Planning Your Purpose After Perpetuation with Mark Rollins

When most agency leaders consider perpetuation of their agency, whether it's 1 year, 5 year, 10 years or 20 years plus, typically we think about it and prepare for it financially, which is certainly critically important. But what about the emotional relationship and even spiritual toll perpetuation can take on agency leaders? Well, on today's Agent Leader podcast I have an incredible interview with Mark Rollins. Mark not only was a super successful insurance agency leader, but he now runs a company called Retirement Transformed and recently wrote a book called the Evolving Man. This is an interview you do not want to miss because we go places that we've not gone before on this podcast talking about vulnerability, authenticity and really understanding the impact that perpetuation, whether sooner or later will have on you individually as a leader. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the Agent Leader podcast. My name is Brent Kelly. This is the podcast for insurance agency leaders to help you grow, develop and ultimately become your best version possible, which is our overriding theme. A reminder, if you want to learn more about the best version possible book the best version possible process, you can go to sitkins.com that's s I t k I n s.com now on today's episode, I have a very special guest. Someone who I have a a high level of respect for in a multitude of areas, quite frankly, someone I have the pleasure of getting to know over the past several years and is a longtime friend of the Sitkins group, longtime friend of our organization and more notably more recently a I'm going to use this Mark world famous author I got, if you're watching on YouTube, his new book, fantastic book. We're going to spend some time talking about this today, the Evolving Man. So I've got Mark Rollins with me today. Mark, welcome to the podcast.

Ryan, it is an honor, a privilege to be here with you. I'm so excited to have this coffee chat with you this morning.

Yeah, and I, I told Mark, I tell all of our guests, I said I really do want this to be like we're having a cup of coffee and I'm, you know, I, I, I've known Mark for a while now and again our organization and Roger Sitkins has known Mark for a while and there's some great stories but I haven't talked to Mark for a while so this really is a bit of a catch up for me as well and you know, know for the insurance agency leaders and listen to this, a couple different things that are really going to jump out and we'll see where this conversation goes. But you know, Mark is a former very successful insurance agency leader. And I want to talk to Mark a little bit about that and his experience, what he learned also, you know, selling his agency and then the transformation into his new career, his new company and then of course the book. And really take a deeper look and, and, and don't freak out here listeners, but a deeper look into the emotional level, what's really going behind the curtain, so to speak. Oftentimes whether it's fears, doubts, concerns, you have it from any type of leader. So I'm really excited to have a different perspective maybe than some other podcasts that we've had. So Mark, I would like to start off just to give some background so people get to know you better. Obviously I mentioned you're an insurance agency leader in a prior life and spent a lot of time doing that. So if you could share with the audience your story from that perspective and then we'll move forward.

Sure. I am 67 years old. I am in a second marriage with Jody. We've been married 15 years. We have six kids between us. We're the modern day Brady Bunch. I have three sons and Jody has three daughters. And Jody also had a career in insurance working for Chub. And we live on Marco Island, Florida so it's certainly warm down there in the summer. But we do enjoy the lifestyle that that has allowed us by being outside a lot. My business career started right out of college. I majored in insurance. I went to the University of Hartford and came into the family business and I was the third generation in the business and working for my dad was interesting. You know, when I came out of college it was my dad, he had three partners and six legit secretaries with the pumped up hair and they were smoking cigarettes and there had their IBM typewriters and we had no computers, no fax machines, just pads of paper and rating was done out of books. So it started off really at a very manual type level. And over the next 38 years we evolved like many of your agencies have evolved. Getting our first Apple rating computer and a fax machine and computers and, and I think that honestly the big change for me was when I did meet Roger Sitkins who helped us go from your regular local independent agent into changing and transforming how we ran our business to become a pretty well known regional firm in Westchester County, New York.

Yeah, and you know Mark, you talk a little bit about that and we'll get to your book because I, I certainly want to spend some time there. But you talk about that family dynamic and that agency. You also just for the Audience, you know, you, you, you found a niche right, in your agency. So if you could show a bit about that. And then from there I want to kind of get to the, the exit part, what was going on there. But start with, with the niche. I find that very interesting.

Well, when I first got in the business, my dad said, he gave me a telephone book and a telephone and he said, the world is your oyster. You're going to sell business insurance to any business that will buy from you. So I started off cold calling on strip malls and I would do warehouses, retail stores, lawyers, offices, advertising agencies, whatever I could find. Quick print shops, gas stations. And it was just such a challenge for me mentally to constantly have to get into the head of a different type of business. And it wasn't until I actually decided to specialize in a niche which for me was nonprofits. And I just became all consumed with the business of nonprofits. I studied them, I read books about them, I researched them, I read tax returns, I interviewed people. What makes nonprofits tick. I joined all of the nonprofit membership organizations in my area and I became over a 15 year period, the go to guy and the go to company to ensure you're a nonprofit. And we were so good at it. We were actually able to, I think you guys call it walkaway power, if you still have that, use that term. But being in a niche and really, really being in that niche, that is the best way to succeed and thrive as an independent agent. Without a doubt.

Yeah. And you know, we see this still. I think we've got a lot of our agency partners that certainly have a special specialization or a niche. Others are still very fearful or hesitant for different reasons. And I can understand why. But I think, you know, one of the things, Mark, without going too much in the details of that, I think what I heard you say kind of between the lines there is, you really get to understand at a very deep level the people you're communicating with.

And you know, well, yeah, you, you know, you're able to go in and have a peer to peer conversation with the CEO of the business, whether it's construction, nonprofit, medical, whatever your niche is, you could talk to them about business and you know what their big risks are and you can talk about that. You're never really talking about insurance and you become the true trusted advisor to help them put together an insurance program that meets their needs. When you are down in the trenches and you are getting three years of loss runs and you're copying the policies and you're hoping you're Going to get the business. And you have six companies give you quotes. You know, they're getting annoyed, they're getting frustrated. I'm getting frustrated, the client's frustrated and you give them a quote and they're just going to give it to their current agent. So actually, for the last 15 years of my career, I was 100% broker of record letter because I just did such a good job connecting with the CEO and if we didn't connect, that was fine. I went on to the next one. But you're fooling yourself if you think that, you know, copying policies and getting quotes is the way to go. You can do okay, right? You know, you can get by, but that, that's not fun.

Yeah, we, we talk all the time, Mark. This has been kind of a newer concept, I guess I don't know how new a concept, but we verbalize it more now, is that, you know, so many agencies are getting good results. They are, again, good results. But there's a trap. And I think what you're expressing is, yeah, you can get good results doing that. You can do okay, you can survive. But there's a deeper level I do want to share. If you would market again, whatever you want to share, it's up to you. But just kind of moving to the end of the exit because I want to get into some of the thoughts around this. You know, we always talk about this, you've heard Roger say this before, that you know, eventually you're going to leave your business. We all are. When, how, where, you know, we don't know all those things yet. But from a perspective, when you took over the agency, give a size and scope of the agency because I want to make sure the audience knows you were successful in this. You did really well, and then you left the business. So if you could kind of give a, a distinction of where you started, where you ended. And then I want to get into the. What happened in the exit. How did that all transpire?

Sure, have to think back because it was a while ago, but when my dad turned 65, Chuck and I bought the agency from him. And at that time, we had three offices. We had 55 employees, we had $3 million of revenue at a 10% profit margin and 6,500 customers. So, you know, it was a good sized firm if you're measuring it by headcount. But over the next 15 years, Chuck and I took that from three offices to 155 people, to 25 people, 6,000 clients to 2,000 clients, 3 million in revenue to 6 million in revenue and a 10% profit margin to a 35% profit margin. That that's a valuable company. And we, we continue to stay on that path. And it was not easy. I mean, we had to sell clients. We had to convince our team that they weren't getting fired. It all happened through natural attrition. But we started to run the company like we wanted to sell it. And we did that for 10 years. And then we started, you know, as we turned 50, like, when are we going to do it? Our kids weren't coming in. We weren't going to sell it internally. It was going to be an external perpetuation. So we dipped our toe in the water one year and started that process.

Yeah. And as you started that, first of all, I mean, hope everyone heard that because, I mean, in essence, I'm not great at Mark math here, Mark, but I mean, in essence, you doubled the money part and you halved the. The expense other part. Right. To a degree. I mean, just at a very basic level, which, as you said, made the company extremely valuable in different ways, certainly extremely profitable. So here's what I want to maybe turn the page a little bit because I think this is where it's been really unique. Speaking with you, Mark, obviously with this vision, because you've talked to me and this has been a while back, but about just a story of your dad and okay, now I'm getting to the point where I can sell this business and it will be very profitable. It's going to be financially great. So financially, one part, awesome, great, you're on Marco island, right? All these things great. And very blessed by that. But what about this thing called our mind and our spirit? And I think, you know, I know, Mark, when I talk to agency leaders again, I have some that go, oh, I'm never going to sell. Well, eventually you will. Others that say, hey, I plan to sell in three years. And again, there's the financial side and we help agencies with that as form the processes and behaviors and strategies in alignment and all these things. But then they sell and it's like, now what? So I, I'd like if you could. Again, everyone's got their own story, but if you could maybe share, Mark, your story of what was going through your mind outside of financially, but just again, spiritually, emotionally, whatever, and then what you did to begin to prepare for this next phase of your life.

Well, it's a great question, and it's a question that many people struggle with, particularly if you're an entrepreneur and you're identified as The CEO of the Rollins Agency in my case, or like my dad was. But when you, when you leave that and go into retirement and hopefully you're financially secure. So that's not a problem. Retirement can kill you. It killed my dad when he was 65 and he left. He, he left a little begrudgingly. He wanted to stay, but he wasn't working. He, you know, he was in Florida the whole time. So we finally worked it out where, you know, we paid him really well. He had an expense account, everything was fine financially, he was set. But what he wasn't prepared for is what happened to him next. And I, I joke about this a little bit. My dad's, you know, my dad did not invent the three martini lunch, but he certainly perfected it during his career. And when he left at 65, he took that talent with him. And unfortunately, you know, you've heard the term 10x your business 10x this and that, he 10x that. And in 15 years he was dead. And it was so sad to watch. You know, as he entered retirement, he had no plan for his non financial life. He, he didn't ever recreate his identity. He didn't really know how to spend the 40 plus hours of free time that came his way. And he really spent those 15 years unfulfilled. Sure, he was in Florida with my mom, he played golf three days a week. He'd go out and have drinks with his buddies and go home and take a nap and wake up, take my mom to dinner and repeat that all over again the next day. And that's just not sustainable. So the day my dad died, I was actually at the quarterly meeting for Brown and Brown, the firm that bought us out. And Powell Brown was speaking. I'm in the third row, aisle seat, really paying attention to what Powell was saying. And my phone had rung for the third time and I realized I better take a look. And I saw it was my sister in law. So I, you know, kind of walk out while Powell's talking and everyone's looking at me like, what are you doing? And it was my sister in law to tell me my dad died.

And.

You know, at that moment I realized that I didn't want to have that kind of retirement. And I called Jody and we talked about it and I flew home that day and we had the funeral and everything. But that was a real rude awakening for me to realize that is not a good plan for retirement. To sit back, take it easy, enjoy the fruits of your labor and do nothing. And that's what my dad did. And Jody and I have now created a business to help people make sure that doesn't happen.

Yeah, and I want you to talk about that because, you know, again, I mean, the story you shared there, Mark, obviously, you know, I understand the emotion, the sadness there to see that someone you love that, you know, that, that, that transpires. And, you know, I think it's, it's really interesting and exciting from this standpoint of to watch you and Jody create a business that addresses a problem that many people don't even know that's a problem or even think about it. So if you would, again, I just, you know, plug away on what you guys do, because what you do matters. It really does. And I, I can, I can see that with people you work with, but tell about the, the creation of the company with you and your wife, what you do, whatever you want to share about it, because it's important stuff.

Sure. Well, like I said, retirement can kill you. And Jody and I actually, even after my dad died and we had that wake up call, ended up going down a pretty slippery slope. So we sold to Brown and Brown in 2013. I thought I would stay for 10 years or more, but after three years of using their money to buy agencies, I, I kind of got burned out. You know, we went from 25 employees to 80 in five years. And that was a lot of work. Six million in revenue to 18 million and revenue. So, you know, the idea of work, of staying on, you know, it works for a lot of people. I have a lot of my peers are still working. They're 70 years old and they love it. That's great. But I got burned out and I stepped down from becoming the office leader after three years. And that's when I got into trouble. I remember the first day, that first Monday I walked into the office and the weekly leadership team meeting that I ran for 38 years was taking place. And I wasn't even invited. So I went through this whole process of who am I now? What am I going to do? Clients weren't calling me, there was no line out my door. So I started coming into work early, coming into work late, like 10 o', clock, and going home at 2 o' clock because I had nothing to do. And I remember this one day, opened a bottle of wine at 2 o', clock, my favorite Pinot Noir Belle gloss. And I poured myself a glass and I turned on the TV like it did every day. And I had fallen in love with daytime tv. I was watching Ellen and Oprah and all of these shows. And then I'd fall asleep. Jody was still working. She'd come back home like five o', clock, walk in the door saying, what's up? How was your day? And I would lie to her and say, oh, it was great. I had a sales call, I closed the case, it was all bs, but I got myself in trouble. So we both became semi retired at the same time in 20. And we started to do what we thought we wanted to do, which was to travel the world, have a lot of fun. We found ourselves gaining weight, having a hangover every single day, feeling unhealthy, eating like crap and not being happy. So we pivoted and we really started to work on our physical wellness, our mental wellness, the relationships, because you lose a lot of relationships when you retire, creating new relationships. We worked on our marriage and then we worked on this component we call wisdom sharing, where you actually start to give back. People started to notice the change and they said to us, what are you guys doing? You look great, you sound great, you're happier. What's going on? Can you help us? So we started a company called Retirement Transformed and we created online courses, we did one on one coaching, and then ultimately created a YouTube channel about three years ago. And it's just been an unbelievable journey for us.

Yeah, it's, it's again, I, you know, I, I admittedly told you, Mark, like I, I see the stuff you do. I don't see everything because I've run my own business and kids and all that, but from a, a decent perspective, it's, it's been, it really has been fascinating and intriguing to watch your videos, your growth, your engagement and I would, I would, you know, anybody, again, whether you're retired, thinking about retirement, or even like me, probably a long way from there. Go check out what they're doing at Retirement Transform because it's really compelling. And I think, Mark, you know, thing that you share and there's, you know, these are maybe a bit cliche words, but they're important words. You talk about identity and I think about purpose. Right. And I, I can see myself already. I mean, just from a perspective of being a bit younger. I'm 46, but how much of my identity and purpose is driven in what I do every day at the Sidkins Group, which, by the way, I appreciate and I'm happy about, but I'm wondering if you strip that away, you know, if I'm not careful over the years, what happens? So I think it's a really interesting, I know that agency Leaders because you're, you're in the middle of these fires all the day, every day. And like you said, Mark, these relationships we have are often built through relationships with our clients and our colleagues and the community. And all of a sudden that's all gone and you go, gosh, who am I? What am I trying to accomplish next? And by the way, I just got to give a shout out because I love Mark, does a great job in with videos. You, I don't always comment Mark, but you inspire me. Where I see Mark up at whatever it is, five or six in the morning doing his workout, talking about why he's doing a workout. I'm going, here's a guy that doesn't have to do any of this stuff, but he's doing it. So I don't know if I even had a question there.

Well, you know, I think, I think I'm going to say something. You said, I get up at 5 o' clock and I go to the gym and watch the sunrise and I journal and I meditate. And you said, you know, I don't even have to do that. Well, I think you do have to do that. And that's, that's a big pivot and the, and the strength that I'm having and the courage that I'm having to let people know, you don't have to get up at 5 o', clock, but you do have to get up when you're retired, at the same time every day and have some kind of routine that sets you up for the day. You cannot get up, mope downstairs, turn the TV on, have coffee and breakfast and watch TV for three hours. You cannot do that. I'm telling you, it's premature death coming knocking on your door because I tried it and it doesn't work. It just doesn't. And I see it time and time again. But I want to back up to identity too, because when I think back on all the networking functions I went to and you know, the 20, the 38 years in my career when I would meet somebody, they would say, tell me a little bit about yourself. Well, I'm CEO of insurance agency. I'm fourth generation. You know, we've done this, we've done that, we bought companies and this and that. I never introduced myself as a husband or a dad of three or someone who likes to play golf. That all came out after. So we, I spent 38 years working on my brand as the, an insurance professional. And then the day you retire, you're not that anymore. And I used to my dad used to always have this saying. I used to, I used to be this, I used to do that. I used to go to Rotary, I used to do this. But he never created the new. I think back now in my 38 year career, Brent, and it was 100% training to prepare me for what I'm doing now. I had no idea at the time, but I have let myself open up and be vulnerable and be honest and clean up my regrets and say, you know what, there's more that I can do to help the world than just talk about my insurance career. It was great. It made me financially independent and I helped a lot of people and a lot of families along the way. Yeah, that was practice for this.

Yeah, there's a lot of places to go there. And I, and I, I want to make sure I'm careful on how I do this because we could go a lot of different paths here. But I think one thing you hit me, Mark, and that you shared there, that hit me. And this kind of Dan Sullivan talks about always make your future brighter than your past and those kind of things. But I can, it's interesting. Already in my mid-40s, I'll have conversations with people I haven't seen for a while. And, and you think about the percentage of the conversation is, oh, do you remember when? Right. Or, or wasn't that cool? Versus, hey, what are you doing? Like, what's, what's next? What are you aspiring to? Well, how do you know? And I know that may sound trivial to me, but I don't think it is because I, I could see myself and I'm not there yet. Getting 10, 20 years down the road and it's like, if all I'm talking about is the past, why not just die? Yeah, I've already done it. And, and to me, I just love the, what you shared there. And I'm going to share one more thing. I don't. And you can comment on this if you want, but I, I did a unique exercise the time. This is interesting through a different program I was doing where I wrote my eulogy. That is not an easy thing to do, by the way. It's very personal, obviously. And I'm sitting here saying, write your eulogy. And what's interesting is I got, I got very emotional doing it because what I realized was all the things that I wanted to write about were the things that I was spending the least amount of time doing. Now that happens in career. Right. But I think about my wife and my family and all these kind of things and I'm like, is that. Is that gonna be my eulogy? I did this and helped this many clients like, you're dead. Nobody cares. That's important. It's part of the story, but it's not the story. So I just want to share that. As you were, you were, you're. Because it hit me as I was doing. I'm like, wow, what am I trying to do? So I don't know if you have any comments on that, Mark, but I do.

I do. I. I have a lot of comments I could do we have another two hours. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's do it.

So my wife Jodi has this saying. It's not hers. She didn't create it, but we. She read it somewhere. And we talk about this a lot. And we talk about your tombstone. And your tombstone has the date that you're born and the date that you died, and in the middle is the dash. And we talk a lot about what is the dash in your tombstone. Now, when I was 55 years old and sold Rollins Agency, and if I had died at that point in time, I'd have a pretty damn good eulogy because I was a good dad, I was a good husband, I was a good brother, I was a good son, had a lot of friends, I had amazing career, built a beautiful business. But if that's your eulogy at 55, and then you retire and you spend the next 20 years doing nothing, nobody gives a damn about that stuff because it's so old, it doesn't matter. So really, when you leave your career and move out into the world, it's almost like graduating college again. You've graduated. What are you going to do? And I think where people struggle, we're not trained or taught that this is what we should do when we leave our career. You know, the word retirement was first used, and I think 1551, and it meant to leave your job, but back then you left your job pretty much because you died or, you know, you got sick. There was no 30 year career. People are living today past 100. So I'm 67. I still have a long way to go. But we have these little voices in our heads, and you probably have it too, Brent. And it's like, well, I wish I could do this, or maybe one day I'll do that, one day I'll do this. I tell people, you should journal about that, have a separate book. Brent Kelly 3.0, and just start writing your vision and your thoughts and your dreams about retirement, because these you Got to let these voices come out. And that's when you start to figure out what it is you're really meant to do.

Mark, another question here. We might again, this could go as long as it needs to be because I really enjoy this conversation. Um, I think this is in relation to what you're saying, but maybe not. I'm curious, how much time do you spend in silence?

I spent such a great question. I haven't really thought about that. Every morning I have an hour of silence at least. I get up. I get up at 4:30, go downstairs, make a cup of coffee. I'll get granular. I have 12 ounces of water with some lemon in it. Then I have my coffee. But I head wherever I'm at. I look for where the sun's coming up. So I will go find the sunrise. And if it's pouring rain, obviously I don't. But I sit there and I read 10 minutes of scripture. I will journal in my phone or journal in my book. I have a brown journal with a tree on the front of it that I bring with me. And I'll write some thoughts for the day, but I'm not talking to anybody. Yeah, I'm listening to myself thinking about the day. And when that hour is up, I head home and I have coffee with Jody or I go to the gym, you know, depending upon the day. But I do spend. And my mornings are really, really important to me. And when I stick to that morning routine, I cross crush the day. When I get out of sync, I wake up late or I decide I don't feel good. You know, whenever I don't do it, I have a lousy day. And that's okay because a lot of times I say to myself, you know what? Tomorrow I'm not setting the alarm, I don't care when I get up, I'm not going to go to the gym, I'm not going to journal. I do, I do it on purpose and then it's okay.

Yeah. So yeah, I love that again, I just, it came to me and part of this again, I'll be very open on this is because I do get up early time. So what hit me, and I know this has been a number of years, is I used to. And it's kind of changed. You'd get up and you go, I'm gonna have some time for me and think and. And it feels like year after year after year, even though I would still get up early, it became, well, now do this and now do this and now do this and there's always input. There's a podcast and there's this, and there's just always things I'm trying to learn and, and those things are good. I, I'm a huge proponent of that. I know you are as well, of professional personal development. But to sit still in your own thought, and you mentioned journal and, and to dream a little bit and to think a little bit. And I think here's something that this maybe lead into the book discussion, because I took a lot of this from your book, is to be really honest with yourself. That to me, is what's hard about silence. And I'll just be very personal as you start to think about some of these things, which, again, is good. But I, I wanted to ask you that because I know you've done meditation and things you've talked about in the past, but I don't know. Do you. Do you think people have a hard time sitting in silence today in general or just being honest with themselves?

Yeah, absolutely, they do.

I just wanted to set this up. The Evolving man the Subtitles Life Virtues Men's Men Don't Want to Talk About Now, I do want to say this for all the agency leaders. It's obviously directed towards men. Before we went live and recorded this, Mark was telling me women have gotten as much out of this book as mentioned. So it really is for men or women. But obviously it's directed towards men. Life, Virtues Men Don't Talk about. And I, I think about. I'll set this up my way and you can take it from here. Mark. There's a. I don't know if this is a comedy skit or whatever. I think it was a comedian. He's talking about playing golf with his buddy for four and a half hours or whatever. It's five hours. And she's like, oh, well, how's he doing here? And, you know, how's, you know, how's he doing after this divorce and whatever? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's like you spent five hours with this guy and you didn't find out anything. It's like, no, we're guys. We don't talk about that stuff. And so what I love about this book is there is certainly an authenticity. So, Mark, I want to start off with this. Why did you write the book? I'll just keep it that wide open. Why did you write the book? And then we'll get some more details into it.

You know, as a business owner and as an entrepreneur, I always had a dream of writing a book. And I actually had three books that I kept the idea going for years. And I had the titles and I had the chapters. And it was how to be the best Insurance Brokerage CEO ever. How to Sell insurance like a Champ. A leadership book. You know, am I really good at leadership? Well, I probably read a thousand books on it, so I guess I know a little bit about it. But these books, I never wrote one word, not one word ever came out for any of those chapters. And I met a publisher three years ago on a zoom call. She was, she was hosting for someone else. I was involved with some guy helping us with our YouTube channel. And she is a book channeler and she helps people channel books through their heart versus their brain. And she said, if you think back on some of the favorite books that you ever wrote, they were, they were written by people writing from their heart. When you read a real heavy business book, I'm just trying to think of some of the books I read. Even good to great, great book. But it's, it's heavy to read. You gotta pause and stop and think.

Think.

She taught me how to write a book from my heart. And I didn't know what I was going to write about, but I, but I knew that I struggled a lot as a man, being vulnerable, being vulnerable with my wife, being vulnerable with my kids, being vulnerable with my team, you know, and I, I. And listening, passion, love, kindness, humility, ego. What's my legacy going to look like? All of these things that I didn't pay attention to and didn't really do a good job at. So as I started writing, I, it just started to, to build itself. And this channeler, Kira Brinton, who's amazing, when we started talking about the book, she said, I picture you because, you know, as a caring guy and I picture you holding men gently in your hands and, and lifting them into an arc where you are now going to take care of them and teach them and nurture them. Some other vision she had, she said, you are at the riverside and you're at the best fishing spot ever. And you're not keeping that a secret. You're bringing all your friends, say, I know where we can catch the most fish. Come with me. We'll do it together. So all of this was coming out and then the book was born and I just started writing. And I'll tell you, when I was writing this book, I'd go back two weeks later and read something I wrote. I don't even remember. Writing was an incredible experience and it Was. It was just amazing. And people say now it's, you know, it's easy to read and it's, it's heartfelt and it's not too heavy. So.

Yeah, it's. Yeah, it is. I mean, it is. It is easy to read in the sense of. It's. I, I can sense that. It's. It's just, you're. You're telling the story from your heart, right? We always say a conversation from your heart, and it certainly comes out what's interesting here. And again, it talks about life virtues. You talk about 12 life virtues. And obviously, this podcast, I'm not going to ask you or what, nor would I to go through all 12 of them, but I do want to. I do want to read them to the audience because I think there are things, again, that I think most leaders, in many cases, I should maybe say most, but I think many leaders just kind of take for granted or really don't put a lot of thought in time. So you talk about listening, vulnerability, humility, forgiveness, regrets, relationships, gratitude, ego, compassion and empathy, curiosity and learning and kindness and generosity. And. I don't know. This is a fair question. I didn't prep you for it. But which of those virtues. And again, I don't know, there has to be a pecking order that's probably not fair because they're all extremely important. Which one of those virtues, as you were writing them, had the greatest impact on you or maybe open your eyes in different ways you didn't expect?

Well, I will say that the first two chapters are in. Are there in the beginning, because they are the two most important to me, and one is listening, and the second one is vulnerability. And I think the vulnerability, one chapter, the vulnerability topic, is critically important, particularly for men. And I think that if you can learn to start sharing your feelings with other men or your wife or your husband, whoever it might be, all of a sudden now your relationships go to a different level and they deepen and they strengthen and they. They allow you a safe place to talk about the things that are on your mind, whereas otherwise you have no one to talk to. And to go through life not being able to share what's on your mind or how you feel or what you're struggling with. It's a dark, lonely place. You know, the. The. The largest group of people, the largest population of people in the United States that have successful suicides are men over the age of 65. Now, I have no science behind what I'm about to say, but. But I believe going through life in this dark place where you can't talk to people, you know, encourages that. I mean, it's just. I am so much better now at letting Jody know how I feel, how I feel about something she did, you know, that disturbed me. I used to. I'm this kind of person that doesn't want to say anything to hurt someone else's feelings, but I'm not hurting her feelings. She says, if you're not truthful with people about how you feel or how they're doing, you're cheating them of learning the truth. So this is. This is an ever evolving thing for me in my life is vulnerability. I mean, I. I just keep studying it, reading about it more and learning about it more because it's a very healthy change in our life to be able to become more vulnerable.

Yeah, agreed, 100%. I mean, it's something I'm learning. I mean, I'd be very transparent. I struggle with that. I'm learning that even reading your book, Mark. I mean, I'm like, oh, gosh, it opened my eyes and stuff. And why am I not having that conversation? And certainly I think this is true professionally and personally with leaders. I'm not going to share that because it makes me look weak or that I didn't. I'm not perfect. Guess what? None of us are. Right. But you're right. I think the key to that is that when, listen, in my sense, when I've been able to be somewhat vulnerable with people, it's amazing the depth of the relationship and the honesty that starts to come forth on that. Which is healthy. It's healthy. And I think, you know, the flip side of that is, you're right. It just. Everything keeps within, within, within, within, within. At some point, it pops.

Well, it goes back to your story where you teed this up about the two guys playing golf for four and a half hours. And you know what, what did you. What did you learn about that guy?

Yeah.

Nothing. Well, why would I want to do that? So it's funny because as I'm getting older again, I'm 67, and I'm. I'm getting more spiritual. I'm thinking more about my legacy. I'm thinking more about how I can help others. But I also want to meet people that want to be more open and honest and vulnerable, because those are the deep relationships that you can take with you through the rest of your life. It's funny. I've reconnected with four high school friends who I haven't seen in 40 years. They're in the state of Washington, Virginia, Westchester County, New York. And where's the other one? California. And I just found them called him. The four of us are now, like, having zoom calls and stuff. And it's. I haven't seen him in 40 years, but we, we had this time in our life when we were 12 years old to 20. That's huge growth for a young man. And we made a lot of mistakes. We got in trouble, we got chased by the police. You know, we. Our parents were woken up in the middle of night. Your son's been drinking and driving and, you know, all of this, this growth stuff that I can talk to these guys about anything, and it's so safe, and they're not gonna. They're not gonna, like, you know, put it on social media. It's nice to have people like that in your life. It's important to have people like that in your life.

Yeah, that's. That's so fascinating. It's really cool. I love to hear that. All right, Mark, I'm gonna. I'll try to put a bit of a bow on this with our time. I told you we'd be 30, 40 minutes. But I, I could. Maybe. We'll do part two. Right. Of the conversation. But I've got a couple questions I want to ask you, and one would be. And I know this is. This could go a lot of directions, so take it wherever you want. But if you had an insurance agency leader, and I'm sure this happens to you still time to time. And they say, Mark, you know, of all the things you've learned unpacked over the years, and you can give me a piece of advice you think would be most beneficial to me. What would that be?

Well, on the business side of things, let's start with.

Yeah, go start the business side.

Yeah. On the business side of things. Run your business like you want to sell it all the time. And number two, I, you know, I was, I was in sales there. So there's agencies have the service team, the sales team. I don't know how else you break it up now, but, gosh, you've got to differentiate yourself from your competitors and that not, you know, differentiate yourself in the, in the way you run your business and the way you service your clients, including having a niche. Those. Those are just critical to having a higher level of engagement and a more profitable company.

Yeah. So let me ask them again. You can take this wherever you want it. It's a question to ask any guest. And so obviously, you starting off your professional career, the young Mark Rollins you were getting the insurance business, but there's a lot of life around that. Right? So let's say that you're, you're walking down the street later. This is a weird question, but you're walking down the street and there is the starting off his career version of Mark Rollins. Whatever age. I mean, you could be in your 20s, whatever, but you're, you're, you're a young professional just getting started. And the younger version of you looks at the version today and says, listen, We've only got 30 seconds here. What's the one thing you want to tell me to help me be whatever it is most successful I can in my life?

I think you have to be able to rethink all the time on what it is you're doing and why you're doing it. There's a great book called Think Again by Adam Grant. It's the most fascinating book that I've ever read. And it teaches you to, to learn. It teaches you to unlearn what you know, to learn it. Another way to have an open mind, to be able to be open to suggestions and criticism and coaching. And that is really important. Instead of just going through life saying, I know how to do it, doing it the same way my dad did it. This is where we're going to do it. We're not doing any new fancy stuff. No. You've got to have the ability to adapt. And humans are the best species on the planet at adapting. So we have to be able to adapt as we grow in our career.

Fascinating. And again, that's, that's, I always tell people, there's obviously no wrong answer to that. It's a fantastic perspective, Mark. It hit me, and I don't know if I heard this from Jim Rohn or another mentor or someone out there, but you always talked about being insanely curious.

Yeah.

As you said that, that kind of hit me on this. And I know there are many days and weeks where I just get into the thing and I do the thing and the thing and right, oh, this is what I know, how to do this and this. And you take a step back and go, what if I was insanely curious? Like, why am I doing that? Why do I think that way? Why do I feel that way? Obviously, you know, you still got to run your life. But it's amazing when I have been able to do that and I'm learning how to do it better. The nuances and the depth and the different ways that I view things, which is super important. So I, I, I highly appreciate that answer. All right, Mark, here's the plug. I want to make sure people can find you both in your business that you and Jody run and then where people can get the book. So tell us more about where people can find you and how to best find you for Retirement Transformed. And then of course, the Evolving man book.

Well, there's two websites. One is marcom rollins.com the other one is retirement transformed. Markermylins.com is more about me and my book, so I'd love to have you buy it. It's on Amazon. The Evolving man is easy to get if you buy it and read it. Do me a huge favor and put a written review on Amazon. As far as Retirement Transformed, the best place to start is our YouTube channel, which is on Retirement Transformed. On YouTube, we just are close to 50,000 subscribers and on Monday went over 4 million views of our videos. So it's very popular. It's doing really well. And people, there's a lot of great information in there on what to do in this phase of life so that you thrive.

And Mark, don't take any offense to this. When you're on the video, you're great, but your wife Jody's way better.

I know. I don't take offense. One in one equals 12 when Jody's at my side. I did okay today, but if Jody was here, it would have been better.

I've obviously given you a hard time, but no, I mean, you two together. I mean, there's just a natural chemistry and enjoyment like you're. There's so much knowledge and depth to it, but it's just, it's fun and you guys have great personalities. So I wanted to share that. Thanks, Mark, so much for, for doing this. I said maybe we'll do a part two. I'd love to maybe find some different areas and go deeper. I know that the listeners are going to get great value from what you shared. Again, it's a different perspective in some ways that. That oftentimes we don't think about. Also, as a reminder to the audience, if you want to learn more about what we do at the Sitkins Group, work within with insurance agencies. If you want to be like Mark in some ways, you go to sitkins.com to learn more about us. And obviously, if you want to set up a call with us and we do a assessment for your agency, we'll qualify this first. But get to know more about your agency. There's no cost to this. There's no obligation other than some of your time. Go to sitkins.com bookacall so it's go to sitkins.com Bookacall will let have a conversation with you and your agency leadership team. So Mark, any final things before we officially depart here?

No, I just what I would say to everyone who's listening to this, you included, no matter how old or how young you are, is that I want you to really think about life after insurance. Because there is one, there can be one if you want. You know, it's it's an amazing time to grow and prosper as a human being and you got to be able to move every single day so that you live longer and healthier and nutrition, mindfulness and all of that. And give back. Figure out something that you can do to give back, whether it's volunteering or writing a book or whatever that's going to give you fulfillment like you had during your career. So I wish you all well and it was such a pleasure to be on here with you today.

Yeah, thank you Mark so much. Appreciate it. And with that, all the best and your success. Thanks for listening. The Agent Leader Podcast is brought to you by the fine folks of the Rough Notes Company. They are publishers of the insurance industry's leading magazine and technical insurance content. Roughness Magazine profile successful agencies plus keen insights from respected experts on a host of must know topics. RoughNotes Advantage plus provides the tools to help the your agency grow, providing authoritative information on complex coverage issues. Visit them and learn more@roughnotes.com.