. But we've been fearing something for days, weeks, months, in many cases years, that finally when you take that action, you go, wait a second, that wasn't as bad as I thought. Which leads to the next zone. So we've got the comfort zone. You expand in the fear zone. This is where most people get stuck and fall back into the comfort zone. But if you are willing to take action despite of your fear, whatever that may be, you will encounter the learning zone. And this is a really cool place to progress to. The learning zone is when you begin to acquire some new skills, maybe skills that you haven't been thinking about for a while, right? Maybe you're going back to some old skills to redevelop, or maybe you're developing new skills now, for insurance agencies and agents in particular, it could be technical skills, it could be communication skills, it could be social skills, it could be sales skills. You name it, right? But there's new skills, and with new skills comes new habits. And this is why the learning zone is such a challenge for most people. Robin Sharma says it so well. He says change is really hard at first. It's really messy in the middle, but it's glorious at the end. And this also comes from John Maxwell, who says that people don't resist change. They resist being changed. So if I were to say, hey, you wake up tomorrow and all of a sudden that best version possible that you imagine it's there, you're living it. You'd say, great, I'll take it. But when it comes to, okay, here are the behaviors, here are the habits, here are the things that you're going to have to begin to do consistently to get to there. Well, then it's like, oh, I want to sign up for that. The learning zone is where we start to gain momentum, and momentum starts in small increments. You know, you look at a steam engine, a steam engine sitting on a train track with no momentum. You could put a block in front of it and it can't move. You've stopped it. But you give that steam engine momentum and energy, and guess what? It can blast through a building. That's the same for you. I believe, if you're listening right now, that you should think big, you should dream big. You should have huge, you know, big, hairy, audacious goals. You hear the bhag goals, all of that. I love that. Think big, but act small. Think big, but act small. It's like physical fitness. And if you're 100 pounds overweight and you're like, oh, my gosh, how am I ever going to lose £100? You don't need to lose £100 tomorrow. You just need to do something good today. Put that soda down today, take 10 steps today, continue to walk forward. Because when you get these little wins. And for an insurance agency, when we coach insurance agencies, I'm looking for small wins because they go, you know what? We can do it. It isn't overwhelming. We have had some progress. We are making some success, even if it's small. I always tell people on coaching calls, I want to hear your victories. As small as they are, I don't care. Because you're amazed when people. You go, you know what? I actually did have a victory here. Well, tell me how you did that. And you build confidence, and confidence and momentum go hand in hand. It's all about achieving those successes. And this is all part of the learning zone. So you've got the comfort zone where most of us just kind of live and we stay safe. And then we try to wander into the fear zone, because we're going to break out of the comfort zone. Remember, all progress starts on the outer edge of the comfort zone. But for many of us, fear pulls us back. But if you keep marching, you get in this learning zone. And when you build enough new skills, when you build enough habits for a long period of time. And by the way, studies have now shown that a habit takes 66 days to develop. That's a long time. You've got to be consistent with that. But as you continue to walk forward, you then begin to go to the ultimate zone, the growth zone. The growth zone is where you wake up every day with passion and purpose. You know, some people just think, well, you should just wake up and you should just know your purpose. I think we should be searching for our purpose and we should be doing things that we're passionate about. But I think some of the process is we've got to go through these steps to really figure out what that is sometimes. So you get greater purpose. You. You Increase your capacity. I just mentioned how much I love big, hairy, audacious goals and why goals are so important. But I don't believe goal, the goal achievement should be your ultimate desire. It's the growth and the learning that you gain in the process of attaining that goal, whatever that goal may be. You know, if I'm an insurance salesperson and the goal is to write X amount of dollars in new revenue for that year, that's tremendous. What happens for many insurance agency producers, for example, is they hit that goal and they go, okay, I achieved it. I'm done. I'm good. The great ones, the growth agencies, the growth producers go, what did I learn in that process? What skills did I develop? How can I continue to improve? What questions could I ask better? What did I learn about behavior styles? What did I learn about my carriers? What did I learn about the best behaviors I could have? Whatever that is, it goes beyond goals. It goes into growth, which is learning. And I think one of the biggest things you can see with people that find the growth zone is that they are truly accountable. You know, in the fear zone, I mentioned that it's easy to make excuses of why something didn't work. And usually we make excuses. We point our finger outwardly. And you've probably heard this before, when you point your finger outwardly, there's three fingers pointing back at you. When you're in the growth zone, you take personal accountability, absolute personal accountability, to your results, your achievements, to your habits, whatever it may be. Now, does this mean that things can't come up and smack us in the face that we never saw coming? Of course. But people in the growth zone say, you know what? Maybe, but I'm still going to respond to this in a positive way. It's not what hit me, it's how I react to it. And that's accountability. And this is lifelong. This is never ending. One of the things that. I probably shared this before in a different arena, but one of the things that I so much respect about mentor and CEO of Sitkins Group, Roger Sitkins, is that he's accomplished a lot in his career, but he's always looking for ways to grow. It's lifelong. And he'd be the first to say that I'm either learning and growing and doing new things in my life, maybe in different capacities, but if I'm not learning, I'm dying. That's how I feel. If I'm not growing, I'm dying. Same with insurance agencies. I've heard agencies, well, we just want to remain flat there's no flat. You're either getting better and bigger or you're going the other way. And the last part of the growth zone that is so impactful to me, the agencies that I work with is that they move from success to significance. And let me explain that for a second by giving you analogy or a visual. Imagine that you've got a large cup in your hand, okay? So you're holding a cup in your hand. And as you continue to acquire new skills and habits and behaviors and learn from people and you're always in this learning zone and growth zone, you're filling your cup up. At some point that cup is going to overfill. And that's where a lot of people go, well, you know, I think I've got it. But the great leaders, they are saying, wow, my cup is overflowing. Who can I pour this cup into? Who can I now affect? Who can I inspire? Who can I teach? Who can I coach and grow? Those around me always sowing seeds of growth. And as they pour out, more water's coming back in because they're continuing to learn and grow. It's a never ending process. See, success is what you achieve on your own. I think success is great. Whatever your definition of success is, I hope you go get it. But significance is the legacy. It's what we do for others. It's the impact that we're truly making long term in this world that you leave the place, right? You leave this world in better shape than when you found it. This is all part of these four zones of growth. The comfort zone, the fear zone, the learning zone and the growth zone. And I hope as I was sharing this with you today, that, you know, maybe there's some different areas. Like I said, there may be an area in your life or business where you are just, you are going strong in the growth zone. But maybe there are some areas that you go, wow, I have been complacent and I've been comfortable way too long and I've had enough. It's time for a change. I don't want to look back and, and regret anything in life or my business. Why would you want that? You know, we always say you're going to put the time in anyway. Why not be great at it? Why not play at your highest level, whatever that best version is for you. Don't sell yourself short. Time is truly precious. There's so much that you can offer the world, so much you can offer your family, so much you can offer your community that you don't just owe it to yourself, you owe it to others because back to significance. So hopefully this podcast is helpful for you and you've gained some insight. I can tell you that in agencies that we work with, this idea is one of the most powerful components because I could teach you and tell you some strategies and philosophies that flat out work to get your agency to grow. But if you're not willing to get out of the comfort zone and through the fear zone and into the learning zone, into the growth zone, it won't matter. So there is a lot of power behind not just knowing what to do, but why we do it and why we don't do some of the things that we want to do. If you're an agency leader and you're looking to really expand your agency in different ways, whatever that means to you, your vision of the agency that you want, and you're looking for more intentionality or clarity and where you want to go, if you're looking for more direction and guidance of how you're going to get there, and you're looking to execute with accountability and being in a growth environment, we'd love to hear from you. Go to sitkins.com, our Sitkins Network is for private clients only. We don't accept all agencies. But if you're an agency that truly desires growth and you want to be part of a network and a community that feeds on these type of concepts and implements at a very high level, go to sitkins.com apply I'd love to hear from you, have a conversation, see if there is a fit. I wish you all the best in your success. Thanks so much for listening. And last request I would have if this podcast is providing value to your life and your business and your agency, please go to itunes or stitcher or wherever you listen to and leave a rating that really allows me to impact and help more people. All the best.